Come Back for Me (Arrowood Brothers #1)(55)

“No, it’s not about that,” I chew on my lip nervously.

“Ellie.” Connor’s concern is laced in my name. “I promise, it’ll be okay. I’ll be right beside you, and with the way the judge ruled the last time, I’m sure that it’ll go your way.”

“No, I know. It’s not that. I know you won’t let him hurt us,” I say. “I actually got something else—results, really.” I try to ignore the sliver of fear in his eyes as I walk over to my purse. I pull the envelope out and hold it in my hand. “I didn’t open it. I really wanted to, but I thought it should be something we do together—that is, if you want. Or I can open it and tell you.”

Connor steps closer, his fingers grazing mine as he takes the envelope. His eyes study the plain manila envelope with the company name and the address label before he raises them back to me.

“We do it together.”

I nod, unable to use my voice even if I wanted to. It feels as though something is sitting on my throat as the enormity of this moment washes over me.

We’re going to find out if she’s his.

My hands are shaking, and so are his as he lifts the paper from the envelope.

Connor looks at me once more. “I mean it, Ellie, this changes nothing about how I feel. I love Hadley, and whatever is going on with us isn’t going to stop because of this. If she’s mine, I swear right now, that I’ll protect her with my life. I’ll follow your lead on how we handle it because she’s what matters. If I’m not, then she will never know anything different. But regardless of whether I’m her father or not, she will never fear that man again. Neither of you will.”

“But don’t you see, everything will change.”

He shakes his head. “No, it won’t.”

“If she’s yours, then you will want to make up for all the time you lost. You’ll have needs because, as a parent, that’s how it is. You will love in a way that you don’t ever fully understand. She will become your world, as she should, and that will bring big changes for all of us. So, while you think it won’t . . . it will. Let’s at least acknowledge that.”

Connor puts the paper down on the table and pulls me into his arms, eyes searching mine. “I have thought about you since that night we met. I’ve wanted you, craved you, loved you in some way for eight years. The only thing that this will change is that the family I thought I would never have is now in front of me. The woman I thought I might have conjured up is still real and we still have a chance to have something. Maybe something will change, but the way I feel about us and what we’re doing won’t.”

I touch my hand to his lips, wishing that the words he spoke could somehow absorb into me because no one has ever said anything more beautiful. “It won’t for me either.”

“Good.”

I kiss him once, because he’s close and I can’t seem to help it, and then step out of his embrace and grab the letter.

With shaky hands, I lift the fold and then lower the other, and then tears fill my vision after I read the first line.





Chapter Twenty-Four


Connor





I have a daughter.

I have a little girl. Ellie and I have a child. That’s what keeps going in my mind on repeat. It’s as though I’m waiting for the ink to change in front of me, telling me it isn’t real. Hadley is my daughter.

Ellie’s hands drop from the paper, and I look into her blue eyes. “She’s mine.”

“She is.”

I want to say something more than this, but nothing seems adequate enough. I wanted it so badly but wouldn’t allow myself to hope it could really happen. Hadley and I bonded instantly, and over the last few months, she’s become so much more than the girl I found in the tree.

“I don’t know what to say,” I admit as I read the words over again. Ellie wipes at her eyes and that snaps me out of it. “Are you okay?”

She nods quickly. “I wanted this to be the results. God, I practically convinced myself it had to be, but . . . I worried so much she wouldn’t be. It was one night and we were careful—at least, I thought we were, but then the timing and I . . .”

“I’m so fucking happy.”

Ellie laughs through her tears. “I am too. I wanted it to be you.”

I pull her back to me and kiss her roughly. I’m over the fucking moon. I really wasn’t sure I’d feel this way. Of course, I wanted her to be my daughter since the moment Ellie said it, but I couldn’t know what it would feel like to find out she is.

For so long, I’ve been resigned to being single and never having children.

Now, I’m standing before a woman I love and just found out that I have a daughter.

My heart is racing, and I’m not sure whether I want to scream, laugh, or both at the same time. “It’s like everything inside me is ready to burst. I can’t explain it. I wish a lot of things were different, but then . . .”

Ellie looks away and her breathing accelerates. “Connor, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Sorry?”

I have no idea what she has to be sorry about.

“Sorry that I never found you. I’m sorry I married that horrible man and let him raise her. I’m so sorry she didn’t know what life could’ve been like with you!” Ellie sobs, and I pull her to my chest. She cries, and I hold her. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more for her! I’m sorry!”