"He left her before she told him she was pregnant. I don't know when she knew about you. But she never bothered to reach out to him to tell him either."
"Oh, my god."
I didn't want Ivy to be upset. I was worried about the baby. But we needed to have this conversation. "I believed him. He doesn't live that far from you, and he has a family. Two adult sons and a wife. He works as a mechanic at a garage. He was upset he didn’t get a chance to be part of your life."
The tears spilled over her cheeks, and I did my best to wipe them away.
"He wants to meet you when you're ready."
"Why would my mom keep him from me?"
"I don't know. Maybe she was afraid of the rejection." I couldn't help but think it was a similar thought pattern to what Ivy operated under. She'd learned it from her mother.
"Instead she made me think that he rejected me."
"You can talk to her about it if you want. You can get the answers you're longing for. But you can also move on, meet your father, and have this baby of ours. You can have a different future."
"Is that possible? Can I move forward with my dad and deal with my mother later?" Ivy's voice trembled, and I hated that she was hurting.
"I don't see why not."
I wanted to protect her, but I also wanted her to live the life she was meant to. And hiding from the world because she was afraid of getting hurt was no way to live.
Ivy lifted her gaze to meet mine. "I have to tell you something."
My stomach turned. Was this the part where she told me she couldn't be with me? That she could never forgive me for what I did?
"I'm in love with you. I have been for a while. But I was so afraid of telling you."
Hope surged. "I love you too."
"I don't want to live apart from you. I like living with you."
I held her hand to my heart, which was beating hard. "This is your place now too." I wasn't sure if I was talking about the house or my heart. It was all wrapped up in my mind.
Ivy shook her head. "How can you forgive me for pushing you away repeatedly? For not trusting you?"
"I knew when we got involved that trust might be an issue for you. I intended to be patient. I want a life with you and our baby." The love for these two was overwhelming. Now that I was able to express my feelings to her, it only made them stronger.
"You're too good for me. I don't deserve this."
I cupped her cheek. "You deserve everything. The love. The joy. The security."
"It seems too good to be true."
"I'm always going to be here for you. I'm never going to let you go. If you need to take a few hours to yourself here and there, that's okay. Because I'm always going to be waiting for you to come back." I had a feeling she'd struggle with the lack of trust for a bit before she believed that she could rely on me to always be there for her.
"I love you so much," she said, blinking away tears.
"I'm right there with you," I said before touching my lips to hers. As my tongue slid alongside hers, it was like coming home. Ivy was it for me. I'd protect her with everything I had.
Ivy twisted slightly in her seat to face me. "I don't know why I'm so nervous."
"You're meeting your father for the first time." I reached over the console to entangle my fingers with hers.
Her eyes shone with unshed tears. Ivy had been more emotional, and I thought it was because she was finally confronting her feelings instead of numbing herself to them. "It's fitting that I'm meeting my father around the same time as my little one will meet you."
I grinned at her. "That's where you're wrong. He can already hear me."
