Page 112 of The Last One You Loved

I laughed again. “It kind of looks that way, doesn’t it? But the truth is, the apartment is just packed up. All the boxes are in the bedrooms.”

Mila raced toward the little hallway, looking into Sally’s old room and then into mine. “Whoa,” she said. “This place is a disaster.” She turned back to us. “Daddy, where are we going to stay?”

When I turned to look at Maddox, he was frowning. “What’s going on, McK?”

“You kind of ruined my surprise,” I told him with a wry grin. “I was heading out tomorrow. I was trying to get toyoubefore Christmas Eve.”

Mila skipped back over. “You were coming home? But then I would have missed my first airplane ride ever, and we got to watch movies on the plane! Did you know you could do that, because I definitely didn’t.”

Maddox looked down at his daughter with an exasperated look I’d never seen on his face before. “Bug-a-Boo, I need you to go into McK’s bedroom and give us five minutes alone.”

“Are you going to kiss her again?”

“Maybe.”

She giggled. “Okay, but tell me when five minutes is up because I still don’t know how to tell time yet.”

Then, she twirled down the hall.

“Is there anything she can get hurt on?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, everything but the bed and my suitcases are pretty much packed.”

He stepped closer, tugging the pocket on the front of my sweatshirt until I fell into him. “McK, what’s going on?”

I put my arms around his neck, fingers tangling in the waves there.

“It’s really rather simple. I didn’t want to be without you, so I was coming home.”

That word,home, slipped off my tongue, feeling strange and beautiful and right.

“What about your residency? Your license?” he asked, frowning.

“I’ll start over next year.”

He inhaled sharply. “McK…” Regret and worry coated his voice.

“It’s nothing, Mads. Nothing. I’m lucky I still get to be a doctor after thinking my career was over, but none of it matters when I compare it to wasting even one more minute not being with you and Mila. I wasted ten years I could have been with you… I lost five years of Mila’s life… I can’t miss even one more day.”

He kissed me again with a tangle of emotions that felt like hope and love and gratitude. The kiss should have felt familiar, as if we’d done it a million times before, and yet, it felt brand new. Like the first of many new ones because it was the first kiss of our new journey together. He pushed me up against the wall, hand sliding under my sweatshirt, cupping my bare breast. I pulled his long-sleeve T-shirt from his pants, palm grazing his back and reveling in the heat of his skin. Our tongues danced together, licking slow and deep, causing flames to curl through me and making my core throb.

“Has it been five minutes yet?” Mila yelled from the other room.

Maddox laughed and pulled back, thumb landing on my lips that felt blissfully raw from our kisses.

“How long do you think we can keep her in there before she realizes five minutes is up?” he asked with a slow smile.

“Daddy?” her voice rang out from the other room, and my chuckle joined his.

“I’d say you have thirty seconds.”

“Perfect.”

He kissed me again, this time without the hands or heat, but with a promise instead.

Mila came skipping back into the room.

“Daddy! Did you forget me? I told you to tell me when five minutes was up. And also, I’m hungry. And also, I’m not sure there’s room for all three of us on McKenna’s bed, so you may need to sleep on the floor.”