He settled her into a chair and knelt by her feet, caressing her face with questing fingers, likely to verify whether she was about to face-plant on the floor. His heat faded from her body far too fast. All she could do was drink in his precious face, hair falling into it and all. God, she’d missed him, missed the feel of him under her fingers, missed the rush of him through her blood.
“Why would you say something like that?” she burst out. Now that they were alone, all her emotional consternation over the last few days squished her chest. Which wasn’t going to work. She needed to be calm and rational instead of a hairbreadth from flinging herself back into his arms, where she felt safe and beautiful and loved. “None of what we had was real.”
“Because I’m trying to make it crystal clear that what we had before might have been fake, but what I want to have going forward isn’t.” Quietly, he surveyed her. “We’re starting off with no misunderstandings. The way I feel about you is real. I should have told you before now.”
“But I don’t understand.” Her voice gained a little strength as some of what he was saying filtered through the ache in her heart. “You didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. What changed?”
He didn’t so much as blink. “I realized that I was being shortsighted by letting something like a past relationship stand in our way. I can accept a baby that isn’t mine. As long as you come along with it.”
The ground slid away at an alarming rate. Words. Buzzing in her ears. No context.
“What past relationship?” And then isn’t mine registered. “Are you accusing me of having slept with someone else while we were dating?”
Before she could stop herself, she slugged him on the arm. Her knuckles glanced away and started smarting like she’d hit a brick wall. Which wasn’t far off.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “We didn’t have an exclusive agreement. I was being a Neanderthal about it.”
“The baby is yours, idiot,” she ground out through clenched teeth as his face went ghost white. “Men. Oh, my God. Really? When would I have had time, Logan? Of all things. I went to four million baseball games with you. I went to Oakland. What do I have to do to prove that I was invested in us? If you’ve made me miserable for the last few days because you didn’t bother to ask me one of the most basic questions—”
Air whooshed from her lungs as he snatched her into his arms, holding her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. But she could still hear him repeating sorry over and over.
Squeaking, she shoved at his rock-hard pecs until he eased up a bit. “Seriously? You thought the baby wasn’t yours?”
Oh, God. All of this started making a wonderful, terrible sort of sense.
“I...made my own assumptions about why you didn’t tell me right away,” he confessed miserably. “I’m so sorry. I should have clarified before storming out. It’s really mine? I’m going to be a father?”
As she nodded, the clearest sense of wonder stole over his features and his smile spread through her veins, warming her. “Really. No question.”
He wanted the baby. Raw, gorgeous emotion beamed from deep inside him so clearly that those unshed tears inside her welled up and over, falling down her cheeks unchecked. This was what it should look like when you told a man you were having his child. Beautiful. Bonding. Amazing.
His smile turned a little misty. “You’re right. I’m an idiot. And you can feel free to call me one for the rest of your life.”
“Are you going to be around that long?” she murmured, her eyes widening as he pulled a square box from his pocket and unhinged the lid. “What are you doing?”
Exactly what she’d dreamed of, obviously. Giving her the one thing he’d never given anyone else, because he thought she deserved the unique experience reserved for the future Mrs. McLaughlin.
“Proposing,” he verified as her stomach twisted. “But not on camera. Because this is for me and you only.”
The ring sparkled in the light, shooting pink flares into her eyes and nearly blinding her to all the huge problems with what he was about to do. Everything came to a head in one horrific shot. She swallowed and shook her head. “No, you can’t.”
He eyed her. “Why not?”
I might say yes.
He deserved better than a defective bride. Her frozen hands wouldn’t move, wouldn’t stanch the flow of pain. “You didn’t ask why I kept such a big secret. I have a history of miscarriages. This baby might not ever be born. Then where will we be?”
His eyelids shuttered for a moment, and when he opened them, the compassion there nearly crushed her anew.