Pulse (Collide, #2)(96)



His hand dropped from her stomach as he looked away… then his whispered words sank her, gutted her open. “I’ve known about the test for a couple of months.” He brought his eyes back to hers.

His statement bounced around in Emily’s head. Staring at his face, bleeding something parallel to shame, she tried to swallow. She felt dizzy as she stood, resting her hand on his desk for balance. “You’ve known?” she breathed, her eyes misting over with tears and confusion. “You’ve known about it and didn’t say anything to me?”

Gavin rose and brought his hand to her cheek, but she flinched away. For a second, he found his voice trapped, felt his heart sink. He knew the lie he was harboring would upset her, but hell, her reaction was tearing him apart. He nodded, stepping back. “I have.”

“For how long?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“After we found out it was a boy.” Gavin looked at the floor, remembering the day he couldn’t keep his curious fingers from clicking around the internet. A son. His possible son had fueled a need so deep within him to see if there were other options, he’d thought he was going crazy. He spent half the day online. Once he found out they could have the answer so fast, fear shot through him. Frozen in front of his computer, Gavin realized the answer may not be what he wanted to hear, what he needed to hear. It also brought on a slew of f*cked up emotions he wasn’t prepared to handle. For the most part, he felt Emily was carrying his child, but as he stared at the screen, his faith vanished.

“That was months ago, Gavin.” Emily swiped tears from her face, shocked at how long he’d known. “I don’t understand. Why would you keep this from me?”

Stepping closer, he shoved his hand though his hair. All he wanted to do was touch her, console her, but her defenses were up, so he would tread. “I was buying time.” He spoke softly and stared at her face as it became further dowsed with confusion. “That’s it. I was buying time.”

“Buying time? Time from what? We can’t stop the inevitable. But we could’ve stopped Dillon from being at every doctor’s appointment.”

Gavin shook his head, his fears tumbling from his mouth. “No, we couldn’t have. He’s the father. Not me.”

Emily swallowed back a breath at his admission. Her knees went weak. The man before her revealed something he’d hidden so naturally, so effortlessly over the past several months. She didn’t know whether to scream at him or cry for him. However, she knew he did it for her. She could never deny his natural instinct to always protect her feelings. He’d sheltered her by keeping his fears to himself. As she watched his spirit break right before her eyes, she decided to reveal something as well. Something she’d started feeling the last few months but didn’t recognize what it was until now. A pull so internal, so warming, she thought it was going to melt her. “You are this baby’s father, Gavin Blake. Do you hear me?”

Gavin stared at her a long moment, sour thoughts invading his mind. He wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t. His words came out as a whisper. “I’m not, Emily. He is.”

Heart shattering, Emily stepped closer and reached for his hands. She molded them to her belly as the baby tried to kick his way out. Staring into Gavin’s weary eyes, she cupped his cheeks. “You are the father, and I’ll tell you how I know,” Emily cried, pressing her lips to his. “I know because I can feel every bit of you running through my veins. Your blood, your heart, your soul. I can feel it. I feel his love for you. Every time you talk, he moves. Every time you laugh, I swear he vibrates like he’s sharing the joke with you.” Sliding her arms around his neck, she twined her fingers in Gavin’s hair and buried her face against his chest. “I know you can feel him moving, Gavin, and he knows it’s his father’s hands on my stomach. He knows it.”

Gavin had said Emily’s hands shook every time she touched him. Here and now, it was his he couldn’t control. He smoothed his trembling hands along the swell of her stomach, feeling the life they may have created squirm within her body.

With tears streaming down her face, Emily stared into Gavin’s eyes. “I need your faith and belief in everything you know we were meant to be.” She pulled in a stuttering breath and held his face. “I need it to be stronger than your fears and doubts. Don’t you dare give up on us, Gavin. Don’t give up on him. Please.”

Gavin nodded and bent his head, brushing his lips against hers. “I won’t,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. “I swear to God I won’t.”

And there, standing in his office with the woman he couldn’t live without, the woman who showed him what it felt like to have his faith restored by her simple touch, Gavin was no longer afraid of not being this child’s father. Instead, he drowned in the fact that not only did the woman with him believe he was, and was in love with every fear he had, but another life was already in love with him.





Climbing the mountainous stairs to the second floor of Gavin’s home in the Hamptons proved a more difficult feat than the year before. With a bottle of water in one hand and a hearty plate of reheated Chinese food in the other, Emily reached the last step quite winded. As she made her way down the hall, she couldn’t help but stop outside the room she and Dillon had slept in the last time she was there. Tainted memories of their stay stormed her mind. But as she stared into the space, one memory trumped the rest. It knocked them all to the ground. This particular memory would never taint her. She’d hold on to it forever.

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