Tears crowded her eyes and she felt like an idiot. But there was no doubt the longing in his voice hit her right in the heart and softened it into mush.

“Why do you think you’re ill-prepared to be a father?” she asked softly.

He closed both hands around her foot and rubbed his thumbs up and down the bottom, pressing and massaging the sole, then moving up to her arch and on to the pads below her toes.

“I work to the exclusion of all else. I never go anywhere that I don’t bring work with me. Most of my social events are work-related. There are times I sleep at my office. Just as many times I sleep on a plane en route to a meeting or to scope out a location for a new development. A child needs the attention of his parent. He needs their love and support. All I can really do is provide financially.”

“I said this once already but you don’t have to stay the same person just because that’s who you’ve always been. Parents make changes for their children all the time. I’m not any more prepared for parenthood than you are. I always imagined I’d wait until I was older.”

He arched a brow. “Just how old are you? You make it sound like you’re some teenager.”

She laughed. “I’m twenty-five. Plenty old to have children but since until a few months ago I haven’t had a serious relationship, and by serious I mean thinking of marriage and commitment, et cetera. I knew that having children was still some years away.”

“It would seem we’re both going to be handed parenthood before we thought we were ready.”

“But would we really ever say we were ready? I mean who just announces one day, ‘Okay, I’m ready for children’? I think even people who plan their pregnancies still have to be a little unprepared for the changes that occur with the arrival of a child.”

“You’re probably right. I think you’d make a great mother, though.”

She cocked her head, flushed with pleasure at the compliment. “That means a lot that you’d say that, Rafael, but what makes you think so? I haven’t exactly shown a lot of responsibility to this point.”

“You are a loving and affectionate woman. Warm, spontaneous. Loyal and generous. And you’re direct. You had no qualms about taking me on when you thought I’d wronged you. I can only imagine how fierce you would be in protection of our child.”

“Do you know why I think you’d make a great father?”

His hands stilled on her foot and he glanced up at her.