“Me, too. It was just part of breathing. And you know you never think about breathing, until you do. And then you become unbearably conscious of it. And that was what happened with me. I realized suddenly how much I love you. It was hard for me, because I was looking for it all to be like my parents’ marriage. Which from the outside seemed like something that... I don’t even know if it was that. Because you can’t know. You can’t know what goes on between two people in love, not really. But I had this idea in my head, and I didn’t think that the crazy, dark feelings I had for you could possibly be that.”

“Crazy?” She lifted her brows. “Dark?”

“Yes,” he said, his expression turning feral, and she loved it. “The exact kind of feelings that you avoided. The exact kind of man you avoided.”

“Tell me more.”

“Possessive. Obsessive. I had this feeling... This... You’re mine, you know? I felt that way from the time we were kids. That you belonged to me.”

She leaned forward and bit him on the chin. “Then you belong to me. And you know, I only dated men who were nothing like you because I couldn’t have you. I wouldn’t let myself. And dating an approximation of you would have only been sadder, and more obvious in what I was attempting.”

“Really?” He looked smug and satisfied at that.

“Really.”

They just held each other in silence for a moment, before she spoke again.

“I’m scared,” she said. “A lot. Just in general. And I’ve been running. I’ve been running from that fact. From me, for so long. Looking at my mother scared me, because it was like looking into a future version of myself, but I didn’t see that. So I decided to have a baby to make a change, all without changing myself. Making big changes on the outside is so much easier than changing your heart.”

“Sure.” His voice had gotten scratchy. Husky.

“But this was the journey that I needed to go on. This one. Right here. Where I had to get right down to my own heart and quit standing in my own way. And admit that what I was looking for was right in front of me all along. But I was going to have to be vulnerable, be real to have it. So this is me. I’m scared sometimes, and I act the way that I do to keep people at a distance. But you know me better than anyone else. And I want you to keep knowing me. Keep being with me, even when I’m a mess. Please. Please love me through all of that, Ryder.”

“I promise,” he said. “And I am a stubborn, taciturn old man in partial retirement. I’m set in my ways. And I’m going to be a pain in the ass about water birth. Do you think you can accept me, knowing that’s it? That this is me?”