"I said it the other day," he begins before he lowers his lips to brush over mine. "When I thought you were having our baby, I said it."

My heart drops slightly at the quiet admission. He had said it in the heat of the moment when he thought I'd just announced that I was expecting his child. I don't want him to back track and tell me that it wasn't grounded in his reality but in the momentary belief that we were going to share a baby boy. I study his face, my gaze sliding over his eyes. "I remember, Dane."

"On the street that morning I thought you were telling me that you were having my baby." He glides his lips across my cheek. "I was so happy."

I feel a stab of pure joy. "You were happy?"

He nods his head slightly, causing his hair to brush against my neck. "Having a baby with you would be a dream come true."

I hear the words clearly but absorbing them isn't as easy. A baby of my own is an abstract, but wanted, part of my future. I'm too young to even consider the notion of bringing another life into my world. My work is finally finding its audience and my heart has just started opening to this beautiful, caring man. A baby may be something we'd discuss years from now, after we'd traveled somewhere exotic on our honeymoon, and have shared a few anniversary dinners.

"I haven't thought about having a baby," I say honestly.

"I didn't either until I thought you were having ours," he murmurs in my ear. "It made me understand how much you mean to me."

"You said that you loved me when you thought I was pregnant." I graze my lips against his temple. "I understand if you said it because of that."

He pulls back so his gaze is on my face. His lips part just as his eyes lock on mine. "I said it because I mean it, Bridget. I love you."

I feel my lower lip tremble. Even if I wanted to repeat back the words to him, my body won't allow it. I'm tangled in such a tightly wound emotional knot that the only sound I can make is a tempered whimper.

"I'll say it again so you never forget it," he rasps. "I love you, Bridget Grant. I'll never stop."

***

My eyes catch on the leg of my jeans as I watch Dane pull the sweater he was wearing earlier back over his head. After he'd told me he'd loved me, he'd fucked me slowly, the entire time his eyes had held onto mine.

I had wanted to say those tender words to him but after we'd both came, he had kissed me deeply before pulling himself to his feet. He'd retreated into the bathroom and as I listened to the water from the shower running, I'd stood to stare out the window into the darkened city.

Everything I wanted was ten feet away from me, singing at the top of his lungs in the shower, yet I couldn't drag my feet across the small bedroom to join him. I wanted to but the weight of the words I can't yet say to him are there, tugging me back, making me retreat.

Now, as I watch him adjust the ball cap back on his damp hair, I know the moment is gone. I can't share my heart with him tonight. I can't do it with the knowledge that I'm the one holding things back from him.

"We need to talk about Cleo," he says as if on cue. "I want to talk to you more about her."

I reach for him as much to feel his touch one last time before he leaves, as to stop the urge I have to bend over so I can pull the white card with Cleo's hospital room number on it, from my jeans. I should have confessed to him that I know where she is. I should have told him that she's a mom now. I shouldn't have held onto all of that as he opened his heart to me.

He wraps me into his arms. "I'm so glad I came over.  I have to go to work but I'll be back tomorrow."

I nod as I feel his lips rush over my cheek. Tomorrow. That's the day I'll tell him about Cleo.

Chapter 11

"It wasn't Maisy?" Zoe holds up the carafe of cream. "Do you want some of this in your coffee?"

I shake my head slightly, holding my hand over the rim of the paper cup. "I don't have cream in my coffee."

"Right." She dips her chin down as she rips open the corner of a small packet of sugar. "Vanessa takes cream."

It's an off-handed comment that isn't supposed to sting as much as it does. Zoe's life is a balancing act. When she's not taking care of Vane, she's either in class at law school or working her way through her internship at an office in mid-town. The fact that she wanted to pour cream into my coffee is a gesture that comes from a helpful place in her heart. She can't know that it only punctuates the fact that she and Vanessa are closer than the two of us will ever be.

"We can sit over there by the window." I gesture towards a small, empty table next to two wooden chairs.

She tips the cup in her hand in that direction. "That's perfect."

I walk silently through the crowded café towards the table hopeful that by the time we reach it, another New Yorker hasn't settled there to read the morning paper or work on their laptop.

I skim the room as I take a seat at the table, waiting for Zoe to lower herself onto the chair opposite me.

"Vanessa said it was her sister or something," she says loudly as she blows a puff of air over the cup. She holds tightly to the base when she snaps the plastic lid back on top. "Did you even know she had a sister?"

I'm tempted to push back with a question about whether Zoe knows if the girlfriend that Beck had before they married had a sibling. Until a few days ago I didn't even know that Dane had a brother. I wouldn't label myself as informed when it comes to the important people in his life or the lives of the people he once loved.

"They look a lot alike," I offer. "I can see how Vanessa mistook Cleo for Maisy."

"Is Maisy in a wheelchair too?" Her face twists into a grimace. "That sounded insensitive. I didn't mean it like that."

She didn't mean it in any way other than curiosity. I know that. "Maisy isn't in a wheelchair. Vanessa saw them both at the hospital at different times. Maisy was sitting in the cafeteria and then she saw Cleo a few weeks later in her wheelchair."

"What were they doing at the hospital?"

It's a question I have absolutely no answer for. I've been meaning to ask Dane about his mother's relationship with his ex-girlfriend and her family but if I'm being honest with myself, the answer isn't something I'm sure I want to hear.

I don't have an ex-boyfriend who keeps in touch with my parents. Most of the boys I dated when I lived in Connecticut didn't even want to hang around my mom and dad when we were immersed in a relationship. I can't imagine any of them purposefully making plans to spend time with them. It's an abstract concept to me, but apparently it's not to either Maisy or Cleo.

"I think Cleo was there because she had a baby."

"How does that work?" She leans her elbows on the edge of the table. "I didn't know that women in wheelchairs could have children."

I didn't know either but it wasn't a conscious thought I had when I first realized she was pregnant. I didn't question the mechanics of how it was possible. I just reveled in the joy that had radiated from Cleo that day I met her. It was only a week later, after I saw another pregnant woman dining on a patio at a restaurant that the question crossed my mind. I'd meant to ask Vanessa about it back then but it didn't hold even importance for me to remember it.

"I don't know the details of her condition." I want to convey the sensitivity I feel. "It's something I want to talk to Dane about."