“That was months ago, Gavin.” Emily swiped tears from her face, shocked at how long he’d known. “I don’t understand. Why would you keep this from me?”

Stepping closer, he shoved his hand though his hair. All he wanted to do was touch her, console her, but her defenses were up, so he would tread. “I was buying time.” He spoke softly and stared at her face as it became further dowsed with confusion. “That’s it. I was buying time.”

“Buying time? Time from what? We can’t stop the inevitable. But we could’ve stopped Dillon from being at every doctor’s appointment.”

Gavin shook his head, his fears tumbling from his mouth. “No, we couldn’t have. He’s the father. Not me.”

Emily swallowed back a breath at his admission. Her knees went weak. The man before her revealed something he’d hidden so naturally, so effortlessly over the past several months. She didn’t know whether to scream at him or cry for him. However, she knew he did it for her. She could never deny his natural instinct to always protect her feelings. He’d sheltered her by keeping his fears to himself. As she watched his spirit break right before her eyes, she decided to reveal something as well. Something she’d started feeling the last few months but didn’t recognize what it was until now. A pull so internal, so warming, she thought it was going to melt her. “You are this baby’s father, Gavin Blake. Do you hear me?”

Gavin stared at her a long moment, sour thoughts invading his mind. He wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t. His words came out as a whisper. “I’m not, Emily. He is.”

Heart shattering, Emily stepped closer and reached for his hands. She molded them to her belly as the baby tried to kick his way out. Staring into Gavin’s weary eyes, she cupped his cheeks. “You are the father, and I’ll tell you how I know,” Emily cried, pressing her lips to his. “I know because I can feel every bit of you running through my veins. Your blood, your heart, your soul. I can feel it. I feel his love for you. Every time you talk, he moves. Every time you laugh, I swear he vibrates like he’s sharing the joke with you.” Sliding her arms around his neck, she twined her fingers in Gavin’s hair and buried her face against his chest. “I know you can feel him moving, Gavin, and he knows it’s his father’s hands on my stomach. He knows it.”

Gavin had said Emily’s hands shook every time she touched him. Here and now, it was his he couldn’t control. He smoothed his trembling hands along the swell of her stomach, feeling the life they may have created squirm within her body.

With tears streaming down her face, Emily stared into Gavin’s eyes. “I need your faith and belief in everything you know we were meant to be.” She pulled in a stuttering breath and held his face. “I need it to be stronger than your fears and doubts. Don’t you dare give up on us, Gavin. Don’t give up on him. Please.”

Gavin nodded and bent his head, brushing his lips against hers. “I won’t,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. “I swear to God I won’t.”

And there, standing in his office with the woman he couldn’t live without, the woman who showed him what it felt like to have his faith restored by her simple touch, Gavin was no longer afraid of not being this child’s father. Instead, he drowned in the fact that not only did the woman with him believe he was, and was in love with every fear he had, but another life was already in love with him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Climbing the mountainous stairs to the second floor of Gavin’s home in the Hamptons proved a more difficult feat than the year before. With a bottle of water in one hand and a hearty plate of reheated Chinese food in the other, Emily reached the last step quite winded. As she made her way down the hall, she couldn’t help but stop outside the room she and Dillon had slept in the last time she was there. Tainted memories of their stay stormed her mind. But as she stared into the space, one memory trumped the rest. It knocked them all to the ground. This particular memory would never taint her. She’d hold on to it forever.

A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth as she entered the room. Placing her water and food on the large dresser, she flicked her eyes to the nightstand flanking the queen-sized bed. Simple curiosity had her pulling open the drawer. She giggled when she saw the sweatshirt Gavin had given her to wear while she played her first ever game of “Toss the Bottle Cap into the Pot” with him. She gathered it in her hands, bringing it up to her nose. Though faint, it still held his smell. She remembered wanting to burn his scent into her mind. Little did she know then she’d be lucky enough to wake up to it every morning. Warmth flooded her as she pulled it over her tank top. Closing her eyes, she hugged her chest, overcome by visions of that night. She looked around, picked up the plate and water, and made her way out of the room holding both beautiful and bad memories.

On a sigh, she stepped into the room holding her heart and future. Leaning against the doorway, Emily surreptitiously watched Gavin. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of light cotton pajama pants, his focus was zeroed in on his laptop. Though he’d promised he wouldn’t work over the Fourth of July holiday, Emily found that was all he’d been doing. She knew he was trying to keep busy, drowning himself in whatever he could. He was trying to avoid dealing with their new waiting game, the paternity test results game. She couldn’t help but remember a year ago when their lives were very different.

Heart heavy for what he was going through, Emily moved across the room. After placing her food and drink down, she crawled onto bed and pulled the laptop away from Gavin. With a mischievous smile, she snapped it closed and straddled his lap.

Gavin lifted a brow, a slow smirk toying at his mouth. “You’re very lucky I saved the doc I was working on.”

“Sounds like a threat.” Placing her hands on his bare shoulders, Emily cocked her head to the side and mimicked his expression. “Are you going to do harm to my body, Mr. Blake? Better yet, may I beg for a little pleasurable harm to my body?” He chuckled, and his blue eyes twinkled with the playfulness Emily had desperately missed over the last week since they’d gone for the test.

Gavin sucked in his bottom lip and slid his arms around her waist. “I’ve turned you into such a dirty, kinky, little masochist. Do you have any idea what that thought does to me?”

Emily giggled. “Yes. I can feel what it’s doing to you right now.”

“That obvious?”

“Very.” Emily nuzzled the crook of his neck, biting him softly. Dragging his musky scent through her noise, she curled her fingers in his hair. “Your head’s so consumed by my newfound dirty kinkiness, you didn’t even notice something on me.”

Gripping her thighs, a groan crawled up Gavin’s throat. “And what you’re doing is supposed to help?”

“Okay, I’ll stop,” Emily quipped, pulling back.

Gavin frowned. “I’m tossing out the caveman card here and demand you continue your dirty, kinkiness on my neck.”

“Nope,” Emily giggled. “Not until you figure out what’s new on me. Seriously, it’s not that hard.”

Gavin buried his hands in her hair and guided her down to his lips. “Wrong,” he whispered as he spoke between kisses. “It’s painfully… tortuously…agonizingly, I’m-about-to-rip-the-panties-from-your-body hard.”