daughter. “I called the lab,” I said in a voice weak from having cried for several minutes straight.
“Then you have the test results?” he asked. “I wanted to call them, but I couldn’t find the papers, and I really didn’t give a shit because I was too worried about you and Maya.”
I moved back so I could see his face.
Everything I’d ever dreamed about was there in his eyes.
His commitment.
His desperation.
And his unconditional love.
“Maya is your biological daughter, Aiden. The lab thinks they swapped two samples and labeled them incorrectly. Another guy called them. A man who matched and shouldn’t have. He’s sure the child isn’t his, but he just needed the paperwork to confirm it. Your samples came in on the same day. The results you got were probably his. And he got yours. You need to do a retest, and so does he. But I swear on my life that I was never with anybody but you. And that I was already pregnant when I left for San Diego. It’s not possible for her to be anyone else’s child.”
I could see that he was listening this time, and his gaze was tormented.
“Fuck!” he cursed. “How does that shit happen? And how the hell can I ever make something like that up to you? I called you a liar, Skye.”
I shrugged. “Human error. And if you love me, I give you a pass. I’m not always rational when it comes to you, either. And it meant the world to me that you’d accept Maya even if you knew she wasn’t your biological child.”
“She’s a perfect kid. Why wouldn’t I? I love her, too.”
I nearly went into another crying phase, but I managed to force myself to hold it back this time. “So you believe me now?”
He nodded. “I’ve got my head on straight now. I shouldn’t have ever doubted it in the first place. Tell me what I can do to make it up to you. Please,” he rasped.
I could feel in my heart that he wasn’t doubting what I’d told him. “Just tell me that you love me again,” I insisted. “Because I love you so much it hurts.”
He gently slid me off his lap, stood, and rummaged in the pocket of his jeans.
When he found what he was looking for, he knelt beside the couch. “I love you, Skye. Probably more than I can ever express in words. I need you in my life forever. Just marry me and put me out of my misery, for God’s sake,” he rasped.
He popped open the box he was holding and held it out to me.
It was the most beautiful diamond solitaire I’d ever seen.
I was searching for words. “You don’t have to do this to try to make up for saying some things you shouldn’t have. I was hurt, but I understand why it happened,” I said breathlessly.
“I’ve had this ring in my pocket since we came back from Vegas. That’s how bad I wanted you to be mine. And I still do. Maybe worse than I did when I bought it.”
“I’m already yours.”
“Then maybe I need reassurance,” he said huskily. “You don’t have to start planning the wedding, but wear my ring. When you’re ready someday, then we’ll get married. I know you’ve been through hell. And I don’t blame you for not wanting another husband. But I swear I’ll try to be everything he wasn’t.”
Maybe he didn’t know it, but Aiden was already everything my first husband wasn’t.
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know how to tell him that there never had been and never would be any comparison.
Aiden was the only man for me and always had been.
“I love you,” I said because I couldn’t express how I felt in words.
“I love you, too, sweetheart, but could you just say yes already?”
I laughed. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
I wasn’t afraid of marriage anymore. Not with him. Never with Aiden.
“Thank God,” he said in a heavy sigh of relief.
He took the ring and tossed the box aside.
It fit perfectly when he slid it onto my finger, and I felt the slightly eerie sense that something had just happened that should have occurred a long time ago.
Like the world had suddenly been righted, and everything was the way the universe had always intended it to be.
CHAPTER 29
SKYE
“You have no damn idea how good it is to see that ring on your finger,” he said in a hoarse tone as he sat back down on the couch and pulled