hold you back from it. I’d support you. If you wanted to quit working and just take care of the baby, I’d be fine with that. If you wanted to go back to school, I’d be fine with that, too. Whatever it is you need, I will help make that a reality.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’ve had more what-ifs in my life than I care to. And this... This gives me the chance to answer a lot of my greatest ones. Getting to be the father that I’ve wondered if I could be... I want to be a father. Everything else... Everything else doesn’t matter as much.”
“You don’t expect to hear that from men,” she said.
“Maybe not. But most men didn’t lose out on the chance of fatherhood the way that I did. So for me... If you’re going to get a second chance, you gotta be willing to pour everything into it. And that includes caring about your happiness, Wren. I want you to stay my wife.”
“Creed...”
“Like I said, be whatever you want along with that. I’ll support you. I swear it.”
He had assumed so many things about her. He had looked at her and seen the glitter and polish, had associated her with her father and the kinds of things her father had done, and Creed had imagined her to be avaricious and shallow, because it was so much easier to reduce people to stereotypes. Because it was easier to do that than to see her as a person.
Because now that he saw her as a person, he had to contend with the complicated feelings she created inside him. And he knew he had been avoiding that. Avoiding it because something in him had recognized a connection to Wren the moment they first met.
He had no doubt about that.
And he had been running from complicated since the first time emotional entanglements had bit him in the ass when he was sixteen.
But he hadn’t known anything then. And he hadn’t known anything for a lot of years after because he had simply clung to his anger at Louisa and used it as a shield.
But age forced him to see everything with a hell of a lot more nuance, and being in this situation again demanded the same thing.
He was having to contend with the fact that Louisa didn’t seem like such a villain anymore. And that the fact didn’t make the past hurt any less for him.
Having to contend with the fact that there was a lot of mileage between just sex and whatever this was between him and Wren.
And whatever their feelings were, whatever they could be, they were having a baby. And he wanted this child to have the benefit of everything his son had.
If there was one good thing about Creed never busting into his son’s life, it was that he’d given him a family. He’d honored and respected that.
But now, Creed wanted the same kind of family for this child.
So he would give Wren anything. Absolutely anything.
“I don’t know what I want yet,” she said, looking almost helpless. “I’m not sure that I can make that decision while I’m still in the middle of this big...change.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. Maybe it’s not the best time, but my offer stands no matter when you take it.”
“Thank you.” She looked at him again. “For now, can we just focus on cheese and sex? Because those are decisions I feel like I can make. I would like both.”
“And I can accommodate.”
And that was when he pulled her into his arms again, and they quit talking about the future, about anything serious.
Because there was a whole lot of uncertainty out there, and in the future. But there was no uncertainty of any kind between them when it came to their mutual desire. It was certain, and it was real. And it made everything else seem manageable. Like it might be the easiest thing in the world for them to find some way to make this marriage and parenthood work.
Creed was determined in that.
If sheer stubbornness could will something into being possible, then he knew he and Wren would succeed.
Because they were two of the most stubborn people on the planet.
He just had to hope they could do it without deciding they wanted different things. Because in the end, that would end up tearing both of them apart.
She and Creed had been living together for two months.
She’d wanted a wedding night... She was getting a full-on honeymoon.
She’d wanted to