Page 74 of Reckless Love

I let him go as though he’s burned me. “Why?”

“Did you think he was mine, Ava?” He braces his hands on either side of my pillow, his biceps popping out of the edges of his T-shirt.

“I wanted him to be yours,” I admit out loud for the first time, my voice laced with tears. “I was sure he was yours. Nothing else made sense.”

“And you got the test because?”

“Oh, god.” I turn my head to the side, avoiding his piercing gaze, but that only puts his muscles in my direct line of sight. Not helpful. “Why are we talking about this? I don’t want to talk about this. It makes me feel like an idiot. A terrible person.” I sneak my hands up between us to press my fingertips into my temples, my head pounding again.

He backs off and hits the call button beside my bed. When a nurse cracks open the door, light from the hall streams in, and Stephen says, “She needs some pain meds.”

With him out of my space, I rub my face with my hands, and I wonder if I can really tell him the full truth. The Ava in this bed can’t help wondering if past me was too weak, too easily led. If I took one foolish mistake and compounded it by a thousand.

“Why do you need all the details?” I ask.

“We can talk about it later.” The intensity in his expression hasn’t eased. “Your doctor will kick me out if I get you to the point where they have to sedate you again.”

“Oh, please,” I say with a huff that makes my chest ache again. “My son is right there. Why would I need to be sedated again?”

“Fine, then, Ava. Tell me why you needed the DNA test.”

“You know why.”

“I need you to say it.”

I stare at him, and tears pool in my eyes again. Unable to face him, I stare out the window into the glow of the streetlights. “I was mad at you for saying we were done when that was never true. Or at least it never stuck. But you’d never said that to me before. I was the one who broke things off, not you.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he’s so still in the room that it makes the ache in my chest, probably from my surgery and my broken ribs, but also from remembered heartbreak, that much worse.

“And?” he prompts when I don’t continue.

But I don’t know if I can get it out, if I can tell him the rest without breaking down. It’s been years, but I’ve never been as low as I was after he left. How do I make him understand something I’m not sure I truly survived?

“If I tell you all of this—the whole truth—you have to tell me about your accident.” I turn to face him. “That’s the only deal I’m willing to make.”

The nurse knocks lightly on the door and comes over to my IV, injecting medication. Almost immediately, the pounding in my head ceases.

Stephen’s gaze, which has been glued to my face, softens. “See?” he says. “No need to torture yourself.”

The nurse leaves, and Stephen lets out a deep sigh. “I signed an NDA about the accident.”

“She just drugged me. I’m unlikely to remember anything.” I cross my heart, and his lips quirk in a hint of a smile.

“You’re feeling those drugs, aren’t you? I think you’d probably tell me what I want without the deal.”

“Nope,” I say, popping the P.

“You trust me, I’ll trust you,” he says with a little nod.

“Just like old times,” I whisper.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Stephen

Up to this point, I’ve been keeping Ava at arm’s length. It hasn’t made me happy. In fact, since the accident, I’ve been fucking miserable knowing I have zero right to take any shift at her bedside. Gage took pity on me when it came to Landon, knowing we’d gotten close while I was on assignment with them. But Ava? Sitting at her bedside said more than I’m worried about the kid.

So when they wheeled Landon in here earlier, I took the overnight shift with enthusiasm. Even if Ava didn’t wake up, I’d get to see her, examine her, reassure myself that she was in one piece. Alive. On the road to recovery.