“How could I relax when I had to welcome Christian into my home, the one who had wounded me deeper than anyone, the one who haunted my days and held me in my dreams?”

“My body trembled as all the regrets of my life washed through me, my heart feeling as if it were on the verge of failing. My sould cried out for her. It had never stopped its search for her in nine years, and I could still feel her calling for me.”

“Baby, I wish I could tell you how much I love you, how much you mean to me."He nuzzled my cheek and continued down my neck, setting a fire across my skin, churning coals that burst into flames deep within my soul. "Show me.”

“That's how I spent the next day and night - dividing my time between my girls. I felt like the go between until the three of us could be together. It was as if I were carrying a piece of one to the other, making them whole, as if we were part of the same soul.”

“Seeing her was like seeing a reflection of myself, a mirror of my pain, my loss, my regret. A mirror of what stirred within me now – this love that had refused to die. She had found me. I had always felt her heart calling to mine just as mine called to hers, this power bringing us together once again.”

“I stood to take a few minutes to clear my head when a strangled sob grounded me to the floor. My head jerked up, my eyes desperate to find what I so longed to see. My knees went weak, and I grasped the table for support when my eyes met with the emerald that owned my soul.”

“What do you want, Christian?”What did I want? To make her smile, to wipe away her tears, to hold her. To be a father, a real father, not one in title, but on who’d earned that right. I wanted to stay. “I want my family,” I forced through the lump in my throat.”