What The Greek's Wife Needs - Dani Collins Page 0,63

find a job and figure out what I can afford.”

“You were supposed to use your settlement to buy a house—” His breath sucked in as he caught sight of the crib tucked behind the pony wall at the top of the stairs.

He took off his sunglasses as he moved to look down on Illi. Her little arms were thrown up beside her curly hair, a corner of the knit blanket tangled in the fingers of one hand.

“She’s growing,” he said softly, moving her huggy bear into her side before he adjusted the blanket. His face spasmed with naked emotion as he looked down on her.

It was the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing Tanja had ever seen.

That’s why he’s here, she realized with a hard swallow. She wouldn’t deny him time with Illi, either, even if it would cause her to feel jealous of her own daughter.

“Can I, um...” She had to clear her throat. “Can I make you some coffee?” She moved toward the kitchen.

“I miss you.” He spoke so softly she was certain he was talking to the baby.

She turned to see it, to be included in some small way in his quiet admission to a sleeping baby. She told herself she only wanted to see him crack and reveal his love for her daughter, but he wasn’t looking at Illi. He was looking at her.

The floor fell away and her entire being filled with helium. Not oxygen. No, there was not a bit of that in her right now.

“Both of you,” he said with anguish creasing his features. “I hate going home. It’s not a home anymore. But I don’t know how to ask you to come back and make it into one. I don’t know what I could say that would convince you.”

“You do,” she said faintly. The buoyant hope inside her butted up against the shadows of despair she’d had to make into friends. “You just don’t want to say it. And I understand why, but—”

“No, I do,” he said with a rasp in his voice and a jerky step forward. His gaze went to the window where the white curtains glowed with a sudden burst of sunshine on this changeable spring day. “I think I’ve wanted to say it for a long time. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t matter. That it wouldn’t change anything because it never had in the past.”

Tanja set down the ceramic mug she had drawn from the cupboard, afraid her numb fingers would drop it to smash at her feet.

“I think I would have said it five years ago if I’d had time to understand what this feeling is.” He clenched his fist in front of his heart. “It hurts. You know? Like a muscle that aches so bad after a run you never want to exercise again. I’d almost rather throw up than feel this much. It’s too intense to bear.”

“It is,” she said, biting her lip. “It was how I felt when you left me.” Her lips trembled as she added, “And when I left you.”

“I’m mad at you for that,” he admitted with a ragged laugh. His clenched fist lowered. “Hypocritical, I know. I’m angry you divorced me even though it’s what I said I wanted and you used the money in the best possible way. But I’m angry because I want to be your husband, Tanja. I want to be Illi’s father and the father of as many kids as you want in whatever way you want to bring them into our lives. I love you. And I want you to love me, but—”

“No buts.” She rushed toward him and he caught her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care.

“Say it again,” he commanded.

“I love you. That’s all it is and all it has to be, Leon. I love you. So much.”

He drew one shaken breath, then his mouth found hers. Their lips fused with perfection the way they always did, but with a new sweetness. The kiss was frantic with reunion, yet tender and familiar and new. It was imbued with a love that she was realizing had always been there, deep and soft and unacknowledged beneath every kiss they had ever exchanged.

Now it was real. True. Celebrated.

“Will you marry me?” He broke away only as far as he needed to whisper the proposal against her lips. “Again? This time I mean it. No escape clauses. We commit to facing our challenges together. Figure out how to get through them together because I will never