“I went to go see him, Cat.”
My eyes widened with fear. “Oh no! You didn’t kill him, did you!?”
“I thought about it,” he admitted shamelessly. “But then I shut up long enough to listen to him and hear how he feels.”
“I think he made it pretty clear how he feels when he dumped me.”
My father shot me a scolding look—the kind he used to give me when I was little and got into trouble talking back to him.
“You’re even worse than I am with how stubborn you can be. You know that?”
“I learned from the best,” I chirped, flipping my hair.
“What I’m saying is I shut up long enough to listen to him, and if you were smart you’d do the same for me now.”
I rolled my eyes and plopped down into the closest chair, begrudgingly waiting for him to tell me whatever it was he thought he had to say. But in that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything making me hate Jordan any less. He had his fun, used me up, then tossed me to the side like some toy he had grown bored with. I guess fucking me was only fun for him while we were in hot pursuit of our rights to Heartstring.
“I was worried Jordan was only using you,” he admitted. “But I see now that it was more than that for him. He loves you, Kitty-Cat.”
My heart stopped for a moment. No matter how hard I tried to pretend, those words were something I had been secretly wishing to hear this whole time. Since I was fifteen, actually.
“What makes you so sure?” I asked slowly, still in shock.
“Because he told me so, and because I’m very gifted at knowing when a man is lying to me. You have to be in the business world. I’ve told you that.”
He was right, and in fact—that was what made it so hard to see Jordan pretend like what we had meant nothing more to him than good sex. It never seemed right to me, and I wasn’t convinced. But fighting it would have made me vulnerable. That wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.
“I believe him,” he continued. “Which is why I gave him my blessing.”
“Blessing for what!?” I shrieked.
“My blessing for him to win you back…For you two to be together.”
“And what did he say?”
“I’ll let him tell you.” He stood and crossed the room, opening my front door.
I shot to my feet and watched Jordan walk in.
“You two came together?” I marveled. It was hardly what I would have imagined happening when my dad went to him after everything I accidentally blurted out.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Dad offered, showing himself out.
Seeing Jordan flooded me with so many different emotions. My eyes welled up and I could feel my heart pounding. I wanted to run into his arms and to slap him all at once.
“I’m…I’m sorry about earlier,” he started slowly. “I told him…what I couldn’t bring myself to say to you. Which is that…the only reason I wanted to end things was the fact that we had to hide it from your dad. I just did think there was any way he’d ever let us be together. I didn’t want us to lose Heartstring, and I didn’t want to cause a rift in your family.”
I was so close to caving in, breaking down. I already felt an overwhelming urge to race into his arms and let him kiss all the hurt away.
But he was the cause for all that hurt, and I wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. Besides, he still had yet to make the declaration my father swore he had to make.
“It’s not easy for either of us to say how we really feel,” I admitted. “But at least I kept going with the flow. Maybe I didn’t tell you how I felt, but I tried to show you. And what did you do? You left me hanging. You just stopped everything. What do you think that did to me!?”
“I messed up,” he nodded. “I know that. But Cat…Your father is giving us his permission to see what this thing between us really is.” His eyes dropped to my stomach. “But honestly, I think I already know what it is. No, I know it. I know that I love you.”
Hearing it straight from his lips was an even harder blow to withstand. My mouth dropped as I tried to find the words to say, but I was at a loss.
“How do you know it?” I ventured to ask.
A smile eased across his lips. “Because the moment your father told me you were having my baby, the whole world seemed to fall into place. Like this was everything that was meant to happen. You, me…this child. I saw this whole movie flash before my eyes…of what our lives would be like. You, me, and the baby. A family. I knew right then that I’ve never wanted anything more in my whole life…Not a single business deal, not even Heartstring, even begins to compare.”
His eyes stared earnestly into mine. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
I stammered for a moment, still unsure if I could bring myself to really say it. I didn’t know if, after everything, I was ready to put words to all of the feelings that had been building up more and more for weeks.
This wasn’t a teenage fantasy anymore. This was real…and standing right in front of me, waiting for me to take the plunge. Everything I ever wanted was so close—hanging right there, just waiting for me to take it.
“I love you too,” I admitted through a gush of air escaping my lungs. Just saying the words felt like lifting a weight from my shoulders, and suddenly I was so light I swore I could have flown off into the sky.
But then the sense of impending doom set in. Now that I had said, there was no taking
