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But she wasn’t sure if she had the resources left to fight against it. Not anymore.
She stood, her heart thundering hard. Then she walked over to where he sat, and put her hand on his chest. “Luca.”
He reached up, and pulled her head down, kissing her. Consuming her. And when they pulled away, there was something like wonder in his eyes. “I really love this gift that you gave me. But I don’t lose everything when I look at it. Only when I look at you.”
It meant something to him to say that. To feel that. She might not know entirely what, but she could hold close that it did.
She kissed him, holding his face in her hands as she did. Cradling him. Because he was precious.
Oh, no.
She was familiar with lust, protectiveness.
But this was something different.
This was something more.
He was such a brilliant man. Such a beautiful, brilliant man. And really, what other man on the face of the earth would she rather have as the father of her baby?
He was strong and determined. He... He loved. With so much of himself. His mother’s death had taken that love and turned it into something he was trying to give the world. Everything he did was care.
Of course he would be the most wonderful father.
“You are amazing,” she whispered against his mouth. “And I’m so sorry that I doubted what manner of father you would be. There is no other man I would rather have as the father of my child.”
He growled then. And he lifted her up onto his lap, onto the dining chair. Her thighs were on either side of his waist, and she could feel his growing arousal there between her legs.
They kissed, and he held her close. Tight. Like she was the one who was precious.
No one had ever treated her that way. But he did. Imperfectly, perhaps, but she wasn’t perfect with him either.
She was sometimes petty, and often selfish. She possessed far too great an ability to take the things he did and make herself feel persecuted because of them when there were moments she just had to accept his behavior wasn’t about her, and she didn’t need to make it about her.
It was easy for her to think that because some of the things he did were different than ways other men behaved, that he was somehow the project, but the truth was, she didn’t know how to blend her life with another person’s. She didn’t know how to see grandly beyond her own perspective.
She was no less work. And perhaps she was more, because he had spent his life taking fearless inventory of himself, because he had been forced to. Because the people around him had always been harsh and uncompromising in their appraisal of him. Because people had treated him as if he didn’t have feelings, which meant the way that their approach to him was often bracing.
Yes, she had been badly treated. By people who had wanted to treat her badly. Her parents had been difficult. They had been undeniably cruel in many ways. They had done nothing under the guise of care, and it seemed to her that often throughout Luca’s life people had said horrendous things to him under the guise of helping him. Under the guise of forcing him to behave in a way that made them more comfortable. Not in a way that might make him more comfortable.
She committed herself then and there to being different. To handling him with greater care.
She kissed him to show him that.
And he kissed her back, physically demonstrating to her that she mattered too.
They could do this. They could make this partnership. They could have this life.
She felt a renewed sense of purpose. A sense of joy.
Luca wasn’t her job.
He was her choice.
And she wanted to show him that.
She moved from his lap, and took his hand. “Come,” she said, smiling.
“I’m not a dog,” he said. “You can’t give me commands.”