Page 135 of Rival Hearts

“It’s just a lot,” she said. “It feels like everything is upside down lately. Everything I thought I knew and understood isn’t the way it seemed, and I feel… lost.”

I sat down next to her and hesitated before I carefully reached for her hand. I moved slowly, almost like I didn’t want to scare a cornered animal. When she didn’t pull her hand away, I squeezed it.

“It’s going to be okay, you know. We can figure it out together.”

She glanced at me, her brows knitted together in a frown.

I took a deep breath.

“I was wrong,” I said. “About a lot of things. The biggest mistake I made wasn’t with the business and the direction I was going to take us. The biggest mistake I made was letting you go.”

“Alex…”

“No, hear me out. Please.”

She pursed her lips together, her eyes wide.

I covered her hand in mine with my other hand.

“I’ve been trying to fight what I feel for you. I’ve been trying to tell myself that this thing that’s happened between us wasn’t real, that it didn’t mean anything. But I was a fool, and I sacrificed the thing I realize now I wanted most in this world.”

“What’s that?” she asked in a whisper.

“You,” I said without a hitch. “I want to be with you. I love the person you allow me to be, and I love the person you are. I loveyou.More than I ever thought I could love anyone, and I want you in my life.”

Charlotte’s eyes welled with tears, and she shook her head.

“We can’t do this,” she said. “It won’t work.”

“Of course, it will. We just have to take things slow, day by day. I’m willing to do that with you. We’ll take one step together and then another.”

“I can’t be with you, Alex,” Charlotte said, but her voice wasn’t angry or determined. Instead, it cracked, and the tears rolled over her cheeks.

“I know about the baby.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened and she paled. “What?”

“Gabe told me.”

She looked shocked and then angry, but her anger was quickly replaced with something that looked a lot more like fear.

“I didn’t want to do this to you,” she said quickly. “I didn’t want to catch you or tie you down or demand any money from you. I can do this alone. We don’t have to do anything together—”

“I want to do it together, Charlotte.”

She pulled her hand away and covered her face.

“You don’t want this,” she said through her fingers. “You don’t want to be a father, have a baby. You told me so yourself.”

“Hey.” I wrapped my fingers carefully around her wrists, gently lowering her hands so I could look into her eyes. Her face was streaked with tears. “I didn’t know what I was saying when I told you that. It came from a place of fear, a place of self-loathing that I don’t feel anymore. That was all hypothetical, but now that it’s real… I want nothing more than to be with you, to raise our baby together. To be a family.”

I reached for her cheek and brushed her tears away.

“Do you really want this?”

I nodded. “More than anything. We’re good together, Charlotte. You and me. If we’re together, it doesn’t matter what the world throws at us. We can do it.”

“Do you really want to do the eco-friendly yachts?” she asked. “Or did you do it so that I would come back?”