It’s late, but Margot is still up when I call her from the corner of the backyard where I’m wrapped in a blanket. The summer night has a chill to it, but I think most of the frost is deep down inside of me, in my heart, in my very soul.

She answers on the first ring. “Okay, I’ve been dying to ask for the deets, but I didn’t want to interrupt whatever you had going on with Colt! What happened?”

I guess I wasn’t ready to make this call after all, and I bite down on my lip so I won’t cry.

“Serena?” Her voice is softer now.

I exhale. “I told him.”

“Oh. Oh man.”

“And he handled it about as well as any guy who discovers that the mother of his child lied to him.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I just wish I had the chance to handle everything in a different way.” And just like that, I’m submerged in the past, on the day I realized my period was late. I took a pregnancy test and then another…and another. But there was no escaping the truth.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Margot says. “You were extremely emotional when you found out you were pregnant. It was the same day Colt called and told you that he’d been approached by that movie producer.”

“He was so happy.” I sob and smile at the same time, but the smile dies quickly. “I was so dazed and panicked, and I had no idea what to do. Colt finally had something to be optimistic about, and I didn’t want to spoil it for him. I can’t tell you how many times he would tell me about his dreams of getting out of Haverill, making something of his life somewhere else. God, he hated being the ‘loser who worked at a gas station.’”

“He wasn’t meant for that life, and everyone around here knew it, especially you. You were always his biggest cheerleader, and I know firsthand how lost you were after you got the news of the pregnancy.”

She’s right. At first, I told only a few people about it, including my family, who I swore to silence. Margot was the one who pointed out that once Colt finished filming in Europe and came home, I could give him the big news. But he never did come home from that shoot. He moved directly to LA to start working while I went back to school, still not knowing what to do, even though he pressed me to visit him or even move out there.

I let out a shuddering sigh. “Colt told me tonight that, if he’d known then what he knows now, he would’ve given everything up to come back and raise the baby.”

“Oh, God…”

“Didn’t I do the right thing?” I ask. “Because look at him now, Margot. He’s got it all. And if he had known about the baby, he would’ve returned to Haverill to work at that gas station, even though his heart was never in it. He would’ve come to resent me and Sebastian for destroying his chance at making a better life for himself. Besides, I wasn’t ready to leave my family and friends and my entire circle of support behind to move to LA.”

“It would’ve been hard to raise a baby alone in Hollywood while Colt was off acting and hob knobbing with celebrities...”

She’s only making me feel better by echoing what I’ve told her in the past, and with every word that bounces back at me, I get more confused, because I truly didn’t think he could handle the pressure of a budding career and a baby all at once. I tried so hard to put him off and make a decision later, but then he showed up out of the blue and saw me pregnant. And that’s when I lied and broke his heart—and my own—in the process. I did it to protect him. I did it to free him from all obligation. I did it because I didn’t want him to try and be what his own absentee father wasn’t and to lose the chance of a lifetime in Hollywood because of his sacrifice.

Margot finally speaks again. “Why was he even in town?”

“You’ve seen the tabloids. He’s out of control and is supposed to be cooling off here, away from the press before Mystery Man comes out.”

“He could’ve done that anywhere—at a discreet spa, in a little village on the Italian coast…”

“But he came here,” I whisper.

I huddle into myself, almost wishing that I could shrivel away into nothing, at least for the rest of the night, at least until I can figure out what comes next with Colt.

“Do you think you’ll ever see him again?” Margot asks.

“I don’t know.” I feel another tear slip down my cheek. “I really don’t know, Margot.”

* * *

I don’t sleep that night, but as I lie in my bed with Sebastian, stroking his soft, brown hair, I find a little bit of peace. There’s nothing like the comfort of a child, especially my own child, and I’m thankful for the miracle of him, even if everything else is falling apart.

The next day, I’m pretty useless as far as studying for the final online class for my Master’s goes. My degree is in English for Speakers of Other Languages, and I have a crapload of reading to do about theories and how they apply to the elementary classroom, but I don’t absorb a word. I merely spend most of the day playing with Sebastian, listening to him laugh and babble while my parents are at work.

I don’t hear from Colt, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Then the day after that arrives, bringing with it a knock at the door during the afternoon. It’s a purposeful knock, and I feel it in my chest, because before I even put Sebastian in his playpen and peer out the window, I know who it is.

When I see Colt standing on the porch, it feels like every part of me twists and turns: my veins wrapping around each other to throb and pump, my blood going hot, my breath turning sharp and tight. He’s got his hair tied back, fully revealing his silver-screen jawline. His beautiful face is detached, unreadable, his hands jammed into the front pockets of his faded jeans.

I want to run and hide, but I can’t do either. I can only try to face him as I gather my guts, praying that Sebastian stays quiet in the playpen at the other end of the room. Then I crack open the door.

Colt gives me a lowered gaze, and the force of it nearly makes my legs buckle. I hold for dear life to the door.

For a tense moment, neither of us says anything, then Colt steels his shoulders and jerks his chin at me in a sexy but cold greeting. My pulse stutters.

“I needed some time to think about everything,” he says.

“Understandably.”

When I hear the musical sound from one of Sebastian’s toys in the background, I freeze. Colt obviously hears it too, and he takes his hands out of his pockets.

“Is that him?”

I nod.

“I want to see my son.”

“If Mom and Dad saw you here, they’d—”

“Their cars aren’t here, Serena.”

“If Jack—”

“You know I can handle Jack.”

A cloud passes over his eyes as if Colt misses the days when he and Jack used to be best buddies before they went their separate ways. Then determination takes Colt over, steel taking over his gaze, his muscles coiling as he looms over me.

“I’m going to see Sebastian,” he says. “And it might as well be now.”

Fear grips me: Colt has money. What if he tries to take my son away? What if he hates me enough to do something like that?

As more musical notes go off behind me, I realize that I can’t keep Colt away from Sebastian anymore, and I open the door. For a moment, something in Colt’s eyes softens. He looks at me like he used to during our summer together, and I fight the urge to go to him, wrap my arms around him, and tell him that all I’ve ever wanted was him. But I only stand aside, silently inviting him in.

He comes through the door, and my heart is beating so hard that it pounds in my temples, my throat, everywhere. Then he sees Sebastian in his playpen and comes to a halt.

It’s as if a switch has been turned on inside Colt as he lights up, first in his eyes, then in a slow, tender smile. Something in my throat cracks, making it hard to swallow as he cautiously approaches the playpen.

“This is Sebastian?” he asks, and I think he’s in a little bit of shock.

“Yes.”

Sebastian stops messing around with the musical toy as Colt approaches. I walk over to the playpen too, looking into it to see my son gazing up at his father with those big eyes and a flummoxed look. Then he bats at the musical toy and babbles something that sounds like “Babababa!”

“What did he say?” Colt asks.

“I’m not sure.” I tentatively stand beside Colt. “He kind of says ‘mamamama’ for ‘mama,’ and he might be saying ‘babababa’ for ‘Bash.’ That’s his nickname.”

“Bash. I like that.”

Colt’s smile grows, and when Sebastian smiles right back up at him, waving around his hands, I laugh and sob at the same time. I’m back to being an emotional wreck.

“I think he looks like me,” Colt says.

“Yes, he does.” And there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought the same, agonizing thing.

“Can I hold him?”

Oh, shit. I can’t talk. I can only nod.

Colt makes a move toward the playpen, then pauses. “Is he…you know. Delicate? Because he’s a baby?”

“He won’t break if you pick him up, if that’s what you mean.”

“Maybe you should…”

“Okay.”

This chink in the armor of such a big, brawny, and broody man gets to me. His eyes are still aglow with the discovery of this wonderful secret I’ve been hiding from him, and I wipe my tears with my arm before reaching down to Sebastian. He holds up his chubby arms right before I lift him. Once I’m holding him, Sebastian immediately turns toward Colt to check him out, raising his head to take in the tall, muscled man in the tee shirt and jeans who is gazing at him just as intently.

Colt extends his big arms, and I hand our son over to him. Even as Colt holds him, Sebastian keeps leaning back and staring in fascination.

“I think you have a new fan,” I choke out.

“I think he has one too.” Colt runs his large hand over Sebastian’s head, and our baby blinks up at him then laughs.

“He’s a real happy baby,” I say. “I couldn’t have asked for someone easier to love and take care of.”

“Babababa…” our son says as he pulls at Colt’s shirt.

Colt presents his finger to Sebastian, who grips it. Then it’s as if they’ve known each other forever as Colt starts asking him about what kind of toys he likes and what kind of food he eats. I stand back and watch as Sebastian hangs onto his father’s every word and laughs every time Colt tickles him under the chin or…dear God, pauses to rest his mouth against his son’s head to close his eyes and smell his baby scent.

I really did make a huge mistake, no doubts about it now. I shouldn’t have lied. I suck more than anyone has ever sucked in life because I took Colt’s choice away from him entirely. Worst of all, I still love him, now more than ever. Seeing him bond with our baby only drives that deeper into me like the blade of a long, never ending knife.

Colt starts to walk around with Sebastian, commenting on the landscape pictures that decorate the walls and asking what our baby thinks about art when I finally say something.

“Colt, I really want to explain my side of things.”

He keeps his back to me. “No, Serena. Believe me, I’m not ready to hear it now.”

Not now, while he’s basking in his newfound son. I get it, but even so, another stab of remorse twists inside of me.

He looks partway over his shoulder, acknowledging me but not gazing at me. “I do think we need to spend some time together, though. Tonight.”

Thank God he’s not shutting me out. “I’ll make arrangements to meet you somewhere.”

For now, though, Colt seems happy getting to know our baby, and I sit on the couch, my heart in my throat once again as I watch father meet son.