She ushered Kimber inside, and he nearly buckled at the sight of her. Seeing her was like walking into the bright sunshine after a long day under fluorescent lighting. She practically burst with light… the pregnancy glow.
He wanted to drop to his knees, bury his head into the folds of her green dress, and beg them both—Kimber and the baby—for a second chance. Melodramatic? Maybe. But he’d do anything—anything—to get her back. He’d give up his business and his penthouse. Move into her teeny little apartment and become a stockroom boy for Hobo Chic if he had to.
Because nothing else mattered. Not his career. Not his top-floor penthouse. He’d worked hard to craft a perfect façade of a life. Then Kimber had come into it, and left, proving the life he’d worked so hard to build as flimsy as a matchbook house. One that had gone up in flames the second she walked out of it.
Cindy shut the office door and Kimber gestured to the couch. “Mind if I sit? I’m exhausted.”
“Please,” he said, holding the crumbling walls of his heart together with both hands. Maintaining as usual. Mr. Control. Sometimes he hated that about himself.
She patted the cushion next to her and he sat, obediently. Tired of not saying what was on his mind he blurted, “I want to touch you so badly.”
She smiled, her eyes shining. There was something in them that was real and warm, and not the least bit indifferent. A spark of hope lit within him. Tentatively, he reached for her face.
She leaned into his palm and floored him with her next four words. “I love you, too.”
He simply stared at her, mouth ajar for several seconds. When he finally got his tongue to cooperate, he said, “You heard my message.”
“I didn’t get it until this morning. I came straight here.”
What? He blinked, digesting that bit of information. “I thought you heard it and were ignoring me.”
She shook her head. “I heard it and cried in the middle of a café over a half-eaten muffin.”
He pulled her close, and relief washed through him when her arms locked around his neck. “The one time I didn’t listen to my heart,” she whispered against his ear, “and it was right.”
He held her tighter, not a hundred percent certain he wasn’t having a very vivid, alcohol-induced dream.
“I may have apologized for saying ‘I love you’ that first time, but it was the truth. Crazy as it sounds, part of me just… knew.”
He loosened his hold on her just enough to focus on her bright green eyes. “I don’t care if you keep your store where it is.” He wanted to make sure she understood he was not trying to cage her. This was her life, their life. “I don’t care if you stay in your apartment. I mean, I do care, but only because I don’t want you away from me for another second.” He gave her a watery smile. It was true, he didn’t. And telling her felt undeniably right. Throat choked with emotion, he managed to hold back the tears when he said, “Please don’t shut me out. We can move in together later. Or I could move in with you.”
A bemused twinkle lit her eyes. “You’d move into my five-hundred-square-foot loft?”
“It has everything I need.” He kissed her, savoring the feel of her lips for what felt like the first time in forever. “You.” He palmed her tummy. “Our baby.”
She grinned, and he thought it might be the most beautiful sight in the world. “But I love your place. The bedroom, the shower,” she said, ticking off rooms on her fingers. “Your desk.” She lifted one eyebrow and gave him a saucy smile.
“You’re teasing me at a time like this?” But he couldn’t help smiling back at her. He had a vivid memory of those rooms. They’d made love in each of them during the week when he’d been too blind to see what was right in front of him.
“I remember.” He palmed her hair and rubbed the silken strands between his fingers, kissing her when she tipped her chin. “I remember every breath,” he said. “Every sound.” He kissed her again.
“Do you remember the balcony?” she whispered against his lips.
“I remember you.”
She caught his face in her hands, keeping her soft, pink lips just out of reach. “I remember you,” she repeated. “We could make a few new memories at my place. You know, before I move in with you.”
He was trying really, really hard not to simultaneously laugh and cry. “You’re moving in with me,” he said as she nestled the tip of her finger in the cleft in his chin.