I couldn’t go on living like it was yesterday.
I looked back at him and slowly nodded. “Okay.”
The smile splitting his face nearly knocked me to my knees, so bright and brilliant.
So free.
“I’d like to do it, if that’s okay?” he asked.
I nodded again. “Okay. Just . . . you have to allow him to have his own reaction. Process it all. He’s gonna be shocked.”
Grief struck across his face. “I know that. I know. I deserve for him to hate me, but I will be there, even if he does, until he sees that he doesn’t have to. That he can trust me.”
He cupped my face, and I leaned into the warmth. “When do you want to talk to him?” I asked.
“Maybe I can take him to his appointment on Thursday? Afterward, I’ll take him to the park or for ice cream or wherever he wants to go.”
Heart shuddering, I peered up at him. “And what about Dillon?”
Determination steeled those strong features. “Wasn’t playing when I said I want us to be a family, Izzy. For the first time in my life, I have a family, right here. I don’t want to be separate from any of them. Not ever again.”
Emotion surged, so thick that it was pricking tears at the back of my eyes. “I want that. So much.”
He brushed his thumb over my lips. Softly. Reverently. Though there was hesitation behind it. “Last thing I want to imagine is you with another man, but I need to know about his father. Where he is. What happened with him.”
As if I wanted to imagine him with another woman. I cringed with even the thought, tucking it down, refusing the remnants of betrayal from clawing its way out.
It didn’t have a place in my life any longer.
I hiked an indifferent shoulder. “There’s not a whole lot to tell. His name was Jon. He left me when things with Benjamin got too rough. Dillon was two months old, and Benjamin had just had another surgery. It was a rough one. Benjamin was up all night crying with his pain, needing me to hold him, while I was trying to take care of a newborn at the same time. Jon told me he was sorry, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to spend his life in doctor’s offices.”
Fury raced through Maxon’s being. Hatred so fierce I swore it darkened the sun.
“Did you love him?”
I blew out a strained sigh. “I did, Maxon. Differently than you, but I did. He was a friend that had grown into more. Then he let me down. He didn’t love us enough. And it breaks my heart to think that maybe I didn’t love him enough, either.”
There’d been a ghost that had always lived in the middle of us—in the perfect size of Maxon Chambers.
Standing in the way of me ever fully giving myself to Jon.
I was staring up at Maxon when I said it.
It was soft and tender.
But I thought maybe it came with an ultimatum.
His forehead dropped to mine. “You questioning whether I love you enough? There’s not enough time in eternity for me to use up the love I have for you.”
Twenty-Seven
Mack
I glanced over at my cell ringing on my desk to find Pete’s name lighting the screen. He was out hunting down monsters while my ass was stuck at a desk for four weeks.
Two down, two to go.
“What’s up?” I rocked forward and leaned my elbow on my desk, ignoring the commotion and clamor of conversations going on around me.
“Fingerprints are in,” Pete said, caution in his voice.
Figured he realized he was about to set me off.
“Yeah?” I pressed, preparing myself for the news I was about to receive while trying my best to ignore the agitation that stirred in that dark pit that writhed deep inside.
The place that reminded me whose side I was on but never let me forget where I’d come from.
His voice lowered like he wanted to keep me from the truth. “It was definitely Zachary Keeton. Seems he didn’t do a whole lot to hide it, either. Prints were all over your truck and on the brick.”
Aggression jumped into my bloodstream, seething and violent, and I ground my teeth to keep from coming out of my chair.
“Got any clue why this punk has it out for you?” he asked.
Unease rippled through my body. Something taunting at the edge of my mind but remaining out of reach. “Other than giving him that ticket? No.”
He sighed in frustration, worry weaving into the middle of it. “You think it’s because he’s found a cop to point his aggression and animosity at?”
I shrugged, but it wasn’t in acceptance. “Maybe.”
Gut told me it was more than that, though.
He hesitated, clearly not wanting to broach what it was he was getting ready to say. “Have you checked into your father?”