Sun-Kissed - Frankie Love Page 0,13

Asher's sake, I never imagined this moment going down like this.

I never imagined that the moment I found out his name I would also find out he had a timestamp on his life.

"Oh, God," he says, rising from his chair. The realization that I'm here clearly shocks him and he grips the edge of the desk, his biceps flexing and his button-down shirt stretching over his muscles. Even if he's sick, he's as strong as ever.

In control.

Taking him in takes my breath away.

He looks like Asher. My Asher.

And Asher looks just like him. Tears spring to my eyes, completely in shock at this revelation. I blink back my emotions, imagining Dane's baby pictures, certain they would show the same blond curls and bright blue eyes and cheeks with dimples. Dane's baby pictures would be mirror images of Asher's.

I can't speak.

I'm the one falling apart when he is the one who is going to die.

"Are you alright?" he asks, coming around his desk toward me. I shake my head, my hand at my chest, unbuttoning the top button of my blouse as I try to fan myself. Cool myself. I'm suddenly so hot. So overwhelmed.

I'm faint.

And I'm not being fair.

This shouldn't be about me.

This needs to be about Dane.

I look in his eyes and in an instant, I'm back at that Miami cabana. Coconut and sunscreen and margaritas. Salty lips and salty air and sun-streaked hair.

His arms on me. His body against mine.

A moment of reckless abandon.

A moment of worlds colliding.

We made a child.

Asher.

And now Dane is dying.

"You need some water." He flings open his office door. "Carla, I need some water. Now."

"Yes, sir." Carla rushes in and brings me a bottle of water. Dane thanks her, tells her to clear his schedule, and then shuts the door.

Locks it.

I guzzle the water.

I can't breathe. I look at him and feel a million emotions. Heartbreak. Desire. Lust. Love.

No. Not love.

I can’t love a stranger.

Can I?

But what I feel for him is something deep and true and spans beyond life and death.

It’s not just because he is Asher’s father. That is part of it… but it is also that when he looks at me, he sees me.

"You heard, then?" he asks as I finish the bottle of water, trying to ground myself in the moment.

"When I saw the story last night, I finally figured out who you were... Your name..."

I want to tell him about Asher.

But he touches my cheek while sighing the deepest, most agonizing sigh I've ever heard in my life, then runs his hands through his hair.

The kind of sigh that is laced with regret. I just don't know what sort of regret right now.

Is it regret about ever being with me? Regret over what his life could have been? Regret over walking away?

"I'm so fucking glad you saw it." Dane shakes his head. "I've been yelling at my publicist all night and day, but if the press meant you found me... then it was worth it." He runs his hand over his chiseled jaw. A jaw I kissed, a jaw I want to kiss again.

"Bittersweet, though, isn't it?"

He laughs sharply. Too sharp. A sharpness that was probably embedded in his heart the moment he found out about his diagnosis. A sharpness he shouldn't apologize for.

He has weeks left to live.

"Life is a fucking trip, isn't it?" he asks.

I can't help but smile. And then he is smiling too. I don't know why, why we would smile in the middle of this mess—I still haven't told him why I came—but when he looks at me I can't help but see the world through a different lens.

And he is looking straight at my heart. He gives me a look so full of desperate longing that all I want to do right now is make his pain go away.

"I'm a fucking mess. I mean, when you met me I was a mess, but a different kind. Back then I was out of my head most the time, partying way too hard, but I met you, and everything changed."

"What do you mean, everything changed?" I have to ask. Because what he doesn't realize is that everything changed for me too.

The day we met is the day I became a mother.

"After I met you, I realized if I ever wanted to be a man who was good enough for a woman like you, I needed to be a better man. I needed to stop the bullshit, the games. I wanted to be the kind