“You did help me, Alessandro. You helped me more that I can even say.”

His lips purse. “Not in the way I’d meant to.”

“Please, Alessandro. I don’t know how to make you understand. You were what I needed, and if what we did was wrong, it was my fault. I can’t live with your guilt. If you can’t forgive yourself for you, do it for me. Please.”

He brushes his fingertips over my jawline. “There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you.”

I kiss him, then sink deeper into his body, resting my head on his chest. I remember how safe I felt in his sixteen-year-old arms. Some things never change.

BRIGHT MORNING SUN is streaming in my window when I finally wake in Alessandro’s arms and find him gazing down at me. His lips brush mine. “Good morning.”

I roll so I’m facing him, his glorious naked body pressed against mine. “Morning.”

He kisses me deeply, liquefying my insides and making me hope he’s leading up to something more. So when he kisses the tip of my nose and says, “I want to know everything about Henri,” my heart skips.

I knew this was coming. We need to talk about it. But what if he wants to tell Henri?

The skin around Alessandro’s eyes tightens. “Hilary, you look like you’ve swallowed a porcupine. Say something.”

“It’s just . . .” There’s a tug at my heart that I can’t explain. I love Henri so much, and part of me has always wanted him to know the truth—to have him look at me the way he looks at Mallory. “I want him to know . . . but Mallory . . . she’d never . . .”

He threads his fingers into my hair and kisses my forehead. “Mallory has been an excellent mother to him. When and how Henri learns the truth has got to be her decision.”

My insides loosen. Everyone’s on the same page. This is good.

“Henri is amazing,” I start, and then I can’t stop, telling him everything about Henri, from how his first step turned into his first somersault, to how, instead of learning to speak one word at a time like most kids, he saved it all up and started spouting full sentences when he was fourteen months old. I tell him how Henri could do hundred-piece puzzles by the time he was a year and a half, and how he tested into the gifted program at school in the second grade. I tell him how, when Max was nine months old and Mallory still couldn’t get him to eat solid food, Henri was the one who finally got him to eat, even though he was little more than a baby himself, by finger painting scenes on Max’s plate in baby food that Max would slap his hand into, then lick off. I tell him how Henri held Max’s hand and walked him to class his first day of school, and how he’s always been fiercely protective of Mallory, and how he loves Jeff more than anything.

And then I realize what I’ve said and I cringe a little.

“He loves his father, Hilary, as he should. It means he’s had a happy upbringing. That’s all I could ever want for my son.”

At those words coming from Alessandro’s mouth, a shiver courses through me. Henri is his son, and now he knows. It’s surreal that we’re even having this conversation . . . forget the fact that we’re doing it naked in my bed.

His fingertips whisper over my neck, my shoulder and to the curve of my breast. “You are incredibly beautiful in the morning, Hilary McIntyre.” He drops kisses over my forehead and cheeks as his hands start their soft exploration of my body, and when he reaches into the box next to the bed and comes out with a condom, I know I’m going to get my wish.

JESS IS UP an hour later when Alessandro leaves, and her eyes flick between us as she grins from behind her coffee cup.

Alessandro kisses me at the door, his fingertips gliding along my rib cage over the thin silk of my bathrobe, tightening my nipples and making me want to drag him back into my bed. But Max’s birthday party is this afternoon, and I promised Mallory I’d be there to help herd seven-year-olds.

“Will you come to my hotel tonight?” he asks me, pulling me tight to his body.

My hands drift down his chest, over solid pecs, to the ridges of his abs. “You’re ready for more lessons?”

I feel his lips curve against my forehead. “Always your willing pupil.”

His hand slips behind the nape of my neck, and he pulls me into another kiss. “Text me when you’re on your way.”

When I close the door behind him, Jess squeals and jumps up and down, clapping her hands. “Oh my God! He came back for you! I swear to God, Hil, that is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t stop the goofy smile that breaks across my face. “Speaking of, how’s Hailey?”

Her grin matches mine. “Good. Really good. We’re going to a party tonight with all her Broadway friends. She says she wants to show me off.”

“You’ve arrived, Jess. A Broadway secondary and a director girlfriend . . .”

“Casting director,” she corrects.

“Semantics.” I turn and pad up the hall toward the bathroom. “How’s our Advil supply? Max’s birthday party is this afternoon.”

BY THE TIME I get to Mallory’s, the place is full of fifteen of Max’s second-grade classmates.

Mallory puts me in charge of games while she handles food, and with Henri’s help, I get the kids organized for pin the tail on Scooby Doo and the piñata.

There’s cake and ice cream, and Max opens his presents. Little by little, moms come to collect their kids, and finally they’re all gone and I can hear myself think again.

Jeff, Henri, and Max are putting together a matchbox racetrack in the family room as Mallory and I clean up the mess in the kitchen. I’m washing and she’s drying when I get up the nerve to say it.

“I told Alessandro.”

Her head jerks up from the dish she was drying and her eyes widen. “I thought he was gone.”

“He came back.”

“And you told him! Why would you do that?”

“I just . . .” I shake my head, “He’s Henri’s father, Mallory. It’s not right to keep that from him.”

“Is he going to say anything?”

“To Henri?”

One of her eyelids starts to twitch as she stares me down. “To anybody.”

“No, Mallory. He won’t say anything, but . . .”

“But, what?” Her jaw is tight and I can feel fear and betrayal radiating off her in waves.

“Don’t you think maybe Henri should know the truth?”

She holds her breath for several long heartbeats, and I can’t read her expression, but then she breathes out and sags into the counter. “Does he want to be part of Henri’s life?”

“I think he wants to get to know him.”

“And that’s all? He’s not going to try for custody?”

I shake my head. “No, Mallory, We both know you are Henri’s parents in every way that matters. We would never try to take him from you. But . . .” I pause, putting down the bowl and sponge and setting my resolve. “I never knew my father and I don’t want to do that to Henri.”

Mallory flicks a glance toward the family room and lowers her voice. “But this is different, Hilary. Henri has a father. Jeff is his father.”

“I know. I do. Jeff is an amazing dad—”

“Please don’t mess with him,” she begs, tears glimmering in her eyes. “He’s too young. This would be too hard for him to understand. It would just confuse him.”

Is she right? Am I being selfish?

“When he’s ready, I promise we’ll tell him. You and me, we can tell him together. I just think it’s too soon.” Tears spill onto her cheeks and she wipes them away.

I bite my lips between my teeth. She really is trying to protect him. It’s me who’s out of line. “You’re a great mom, Mallory. I mean it.”

“I can’t imagine my life without him.”

“Me either.”

She pushes off the counter and hugs me. “I love you, Hilary. I really do.”

“I love you too,” I say thickly past the lump in my throat as tears leak over my lashes.