He raised an eyebrow. “I spoke to your lawyer on the way here.” No hint of a smile this time.
“Oh.” She swallowed hard. “Maybe sitting down is a good idea.”
“Nervous?” he asked, following her back to the family room.
Erin settled into her normal place on the sofa. Cole didn’t take the chair everyone else usually did. Instead he sat beside her. So close his thigh touched hers. She shut her eyes and forced air into her lungs. Big mistake, since his musky, masculine scent overwhelmed her, making her want to crawl into his arms, bury her face in his neck, and drink him in.
“I asked if you were nervous.” He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, too close to her neck. Her skin tingled at the whisper of sensation he effortlessly evoked.
“Why would I be?” Her voice sounded rough to her own ears.
“Your lawyer called me about custody agreements, visitation, and child support.” The words rumbled out of him on a low growl.
“I thought we should finalize things quickly, before you go undercover again.”
He nodded as if he understood, but those warm eyes of his were boring into hers, and now she was nervous.
“What makes you think I’m going back under? How would you know what I plan, when you won’t take my calls? Answer my texts? When you wouldn’t see me in the hospital after you were nearly killed?” he asked, the tension suddenly radiating from him in waves.
“Are you saying you’re not?” she asked.
“I’m the one asking questions. How would you know what I’m doing? What I want?”
“I wouldn’t.” She swallowed hard. “But I thought I did. You told me when the threat was over, you were leaving. Well? The threat was over. I was just making a clean break.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“What if that’s not what I want?” He reached out, grasped her around the waist, and pulled her onto his lap.
She blinked, stunned. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Hear me out.”
“Not while I’m sitting on your lap.”
“Trust me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it once more. “Talk, and make it quick.” Before she started squirming against him.
“I’m not leaving you, our baby, or Serendipity.” He pushed her hair off her shoulder, kissing the sensitive skin of her neck. She shivered but was determined to remain in control.
“You have a job.”
“I quit.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I . . . you . . . what?”
“I quit. Went to the city and did it in person.”
Erin’s eyes opened wide. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She shook her head, afraid to think, to breathe, and lose the moment or find out she was dreaming. “Maybe it’s obvious to you, but to me this has come out of left field.”
He placed his hand beneath her chin and turned her face toward him. “I love you, Erin. It’s that complicated . . . and that simple.”
A wave of dizziness assaulted her. “You love me. Enough to quit your job and settle in Serendipity.”
Cole nodded, but he knew a simple yes wasn’t enough for this bright woman. “I love you, yes. I also love the fact that you fought for me. For us. That you opened my eyes to what I was missing, and to what I needed.”