I can’t deny telling Gwen has lifted the weight always heavy on my chest. Nor can I deny that sitting on the couch with Gwen, Natalie nestled in between us, feels right in a way I can’t begin to articulate.

Like I feared, like I was certain would happen, Natalie has bonded herself to this woman who’s invaded my life. My little girl wants a momma, and no matter how good Cat is to her, she wants someone to call her own.

Natalie is intuitive. She knows Gwen is special. Knows Gwen means something to me. She’s currently talking through the movie, explaining every little thing about the plot to Gwen, who of course pays elaborate attention to her.

She can’t help making Natalie fall in love with her.

That’s just the way she is. She dazzles everyone, and my family isn’t immune.

Over Natalie’s head, Gwen smiles at me, and winks.

My gaze drifts to her mouth, then back to her bright blue eyes.

“What’s it like to live in a big city?” Natalie asks Gwen.

She shifts her attention to my little girl and smiles. “Well, it’s very crowded and there are a lot of people and terrible traffic, but it’s fun and there’s a lot of stuff to do.”

“Like what?” Natalie asks.

“There are museums, Navy Pier, the lake and lots of shopping.” Gwen tilts her head. “Have you ever heard of American Girl?”

Natalie nods. “Yes, I have one, she’s in a wheelchair like me.”

“You’ll have to show me.” Gwen beams down at her, and it feels like she lights up the entire room. “On Michigan Avenue there’s a huge American Girl store that’s three stories tall. You can have tea there with your doll.”

Natalie shifts around, craning her neck at me. “Can we go, Daddy? I’ve never been to a big city.”

Gwen darts a glance at me, clearly looking for direction on how to respond.

I kiss Natalie’s head. “You’re going to New York in a few months, remember?”

“But not for fun.” Natalie’s lower lip puffs out.

“What are you going for?” Gwen asks, curiosity lacing her tone.

“When I’m six I’m going for surgery,” my daughter says.

“What kind of surgery?”

Gwen doesn’t shy away from asking Natalie questions about her disabilities. She’s asked all sorts of things, and it makes both Natalie and I relax.

“My legs.” Natalie pats her thighs under the cover. Her legs are stiff and unyielding, unusable. She needs daily therapy just to make sure they don’t seize up completely. “To see if I can walk.”

“That’s fantastic!” Gwen says. “Are you excited?”

It’s an experimental surgery and I struggled over the decision to let Natalie undergo the operation, but her greatest wish is to walk, and in the end I couldn’t deny her because of my own concern. I’d met with the doctors numerous times and they felt it was worth the risk, as long as she showed good progress in her other treatments.

I want to set her expectations though, because I can’t bear her disappointment. “It might not work, remember that.”

Natalie shakes her head at me before looking at Gwen. “If it works, Daddy might let me go to school.”

“Why can’t you go to school even if it doesn’t work?” Gwen’s expression is puzzled.

Natalie shrugs. “Daddy wants me to be homeschooled and I want to go to regular school. We fight about it, like, all the time.”

We do. I want to keep her safe at home and she wants to head out into the cold, cruel world. She’s adventurous, and lively, she wants to push beyond her limitations.

Only, I can’t stand the thought of the ridicule she might suffer at a regular school. I want her home, where she’s safe and secure and the people around her love her without conditions. The thought of some stupid little kid making fun of her kills me.

“I see,” Gwen says slowly, then furrows her brow.

“He’s unreasonable,” Natalie says with a deep sigh.

Gwen smiles. “Yeah, he really is, isn’t he?”

“Hey!” I object. “You’re spending too much time with Mrs. Potts.”

“That’s why I want to go to school! To be with kids.”

But kids are mean. I don’t say this though. I want to protect her from the outside world as long as possible. It’s my job as her father.

“We’ll talk about it later.” I point to the screen that’s now rolling the credits. “It’s time for bed.”

Natalie turns to Gwen. “Will I see you again?”

Gwen’s gaze flickers to mine, unsure. We haven’t discussed what will happen after tonight, but she’s still going home. I raise a brow.

Her brow furrows, then she smiles at Natalie. “I promise I won’t leave town without saying goodbye, how does that sound?”

“Okay.” Natalie holds out her arms and Gwen hugs her.

My chest tightens at the sight of my girl in Gwen’s embrace. Something I’d never intended on seeing with any woman, let alone Gwen. Witnessing their heads bent together, one like gold and one like fire, makes my heart beat too fast.

“Good night, Gwen,” Natalie says.

Gwen smooths her hair and kisses the top of her head. “Good night, sweetie.”

When they let go, I scoop Natalie up and put her in her chair. “I’ll be back.”

Gwen nods.

I wheel Natalie out of the room and we go through her bedtime routine. She stalls, asking me a million questions about Gwen I can’t answer. I distract her by reading her a bedtime story, something I don’t get to do as often as I’d like, before kissing her good night.

When I make my way back down to the family room where we’d been watching television I peer at Gwen, her legs folded under her, her white sundress a contrast to her golden skin, looking beautiful and ethereal.

She glances at me.

“Do you want some wine?” I ask. We might need it for the conversation ahead.

“Yes, that’d be great.”

I nod and go to the cellar I’d built in the basement, picking out a Bordeaux I know she’ll like and returning with two glasses.

She takes a sip, tucking herself into the corner. “Mmm… I love this vintage.”

I smile. “Me too.”

She bites her lip. “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do now.”

“Me either.”

She glances at the built-in bookshelves that line one wall. Over the last five years we’d slowly restored the house to its former glory and I’d built them myself, just like I’d built the wine cellar.

“Are you sorry?” Her voice is soft, matching the dim lighting and intimate nature of the room.

I take a sip of wine and contemplate my answer. Am I sorry? I don’t know. I’m not happy that Natalie will be sad when Gwen leaves. And I can barely admit to myself the fear I feel.

Today, thinking I’d never see Gwen again was the worst I’d felt since the day I’d learned about Natalie.

Like that day, Gwen sitting across from me is bittersweet.

When she’s gone for good, it’s going to leave a mark on me. I don’t know how this has happened, how I’ve let myself get so entangled in her, but it’s too late to stop it now.

She’s here, both physically and emotionally.

I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. “Even before Natalie, I was never attached to the women I dated. I was young and I was brash. I was successful and all I cared about was my career, women were entertainment. Something to show on my arm when I went places, they didn’t mean anything to me.”

Gwen props her elbow on the back of the sofa and cradles her head in her open palm, wineglass in the other. “I can see that. I might not have been as cold about it, but my experience with other men isn’t that different. I’ve dated plenty, but my attention was never focused on them, they never held my interest the way my career did.”

“Yes.” Gwen and I are cut from the same cloth. Maybe that’s the appeal. Like some twisted form of narcissism. “After Natalie was born and I became a fulltime single father to a child that needed constant care, I took it to a whole new level.” I smile. “I can’t remember the last time I even went to dinner with a woman.”

A smile flickers across her features. “I kind of figured that one out.”

I meet her gaze. “I’d really like to take you to dinner.”

The smile goes full wattage, and amusement lights up her face. “Even though there’s no way it will measure up to our impossible standards?”

I laugh. “Yes, even though we’ll talk the whole way through about what we’d do to make it better.”

She gives me a sly look. “So you want to go on a date?”

“God help me, but yeah, I think I do.”

She stares me dead in the eyes. “Name the time and the place and I’ll be there.”

I put down my wineglass and crook my finger. “Come here.”

She discards her glass, and when she crawls over to me I lose the last remaining threads of logical thought.

I shift, and she straddles me.

I tangle my hands in her long hair, shaking my head at her. “Fuck you are beautiful.”

Her hips slide down so we’re pressed together. “So are you.”

I run my thumb down her jaw. “What are you doing to me, Gwen?”

She leans down and licks at my bottom lip. “Same thing you’re doing to me.”

“I know what’s right, what we should do, but I’m not ready yet.”

“Me either.” Her breasts rub against my chest. “I don’t want to go home yet.”

“Then don’t.”

Our mouths meet, and heat blazes between us, hot, fast and out of control. Like it’s been since the first time I kissed her. I should have known it then, that she’d be impossible to shake.

I say against her lips, “I once had Massimo Bottura prepare a meal just for me at his restaurant in Italy. Before I met you, it was the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth.”

“That’s quite a compliment.” She reclaims my lips, devouring me.

I let myself drown in her.

The only other choice I have is to let her go, and right now, that’s not an option.

---

“You didn’t come home?” Jillian says to me.

I’m sitting on the bed in my motel room, waiting until it’s time to leave for Beau’s. Jackson called him last night and said I was available to work if he still needed the help. Thankfully he’d said yes. Even if I was good at being idle it allows me to spend more time with Jackson. I clear my throat. “I’m coming home, I’m just not coming home yet.”

“Do you think you can sway him?”

I press a finger to my temple. “No, I’m not going to be able to sway him.”

“Then why are you staying?” my best friend asks softly. She knows why, she just wants me to say it.

I bite my bottom lip. “He has a daughter, Jilly.”

There’s a moment of complete silence on the line before she speaks. “What? How?”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“Who am I going to tell?”

I smile, of course she won’t say anything. “I just needed to say it. I mean, you can tell Leo, but no one else.”

“Is she a secret?”

“Not to the people here, but to the rest of the world, yes, I guess she is.” I fiddle with the bedspread, a mess after Jackson brought me here last night. I shudder, thinking of him sliding inside me. I don’t understand one thing about our chemistry, other than it appears to be insatiable. “She has cerebral palsy and she’s in a wheelchair. It’s why he left.”

“Oh.” More quiet contemplation before she asks. “How do you feel about that?”

I take a deep breath and slowly blow it out. “It wasn’t what I expected. I suspected he was hiding something, but not a child. I don’t know the first thing about kids, but oh my god, Jillian, she’s adorable. She’s the sweetest.”

Every time I think about spending the day with Natalie yesterday my heart swells a little.

“Gwenie, you’re getting in too deep.”

Her words send a fission of panic through me because she’s not wrong. I just don’t know how to walk away. Not yet. “I know, but I don’t know how to stop it.”

“Your life, your business is here in Chicago.”

“And his life is here, with his family and daughter. I can’t change that.” I shake my head. “I’m crazy, but I’m not ready to leave him yet.”

“You know you’re going to get your heart broken? For probably the first time in your life.”

“I am.” There’s no denying that. “Do you think it’s a mistake?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is slow, cautious. “It seems like an impossible situation.”

My throat tightens. “It is impossible. And I don’t want anyone to get hurt, most of all Natalie, but I don’t know how to walk away. I have one week, then I’ll be forced to leave. Is it terrible I want to steal this one week just for me?”

“No, of course not, but I know you. Don’t give away everything in the process. Take it, but guard yourself.”

“I will.” It’s a false promise and she knows it. Because I’m already giving him everything, and will give Natalie everything, I don’t know any other way. “You should see her, Jilly, she’s beautiful.”

“I’m sure she is.”

We fall silent and Jillian lets me spin through my thoughts. I don’t want Natalie to be hurt in the process, but it feels imperative I know her. Understand and learn her. I’ll find some way to make sure she’s not harmed. I test the words on my lips to see how they taste. “It will be okay.”

I might not ever feel this way again. Maybe someday I’ll settle down but I can’t imagine it will be like Jackson, who seems to understand how I’m wired on a bone-deep level. Even sex—yes, it’s technically fantastic and filled with more orgasms than I know what to do with—but that’s not what makes it addictive.

It’s addictive because it’s the only time we express what’s between us. The only time we’re not restraining and holding ourselves back. It’s like all our unspoken emotions are poured between our bodies, melding together and binding us.

“Just be safe,” Jillian says, interrupting my thoughts.

“I will. I’ll be home soon.” At the thought of leaving him, my throat tightens and my eyes sting. “I’m probably going to cry a lot.”

“I’ll be here, my shoulder ready.”

“Thank you. I love you, Jilly.”

“I love you too, Gwenie. Call if you need anything.”

“I will.”

We say our goodbyes and I take a deep breath. I’m committed now. For one more week I’m going to throw everything I have into this. I’m going to drown in it. When I’m done I’ll go home and pick up the pieces of my life.

You only live once, give everything you’ve got, without fear.