Leona tried to focus on choosing a font for the restaurant’s name while Byron got Percy changed and read him a story, but it didn’t work. Byron had figured out the bedtime routine in only a few short days, really. He could probably handle Percy on his own now, except for the nursing part. Which was great. Really, it was.
But whenever she thought that, it made her sad, too—and she wasn’t sure why. All she knew was that the words on her computer screen kept blurring together.
Byron was involved. Byron was helping out. Byron was making all sorts of wonderful-sounding promises.
But did he really need her? Would he keep his word or would he disappear again? Could she trust him—or any Beaumont—not to take her son and leave her behind?
She kept thinking back to the way Frances had reacted to finding Leona in the kitchen. Was it a huge stretch of the imagination to think that, when Byron wasn’t with Leona, his family was trying to convince him not to marry her—to just take the baby instead?
She didn’t think so. And that made it hard to take Byron at his word. Once, he’d believed her father and his poisonous lies instead of trusting that Leona would come to him.
He could be perfect right now and she’d still be afraid that he’d kick her out of his life a second time.
Her head was such a wash of emotions that she couldn’t form a single, rational thought. The house was huge and lovely, it was true. By any objective measure, it was perfect. So what bothered her about it?
She’d once dreamed of Byron asking her to marry him, of settling down with him and raising a family. A year after she’d given up on that dream, it was suddenly happening. She wouldn’t have to worry about money or doctor’s bills or making rent. Moving in with Byron would solve so many problems. She should be happy.
And yet, what price would she pay for stability? Or even just the illusion of stability?
She would have to give up her independence to a man who didn’t want her—who only wanted a mother for his son.
It was a damned high price to pay.
She wiped her eyes again when she heard Byron finishing his story. This part of the nightly ritual—and the morning companion—was something that had always been hers and hers alone, and right now she needed the reassurance of the routine.
She walked into Percy’s room and stood there, watching. Byron hummed something low as he rocked Percy back and forth. The whole thing—the baby boy with bright red hair in his father’s arms, a look of peace on both of their faces—it was almost too much for her. Her eyes began to water again.
“Ready?” Byron asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes.” She had to be, after all. This was for her son.
Byron stood and Leona took the glider. He carefully lowered Percy into her arms. “Good night, little man,” he whispered. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he looked at Leona. “I’ll wait for you, if that’s okay with you.”
She nodded. He had never left while she was nursing Percy—usually he did something in the kitchen, even if it was just the dishes.
She lifted her shirt and Percy latched on. For the next few minutes, she didn’t have to think about moving and marriages and work and Byron. This was her time with her son. He still needed her. She hoped Byron realized that, too.
She might have dozed off while Percy was nursing because the next time she looked down, he’d fallen asleep with a trickle of milk running down the side of his face. She wiped him up and carried him over to his crib.
Surprisingly, Byron was not in the kitchen. And he wasn’t in the living room. He wasn’t in the bedroom, either, and she highly doubted he’d gotten anywhere near May’s room.
Then she realized that the door to the patio was open. He was outside? She grabbed a cardigan to fight off the evening chill and headed out.
Byron was in one of the two sad little deck chairs that May had found at a thrift store, staring out at the night sky. The apartment faced the east, so they could actually see some of the stars over the Great Plains. “What are you doing out here? I’d have thought you’d be elbow deep in a soufflé or something.”
He grinned and held out a hand. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how it could have been different. Between us.”
She should sit down in the other chair. She shouldn’t take his hand, not when she was mentally and physically exhausted. She should try to keep some kind of distance between them, some layer of protection from his considerable charms.
But she took his hand and he pulled her down so she was sitting across his lap. “Different how?”
Byron swept her short hair away from his face and rested his chin on her shoulder. She curled into him, into his warmth. “When I first asked you out—almost two years ago—you knew who I was, right?”
She nodded. She didn’t want to revisit what had gone wrong before. Not tonight. But the sky was beautiful and Byron was warm and one of his hands was tucked around her thigh and the other was rubbing against her back and the moment was...peaceful.
“But you went out with me anyway.”
“After you asked me three times.” Their voices were quiet, their heads close together. It felt intimate to sit like this.
“And...” He took a deep breath. “And if I’d asked you to marry me before that night, would you have said yes?”
The corners of her mouth pulled down. “Saying yes would have meant having to face who I really was.”
“And it would have been a problem, it’s true. Not a deal-breaker, though. But that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking if you would have said yes.”
She stared at the stars. A plane from the airport cut across the sky, rising higher and higher. Not a deal-breaker. Was he being honest? Or would he have accused her of trying to trap him, when she told him she was that Harper and pregnant with his child?
“If you’d known who my father was from the beginning, would you have asked me out three times?”
He shifted, cupping her chin in his hand and lifting her head until he looked her in the eye. “I don’t think I could have stayed away from you.”
Even though the angle was awkward, she hugged him to her. That was all she’d wanted—to be Leona, and to be good enough. She’d almost had it, too—before it’d been torn away.
“And I can’t believe you would have spent a whole year making me fall in love with you if it’d been a trap set by Harper.”
She looked up at him. Their faces were close, so close. But he didn’t kiss her and she didn’t kiss him. “I made you fall in love with me? Is that what you thought?”
The last time he’d brought feelings into the conversation, it had been the extremely noncommittal “I cared for you once.” Nothing about love, not then and not now.
This new confession, at least, was something that felt less like an evasion. Even if it was still a slight.
He touched his forehead to her, a sweet touch that made her lean into him even more. “All I’m doing is asking you now. I know a lot has happened in the past year but...” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. She was surprised to see that the ring was on the key chain. That didn’t seem like the best place for a diamond. “I’ll admit that I haven’t done the best job of it.”
She snorted, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off the ring. It was a stunning piece—the emerald-cut diamond was huge. When he’d first pulled it out, she’d been too surprised to do much of anything but gape at it. He’d dropped a fortune on it, that much was clear. Just like the house, it’d seemed like too much. But now, flashing only occasionally, it didn’t seem as overwhelming.
“I’d been planning on asking you for a few months before... Well, I’d been waiting for the right moment. And I missed my window then. But now? Now is the right time.”
He jostled her from side to side as he worked the ring off the key chain. Then he settled her back on his lap and held the ring up for her.
“I thought you said I could decide after we made it through two weeks,” she said in a breathless voice.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he chuckled. “If you want to wait the two weeks, I’ll ask again.”
This time, she physically picked up the ring. It was the first time she’d touched it. It felt warm in her palm—Byron’s warmth. She closed her fingers around the ring. It was a heavy thing, but it didn’t feel like a lead weight dragging her down. The corners of the rectangular stone dug into her fingers. She swallowed nervously. “And what if the two weeks don’t go well? Then what?”
“I’m still going to live in that house. I like the kitchen,” he said with a grin. But then the grin faded. “If we can’t live together, I hope you’ll consider letting me get you a place closer to me. I don’t want to waste time I could be spending with my son in traffic.”
She thought about this. She had no attachment to this apartment. And if Byron was helping with the rent, she’d love to get a place that had a yard for Percy to play in. She didn’t need a mansion, no matter what Byron said. But she’d like to raise her son in a house.
“I guess that sounds reasonable.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “But not a palace.” Because if it fell apart, she wanted to try to keep things the same for Percy, and that meant keeping him in the same house as long as Leona could afford it.
“Does that mean you’ll come to the house for the two weeks? You’ll give it a shot?”
She uncurled her fingers and handed him back the ring. “I’ll come to the house. Ask me again in two weeks.”
Byron hugged her fiercely. His one hand moved up and down her back while the other did the same on her thigh. She twisted against him because her one shoulder was being compressed by the strength of his embrace—but that brought her chest in contact with his. Her nipples—unencumbered by a bra and sensitized by the cool night air—responded with far more enthusiasm than was strictly proper.
He brushed her short hair back from her cheek and looked at her tenderly. “Whatever happens, I’m here for you. I’m here for the long haul. You know that, don’t you?”
She desperately wanted to believe that, wanted to believe all the pretty promises he’d made her. But she didn’t know if she could. Not yet, anyway. He was here for the long haul, for Percy, that she believed. After all, the Beaumonts always kept the kids. He’d never desert their son.
She just wished she could believe that he wouldn’t desert her—again.
She should have already bought a pregnancy test, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Another unplanned pregnancy was something she didn’t have time for and she’d made a conscious decision that she wasn’t going to think about it until it became apparent one way or the other. She simply did not have the time or energy to waste on what-ifs at this point.
Something about the way he was rubbing her back shifted and instead of just stroking her, he was pushing her toward him. It wasn’t as if there was a lot of distance between them to begin with—she was sitting on his lap—but every millimeter closer to his lips felt more intimate—more sexual—than it had before.
She knew she was going to kiss him. She knew she wanted him to kiss her back—wanted all the things that she hadn’t allowed herself to dream of for the past year.
She wanted him. She always had. Even when he’d first asked her out and she knew exactly who he was and knew exactly why she should steer clear of him—she’d wanted him then.
There was only one problem.
“We can’t,” she breathed. “Percy—May...”
“Shh,” he said in a gentle voice. His hand slid over the outside of her thigh and down the inside. “Let me take care of you.”
His fingers dipped down, rubbing against the seam of her yoga pants until she jolted in his arms. “Byron...”
His other arm circled her waist even tighter, pinning her to him. A single finger moved down farther, testing and pressing lightly until she gasped when he hit just the right spot.
“Shh,” he said again, rubbing small circles over that spot. “You have to be quiet, babe. Let me do this for you.”
She tucked her lower lip under her teeth and nodded. With a wicked grin, Byron pressed harder.
Leona tried not to make a sound, but Byron used his chin to tilt her head back and then he was kissing his way down her cheek, her neck—right to that place below her ear that had always made her shiver with need, even before she’d been able to name what that need was.
She must have made a noise because the hand around her waist squeezed tighter and the hand between her legs stopped moving and Byron whispered against her skin, “Are you being quiet?”
She bit down even harder on her lip and nodded.
“If you can’t be quiet,” he went on, his words little louder than a breath, “I’ll have to stop. Do you want me to stop?”
Before she could shake her head no, he scraped his teeth over that place. She managed to keep the moan locked down in the back of her throat, but there was no stopping the way her body shook for him.
She clutched at his forearm, the one that was moving against her. The muscles in his arms, thick and corded, moved under her hands. He’d always been so strong, moving with a coiled grace both in the kitchen and out of it. Whether he was handling his knives or handling her, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Her hips shifted down onto what was quite clearly a growing erection. “That’s it,” he murmured. His single finger made lazy little circles over the seam in her pants, which rubbed against her.
She could feel her muscles tightening, feel him bringing her closer and closer to an orgasm. She clung to Byron as his finger moved faster. Her legs started to lift in response to the strain of trying to keep quiet, but Byron used his elbow to keep them down. “Do you need to come?” he whispered against her neck, his breath caressing her bare skin.
She nodded, struggling to breathe without uttering a sound. She wanted him inside of her, wanted to feel the weight of his body pinning her to the bed. She wanted to be his. God, how she wanted to be his.
“Say it,” he said, and for the first time she heard how ragged his breathing was. “Tell me you need to come.”
“I...” He pressed against her and held firm. Her body pulsed around his and she was afraid if she tried to talk, all she’d do was scream.
“Say it,” Byron said again. “Say how much you need me to let you come.”
“I need to come. Please.”
Her words came out as a garbled moan, but at least Byron understood the gist of it. Without hesitation, he pressed and rubbed harder and faster until Leona came apart in his arms. Her back arched so far that, if he hadn’t been holding her, she would have fallen right off his lap.
But Byron held her close as the waves of orgasm rolled through her. His touch against her sex slowed and then the pressure lightened until he was gently stroking her. When she fell forward against him, he curled both arms around her as she struggled to get her breathing back to normal. Byron stroked her hair, his arms strong around her. She could still feel his erection hard against her bottom. “You’re so beautiful, babe. I want to do that to you every night.”
“Just that?”
He laughed. “I’ll get some new condoms or whatever you want to use, I’ll cover it. Because that,” he added, pausing only to kiss her on the lips, “was only the beginning.”