“No.” His voice was short, cold.

“Really? I think Lettie would be an amazing big sister.” I tried to keep it light but the dark look in his eyes had my stomach sour again.

“She would. And you’d be an amazing mom. But it’ll never happen.”

“You should never say never, Gage. I know you still think I’m capable of abandoning you and Lettie, but I’m not her. I’m not Helen.”

He pushed his plate away, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “I know you’re not.”

“Okay…” I tilted my head. “Why are you in knots? I wasn’t suggesting you take me on the table and impregnate me right here, Gage. I’m talking about years from now.” I arched an eyebrow at him. We’d never beat around the bush and I wasn’t going to start now.

He stared at the table like he was imagining doing what I suggested. I got up and sank to my knees in front of where he sat, forcing him to look at me. “Hey,” I said, stroking his strong thigh. “I didn’t mean to scare you with the baby talk.” I glanced at the sock still between his fingers. “I found that and I…” I sucked in a deep breath. I’d seen my dreams within reach, felt my heart fill to completeness with just the thought of having his baby. “My imagination ran wild. This isn’t something we have to talk about now. We have time.”

Gage leaned down slowly to kiss me, more gentle than his normal hungry passion, and then he stood up and backed away from me.

“Gage?” I stood too, folding my arms around myself.

“Time doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen.”

I huffed. “Why are you so stubborn? Why can’t you even entertain that in a few years, after we’ve had time to realize we’re not going to leave each other that you might, someday want a family with me?”

“You want more than what we already have.” It was a statement, not a question.

Seriously? Wasn’t that the natural progression of a relationship? To evolve? I swallowed back my instinctual retort and tried to leash my temper. The thing about loving a damaged man was that I had to repair the wounds she’d left. “Someday. You know how badly I’ve always wanted to be a mom. And I never knew how badly until I fell in love with you.”

He flinched. “What about your art? The gallery you want someday.”

“I can’t do both? Don’t you play in the NHL and take care of your daughter?” My blood ran hot in my veins, the turn the conversation had taken was way past ridiculous and right on the anger track. How could he not even think about the idea? How could he hold me like he had, love me like he does, and not even entertain the idea?

“Bailey—”

A cold fist squeezed my heart and tears pooled in my eyes. “It’s me. You can’t see yourself having a baby with me,” I said, my voice cracking. Oh God, this was temporary. I was replaceable. This was just something he wanted to do because it was convenient. Bile rose in my throat and I placed a palm on my chest like I could hold my heart together.

“Don’t, Bailey,” he said, crossing the distance between us. His arms encased me, but I pushed him away.

“No. You said you loved me. Did you mean you love me being here, taking care of your daughter, and you—in all the ways you need? Am I a convenience?”

He broke through my defenses, gently clutching my shoulders and making me look him in the eye. “How could you think that of me? How can you not see the insanely deep way I love you? You think I don’t want to claim you in every way possible? Put my brand on you so every other man in the world knows who you belong to? I’d put a ring on your finger right now if I thought it would make you happy.”

“If that’s true then how can you not even think about---“

“I had a vasectomy!” He dropped his hands and took a step back, the cold from his words filling every inch of me.

Flashes of the baby I’d let grow in my mind—Gage’s baby—coated over with ice before shattering inside my heart. My dreams of being a mother, of carrying a life inside me, and bringing it into the world splintered off until it was sucked into a dark vacuum where dreams went to die. I clutched my stomach, fearing I would lose what little food I’d eaten earlier. My heart raced, but I took a deep steadying breath, the logical side of my brain kicking in.

“It’s not permanent. It can be reversed, hell, I’ve heard they grow back all the time.” It happened, right? It had to. I clung on to the small sliver of hope, because without it, I felt like I’d just lost the love of my life and a baby we hadn’t even made yet. “Would you do that for me? Or just consider it in the future?”

Gage raked his fingers through his hair. He shook his head. “Aren’t Lettie and I enough?”

I jolted like he’d physically pushed me even though he stood a foot away. “You know how much I love Lettie.” My voice came out a whisper like someone was choking my airwaves.

“But it’s not enough. Our family isn’t enough.”

My eyes turned to slits. “How dare you put that on me!”

He locked eyes with me, and I could see the pain in them, but I had a hard time seeing past the sheer amount of hurt crystallizing inside me, hardening me.

“This is something I’ve always wanted, Gage. And it’s not the first time I’ve considered carrying your child…even before you ever touched me. And now…now you want to tell me that you won’t even consider it because of a choice you made after Lettie was born?” I shook my head. “It’d be like me asking you to give up hockey…times twenty.”

“Do you want me to do that? Do you need me to prove myself?”

“I would never ask you do that, Gage. Hockey—and that little girl—are your life.” I swiped at a stray tear that had fallen down my cheek. “I just wanted to really be a part of it.” I turned on my heels, walking through the kitchen toward the door.

“Bailey, don’t go.”

The ache in his voice split another fissure in my chest and I glanced over my shoulder.

“I’ll be back in the morning to do the job you’ve paid me to do.” The words tasted bitter coming out of my mouth but I was just so damned hurt. He’d forced a choice on me I didn’t know existed, and I couldn’t think straight with the anger, loss, and pain swarming my brain. “I just can’t be around you right now. If Lettie wakes up for some reason, and she needs me, I’ll be at Paige’s.” I didn’t give him the chance to say another word but made sure to shut the door as quietly as possible behind me. As mad as I was at him, as hurt as I was, there would be no slamming—I would not wake Lettie up to a fight she wouldn’t understand—not between the two people she counted on for everything in the world.