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I’d fucked up horribly, massively, disgustingly—I hadn’t trusted her. And the more I sat on the fact that she kept the pregnancy from me for weeks, the more I came around to her side on that, too. She’d put herself through literal hell on her own, sending herself so deep into it that she had panic attack after panic attack, purely to keep my level of stress one notch lower.
I should have trusted her. I should have trusted her from the beginning.
“We knew it would be a disaster either way,” I said, my voice just slightly too hoarse for my liking. “There wasn’t a part of either of us that thought you’d take it well, and that’s fair. You have every right to be upset with me, David. Truly. I won’t apologize for being with her, but I will for the way you found out. Your anger was and is entirely justified.”
Ava set the papers down on the desk, her gaze flicking up to mine.
“Does he know?” I asked.
She shook her head. Not yet.
“Know what?” David grunted.
“Can I tell him?”
Ava looked between us, her lower lip catching on her front teeth. She nodded.
I hesitated for a second, the weight of what I was about to say settling in my chest. This wasn’t how I’d imagined telling him, not under these strained circumstances. I’d hoped things would be lighter, but he was still standing there with his arms crossed, his body closed off entirely. “Twins,” I said, gesturing toward Ava. “We’re having twins.”
I could hear Ava’s shift in her breathing as she watched her father.
His reaction was subtle—there was barely a shift in his expression, but the flicker of surprise in his eyes was unmistakable. I pressed on regardless, hoping like hell I could get through to him enough to then get through to her. “Two girls, Dave. Granddaughters.”
After what felt like hours spent in silence, he uncrossed his arms, his gaze dropping briefly as if the weight of that realization finally hit him. When his eyes met mine again, there was still wariness there, but something softer, too—a crack in the rigid frame he was putting on. His jaw worked as if he was holding back what he wanted to say. “Twin girls, eh?”
I nodded. “I understand that you don’t want me anywhere near her,” I continued, shoving down the nausea that boiled in my gut the moment he raised a single brow in my direction. “But I’m not going to leave her to the wolves or to fend for herself. I’ll be there in whatever capacity she allows, be that a helping hand or a co-parent or a partner.”
His mouth flattened before he opened it. “Ad?—”
“I can handle your consequences,” I continued. “I’ll sell my apartment if I need to, sell my business, sell my boat. I’ll sell my fuckin’ wine collection. It doesn’t matter. I would rather have Lucas and the girls and her than any of it.”
I could see Ava from the corner of my eye, but without looking directly at her, she was too out of focus to gather anything other than the fact that she was looking directly at me. I could feel the burn of her gaze on my skin, and although the vulnerability I was lying at our feet was going to eat me alive, I let it fuel me instead.
“I would choose her with or without your blessing, if she wants that.” I swallowed down through gritted teeth. “You, probably more than anyone, would understand why I hesitated to answer your question last time we spoke. But I can tell you now that I love her. And whether she returns that feeling or not, I’m not disappearing anytime soon.”
David’s eyes lingered on me for a long moment, the silence heavy but different now, almost contemplative. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Ava, couldn’t even track her in my peripheral anymore. It was too much.
He nodded once. A slow, reluctant gesture, but a gesture nonetheless. “I shouldn’t have threatened ‘ya,” David said quietly.
That was the closest I was going to get to an apology, and I would gladly accept it.
“It’s Ava’s choice, then, with whatever she wants…”
David’s voice cut off abruptly, and before I could process what was happening, I felt the soft warmth of arms wrapping around my neck, pulling me in. Ava stepped into me silently, burying her face in my shoulder, her nails digging into my jacket and the side of my neck. For a second, I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe — too stunned by the feel of her against me, by the simple fact that she had chosen to close that distance between us, I didn’t know how to react.
But the second I understood, I closed my arms around her gently, breathing her in, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the knot in my chest loosened.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered into her hair, my voice barely steady. “For everything, Aves. I’m sorry.”
She only tightened her grip on me.
I looked beyond her, watched over her head as David’s eyes clung to the two of us. That look of stone cracked just a little bit more, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward just enough for me to notice.
“If you’re what she wants, Adrian, then ‘ya can have my blessing,” he said, a heaviness in his voice that I didn’t quite recognize coming from him. “Just don’t fuck it up and I’ll support it.”
Chapter 39
Ava
