Page 91 of Bad Boy for Hire

But she had.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He shook his head. “I finally had a chance to show you who I was, and then we were thrown into the deep end.”

“We did advance several levels very quickly.”

He blew out a breath. “Big Boss level.”

She grinned at the video-game reference.

“Point is,” he said, serious again. “I know what I want. I want to be a present father, and I want to give you the world. I want to love you for the rest of my life. And if you can give me a chance to make this about us and not just me, I swear to God, you won’t regret it.”

She was speechless. He’d said the words love you, right? She hadn’t hallucinated that?

“I’m here.” He flattened a palm on his chest. “And I don’t want a kid with my eyes looking at me years from now and asking why I didn’t try harder with their mom. Asking why I wasn’t brave enough to tell her I loved her when I had the chance.”

“Xavier.” His face grew blurry as tears filled her eyes.

“I have something for you. For us.” He stood, keeping hold of her hand. “The three of us.”

At the base of the stairs, she rooted herself in place. “Oh, no. I promised myself I wouldn’t go up there.”

“I’m on my best behavior. Trust me.”

Thing was, she did trust him. With her person, with her child… Could she trust him with her heart? She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t end up in bed with him tonight, but she didn’t want to turn back now.

Hand in hand, they walked upstairs, past the doorway of his bedroom, and to the bedroom at the end of the hall. “This is why Ant was here.”

He opened the door to reveal an empty room, save one piece of furniture. A crib. The beautiful handcrafted piece with the intricate leaf design carved into the corners was obviously Ant’s handiwork.

“It occurred to me today that this was the first plan I made for us in my head. It’s finally real. When I saw it, I pictured being a father. And I pictured you in this room, by my side, looking down at the baby we made together. And God, what a beautiful baby.”

She blinked back more tears as she rested her hands on the edge of the crib. “I’ve pictured that too. I was afraid it was a fantasy.”

“Damn straight it’s a fantasy.” He placed one hand over both of hers. “It’s not real yet because you have to fill in the blanks. I have the crib, but I don’t know what color to stain it. I have the house, but I don’t know what color you want the walls to be.”

“Warm neutrals.” She faced him. “The girls helped me decide that already.”

“My mom already offered to paint. She loves to paint. She is very excited about meeting you, and becoming a grandmother.”

May lost her breath. Her mother was gone, but his mother was here, and excited about being a grandmother.

“Don’t cry.” He brushed away the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I can’t wait to meet your mom.”

“You’ll like her. She knows how in love with you I am and how much I’ve been fucking up because of that.”

She reached up and swiped a single tear from his face. “You didn’t fuck up.”

He offered a quick lift of his eyebrows.

“Love isn’t about not failing. And it’s not about fixing things. It’s about…showing up. Even when things are messy. Especially when things are messy.”

“Like you did for me.”

“Like you would have if I hadn’t beat you to it,” she corrected.