Claiming The Rancher's Heir (Gold Valley Vineyards #2) - Maisey Yates Page 0,47

last, but she knew that he was motivated by a deep, feral need to keep his child close to him.

It had nothing to do with her, and he’d never pretended it did.

It does, a little bit. He doesn’t want anyone else to have you.

It was true. But was that the same as wanting her? Really wanting her?

She didn’t know.

And she didn’t even know why it mattered.

Why it suddenly felt imperative that there be love between them.

Because other than your sisters, have you ever felt like anyone really loved you?

The question bit into her, and she tried hard to keep on doing her job while it gnawed at all she was.

Eventually, she was unable to keep herself away from Creed any longer.

“This is looking good,” she said.

“It is,” he responded. “It’s good.”

She wanted him to say that he was proud of her.

But wanting his praise made her feel small and sad.

Because was she ever really going to be different? How could she ever be new? When she was still just simpering after the approval, the love, of a man who wasn’t going to give it back?

Maybe he will. Maybe you just need to ask him.

She looked at his square jaw, at his striking features that seemed as if they were carved from stone.

He had been hurt. Badly. But did that mean he couldn’t feel anything for anyone anymore? She knew that he loved their unborn baby. That he was intensely motivated by that love in everything he did.

Although, he had never said those words exactly. He didn’t talk about love. He talked about opportunities, responsibility. He talked about not wanting to miss anything. But he had never said the word love. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel it, but it did give her questions about just how much he knew his own emotions.

Considering her own were a big giant news flash to her, she didn’t think it was outrageous to suspect that he might not be fully in touch with his own.

He held himself at a distance. She looked down at his left hand, at the ring he wore there.

He was her husband. And it wasn’t a secret. She closed the distance between them, kissing him on the cheek. “I’m glad that we did this.”

The look in his eyes was unreadable.

“Me, too.”

She didn’t know if she had meant the event. The pregnancy. The marriage.

How could she feel something so deep for this man? This man she had thought she felt only antagonistic things for a few months ago. Well, she felt chemistry with him, but she hadn’t known him. Hadn’t known that deep wound that he carried around. The intensity with which he cared about things.

And whether or not he knew it was love, she did.

He had been ready to set everything aside at sixteen and become a father.

He bled responsibility. He was everything her father wasn’t.

And then he had let her choose their house, had sold a place that meant something to him. His own house, so they could build a life together. He’d asked her about her dreams, and he’d said that what she wanted was important.

No one had ever said those things to her. No one had ever offered the things to her that Creed had.

All that, and it came with the kind of intense passion she hadn’t even known existed.

How could she not fall in love with him? How could she have ever not loved him?

She swallowed hard and leaned against him, pressing her face against his suit jacket and inhaling his scent. “Thank you for dressing up for me again.”

“It was appropriate,” he responded, his voice hard.

She could feel him pulling away, not physically, but emotionally. And perversely it only made her want to cling to him even more tightly.

She couldn’t help herself.

She was supposed to be focusing on the triumph of the evening. A few months ago, she would have been. It would have been all-important to her. Because she would have gotten approval out of it. Approval from her father.

It was such a different thing to be doing something for herself. She still cared about the winery. It was just that she already knew she approved of the job she’d done. She wasn’t waiting for recognition. She was good at what she did, and she didn’t question whether or not she could execute something like this.

It freed up her mind to worry about other things. It made all of this less all-consuming. Less important. Because it wasn’t an essential part of her happiness. Wasn’t