The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(71)

He nods. “I’m sorry.”

“So…” We’re walking through the airport, headed who knows where; I hope he knows.

Gabe exhales sharply. “Madeline came—she got my hotel info from fucking Roy, my agent—and she tried to tell me Gen was really mine, by blood. That she had falsified the genetic testing.” Gabe laughs dryly. “As if that would help her cause. I called her bluff pretty damn early. After that, she started saying she wanted me back. That was when I suggested we go downstairs to the hotel restaurant. Gen was right there with us. She was happy to see me, but she could tell what we were talking about. I wasn’t thinking when I started hurrying Maddy down the hall. I didn’t have my phone. I figured we’d be gone for maybe an hour, most. You wouldn’t notice. You had been asleep when I stepped out. I figured with this going on—” he touches my belly— “you’d be sleeping like the dead. So anyway, we get downstairs and she just falls apart. In front of Gen. And that’s when I realized she was drinking…or on something. Turns out, Gen’s biological father broke things off with her. He doesn’t want any more to do with them than he ever did.” Gabe looks pained as he says that. “She’s on her own now, and she knows it. Maddy doesn’t like that kind of life.”

“So what happened?”

“I went to the front desk and called her sister, Adi. Maddy has a twin. And Adi is the one who’s got her head on straight. Aunt Adi came to get Gen.” He frowns, and I squeeze his hand. “While Maddy and I talked. And you know what?”

I shake my head.

“She wants me to take half custody.”

My stomach twists, and he lets go of me so he can wrap an arm around me. “None of this means you should worry, Marley. I told Maddy no—unless she wanted to pay a visit to her lawyer’s office and amend the custody agreement so it’s only about Geneva, and not the two of us. Basically it had said that later, after one whole year of Gen adjusting to me not being her dad, I could see her again every other month or so.”

“And now?” I want to scream out all the anxious pressure in my chest.

“She did it,” he says—and for the first time, I can see the fear on his face. “She took me right then and there and went to her lawyer, woke them up early, and she asked that they amend the papers…giving me more custody.”

“What is it?” I manage to choke out.

“Well, it depends. If I’m living in New York it would be three days of the week. And if I’m not, it would be every six to eight weeks. For four days. I hope you’re not upset. I just—”

I’m shaking my head. “No. Hell no. I’m not upset at all.” I laugh. “I’m happy for you. So happy!”

“You being serious?”

“Of fucking course I am!”

“You’re not pissed that I just got custody of someone else’s—biologically, someone else’s—child?”

“No. I’m not. At all. Because she’s yours. Gabe…c’mon. I can see that. Gen is yours.”

Gabe stops in the middle of the corridor and hugs me tightly. I can hear his heartbeat underneath my ear, can feel his chest pump with his too-fast breaths.

“Thank you. Fuck.” He blows a rough breath out. “That had me worried.”

“What’s yours is mine.” I smile up at him. “Especially at the jewelry store.” I rise on my tip-toes, and Gabe leans down. I kiss him gently. “Kidding, of course. Mostly.”

We stand there kissing for so long, someone snaps a picture. Which gets sold to Page Six, where we see it two days later on Gabe’s iPad back in Fate.

“My woman’s looking good,” he says. I ruffle his hair. “Sexist pig. I’m not your trophy.”

“Okay…” He grins. “I’ll be yours.”

I kiss his head and then his temple, and I don’t say it aloud, because sometimes some things need to be just yours. But I think, That was it. That picture on Page Six should probably be framed. That was the moment we became a family: Gabe and Gen and little bean and me.

“I guess they’re good for something,” Gabe mutters.

“Who is?” I ask.

“Page Six.” He gives me a funny little smile. “Would it be weird if we framed this?”

“It would totally not be weird.” But it might make me cry as I go back into the kitchen for our coffee.

In private, of course. I wouldn’t want to worry baby daddy.





6





Gabe





Nine Months Later





Marley in labor is a sight to behold. When she told me a few months ago she wanted to have the baby naturally, I told her my vote was “against,” but I’d support her if she wanted to. And, crazy as it seems to me, she did.

She went into labor on a Friday afternoon, but it took the two of us till Saturday to notice her contractions getting regular. Geneva wasn’t due back to her mother in New York until Sunday, but it seemed better to just go ahead and take her, so Mar’s friend Lainey kindly flew with her.

I suggested calling Kat—or anyone with a vagina, really—to assist in Marley’s labor, but she vetoed that idea. Said she only wanted me around while she bounced on her birthing ball and did her mindful breathing and soaked in the tub.