the baby’s mother.
Finding her here, in the moonlit darkness, shifted something elemental inside him. It was bigger, deeper than anything he had ever known.
Was this love?
God, he hadn’t even mentally jerked back from that word. Which just went to prove how far gone he was. His whole life, he’d never seen love last. People in his family didn’t stay married. His parents had split up when he was just a kid. Even his friends fell in and out of “love” with regularity, so it was never something Vance had had any faith in.
It was a word he’d never used with a woman because he didn’t want to say what he didn’t—couldn’t—feel.
But now, with Charlie … All right, he was the first to admit that he didn’t know jack about love. But he did know that this woman and her child had carved a place for themselves in his heart. That was saying something, wasn’t it?
She turned her head to smile at him and his breath caught in his lungs. Her eyes shone and the curve of her mouth was irresistible to him. Everything about her was. And with that thought came the realization that he was in so deep now, he didn’t think he’d ever find his way out.
“What’re you doing out here?” He stepped through the sliding-glass door onto the tiled floor of the terrace.
“I woke up,” she said with a shrug. “I checked on Jake, then it was such a nice night, I came out here to do some thinking.”
“Always dangerous when a clever woman starts thinking,” he said, walking toward her. He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her middle and let her lean back into him.
Since the end of the threat against her, Charlie had been … thoughtful. She was sad about Henry’s death, but relieved that her son was safe. But there was more she wasn’t saying, Vance knew. And that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
She laid her hands on his arms and her head against his chest. And Vance felt … complete.
“Want to tell me what you’ve been thinking about?”
Her fingers stroked the skin of his arms with a gentle touch. “That it’s time Jake and I went home.”
He took a breath and held it. He wasn’t even sure his heart was still beating. “Home? Why?”
She turned in his arms then and looked up at him, shaking her hair back from her face. “Because we don’t belong here, Vance. You’ve been wonderful. Helped us when we needed it. Helped me. But this was never supposed to be permanent, right?”
No, no one had said anything about permanent. But they hadn’t put a time limit on it, either. Frowning, he swallowed hard and instead of answering her question, asked one of his own. “What’s the rush? You’ve been happy here. Jake and I get along great—”
“You do,” she said wistfully. “But I have to go back to my life, Vance.” She took a moment and looked around the terrace, the view and even the sky above. “As beautiful as all of this is, it isn’t my home.”
“It could be.”
“Vance—”
“I’m just saying.” Hell, he didn’t know what he was saying. All he knew was that her talking about leaving had blown a hole through his insides. Even his heartbeat was ragged. “Stay a while, at least. Let’s enjoy each other without the threat of doom hanging over our heads.”
She smiled sadly. “That won’t change anything.”
“Why does it have to?” He let her go, took a step or two away, then turned back to face her again. “Do we have to classify this—whatever it is—between us? Why can’t we just go on the way we have been?”
“Because it’s not just me, Vance.” She didn’t sound angry. Just sad. “I have to think about Jake, too.”
“I am thinking about Jake,” he argued and didn’t care for the sound of desperation in his voice. “He’s happy here. He likes his room. He likes me.”
“Too much,” she said and those two words jabbed at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’s getting more aware every day. It means I heard him say ‘Dada’ this morning when you were feeding him his oatmeal.”
Yeah, Vance thought, remembering the little boy’s delight at mastering another word. Remembering also how happy he’d been when the boy reached out for him and said that word.
“If I don’t leave, he’ll start believing you are his father and then taking him away later will just hurt him that much more.”
“Why now?” Vance demanded, rubbing one hand against the ache that was dead center in his chest. “Why all of a sudden the talk of leaving?”
She pushed her hair back with one hand as the wind tossed it across her eyes. “It’s not all of a sudden. Ever since Henry … died, I’ve known I had to leave. You have, too, Vance. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“Ah,” he said tightly, “now you’re a mind reader.”
“Nothing so fabulous,” she countered. “But I recognize reality when it’s right in front of me.”
Vance’s brain was racing even as his heart seemed to be slowing down into a sluggish rhythm. She was wrong. He hadn’t even considered Charlie and Jake leaving. He’d gotten used to having them there. To tripping on the baby’s toys in the darkness. To the smell of oatmeal in the morning and, mostly, to the feel of Charlie, nestled in his arms every night.
He hadn’t been thinking beyond getting rid of the threat to her. Now he could see that freeing Charlie meant—freeing Charlie.
Without a reason to stay, of course she would want to take her son back to their apartment. So all of them could get back to their lives. No more watching baseball games with Jake on his lap. No more glasses of wine with Charlie before dinner. No more laughter. No more anything. He would have his privacy again. The quiet of an empty penthouse. He’d see Charlie at work and this—whatever it was—between them would eventually shrivel and die.
That was what should happen, wasn’t it? He’d never meant for any of this to last. He’d only begun this thing to save Waverly’s, right? He looked at her now and felt everything in him go cold and still. Life without her sounded bleak. How the hell was he supposed to give her up?
“Vance?”
Flowers scented the warm air. They were high enough above the city lights that the stars were clear in the black sky. And the moonlight—God, she was made for moonlight—poured down over her like magic.
He didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to think. He wanted to feel what he only felt with Charlie. He wanted to lose himself in her. And wasn’t that a sort of answer to her question?
He crossed the terrace to her, grabbed her hard and pulled her tight against him.
“No more talking,” he muttered, “and no leaving. Not yet. Okay?”
