Page 103 of Reckless Love

I pick up my own fork, stabbing a pot sticker with more force than needed, and I take an aggressive chomp on it. He laughs lightly beside me and leans over to kiss my temple.

“Always my brat, though.”

I lean into his shoulder as I chew, and I know he’s right.

When we finish eating, I gather the elastics and brush for Stephen to braid my hair, and then I sit on the floor in front of his bed, facing the full-length mirror. His legs rest on either side of me as he eases the brush through my hair.

“French or Dutch? Those are the only two I remember,” he says, dividing my hair into sections.

“French,” I say, and as he works with the strands, I watch him in the mirror. My big, tough, protective bodyguard and ex-law enforcement hero, who can do a French braid like a boss. The combination of his gentleness and his size have always made my stomach flip, but with each crisscross of my hair, the flip becomes chaotic butterflies.

“Vanessa was so lucky that you agreed to learn how to do this,” I say.

“Mom and Dad were too busy. Wasn’t that big a deal to help out.”

“I bet you never thought you’d use your talent again.”

“That’s not true.”

“So you did think about the women you could get with it?”

He makes eye contact with me in the mirror, and his fingers pause their task. “I thought it’d be a good skill to have if I was ever lucky enough to be a girl dad.”

My throat closes up, and I just stare at him for a beat, unable to find the words. But then I do. “You’d be an incredible girl dad,” I say, voice thick.

He finishes the braid and takes the elastic from me, securing the end. “Any kind of dad would suit me,” he says.

I stand up, and I place my hand on his chest, pushing him back onto the bed, and then I straddle him. The end of my braided hair falls over my shoulder, and I stare down at him.

“You’ll get it,” I say, my voice rough with emotion. But I don’t know if he will. The idea of him having that experience with anyone other than me is a sharp, stabbing pain. The idea of anyone else carrying his baby, of him treating another woman like he treats me is devastating.

Across the room, a phone buzzes.

“Don’t get it,” I say when Stephen tries to shift me off him.

“We need to go get Landon soon anyway,” he says, lifting me off his lap and wandering over to the kitchen counter. A frown creases his brow, and there’s something about the tension in his posture that puts me on high alert.

“What is it?” I ask, scrambling off the bed to go to him.

He passes me his phone, and the transcript of the message is there. The call was from Dr. Bennett. The DNA test results are back.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Stephen

One minute, I’m so sure Landon is mine that it’s a foregone conclusion; there’s no other way this result can go. But the next minute, I’m talking myself out of that outcome, afraid to wade too deeply into those waters.

Beside me in Dr. Bennett’s office, Ava is clutching my hand. We drove straight here after Ava called Gage to pick up Landon from school so we could deal with the fallout. Whatever that may be. Gage is the only person other than me who Landon seems to completely trust behind the wheel of a car.

“The result doesn’t matter,” I say to Ava. “Doesn’t change anything for me.”

Logically, my statement can’t be true even if I want it to be. If he’s mine, Raul has less of a stake in Ava’s life. If he’s mine, Celia committed the ultimate betrayal of the one child who’s still speaking to her. If he’s mine, Ava had my baby.

And that—that changes everything.

Even having those ideas linked in my head—Ava, my baby—causes a shock wave of ferocious protectiveness like I’ve never felt before. Guarding and defending Ava came naturally, and I’m stunned to realize there’s a higher level of care than the one I’ve been at.

But if she’s the mother of my child? There are no limits to what I’d do to make sure she and Landon are never hurt again by another living soul.