Page 93 of What He Always Knew

Here we were at the foot of another challenge, and he wouldn’t face it with me. He wouldn’t stay. He wouldn’t love me through it.

Though, could I really ask him to? Was it fair of me to even ask that he love me and a child that may or may not be his, let alone to expect it?

I didn’t even have to ask the question to know the answer.

I was a selfish woman, and I’d taken too much — from him, from Reese, from everyone around me. I couldn’t undo what had happened, couldn’t right this wrong, but one thing I knew for sure was that I would not walk away from my child.

No matter who the father was.

“I understand,” I whispered after a moment, sniffing back the tears gathering in my eyes again. “I just wanted you to know, and now you do. I love you, Cameron, and I choose you. But I choose this baby, too. And I get why you wouldn’t want it, I get why—”

“The test,” he said, interrupting me as he slowly turned. His eyes found mine, his gaze fierce. “I don’t wantthe test.”

I blinked.

“I don’t understand.”

Cameron crossed the room, carefully lowering himself to his knees as he took my hands in his. He kissed my knuckles, his eyes on mine before he dropped my hands and placed his own over my belly.

“I want you, Charlie. I choose you today just the same as I chose you on our wedding day eight years ago. You are mine,” he said. “And so is this child — regardless of its DNA.”

There he was.

It was Cameron —myCameron — who knelt before me with his hands on my stomach, welcoming the child within it as his own, whether it was or not. It was my husband, taking me for who I was — flaws and all. It was the man I chose, the man I would choose time and time again, in any lifetime, in any situation, reminding me before I even had the chance to forget why I really had no choice at all.

I folded my hands over his, smiling through my tears, and Cameron leaned up to press his lips to mine.

He kissed me like the horizon kisses the sun as it sets — tenderly, with the blinding promise that another day would come.

With that kiss, we sealed our choice. With that kiss, we shut the door on the past. And with that kiss, with my hands over his, and his over our child, we began a new chapter in our story — together.

And I knew this one would be brighter than the last.

Three hours earlier

Reese

I wished I never quit smoking.

My body itched for the sweet relief of nicotine as I flicked the wheel of my lighter, on and off, watching as flame after flame was lit and then snuffed just as easily. At first, I’d counted each one, but I’d lost count somewhere around two hundred, and now I simply watched numbly as I rubbed my thumb raw on the lighter.

It wasn’t that I was nervous. It was that I was impatient.

Right now, Charlie was likely across town, telling Cameron that their marriage was over. I knew when she got to me, she’d be a mess. She’d be crying, she’d be mourning the loss of him and what they built together, and all I wanted was to fast-forward to when she was in my arms. I wanted to hold her, to rock her, to assure her the choice she made was the right one.

I wanted to love her — without him — and I couldn’t wait much longer.

I started counting the flames again, and somewhere around seventy-two, there was a knock at my door.

I jumped up like my couch was on fire, sprinting to the door and flinging it open in one fell swoop. And then she was there, on my porch, just like she had been the first night I’d had her as my own. She looked just as sad, her eyes just as dark, face just as long.

For a solid minute, I just held the door open, my eyes tracing every single feature. I wanted to remember that moment, the one right before she was mine. I took in her long, dark hair, the waves of it broken by the wind. My eyes traveled down her slim waist, catching on the jean shorts she wore, though it was cooling down now that the sun had set. She trembled a little as my eyes devoured her legs, trailing all the way back up slowly to connect with her brown irises, and then I held the door open wider.

“Come in.”

She stepped in slowly, crossing her arms over her middle as another shiver traveled through her.

“Here,” I said, reaching in the closet near my door for one of my hoodies. I ripped it from the hanger and passed it to her. “I’ll get us some wine. White or red?”