I Love How You Love Me (The Sullivans #13)(62)

She’d dealt with Richard all by herself and knew she’d dealt with him well. But in the aftermath of the confrontation, Grace needed desperately to lean on someone, to know that she wasn’t alone. Because even though she’d taken care of the situation with her ex, she needed Dylan. Not only to call him to tell him what had happened, but also to hear his calm, reassuring, loving voice before she got on the phone to do whatever it took to persuade the top child custody lawyer in the country to take her case.

Grace went to get her phone and that was when she saw the bag from the pharmacy sitting on her kitchen table. Oh God, how could she have forgotten?

She still needed to take the pregnancy test.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Dylan had been counting the minutes until he could be with Grace again.

If Mason was still napping, he figured they’d barely get the front door closed before her clothes were off and he was inside of her. Later, after they’d spent the rest of the day playing with Mason and then put him to bed for the night, they’d move to a slow seduction. One in which pleasure would spiral out for hours and hours.

But the second Grace opened the door, despite how incredibly beautiful she looked in her dress, all those fantasies disappeared. She didn’t say anything, just stepped aside to let him in. When she closed and locked the door, her hands were shaking.

“What’s wrong? Is it Mason? Is he sick?”

“No. Mason’s fine.” She put her hand on Dylan’s arm before he could run into the bedroom to check for himself. “He’s perfect.”

Relief swamped him a beat before he realized that she wasn’t speaking to him as though they were lovers. Or even friends. Instead, that wall she’d had up during their first interview was back. And she’d taken her hand off his arm too fast when she should have been pulling him closer instead.

“Talk to me, Grace. I can see that you’re upset. What happened?”

Her face crumpled for a second before he watched her visibly work to pull herself together. “I was going through my calendar, looking at my deadlines, when I realized...” She looked up at him, the emotion in her eyes piercing straight through him. “I thought I was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” The thought of Grace carrying his child rocked his world so much that it took him a few seconds to take it in. “We’re going to have a baby?” He hadn’t seen this happening, but he was happy. Couldn’t remember ever being this happy.

“No.”

He was halfway to pulling her into his arms. “Wait. I thought you said—”

“I took a test. Two, actually. They’re both negative. I’m never usually late, but maybe the stress of everything lately has made my system go off schedule.”

Dylan knew he needed to control his disappointment, but he’d never lied to Grace before and wouldn’t do it now. “Ever since I met you and Mason, I’ve wanted you in my life. I’ve thought about being his father a hundred times, but I never thought past that. Hadn’t thought about you and I making our own baby together. But when you said that you thought you were pregnant, when I thought that it meant you were...” He drew her against him the way he’d been about to just moments before. “It was the best news I’d ever heard.”

“How?” She looked utterly confused. “How could it be?”

“You make great kids, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“But we haven’t known each other that long. I mean, I know we’ve had fun—”

“Yes, we’ve had fun. And I hope we always will. But what we are, what we have, is so much deeper, so much bigger and stronger, than just having fun.”

She didn’t pull away, but she wasn’t putting her arms around him, either. “When I realized I was late, when I thought that I was pregnant again from out of the blue, I thought I had ruined everything. That you’d think this is what I do—I pretend to protest that I’m not easy, then go around sleeping with every successful guy I interview in order to reel them in.”

He took her face in his hands. “I would never think that. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve known each other, how long we’ve been dating. I knew you were the one the second I saw you. Both of you. You’re it for me, Grace. And,” he added with a grin, “if you wanted to try to change the results on the pregnancy test for next time, I’m all for it.”

But instead of the answering smile he hoped for, she still looked as serious as he’d ever seen her. “What else is wrong? It’s not just thinking you were pregnant, is it?”

She took a deep breath, one that shook in her chest. “The party I went to last week for Mia at Tatiana’s set—some pictures leaked from it. I don’t know who could have taken them, maybe one of the wait staff? All I know is that there was one of me and Mason.”

“Your ex,” Dylan instantly guessed. He had to work to keep his hands from fisting at the thought of the bastard coming after her and the baby. But it didn’t work. Couldn’t work when the fear that something bad might happen to them was the worst feeling he’d ever known. “He saw the picture, didn’t he?”

“I was freaking out thinking I might be pregnant when I heard the doorbell ring and thought you were back early. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him standing there. Not just because he’d managed to track us down so easily, but because I couldn’t believe he had decided he wanted Mason after all.”