“I have to start earlier,” she said, still sitting in a ball at his feet. She sniffled, then reached up and wiped away her tears. “But . . . can you calm down? A-and listen to me and not yell at me? Because I’m feeling very emotional and . . .”

Inside, he was in turmoil, but he nodded. “Fine.”

“I’m just going to get a cup of water. I’ll be right back,” she said, standing up and walking over to his bathroom.

He heard her run the water and forced himself to take a huge breath of air before she started talking again. Leaning his head on the back of the chair, he closed his eyes for a moment, clasping his shaking hands together in his lap.

In the past five minutes, he’d learned that he had a daughter—that he and Laire had a daughter.

Part of him was in shock.

Part of him was raging with fury.

Part of him was trying to keep a massive wave of protectiveness and gratitude and excitement at bay until he had all the details. He actively fought the overwhelming urge to race into the adjacent bedroom, pick up Ava Grace’s sleeping body, and hold it against his for hours, staring at her face and listening to her breathe.

Only one emotion was completely salient and undivided within him: the pure, unadulterated, deep, forever-love he suddenly felt for Ava Grace. In fact, if he hadn’t actually been experiencing the instinctive and instant love that was presently overtaking every cell of his body, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible to love another human being so completely, so profoundly, so eternally, in the space of a few minutes. But there it was inside him: so much love for that little girl, he didn’t know how his heart could possibly contain it.

She was his baby, his child, his daughter—

Laire cleared her throat as she stepped back into the room, and Erik opened his eyes, focusing them on his daughter’s mother.

—and they had been deliberately kept apart for six agonizing years.

He desperately hoped that she had a good reason for this because if she didn’t, it was unconscionable that she would do such a thing to Ava Grace . . . and to him.

She sat down in her chair and took a deep breath.

“I thought I had cancer,” she said softly. “By November, I was tired all the time, and gaining weight. Smells that had never bothered me suddenly made me nauseous. When I put my symptoms into Google, pregnancy wasn’t even a suggested diagnosis, but hypothyroidism was.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes so sad, he had to force himself to stay seated and not reach for her and pull her into his arms. “My mother died of thyroid cancer, so I was certain that’s what I had. I even . . .”

Her voice broke for a moment, and she bit her bottom lip until she was composed enough to speak. “Erik, I was so messed up at that point, I actually thought it could be a good thing if I had cancer. My father and sisters would have to forgive me for being with you that night if I was that sick. They’d have to stop looking at me sideways, like I was a dirty girl, a bad seed. They’d have to love me again.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled on an “ohhhh” sound, clenching her jaw before continuing. “Kyrstin brought me to the clinic here in Hatteras, and they did a urine test. That’s how I found out I was pregnant . . . the week before Thanksgiving.”

Erik stared at her, his chest hurting as he tried to take a deep breath and failed. He couldn’t imagine how frightened she’d been, or how alone she’d felt. Hating himself for not being there for her, he somehow managed to nod, urging her to continue.

“Kyrstin said that I should choose an island boy and seduce him.” She chuckled ruefully, wiping a tear away. “Crazy, right? But you have to understand where she was coming from—being away for a night with you had sent my father into a coronary. Telling him I was having a baby out of wedlock? It would have killed him. Kyrstin actually thought she was helping by making that suggestion. She said that I should choose one of the boys we’d grown up with, get him drunk, sleep with him, get married to him, and let everyone on Corey believe it was his baby.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I still . . . I still loved you. I still believed in you. I insisted to Kyrstin that if I told you, you’d make it right. And the timing? It almost felt like a miracle. I knew how to find you, exactly where you’d be. If I could just get to Utopia Manor on Thanksgiving and talk to you, it would all be okay.”

“But it wasn’t okay, was it?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

She shook her head, dropping his eyes to stare down at her lap in misery.

And it was that small, vulnerable gesture that made him leap from his chair and stand before hers. Without asking her permission, he leaned down and gathered her body into his arms. She looped her arms around his neck, staring into his eyes with such grief, he understood that their chance for happiness—their chance to be a family six years ago—had been stolen from them. And it wasn’t Laire’s fault. And it wasn’t his.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I . . . I was s-so s-scared,” she sobbed. “S-so alone . . .”

Her face crumpled, and she hid it in the curve of his neck, her body shaking from the force of her sobs. Warm, wet tears landed on his collarbone, rolling down his chest, wetting his undershirt. Holding her carefully, he crossed the room and laid her gently on his bed. Then he walked around and climbed in beside her, drawing her into his arms, her back to his front, his arms under her breasts as she wept.

“No matter what,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the back of her neck, “I love you forever. I love Ava Grace forever. Tell me the rest when you’re ready, baby. I’m here now. I’m here.”

After a few minutes, her sobs turned into deep, ragged breaths, and she turned in his arms, her face tear streaked in the candlelight. Pushing her hair from her forehead he stared into her eyes. “You okay, darlin’?”

She sniffled, mumbled “no,” and half chuckled, half sobbed as she bent her elbow, slid it under her head and looked at him thoughtfully. “D-did you mean it?”

“What?”

“About . . . l-loving us?”

“With every cell in my body,” he promised.

Her eyes closed and she nodded. “Th-thank you. I needed to hear that so b-badly.”

“Six years too late,” he said, everything inside him hurting.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she managed in a thready voice.

“It kills me that you went through this alone, that I missed six years with you, that I missed the first five and a half years of my daughter’s life.” He stopped because his heart was racing so fast, he felt dizzy. Calm down. Calm down, Erik. He swallowed over the massive lump in his gullet. “I need to know what happened. Tell me the rest.”

She exhaled carefully, nodding. “Okay.” She took another deep breath, like what she was about to say was going to hurt very much, and Erik braced himself. He’d seen Fancy in action since he was a very little boy—he knew that when her claws came out, blood was spilled, and she was always the one left standing. He didn’t know what was coming, but he knew it was going to be bad.

“Okay. Let’s see . . .,” she said. “I had Thanksgiving at Kyrstin’s and then her husband, Remy, drove me up the coast from Corey to Utopia Manor. I was so scared, but I wanted to see you again. I mean, I knew I was young to be pregnant and we weren’t married, but I still loved you. I felt like we could make it work if I could just get to you.”

“Wait,” he said. “What about Vanessa? I would have thought you hated me by then.”

“I didn’t know yet,” she said softly.

“But I thought you saw the pict—”

“No.” She shook her head. “I hadn’t seen it yet. I saw it much later. I didn’t know yet . . . about you and Vanessa. I still thought Van was just a male friend.”

“You loved me?”

She nodded. “Madly. I was going to ask your forgiveness for how I treated you in the hospital. My father was okay. Whether we planned it or not, I was expecting your baby. I wanted a fresh start with you . . . f-for us, you know, to be a family.”

“Oh, my God,” he whispered, blinking at her through a fresh burn of tears, these revelations more and more painful and frustrating. “You still loved me, and you were pregnant with my child, and you were comin’ to tell me.”

She bit her bottom lip again, her eyes answering his question before she said, “Yes.”

“And my mother?”

“She was outside.”

“Smokin’? By the pool?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“You told her that you were pregnant?”

“Not at first. I told her I needed to speak to you. I told her I was invited.” She looked down at the small space of white sheet beneath them, tracing a small circle with her finger. “She didn’t believe that I knew you. I insisted I did. That’s when I told her that I was expectin’.”

“She threw you out?”

Laire’s sigh was ragged and shaky, and Erik could tell the memory hurt.

“She called me a liar and an opportunist. She thought I wanted to extort money from your family. She said it was . . . a clever plan. And then she threatened to call the police.”

Laire stopped for a minute, clenching her jaw, her face a mask of misery when she finally looked up at him. “But that wasn’t the worst of it.”

“Vanessa,” he said, the name bitter on his tongue. “She made you think that we were . . .”

She nodded. “She told me to look through the sliding glass doors, and there you were, next to her with . . . with your arm around her shoulders . . .”

Her voice broke, and a tear splashed into her little circle. “I recognized her from the photos on your piano. She was wearing a ring that night—a really huge, beautiful ring—and your mother said that you were engaged to her, that you’d been together all summer, that you’d been in love forever, and that’s how she knew that I was lying about being with you because you’d never cheat on Van.”

“Enough.”

Something inside Erik ripped apart, and he whimpered in pain, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling as tears of fierce, sanity-stealing frustration rolled from the corners of his eyes and into his hair.

Contemptible. Reprehensible. And unforgivable.

She’d come to him. Laire had come back to him to tell him that she loved him and was having their baby, and his mother—his despicable fucking mother—had sabotaged his happiness. He’d lost six years of his life, and five and a half years of his daughter’s life, because of that night. He’d lost his faith in women and his trust in love. He’d lost hope. He’d lost himself. And it was so devastating to learn that it had been at his mother’s willful hands, he almost couldn’t breathe.

He threw his arm over his eyes, hiding his tears from her—from Laire, who must have been so scared and alone that night. She’d had no family, no money, no plan . . . and his mother, Ava Grace’s grandmother, had threatened to have her arrested, so she’d run away. How the hell had she survived? How had she and Ava Grace made it?

“Laire,” he ground out, still lying on his back. “Who helped you?”

“Who do you think?” she asked softly.

Erik took a deep breath, thinking back to those days: she’d had her family, right? But they wouldn’t have helped her. The moment they found out she was pregnant, they would have washed their hands of her.

So who else? Who else? Her whole life was Corey Island, except for the nights she spent at the Pamlico House.

“The Pamlico House,” he murmured, lowering his arm. “Your boss . . . Mrs . . . Ms. . . .”

“Sebastian,” she said softly with a sad smile.

Boone. That’s where Nana lived. Afore she died.

“Nana,” he said, rolling onto his side, mirroring Laire, watching her eyes soften as they spoke of her benefactor.

She nodded. “Nana.”

“She took you in?”

“She adopted me, for all intents and purposes. She was moving to Boone to be closer to her son, and she took me with her. She was next to me when I gave birth to Ava Grace, coaching me through my breathing. She gave us a place to live. She watched my baby while I went to college. Her son, Patrick, was an uncle to Ava Grace. We were . . . Erik, we were surrounded with love.” She was still crying, but her face wasn’t as heartbreaking as it had been when she was talking about his mother. “She saved our lives.”

“The condo here?”

“Was hers,” said Laire. “She left it to me when she died last summer.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, wincing at her loss. He reached for her hip, pulling her closer. When their foreheads were touching, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry you lost her.”

“I’m so grateful I had her,” she whispered back.

“Am I all caught up, darlin’?”

“Yes,” she said, her sweet breath kissing his lips as the tension drained from their bodies. “Wait. No.”

“No?” he asked, cracking open an eye.

“By chance,” she said softly, “I ran into the love of my life at the inn where she hired me to work so long ago. And I just . . . maybe this sounds crazy, but I feel like that was Judith’s—Ms. Sebastian’s—final gift to me: giving me a condo here so that I’d have to come back and find you.”

You don’t have any business with an island girl, now, do you?

He pictured Judith Sebastian’s stern face with a wave of gratitude that almost leveled him. She’d always wanted what was best for Laire, and maybe, finally, at the end of her life, she’d decided that was him. He’d always respected her—it comforted him to believe that Ms. Sebastian had put Laire in a position to find him again.

“Doesn’t sound crazy at all,” he said, tenderly kissing the bridge of her nose. “Sounds like she wanted you to be happy.”

“We’ll be happy if we’re with you,” she murmured, nuzzling him.

Erik drew her so close that their hearts were touching and their legs intertwined. “I want that more than anythin’, darlin’.”

“Good.” She snuggled closer, melting into him with a sigh. “This is so nice.”

He rubbed her back, pressing his lips to hers.

“Mmmm,” she sighed, her eyes closed, her body languid against him. “Would it be okay if we slept for a little while? I feel like I’ve been running for years. I’m so . . . tired.”

“Of course, baby,” he said, clasping her body tightly to his. “I’ve got you now. You sleep.”

“You too,” she murmured.

“Sure,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Me too.”

It took only a minute or two for her breathing to become deep and even, but there was no way Erik was going to sleep. His mind was racing, bouncing between the four most important women in his life and trying to make sense out of where they each fit into his after this epic conversation with Laire.

Hillary was easy. He was desperate to talk to her—to explain everything and to introduce her to Laire and Ava Grace. He imagined Hillary and Laire becoming good friends and Hillary being an amazing aunt to her niece. He couldn’t wait to tell her everything.

The revelation about Ava Grace’s parentage had finally sunk into his consciousness, and he accepted it without a shred of doubt: he had a daughter, and, yes, he had a lot to learn, but he was going to be the best damn father the earth had ever known. There would be time to make up for, and time to celebrate, and the next time he and Laire had a child together, he fully intended to be there from the very beginning.

Leaning forward a little, he pressed his lips to Laire’s forehead again, resting them against her soft skin as she slept.

As soon as possible, he intended to have a ring on her finger and a date to meet her at the altar. It was as though he’d awakened, over the past couple of days, from a years-long nightmare, and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Laire was the key to his happiness. He had missed out on enough time with her—he wanted her to be his wife, and he wanted it now. She was the missing piece of his heart, the joy of his soul, the very lifeblood of his being, and the mother of his daughter. As soon as she said yes, he would bind his life to hers forever and thank God for the gift of her love every day of his life.

Taking a deep breath, he clenched his jaw and shut his eyes for a moment before opening them again.

As for his mother.

As for Ursula “Fancy” Rexford.

He would confront her only to disown her.

He would make her take responsibility for what she willfully stole from him.

And then he would wash his hands of her forever.

Drawing his sweetheart as close to him as possible, he pulled the comforter over them both. Then, seeking and matching the rhythm of her beating heart with his own, he closed his eyes and joined her in sleep.

***

“A sleepover, huh? ’Cause that’s what it’s called when you sleep over with someone else. And Mama and Oscar are still sleepin’ so this is definitely a sleepover.”

There was a pause in Ava Grace’s monologue as Laire’s eyes fluttered open to find Erik’s room flooded with sunlight, his arms still tightly around her.

“No, Mr. Mopples. That’s a very naughty suggestion. We’re not goin’ to wake them up until—Mama! You’re awake!”

Laire blinked as she rolled onto her back. She was still in her clothes. Oh, Lord, she thought, rolling her eyes internally. Our first night together with no one to judge or interrupt or interfere, and we wasted it by falling asleep.

Ava Grace knelt on the bed, holding Mr. Mopples in her lap.

“Mornin’, baby,” Laire murmured through a yawn.

“Mama, you and Oscar had a sleepover.”

Reversing her previous thoughts and thanking God that they were both fully dressed, she smiled and nodded. “Yes, we did.”

“Why did you have a sleepover?”

Erik’s arm was thrown over Laire’s chest, but she moved it just enough to sit up.

“Oh. Well . . .” She and Erik hadn’t discussed when they’d tell Ava Grace that he was her father, but she hoped that they would agree to tell her today. Laire was sick and tired of secrets. She wanted Ava Grace to know that she had a father who loved her, who had missed her, and who intended to stick around. “We had some things to talk about. And I guess we fell asleep.”

“What things?”

“Well,” she said, smiling gently at her daughter, “I knew Oscar, um, Erik, a long time ago . . . before I had you. He was really important to me.”

“Like your best friend?”

“Yeah. Even more than that.”

“Do you like him a lot, Mama?”

“I do, baby. In fact, I love him a lot.”

“As much as you love me?”

“Mm-hm,” answered Laire, grinning at her daughter. “But in a different way.”

“Like a mommy loves a daddy?” whispered Ava Grace, like her words were sacred.

“Would that be okay?” asked Laire.

Ava Grace looked at Erik, resting her eyes on his face. “I have the same eyes as he does, Mama.”

Laire’s chest constricted, but she kept her voice even. “Yes, baby. You do.”

Under the covers, Erik’s fingers found hers, threading them together and holding on tight. He wasn’t sleeping anymore; he was listening.

“If you love him like a mommy loves a daddy . . .” Ava Grace pressed her lips together, still staring at Erik.

“What, honey?”

“He’s dark-haired like a prince. Maybe he could be my daddy.”

She heard his breath catch as his fingers squeezed the life from her hand.

“Would you like that?”

Ava Grace nodded.

She knew he was unable to bear not knowing her answer when he opened his eyes, pretending to wake up. “Mornin’, girls.”

“Mornin’,” they answered in unison.

Erik rubbed his eyes and yawned, sitting up against the back of the bed beside Laire, then scooting away from her a touch to make room between them.

“Want to get in with us?” he asked his daughter.

Ava Grace’s face broke into a huge smile, and she nodded happily, crawling up the bed and snuggling in between them.

Erik looked at Laire over their daughter’s head, mouthing the words, Can I tell her?

Tears sprang into Laire’s eyes as she nodded.

“Hey, Ava Grace,” said Erik. “I gotta ask you somethin’, darlin’.”

“What?”

“Well, I thought I heard you sayin’ somethin’ about me maybe bein’ your daddy just now while I was wakin’ up.”

“I thought you were sleepin’.”

“Nope.” Erik put his hands under her shoulders and transferred her to his lap, facing him. “What if the dark-haired prince got all mixed up in the sea witch’s evil plan for a few years? What if it took him a while to escape, to find you and your mama?”

Laire shifted her eyes from Erik’s face to Ava Grace’s, watching as she absorbed this new chapter of the story.

With wide eyes, Ava Grace looked up at her father. “Is that what happened to you?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

To Laire’s surprise, huge tears swelled in her daughter’s eyes as she stared up at her father. “But that would mean . . . that would mean you’re my real daddy.”

“That’s right. That’s exactly who I am, baby,” he said, trying to smile, though Laire could see him fighting back tears. “Your real daddy. And now that I’ve found you and your mama, I’m never goin’ away again.”

Ava Grace launched herself into his arms with a sob, and Erik gripped her close as she rested her cheek on his shoulder.

“You’re my real daddy?” she asked again as she clung to him, as though it was too amazing to be true.

“I sure am,” said Erik, releasing Ava Grace on one side to pull Laire into their embrace. She was a mess at this point, tears streaming down her face as Erik and Ava Grace sorted out their place in each other’s life. Laire laid her head on Erik’s shoulder, leaning into him as he held his girls close.

“Then I’m gonna call you Daddy instead of Oscar,” said Ava Grace, her small arms looped tightly around his neck. “Is that okay?”

“Better’n okay,” he said, his voice gravelly with emotion as he tightened his arms around his family. “That’d be perfect, baby.”