Roarke stopped in front of his second door of the night. He felt choked up, almost as if he were drowning. And maybe he was. The stakes were high. They were fucking everything.

He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knocked anyway, because if he stood waiting around until he figured it out, he’d be here all night.

He let out a rough breath when the kid opened the door.

She smiled. “Hey.”

God, he wondered if he’d ever get used to how much she looked like Marina.

“Hey,” he managed.

“My Dad asked me about you,” she said.

Roarke frowned. “He did?”

Yeah, he just bet he did.

“Yep. I told him to mind his own business and if he wanted to know anything he should ask Mommy.”

Ouch.

“Ah…”

“Are you here to see Mommy?”

“Yeah, but…”

He knelt so that he was eye-to-eye with her. He felt the twinge in his hip and ignored it.

“I screwed up with her kid. I hurt her, even when I swore to myself I wouldn’t. So I came to apologize. I’m going to try and fix it.”

“You can.”

Her gaze was clear and steady and so like Marina it caused a pain to bloom in the middle of his chest.

“I’ll try, but regardless of what happens, you and I, we’re solid, yeah?”

He smiled, even though his insides felt as if glass shards were twisting around in there.

He held his clenched fist up and she met it with her own. “Solid,” she murmured. “Will you still teach me how to do Origami?”

He couldn’t make a promise he didn’t know he could keep.

“I’m not sure. It’ll be up to your Mom. But even if she says no, that’s cool, right? Because she’s…everything.”

Roarke cringed. He could barely string words together, nothing coherent anyway. How the fuck he was going to be able to talk to Marina, try to make her understand, be able to make up for all the shit he’d done? He still didn’t know what to do or what to say.

The kid nodded and he knew she got it. Instinctively. Somehow.

“Okay, kid. Wish me luck?”

She tilted her head to the side. “You know my real name is Sam, right?”

“I know, but to me you’ll always be ‘kid’. Is that okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded. “Sort of like Melissa’s Dad when he calls her Cuddle Bear? It’s an endeard…ment.”

“Ah…” Roarke almost choked against the thickness in his throat. “Yeah, sure.”

She frowned. “But what’s going to happen if I get a little baby brother or sister? If you call them ‘kid’ too, won’t that be confusing?”

Roarke coughed. Baby? What the hell? Who said anything about a baby? Christ, he didn’t think in those terms, never had. That was in a future he’d never dared to imagine in relation to himself.

Maybe the kid knew more about what was going on than he thought. “Ah, that’s a long way off, kid.” If ever. “Besides, that would be, you know, up to your Mom.”

Shit.

A baby? Him? He wouldn’t know what to do with a baby. He didn’t even know what to do with a nine year old.

Besides, first he had to convince a grown woman to take a chance on him. Again. That’s even if she’d speak to him.

“Look, I messed up bad with your Mom. Really bad. So bad I’m not sure I can undo it.”

She patted his arm and gave him a solemn look. “As long as you try your best, that’s all you can do. But I know you can fix it.”

Her absolute faith slayed him because he didn’t think anyone had ever had that level of confidence in him before. Ever. That level of responsibility? Yeah, it scared the hell out of him.

Roarke looked up to see Marina standing just inside the doorway.

“Marina…”

Shit, she’d heard everything he said.

“Sam, what have I told you about opening the door by yourself?”

Yeah, she might have heard what he said, but her face said she wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

“I saw that it was Roarke. You had a sleepover with him so he’s not a stranger. Right?”

Hot color flooded her cheeks and she bit her lip. Her gaze darted to him before going back to Sam. “Why don’t you go in and brush your teeth? Get ready for bed?”

Once she was gone Marina turned to him. “What are you doing here?”

She’d changed out of the scrubs and into a pair of those stretchy pants and a loose t-shirt. And she was still pale.

He swallowed back the huge fucking lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry, Marina.” His voice when it came out sounded rusty.

“For what exactly?”

Yeah, not impressed. Did he blame her?

God, she was so beautiful and he’d never told her. Not once. She should have been telling him to fuck off. It’s what he deserved. But she didn’t. She waited. For what? But he knew. She was waiting for him to man the fuck up and that meant he still had a chance.

“I feel as if I can’t fucking breathe right now.”

“It’s probably the ribs.”

“No.” He forced out a strangled laugh. “It’s you. You did something to me.”

Her eyes widened. “I did?”

“Yeah.”

“The first time you touched me I felt…something. I might not have known what the fuck it was, but I knew it wasn’t anything I’d felt before. I also knew it wasn’t anything I wanted. At least, that’s what I thought. And I can’t undo it. I don’t even want to anymore.”

“Roarke—”

“Do you see that?”

He held his hand out in front of her. It shook. No surprise there.

“No one has ever made my hands shake before. No one. Until you. And I’ve never felt real fear before today either. I’ve been scared. Being a SEAL…”

He shook his head. “Yeah, being scared was healthy. It came with the territory, but I will never,” he forced out. “For as long as I live, forget seeing that gun pointed at you. I think it made me lose my fucking mind for awhile.”

He paused when his voice threatened to give out. “Somehow, somewhere along the line you became the most important person in my life and I have no idea how to tell you that. I still don’t.”

She let out a shaky breath. “I think you just did.”

“I’m no good at this shit anymore, Marina. I don’t think I ever was.”

“Do you trust me, Roarke?”

He looked at her then, her gaze was steady on his and open, so fucking open.

“Trust you?” he choked out. “Don’t you know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t?”

“Then just tell me what you feel, what you’re thinking, right this very minute.”

He was silent for a heartbeat, two.

“Right this minute?” He forced out a sound that could have been a laugh, but came out sharp, abrupt instead. “I can’t figure out if I want to kiss the fuck out of you or run as far away from you as I can.”

There. She’d asked.

“Well, if it was my choice?” The side of her mouth lifted in a half-smile that did nothing to calm the twisting and churning in his gut. “I know which one I’d pick.”

Just like that. No more questions, no hesitation. Just trust. What he’d done to deserve that from her, he’ll never know. At this point, he’d fucking take it, take anything.

“For a long time it’s felt as if everything inside me was frozen. After I came back, I didn’t know how to defrost myself. But you’ve done that, Marina and dammit, I can’t freeze again, even if I wanted to.” He shook his head. “You scare the hell out of me because of it.”

“I don’t mean to,” she murmured.

She walked the step into him then. Just as she’d done earlier, she wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her head against his chest. This time he wouldn’t just stand there like a jerk. He wrapped his arms around her, as tight as he dared and held her against him. God, she felt so small, so soft against him. And this time he’d say what he should have said.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Her arms tightened around him.

“And I’m sorry for the…wall thing. Well, maybe not that exactly, just for everything that went down before and after.”

She lifted her head. Her cheeks were flushed, her gaze hot and memories surged through him, hot, explicit memories that had his body hardening in an instant.

“I didn’t mind the wall thing.”

Oh. Man.

“I might have spewed all that ‘just sex’ bullshit, Marina, but it’s not the sex. I—” He broke off, rubbed a rough hand over his face. “Fuck, who am I kidding? It was fucking totally the sex. At first. But now it’s just you. You break me down, Marina and then you break me apart. Until I have no choice.”

“No choice for what?”

He swallowed. “No choice but to let you in. I don’t have the right words. I don’t— I can’t—”

“Love isn’t what you say, Roarke,” Marina cut in. “It’s about what you do. You’ve shown me how you feel, whether you wanted to or not, whether you knew it or not. And that’s all I need. For you to keep showing me.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I thank God for it.”

Marina looked down and away from him and his gut clenched.

“What about Sam?” Her voice was low and quiet.

He frowned. “What about her?”

“She’s my priority, Roarke.”

He wouldn’t have expected anything else. He used a finger under her chin so that she’d have to look at him.

“She’s yours,” he breathed.

Marina frowned. “What—”

“I’m all in here, Marina. I know next to nothing about kids, but she’s part of you, so I consider it a package deal. So that means she’s my priority too. Both of you. Whatever I have, whatever I’m capable of, is yours. And hers. Now. And always. Deal?”

“Deal.” Her own hand when she held it out wasn’t exactly steady. “Should we shake on it?”

He felt some of the heaviness lift from him for the first time in a long time. He swiped his thumb across her lower lip.

“Oh, I have a much better way to seal the deal than that.”