What do you want most in the world?

Devon. You. Always you.

God, what a mistake I made.

I’ve been clinging to CERN because it’s been part of me for so long, yet part of that desperation revolved around the mistakes I made with Elena and Preston, a lifeline to escape and start fresh, but now . . . dreams are meant to evolve. Goals readjust. I want family. I want love.

Einstein said many great things, and his favorite quote hung in his office at Princeton: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Science is important to me—it’s the core of my personality—but love and happiness, those intangible, beautiful, hard-to-hold things, are what count the most, and physics is just icing on the cake. I can’t be me without him, knowing he’s in the world and I’m thousands of miles away. What good would I be at CERN, not caring, missing him with every breath I took?

A knock makes me start. “You’ve been in there for half an hour!” Mama says. “Can’t you pee? Let me get a Sun Drop.”

She shuffles off, and I hear talking from the shop. They’re probably out there planning a baby shower. I shake my head and stare at the magical pee thing. “Thank you, little stick,” I whisper. “I would have figured it out before I left, but you helped. Let’s hope Devon . . .” My voice cracks. What if he doesn’t let me back into his heart? Worse, what if I’m pregnant and he . . .

Don’t go there.

Might as well get this over with. I take care of business, using two sticks, one after the other, then setting them on the counter—and wait.

I can’t breathe as I watch the minutes tick down on my phone. My fingers clutch the edge of the sink as I breathe, anticipation building and rising with each moment. I want this, I want this, I want this—and him.

Six minutes later, I clean up the mess, throwing the package and instructions in the trash. Leaning my head against the door for a minute, I attempt to get my emotions under control, grappling with the torrent of feelings as I swipe at my face.

Walking down the hall and out into the beauty shop, I watch my feet, my mind tumbling. I need another shower. One wasn’t enough. I need to put some makeup on, some decent clothes besides his shirt—which I haven’t taken off. I need to see him. Friday night rushes back at me: his anger, his disappointment, his I love you.

“Why are you crying?” Mama asks, rushing over to me.

From her perch in a stylist chair, Myrtle says, “Bun in the oven. Knew it.”

The door opens, and he walks in.

My whole life. Right there.

His eyes are wide, and his face . . . “Baby, don’t cry,” he says in a deep husky voice.

My body reacts, spinning toward him as he rushes to me, broad shoulders swaying as he stops in front of me, and I jump in his arms.

“I called him,” Elena offers with a grimace as she waves at the rest of them and shoos them out the front door. They file out, not willingly, but they do.

He’s here. Really here.

My heart throbs, squeezing inside my rib cage. I press my face into his chest and exhale. His hands go to my scalp, massaging the skin, trailing his fingers through my hair. His lips brush my ear, and I tighten my arms around him. How did I fool myself for three days? I’d choose him every single time.

“I’m not pregnant,” I say glumly.

“Hmm, I see.” His voice is too calm, and I can’t meet his eyes as I let him go and slide down his body. He sways with me in a gentle motion.

“I wanted to be,” I choke out, admitting the truth, trying to push the disappointment away. “I was already making a nursery in my head, with a mobile to foster brain development, toys for optimal tactile touch, painting butterflies on the wall.”

“Ah, that sounds nice.” His voice is hoarse.

I look up at him then, seeing details I missed before. He’s wearing his football pants and a white vented practice jersey, and his hair . . . I half smile. It’s a mess, sticking up in a million directions. His gaze is heavy on me, low, speculative, and hesitant. He looks haunted, his face thinner. Is that possible in just three days? My fingers run over his face, outlining the details.

“How freaked out were you?”

A long exhale comes from his chest. “Let’s just say there’s a state trooper who now has season passes.”

“Were you scared?”

His lashes flutter against his cheeks, emotion pulling at him, his throat working. “Not for me. I can handle a baby, but I don’t want anything to hold you back from what you want.”

I gaze up at him, and our eyes cling. Oh, Devon.

Tears clog my throat, and I push them away to say my words. “Dev, you are my dream. You are what I want most in the world. You and me and babies and a house in the country. CERN can’t compare. Maybe it will be in the future—they let people teach classes periodically—but Switzerland will always be here. You are now. You are mine, and I’m yours. That morning in the closet, you described what I want with you. Every detail of that life.” My eyes close as I replay his words. “Me and you and a life that’s worthy and good and precious. I want to be in all your universes.”

Gathering strength, I tell him my Einstein quote, and he watches me, listening carefully, his beautiful green eyes all over my face, drinking me in. “I’d be nothing but a shadow of who I am if I left you,” I whisper.

His hands tighten as he bends his head to mine. He kisses me with all the longing we’ve been denied for the past three days. “Are you sure, Giselle? I . . .” His voice hitches. “These days without you have desolated me, but I’m willing to be yours and let you go, and we can try and see how it works out . . .”

I put my hand to his lips. “From the moment Susan mentioned CERN, I was sick. It just took a pregnancy test for me to figure it out. I love you so much, Devon.”

A long heavy breath comes from him, and his eyes glimmer with hope, a soft shine there. He presses his forehead to mine. “I’m going to make you proud, baby; I’m going to make you happy, and you’re going to get everything you want, I swear.”

He kisses me soft and slow. “So are we going to go out there and tell them you aren’t pregnant?”

“You tell them while I dash to your car.”

He groans. “Your mama knows for sure we’re having sex. I can’t even look at her. You do it.”

“Okay. You tell them I’m not going to CERN, and I’ll tell them I’m not pregnant. They’ll be disappointed about the baby,” I say wistfully.

“There’ll be other babies,” he murmurs after another drugging kiss, his voice soft and wondering, as if he’s amazed at the idea. “I love you, Giselle.”

“I’m yours, Dev.”

That rich red thread of fate wraps around us.

We hold hands and walk to the door, a whole new future waiting for us.

Epilogue

DEVON

A few years later

I wake up and look over, and she isn’t there, causing a brief bite of disappointment, until I laugh up at the skylight above our bed. Knowing her, she’s either hiding to jump out at me, or she’s up and working.

I shower in the bathroom of our house, the one we built out on the farm after we were married. I dunk my head under the water, thinking about that day, her in a white dress, an amethyst ring surrounded by diamonds on her finger, her nana’s pearls around her neck, her hand in mine as we said our vows in her mama’s church. It was a perfect spring day in April when she was halfway through her doctorate, and I was giddy to finally make us official.