Lauren announced it was Robbie’s nap time. She left the room, disappearing into the back of the house to perform the mysterious ritual of “putting him down” and returned after ten minutes, her eyes puffy and red, as if she’d been crying.
“He’s so precious.” She sniffed. “It’s so unfair. I can’t tell you how it breaks my heart that he’s lost his mother.”
“It’s hard for me, too,” Gage admitted quietly. “My son should have a mother. Yet if Briana hadn’t died, I might never have known about Robbie.”
It was the most brutal sort of turnabout and it was definitely not fair play. But Cass couldn’t argue that fate had set that pendulum in motion. And the swings had widened to encompass her, as well.
Gage held out his hand to Lauren. “Thank you for opening your home to him.”
“I wouldn’t have done anything else.” Lauren shook Gage’s hand solemnly and didn’t let go as she caught his gaze to speak directly to him. “I love him. He’s my nephew, first and foremost, and we will always share that bond of blood. But you’re his father. That’s something I can’t be to him and I’m prepared for whatever decision you make. Please, take twenty-four hours, though. Make a decision you can live with forever.”
Nodding, Gage squeezed Lauren’s hand and turned to go, ushering Cass out the door ahead of him. His touch on her back was firm and warm and it infused her with the essence of Gage that she’d be a fool to pretend she didn’t crave.
The best part was she didn’t have to pretend. Instead of spending the weekend working Gage out of her system, something else entirely was happening and she couldn’t wait to find out what.
He drove back to his mansion on the lake and helped her out of the Hummer, leading her up the flagstone steps to the grand entryway flanked by soaring panes of glass...all without asking if she planned to stay.
No way in hell was she going anywhere.
Throwing a frozen pizza in the oven passed for dinner, and an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s managed to intensify the somberness that had cloaked them since leaving Lauren’s house. They pulled up bar stools at the long, luminous piece of quartz topping the island in Gage’s kitchen and ate.
Or rather, she ate and Gage stared into his rapidly diminishing highball filled with whiskey.
“I’d ask if you were okay,” Cass commented wryly, “but that would be ridiculous under the circumstances. So instead I’ll ask if you want to talk about it.”
“He looks like Nicolas.” Gage tossed the last of his Jack down his throat and reached for the bottle. “Robbie. He’s the spitting image of my brother at that age. My mom had a shrine to her firstborn lining the hallway. Literally dozens of pictures stared down at me for eighteen years as I went between my bedroom and the bathroom. Today was like seeing a ghost.”
“Oh, Gage.” More alcohol needed, stat. Her own Jack Daniel’s disappeared as she sucked the bottom out of her glass through a straw. “That’s...”
She didn’t know what it was. Horrible? Morbid? Unfortunate? Gage had talked about Nicolas in college on occasion, so she knew the tragic story well. It had shaped a family into something different than might have been otherwise.
“It’s a miracle.” A small smile lit up Gage’s features. “I never would have imagined... My son is a gift that I don’t deserve. A piece of myself and my brother all wrapped up into one amazing little package.”
The love and tenderness she’d seen at Lauren’s house when he looked at his son appeared again in his expression, and it pierced her right through the heart. It was breathtaking on Gage, a man she’d longed to look at her that way, a man she’d been sure didn’t care about anything. The fact that he’d shown a capacity for it was a game changer.
And she had a strong feeling she knew what that look signified. “You don’t want to give up Robbie.”
Gage shook his head. “I can’t. It never sat quite right with me anyway, but once I saw him... I don’t need twenty-four hours to decide. He needs me.”
He wasn’t going to walk away from his son. And she’d never been more proud of someone in her life.
That burst Gage’s dam and he started talking about Robbie. How was it possible that a man becoming a father before her very eyes could be so affecting? But it was. Gage’s decision opened up a part of her inside that flooded with something divine and beautiful.