Those words send a chill through me. He stops kissing me and presses his cheek to my chest.

I thread my fingers through his hair.

“Scared of what?”

“Your need to protect Clara.” He lifts his face. “My need to be honest with Elijah. We aren’t on the same page, Morgan. I’ve waited too long for this to be a onetime thing, but I’m not sure you want what I want.”

He scoots up, sliding his hand beneath my shirt, pressing his palm against my stomach. I’m staring up at the ceiling, and I could swear the ceiling is pulsating to the rhythm of my heartbeat. “I don’t know what I want.” My eyes find his, and I do know what I want. I’m lying. I know exactly what I want. I just don’t know if it’s possible. “She’ll never understand. And what would we tell Elijah?”

“We would tell him the truth. Do you really think it’s better for Clara to think we’re the bad guys in this scenario?”

“You saw how devastated she was because of a kiss. Imagine if she finds out about Elijah—about what Jenny and Chris did—she’ll never be able to forgive that.”

I can see a flash of understanding on Jonah’s face, but he shakes his head. “So . . .” He falls onto his back. “Chris and Jenny get away with an affair. They get away with lying to me about fathering a child. They get away with being eternal idols in Clara’s eyes. And in the meantime, me and you are forced to keep our mouths shut and live separately in misery because of actions we aren’t even responsible for?”

“I realize it’s not fair.” I lift myself up onto my elbow and look at him. I put my hand on his hardened jaw and force him to meet my focused stare. “Chris was a shitty husband. He was a shitty friend to you. But he was a wonderful father.” I run my thumb over his lips, pleading with him through my teary eyes. “If she ever finds out Elijah isn’t yours, it’ll devastate her. Please don’t tell him. All he knows is you, anyway. It’s not the same as if Clara were to find out about Chris. I’ll take their secret to my grave if it means protecting her from that kind of pain.”

Jonah turns his head, pulling away from my hand. The rejection stings. “I’m not like you. I don’t want to lie to my child.”

I fall onto my back. More tears come. I shouldn’t have come over here. It was a bad idea. I’ve lived this long suffering through this terrible longing I’ve kept buried for Jonah. What’s fifty more years?

“We have to work this out. Come to an agreement,” he says. “I want to be with you.”

“That’s why I’m here. So you can be with me.”

“I want you in more ways than this.”

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, working out what that would mean. Even in all of Chris’s infidelity, I still feel guilty that I’m here, in Jonah’s bed. Kissing him felt so good when I wasn’t thinking too hard about it. It’s the best feeling I’ve had in a long, long time. But now that he’s forcing me to look at where this will lead, I just feel miserable again.

I look him directly in the eye. “You’re telling me you’re willing to ruin every memory my daughter has with her father. Yet in the same conversation, you’re asking me to be with you in more than one way? To fall in love with you?”

“No,” he says. “I’m not asking you to fall in love with me, Morgan. You already love me. I’m just asking you to give that a chance.”

“I do not love you.” I roll toward the other side of the bed, away from him. I need to leave.

I start to stand, but he grips my arm and pulls me back to the bed, onto my back.

I press my hands against his chest to push him away, but he’s on top of me now, staring down at me with a familiar look in his eyes. I’m instantly still. I’m weak beneath that stare. He’s looking at me like he was in that picture. Full of heartache.

Or maybe this is what Jonah looks like when he loves something so much it hurts.

I suddenly don’t feel an urgent need to leave. I relax beneath him, into him, around him. I suck in air when he lowers his mouth to my jawline, dragging his lips slowly up to my ear.

“You love me.”

I shake my head. “I don’t. That’s not why I’m here.”

He kisses me, just below my ear. “You do,” he says. “You’ve just done an excellent job at hiding it, but you’ve said it in every silent conversation we’ve ever had.”

“There’s no such thing as silent conversation.”

He’s looking into my eyes in a way no man has ever looked at me before. Then, he dips his head and rests his lips against mine. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it. I love you too.” When his lips close over mine, there’s an intensity in his kiss that makes me lose myself.

There’s something about being Jonah’s first choice—maybe even his only choice—that makes every look he gives me and every touch and every word he speaks reach me on a level Chris never could. A level I feel so deep in my soul it makes me ache beneath all the satisfaction his kiss brings.

When he settles himself between my legs, I moan into his mouth and pull him closer to me.

I forget everything. The only thoughts I have are of this moment. How rough his hands are as they pull off my shirt. How soft his lips are when they meet my breasts. How effortless his movements are as he slips out of his jeans. How in sync our gasps are when we’re finally skin to skin. How intense his eyes are when he begins to push into me.

It’s a completeness I’ve never experienced before.

It’s as if he knows exactly where to touch me, how soft, how firm, where I want his lips. He feels like a professor of my body, and I feel like an inexperienced student, cautiously touching him, unsure if my fingers or my lips can even come close to making him feel how he’s making me feel.

I press my mouth against his shoulder and whisper, “I’ve only ever been with Chris.”

Jonah is deep inside me when he stops suddenly and pulls back. Our eyes meet, and he smiles. “I’ve only ever wanted to be with you.”

He kisses me tenderly, and that’s how it continues—him kissing me, moving gently in and out of me until I can no longer keep silent. I pull him closer so I can bury my face against his neck when it happens.

I finish first, an explosive moment of emotions and pleasure and years of suppression finally coming to the surface. My body is trembling beneath him, and my nails have raked their way down his back when he groans against my cheek, shuddering on top of me.

I expect it to end here, with him catching his breath and then rolling off me with a sigh. That’s how the last seventeen years of sex with Chris always ended.

But Jonah isn’t Chris, and I need to stop comparing them. It’s unfair to Chris.

Jonah is gently cradling the side of my head as we continue to kiss. This doesn’t feel like it’s over yet. This thing between me and Jonah. Now that I’ve had this side of him, I don’t know how I can go on without it.

That scares me, but I’m too satiated to stop his mouth as it moves over mine, across my jaw, finally coming to rest against my chest, where he calmly lays his head. We spend the next few minutes waiting for the current to settle between us.