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With the wind finally subsiding and two pairs of hands, we manage to tame it down to something reasonable looking. At least, I hope. When I look up at Silas as he tries to pat my hair down in place, a giggle bursts from my lips. The next thing I know, he’s laughing, too.

God, I missed his laugh.

Once we finally get all our giggles out, we both sigh at the same time, then smile. This is ridiculous and super cheesy. I look down at my feet, where Milo is currently lying, and shake my head, still with a smile on my lips while I try to come up with something to say.

Silas clears his throat, grabbing my attention. “Do you want to... come inside?”

I look up to see hope in his eyes, a tender smile forming when I nod. “I’d like that.”

He nods back once and bends to pick up Milo’s leash, tugging on it a bit to get him moving. “Come on, bud. Time to head in.” Silas takes a step to my side and passes me, but then waits to see if I’m following. I turn around quickly and catch up to him as we walk side by side into the house.

I’m instantly hit with nostalgia the second I step foot through the threshold. I slip out of my flats and walk into my home for the first time in over two months, grazing my fingers along the top of the couch while I look around. Nothing seems different.

“I didn’t change anything,” Silas says from behind me. He always had a way of knowing what’s going through my mind.

He walks over to the kitchen, filling Milo’s bowls with food and water as I leave the living room and join them. This is awkward. We clearly don’t know how to handle this moment.

“Did you eat today?” He gives me a look that tells me he already knows I didn’t but wants me to admit it.

So I do. I shake my head and bite my lip.

He sighs heavily, then turns to the fridge and grabs a few different things. “You should be eating, Cecilia.” He rebukes me with a scowl, and suddenly I feel like a kid who stole the last cookie from the cookie jar and got caught.

“I do normally. I’ve been careful and I eat all my meals. Today was just... harder. I tried. I made myself an omelet this morning, but I couldn’t stomach it. So I threw it out.” Jesus, now I even sound like said child trying to explain themselves.

He studies me for a moment, then nods and turns back to the stove. “I know...”

I wait a few minutes to see if he’ll say something or tell me himself what I want to know. He’s not stupid, he must know that’s why I’m here. But after five minutes of absolute silence, I break.

“Is it true?”

His body goes rigid, and his hands freeze over the pan. Slowly, he turns to me, and I don’t understand the expression I’m greeted with. Part relieved yet saddened.

“It’s true.” He doesn’t offer more as he keeps looking at me.

“Talk to me, Silas. How? I thought they did a paternity test?”

He lets out a deep breath and takes the pan off the stove, then comes to sit beside me at the island. “They did, but it turns out it was all falsified. It was honestly out of pure luck that we found out. There was an error with the dates on one of the papers.”

My eyes widen and Silas nods. “When I told Greyson about it, he looked up the doctor. That’s when we found out that her OB-GYN was one of her friends.

It could have been nothing, but I still mentioned it to my lawyer.

He sent out a request that Lisa be checked by a different doctor of our choosing to make sure everything was accurate and that I wanted to be present for the exam.

” He leans back against the barstool, looking down at his fingers that glide back and forth over the countertop.

“So the next morning, instead of flying home with the team, I flew over to Dallas with my lawyer. We managed to get a doctor that could see her that afternoon, it was all perfect timing. But then about an hour before the appointment, my lawyer got a call from hers requesting a meeting immediately.” He takes a moment to gather himself.

I can tell he’s still digesting everything.

“Anyway, we go to the meeting spot and find Lisa in tears in a conference room with her lawyer. She confessed to everything. How she had just found out a couple of days before that she was pregnant from a one-night stand. That she and her friend, Bridgette the doctor, came up with a plan to trick one of the hockey players into sleeping with her and thinking they knocked her up.” He gets this look of disgust on his face, and I don’t blame him.

“Then Bridgette, being her OB, handled all the paperwork and scans. So she was able to change the dates and information on the paternity test to make it look like it was right. But on the last scan she did, she messed up the date, which is what tipped us off.”

“Wow... I don’t even know what to say. That’s a bit crazy. So what? She was hoping you’d give her money?” My eyes have turned to saucers as I take in everything that happened to him in the last week. I’m in complete shock that someone would even think about doing that to an innocent person.

“From what I understood, she was just hoping I’d pay her child support until the kid was eighteen.

She was even willing to have shared custody of a child that wasn’t mine.

For a second, I kind of felt bad that she was willing to do all of that and let a stranger raise her kid simply to be able to support her child.

” I can tell he still does, but then he shakes his head and it’s gone.

“But then I remembered everything she made me go through since the beginning of the year, and that feeling quickly faded. She even admitted that we never slept together.”

“What!?” I lean in, afraid I may have heard him wrong.

“Yup. Apparently, she convinced me to bring her back to my room. But once inside, I freaked out and told her to leave. She asked to use the bathroom first, and while she was in there, I passed out on the bed.” He shrugs, still not seeming to recall the moment himself.

“So, she took advantage of the situation and undressed me down to my boxers and got herself completely naked. Then she got in bed to make it look like we slept together. She’s even the one who kissed me, and Bridgette was there to take pictures of it all and post them online.

” Silas lets out a deep, angry breath, trying to remain in control of his emotions.

“The whole thing was staged from top to bottom, and I was the poor sucker who got picked.” His shoulders sag like a weight was just lifted off them.

“Wow... just, wow. I can’t believe she did all of that.”

“Yeah, me either. I’m just glad it’s all over.

Although my lawyer is taking them to court for a long list of offenses.

So not completely over, but at least now I know I didn’t fuck up as badly as I thought.

I mean, I’m still at fault in some ways, but it feels good to know I didn’t totally screw up.

” He averts his eyes from mine, looking down at his hands once more.

“It’s why you called this morning? Isn’t it?” I ask softly.

He nods. “I wanted to tell you, and I thought today would be a good time to do it. Since it’s our anniversary, and it would bring a bit of good in our day.

” He clears his throat. “But I didn’t want you to come back only for that reason.

..” And now I understand his sad expression from earlier.

He thinks the only reason I came back is because I found out the truth.

I place my hand delicately on his forearm and wait for him to look up at me. He turns to my hand first, where my rings shine brightly with the lighting overhead, then drags his gaze up to my eyes.

“I was coming back to you, Silas,” I whisper.

“I had been thinking about it since you sent the letter, but I still wasn’t sure how to make it all work.

I was afraid. But the girls talked a lot of sense into me in the last week.

” My thumb draws little circles over his soft skin. God, I’ve missed touching him.

“Last night I decided that I didn’t care if you were having a child with someone else. I just wanted to be with you, and wanted to be by your side as you went through all this change. Like I vowed to do on our wedding day.” I offer him a tender smile before continuing.

“It was unfair of me to run off like I did and move out. I was letting my emotions drive me instead of sitting down and letting everything sink in. I didn’t think about how this whole situation was affecting you too, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for putting us through that pain.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Minnie. You had every right to leave. If I found out you were pregnant with another man’s baby, I would probably freak out and leave, too,” he interrupts, placing his left hand over mine, our rings rubbing against each other .

“Still, it shouldn’t have taken me so long to realize that I still wanted to go through this with you.

The worst part is, I never once thought about getting a divorce.

Even when people mentioned it, it was always out of the question for me.

That should have been my first sign that I wasn’t going anywhere. ” I smile again.

“And then yesterday I stayed up all night wanting to call you. I almost did a couple of times because I hated that we weren’t spending our anniversary together. Yes, the news made me move faster. But if I’m being honest, I would have probably cracked at some point during the day and came to you.”

“Yeah, you weren’t alone on that. It’s why I took Milo for an impromptu walk. I was talking myself out of driving down to see you. Well actually, make that his third impromptu walk.” He chuckles, and a slight blush forms over his cheekbones from embarrassment.

I bring my right hand up to his left cheek and caress the pink spot with my thumb. The gesture makes my body turn slightly his way, our left hands still resting above his right forearm.

We’re dangerously close now, I can smell his minty breath fanning out over my lips. I look down at his, then back up to his beautiful emeralds that seem to be getting brighter by the second.

“I missed you, Silas. I’m so sorry.”

He moves so quickly that I barely have time to register what’s happening. His hand and arm untangle from mine as he grips both sides of my face and crashes his lips to mine.

The kiss startles me for a second, but I quickly recover and melt into him, opening up to give him access inside my mouth. Our tongues twirl around, getting reacquainted with one another. Two lost souls finally finding their way back together.

“Stop apologizing, Minnie. I’m the one who’s sorry. If I had just stayed in my room that night like I wanted instead of letting everyone talk me into going out, none of this would have happened,” he says against my lips.

I bring my hand to his nape and push our lips back together. “No, stop. No more talking about that night. It’s over. It’s all over, Silas.”

Then we continue our dance until we’re both breathless and need to come up for air. But we don’t pull apart any farther, our foreheads resting against each other while we pant, then giggle.

He pushes my hair behind my ear, looking deep into my eyes. Searching. “So where do we go from here?” he whispers quietly.

I was waiting for this question, and I don’t know how he’ll feel about my decision. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I think Morgan was right about us needing to take our time.

I give him a sad smile before saying, “Please don’t be upset...”

He sighs, eyes closing and body sagging in defeat. “You’re not moving back in, are you?”

I pull away but take his hands in mine. “No, not yet at least. I want us to be together, Silas. I love you. I just think we should take our time coming back together and not jump right back in. The rollercoaster of emotions I went through since the beginning of the year has been extremely hard on me, and I nearly lost myself through it all. I can’t go through that again.

” My eyes mist over at the thought, but I force those feelings away. It’s finally over.

“Right now, yes, our situation is technically fixed. But to the rest of the world, it isn’t.

When news comes out of what she did, it’s going to be chaos again, and I can’t deal with that all over.

I hope you understand?” I plead. “I still want to see you and talk to you. I want us to spend time together. I just think staying in separate places until everything dies down and we are one hundred percent free of drama would be for the best.”

He opens his eyes and nods reluctantly. “You’re right. I won’t hide that it sucks because I miss having you here. But I understand what you’re saying, and I’ll wait until you’re ready to come home.”

“Thank you,” I whisper and cup his cheek with a soft smile.

“Don’t look so sad, it will be like when we first started dating.

With the late-night phone calls and the dates, the excitement we felt when we finally got to see each other.

I know it won’t be easy, and saying goodnight will suck, but I really think it will bring a lot of good into our relationship and make us that much stronger. ”

“I know.” He sighs. “So does that mean I get to woo you all over again?” He smirks, which makes me giggle. This man always loved finding creative ways to woo me.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” I lean in to kiss his lips once. “Now, weren’t you making me something to eat?”

“Shit, right!” He jumps off his stool and rounds the island, heading to the stove. But stops midway and comes back to me, kissing me once more before returning to his destination.