The light turns at Lakeshore Drive, and he takes my hand as we cross. His touch is everything I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours telling myself it isn’t. It’s comfort and peace and home.

We cross to the beach, and he waits while I kick off my heels, never letting go of my hand. The air is cool and the sand is cold against the bare soles of my feet, but it’s welcome after the heat of the crowd inside the bar.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it,” I say, when we’ve walked for a couple of minutes and he still hasn’t replied. “I do. And it’s tempting but . . . I know how you feel.”

He swallows. “But do you really know? Because I don’t think you do, and that’s on me.”

“I know you want to protect me. I know you care about me.”

“Do you know that I want to be with you?”

“Of course I know, but things are complicated, and I get that.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve asked me before. You’ve asked me why I want to be with you, and you asked because you needed me to explain it. You asked because you didn’t believe it. Ask me now.”

“What?” I blow out a breath and search for the courage not to take anything from him he doesn’t truly want to give. “Easton, you and I have never gotten the timing right. No one will judge you for how you feel about this pregnancy.”

“Ask me why I want you.”

My heart squeezes as I remember having this conversation before. When I asked him in Paris, he needed me to find the words. And he stumbled when I asked him at the cabin on Sunday. It shouldn’t have mattered and it did. I shake my head. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Ask me.”

Does he know how fragile I am? Does he understand that I don’t have the energy or the emotional fortitude to write my own love poem? “I already know. Same reasons I want to be with you, right?”

“Ask. Me.” He squeezes my hands, then whispers, “Please.”

“Why do you want to be with me?”

He grins, like the question itself is a gift. “I want to be with you because I think about you all the time. Sometimes when you’re away from me, I convince myself I’ve made up how good it feels to have you close, because there’s no way one person could make me feel so damn good. But then I’m near you again—like right now—and I know I was right.”

My heart somersaults. I did need to hear this, whether I knew it or not.