Project Runaway Bride(53)

If Juliet had known, had had even a clue, she would have handled the situation so much differently.

“You...” she began, but then had to stop, shake her head in disbelief, swallow and begin again. “You have a child already? How old? A boy or a girl? What’s his or her name? Do you see him...or her?”

Once the questions started, they just sort of poured out in a jumble. It was too much to ask all at once, and surely more than he wanted to share at this moment, but she couldn’t help the rampant curiosity coursing through her veins.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head again. It was so much to absorb when she hadn’t expected to even see him again in the very near future.

“No, it’s all right,” he responded gravely. “I should have told you before.”

Taking a breath, he said, “A son. Ten years old. His name is Theo.” He paused for a moment as pain tightened the corners of his mouth. “But I don’t see him, no. Valerie doesn’t even know I looked them up. She has no idea I know she had the child and married another man.”

“Oh, but Reid...” Juliet stepped closer, squeezing his hands in her own. “You deserve to meet him, to spend time with him, to be a father to your son. And he most certainly deserves to know you. He may have a father figure in his life, but he doesn’t have his real father, and every child has the right to that.”

Reid’s fingers flexed around hers, and for the longest time he said nothing. From the granite set of his jaw and brightness of his gaze, she suspected he was fighting back some rather ragged, overwhelming emotions.

And as much as she wanted to know everything, wanted to help him reunite with his firstborn—if that was what he needed, and if there was anything she could actually do to facilitate such a reunion  —she didn’t want to push him. Not here or now.

He’d already opened up to her so much when she hadn’t expected it at all, and he would tell her more when he was ready.

So she simply waited, letting him work through his thoughts and feelings while they remained close and connected.

Eventually, his chest trembled as he took in a deep, shaky breath, blowing it out again slowly. Then his eyes locked with hers, so full, dark and sincere that her own lungs hitched slightly.

“I’m telling you all of this because...when Valerie left, she took the future I thought I was going to have with her. The whole wife, kids, white picket fence, minivan part of the American dream. And without even realizing it, that caused me to stop trusting people.... Women especially. I didn’t want to get hurt again, but more than that, I didn’t want to make plans and get my heart set on something only to have it torn away from me.”

Releasing one of her hands, he brought his knuckles up to brush the line of her cheek. “That’s why I thought what we had was perfect. Intensely passionate, but casual, and with the knowledge that it was going to end. Maybe not as soon as it did, but eventually. No strings, no commitments, no expectations.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “It didn’t work out that way, though. From the very beginning, I was head over heels for you. I’m not sure I fully realized it at the time, and if you’d asked, I would have denied it to my dying breath. But it was there, so clear it nearly steals my breath to think of it.”

Juliet’s own breath was turning thick and heavy in her chest, her eyes growing damp.

Had he just admitted he cared for her? Maybe even...loved her? She was afraid to move, exhale, to so much as blink for fear he would stop talking or, God forbid, change his mind and start to backtrack.

So she remained perfectly still, waiting and hoping he would say more, her muscles rigid as her nerve endings popped like kernels of corn in a kettle of too-hot oil.

“Even before you told me about the baby, I wanted to be with you. It took every ounce of self-control I had to sit in my office the day of your wedding and not race to the church to stop it from happening. And the only reason I went into the office at all on a Saturday was because I knew if I stayed home, there’d be no chance of me staying put. If your sisters hadn’t shown up when they did to tell me you’d run off, I honestly don’t know how much longer I’d have lasted, anyway. I was about to chew through my desk, imagining you walking down the aisle into the arms of another man.”

Despite her determination not to move, she couldn’t hold back a watery chuckle.

Reid smiled in return. And then he grew serious again. “When I think about Valerie leaving, I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I’m even more sorry that I haven’t been in Theo’s life. But when I think about losing you...”