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“Not as crazy as this,” he said, gently prying the phone from her hands. He went back to the side-by-side of his mom and Stella and showed it to her. “That’s my mom.”
She stared at it open-mouthed. “I guess we know why you’re so sure.”
“Yes, my mom is five here.” He put his arm around her. “I don’t think we need a DNA test to prove she’s mine.”
She shook her head and then frowned. “But you are very rich. Do you want one anyway?”
He shrugged. “It won’t change anything for anyone except my lawyers.”
She looked at him sharply. “Right, then do it. I don’t want anyone to doubt her.”
“They won’t,” he promised. “Even if she weren’t the spitting image of my mother, if I say she’s my daughter, then she’s my daughter.”
Emma swallowed. “What if I want the test?”
“We don’t need it.”
“I might,” she said in a small voice.
Her mind wasn’t going to rest until he agreed.
“All right. Then we’ll do it. But you need to take my word on something—you were madly in love with me. You weren’t with anyone else.”
She smacked him in the arm. “You weren’t that sure afew weeks ago.”
He took her hand, guiding it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to each of her fingertips. “I was an immature jerk back then. I’ve grown up since then.”
Emma rolled her eyes, but her lips turned up at the corners. “Right.”
“I have.” He laughed, even though he felt more like crying. “I have aged like a decade since then.”
Seriously, his heart couldn’t take much more of this.
She shuddered, the aftermath of too much emotion. “You became a father.”
“And you a mother.”
Emma put a hand over her heart. “I’ve been a bad one. I wasn’t even here this past year.”
He pulled her into his side, squeezing her tight. “You did the best thing you could have possibly done. You went to San Diego to find me, so I could fall in love with you all over again.”
Pressing his forehead to hers, he took her scent deep into his lungs. “Although to be honest, I never stopped.”
Emma softened momentarily but she wasn’t done freaking out. “What if that hadn’t happened? I still wouldn’t know Stella was mine. And no one would have ever realized she was yours. All because I didn’t tell you I was pregnant.”
No, they weren’t going to play that game.
“You were going to,” he said. “You didn’t get a chance.”
That was why she was in the woods. She’d been on her way, and some asshole had run her down and snatched five years from them.
More actually. Was pregnancy really nine months? Because he thought he’d read somewhere it was more like ten.
He could feel himself getting pissed off. But he shoved those feelings back. He couldn’t let that anger poison the here and now. They had a future to focus on.
“Our daughter is brilliant, by the way.”
And ballsy. She wasn’t afraid to take on a boy taller and heavier than her. But she’d need a better fighting technique because soon the boys would be too big.