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“So are we back together or what?”

That’s the question I want to ask as I sit on my windowsill across from her, but we’re in this confusing state of flux where I’m waiting on a call from my lawyer to give me permission to be with the woman I actually want to be with.

So I don’t ask it.

Yet.

She slipped earlier and said we were dating, and I’m taking that as good enough for now.

“I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday,” she says. She clears her throat and glances at me a little nervously. “My mom has a meeting she can’t get out of, so I’m going alone if you want to come.” Her voice is soft, like she’s imposing on my free time by even asking.

“You’re not going alone,” I say, my voice louder and confident. “Of course I want to come.”

Her brows dip a little as she tugs on the hem of the blanket covering her legs. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“Why are you being so good to me?”

I draw in a breath as I consider her question for a beat. I’m living on instinct here, doing the things I feel are the right things to do despite others—including my own parents—trying to talk me out of it.

I want to be with Tessa.

They say when you know, you know, and I’ve always known it was her.

I made mistakes, I dipped my feet into other waters, I stayed married to Savannah longer than I should have since I didn’t have Tessa to give me the motivation I needed to get the fuck out, but no matter what I’ve been through since she left…it always comes back to her.

“Because we’re T and T,” I finally say. She chuckles a little, but I shake my head, dead serious. “I mean it, Tess. We’re Tristan and Tessa. We have a history that binds us, but we have this indescribable bond that doesn’t just go away, you know? We ended up in the same place after seven years apart and we picked up right where we left off.”

“If I hadn’t shown up at the same time as you, do you think we would’ve found our way back to each other?” she asks.

“I know we would have.” I press my lips together. “Fate would have intervened in some other way. It would have stepped in to push us back together. I can’t say how or when, but you and me? We’re destined to end up together. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. Maybe it would’ve been another seven years before it happened. Maybe you’d have kids, maybe I’d be long divorced, who the hell knows what might’ve changed in all that time. But one thing’s for certain: at some point, our lives would’ve crossed again. We would’ve found our way back to where we belong.”

“But I’m pregnant,” she says, as if her argument will scare me off or drive me away.

Nothing could scare me off from her.

Nothing.

“I know.” My voice is soft. “It doesn’t matter who has that baby’s DNA. If I’m with you, if we’re together, married, whatever…I will raise that child as my own. You have everything I want out of life, including that baby girl. It’s like some giant puzzle board up in the heavens where the angels match the pieces together, and somehow, your pieces click in perfectly with mine.”

Her eyes get a little misty at that description. “Really?” she asks softly. “You want all this?” She gestures down her body to indicate her pregnant stomach, and her hand lands on her chest to indicate herself.

I climb out of my window because she doesn’t seem to be getting it from words alone.

She scoots over to make room for me, and the two of us sit on her windowsill once I’m in. I toss an arm around her shoulders, and I press a soft kiss to her temple. “I want all of it. Doctor’s appointments and craft fairs and corn boils and football games and two AM feedings and diapers and trikes and fishing on the river. A life here and a life in Vegas. And I want to support whatever it is you want to do, too. You want to find a job nursing again? Let’s scan the internet. You want to plan festivals? Let’s plan. You want to be a stay at home mom? Let’s get some yoga pants, flip flops, and a whole lot of coffee. Is that what stay at home moms need?”

She laughs even as she wipes a tear from her eyes. “Somehow you always know the exact right thing to say.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I say modestly. I’m sure my wife would disagree with that statement, but I don’t want to bring her up when Tessa and I are having such a warm moment together.

She leans into my chest, and then she tilts her head back. I take it as an invitation, and I tilt my head down to press a soft kiss to her lips. I move to back away, to keep it short and simple, but she’s not having it. She grabs my face between her fingertips, opening her mouth to mine, and a rush of emotions plows into me. She swings her leg over so she’s straddling my lap, one leg on either side of me as I sit on her windowsill.

Our kiss moves from slow to intense as our tongues batter against each other, and kissing her now is even better than kissing her back then was. Maybe because we’re all grown up now, because we’ve weathered the storm and ended up on the other side of it, because we’ve each been through some things and we came out okay.

She shifts her hips down over me, and my dick hardens painfully with need. She moves her hands from my face as she wraps her arms around my neck, and I wrap my arms around her waist, my hands reaching under her shirt to skate along the porcelain skin of her back.

I pull her body close against me, as close as we can get, and I’m more turned on than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

I don’t just want her. I need her. I crave her.

I love her.

Every single piece of her. The past, the present, and, with any luck, the future.

She shifts again over me, and then she pulls back, her eyes cloudy with lust. “How much longer until that divorce is finalized?”

I let out a soft chuckle as disappointment lances through me. “According to my lawyer, uncontested divorces can go through in as little as one to three weeks in Nevada depending on how full the docket is.”

“Then let’s hope for an empty docket.”

Let’s hope indeed.

Once I’m back in my room all alone, my phone starts to ring.

Savannah .

Against my better judgment, I pick up. Call it fear of what she might do if I don’t.

“What?” I answer.

“I signed the papers,” she says quietly. “It’s uncontested, but it’s not too late to stop this from going through. Can’t we just…find a way to work it out?”

I can’t help my laugh. She’s up to something, and that’s for damn sure. “No, Savannah. We tried. I gave it two years, and you gave me nothing but hell. I’m done. I’m ready to move on with my life, and you should be, too.”

Hell, she’s an entire decade older than me.

Doesn’t she want kids? A real marriage? Happiness?

I remember who she is as soon as those thoughts trespass my mind. She wants money. Fame. Access. She wants to be a football wife, and that’s what matters to her above all else. I don’t know why. I never cared to figure out her motivation, but somehow she managed to twist her way into not one, not two, but three football players’ lives—not to mention Eric Scott, too. She’ll move to a new city and start over. She’ll make some other player’s life hell.

But it won’t be mine anymore.

She starts to say something, but I talk over her. “I wish you nothing but the best. Really. I hope you find the happiness you’re searching for, but it can’t be with me.”

I hang up before she gets the chance to respond, and then I immediately open my photos. I glance through the papers I took photos of from her jewelry box, and none of it is extra shit on me. I recognize names of some high-powered businessmen in Las Vegas, and it would appear I’m not the only one she’s been blackmailing.

While I hope and pray it’s the last I hear from her, somehow I know it won’t be.