Between the sunny afternoon at the tea-garden and the candlelit dinner about the supper table with his family, Hawk had not experienced a more perfect day. He did not wish for it to end, although of course it must. Christina was already abed. The house was silent.

He and Faith were alone in an empty sitting room. Two strangers with far too much history to know how to begin a new chapter.

“Thank you,” Faith said softly. “For today. The tea garden was lovely.”

“My pleasure,” Hawk said, and meant it. “Was it Christina’s first time at a—”

Faith shook her head.

Heat pricked the back of his neck. Of course it was not Christina’s first time anywhere. Just because he could not recall the last time he’d splurged on a visit to a tea garden did not mean Christina and Faith had been similarly restricted. His happy glow began to fade.

Just because his first outing with his wife and daughter had been an earth-shattering glimpse into the life they could have had, the sort of life he still intended to give them, did not mean the day was special in any way for them at all.

It was just tea. With a man who might as well be a stranger.

No. Hawk did not accept that future. From this moment on, he and Faith would talk. He wouldn’t settle for husband and wife on paper. Not when they had once been friends. Not when they could still become so much more.

If they could just break free of the past.

If a man with his sins even deserved the luxury.

“Even if it wasn’t Christina’s first tea garden—” he began.

“Seeing you with Christina today—” Faith blurted at the same time. Her cheeks pinkened.

“What were you going to say?” he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes pained. “You first.”

He gazed back at his wife for a long moment and tried to think how best to begin. At last, he took her hands.

“I loved it,” he said simply. “Being with you and Christina… It’s better than I dreamed.”

“I never imagined she would one day be raised by both her parents.” Faith’s smile wobbled. “Like a family.”

“Not like a family.” He slid a knuckle beneath her chin to force her to face him. “We are a family.”

“Christina doesn’t know that.” Faith’s anguish swirled about them like a winter breeze.

“She does,” he countered. “She will. I’ll tell her so every day if need be. Just because there’s no legal way to give her my name does not mean Christina shall lack for anything else. I will ensure she does not.”

“How?” Faith whispered. “We cannot undo the past.”

“But we can surpass it,” he said fiercely. “If Christina and the entire world need to know the truth about her parentage, I shall proclaim it from every rooftop. She is my daughter. I am her father. Now and always.”

Faith slumped. “I should have told you I was with child.”

Yes. And she would have told him, if he had not left her. If he had kept his promise.

His heart twisted. He had judged her harshly for raising their daughter in secret, but he could not claim she had done a poor job of it.

Regardless of the past, she had not hesitated to tell him the truth when he reentered her life and they finally spoke. She was trying. Not just to make up for the past but to make something of their future. Just like he was.

“I should have been there,” he answered roughly, hating himself for the coward he’d once been. “There would have been no secrets if I had stood by your side.”

“We’ll never know. I didn’t give you the chance.” She shuddered. “I can’t fault you for never forgiving me. I cannot forgive myself.”

She could not forgive herself for having no faith in a rogue who had promised her forever only to abruptly walk away and never look back? He was the one who deserved no forgiveness.

Hawk’s resolve hardened.

It was time to face all their old hurts. To vanquish the past once and for all. To let Faith know how much she meant and the lengths he was willing to go to ensure her happiness.

She was a good person, an exemplary mother, a truly miraculous daughter-in-law even to someone as irascible as his mother. She was a good wife. But far more than all that, she was important because she was Faith. His life-mate. His soul’s other half. His lover and best friend.

The only way to move forward was to rid themselves of the past.

To finally speak the words aloud.

“I understand your decision not to immediately inform me about your pregnancy,” he said slowly and clearly so she could not fail to hear him. “And I understand how quickly you found yourself in a position where you could no longer publicly admit it at all.”

She froze in place, her eyes wide and glassy with guilt.

He lifted her hands to his chest so she could feel the sincerity in each beat of his heart. “I forgive you, Faith. I forgive you for keeping Christina’s existence from me. I forgive you for every hard decision you had to make that continues to haunt you with guilt.”

She blinked rapidly without meeting his gaze.

His heart clenched. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about anymore. We’re together. All three of us, at last. Your lie of omission was made with our daughter’s best interests at heart. I could not possibly seek vengeance for so noble a motive as that.” He looked straight into her eyes. “It is past time for you to forgive yourself.”

Faith’s eyes shimmered and her hands trembled in his.

Hawk slid from the chaise to kneel before her, keeping her hands pressed against his heart. “The wisest part of me forgave you the moment I met Christina. It just took the most feather-witted part of me this long to admit it out loud. I forgive you, Faith. Wholly and completely.”

The corner of her lips wobbled into a hopeful smile.

He swallowed. This next confession would be so much harder. He gripped her hands tight. “The one thing I cannot do is forgive myself for putting you in a situation where you felt you had no options. I gave you no options, when instead I should have been right beside you all along. Not just as the father of your child. As your husband.”

“You didn’t know,” she whispered, her eyes vacant.

“I love you,” he said above the pounding of his heart. “I can be an impulsive, arrogant fool, but my love for you is stronger than any trials that could come our way. You are not just part of me. You are all of me.” His voice cracked. “You gave me hope when I had none. You gave me love when I had none.”

She stared up at him, speechless.

He lowered his eyes in pain. “You taught me I could be a better man. I knew that much then just as I know it now. And because of that, because of all the hurt I caused, I will understand if you can never feel the same.”

Silence stretched out between them. Terrible, crystal, razor-sharp silence.

She would not forgive him. He could not forgive himself. There was no hope at all.

Just the ticking of a clock on a distant mantel. Counting out the hours in the rest of their lives. The days they would spend together. The hearts that would remain locked apart.

Unless something changed. Unless one of them was strong enough to wreak a miracle.

Nothing else could save them.

Stunned, Faith pulled Hawkridge’s strong hands from his runaway heart to hers.

After seeing him with Christina, she was plagued with guilt over the lost years father and daughter would never recover. Even if the resulting quality of life had been the right choice for Christina, forgiving herself for making the decision was proving harder than ever.

He might not have been the right man for her back when things had been moving far too quickly for either of them to think rationally about their action, but he was the perfect man for her now… and a wonderful father to Christina. It was time to let him know. All of it.

“I do forgive you,” she said softly, pressing his hands to her chest.

His body jerked, but he remained locked in silence.

She opened her mouth and poured out her heart to him. “I forgive you for taking the virginity I so freely offered. I forgive you for failing to offer for me because I was neither rich enough nor noble enough to save you from the mess your father and the estate’s temporary guardian had made. I forgive you for not coming to see me when each year that went by made the gap between us more and more impossible to close.”

He shuddered beneath her fingers, his face stoic.

“I forgive you, Hawk.” She lifted his hands to her cheek.

He was trembling just as she was. As if he heard her, but could not quite believe.

She pressed a soft kiss to his palm. “Do you hear me? I forgive you.”

He stared back at her in anguish.

She brushed a tendril of hair from his brow. “I forgave you the first time I saw you cross-legged on the carpet with Christina. I forgave you when you helped Simon repair windows at the girls’ school, without any expectation of accolades for your efforts.”

He blinked as if her words barely penetrated his darkness.

“I forgave you when you defended my honor,” she continued gently. “When you danced the minuet with an orphan and the child of a street sweeper, when you made friends with your bastard half-brother, when my father who had sworn to drive a dagger into your heart on sight called you his son-in-law, and teased my mother for not ordering enough biscuits from the kitchen.”

He remained perfectly still, the unsteady tremor in his muscles the only clue to his inner turmoil.

She placed her hands on his cheeks and forced him to meet her eyes. “I forgave you every single time you made our daughter laugh. You bring joy into our lives, Hawk. It is past time you forgive yourself.”

With a violent shudder, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her like he would never let her go.