Page 61 of The Sweetest Chirp

“Are we now?”

“Yeah,” I say simply, and she exhales.

I guess she’s not in the mood to fight the inevitable, and she asks, “Do they know about us?”

“Absolutely.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I got back in contact with you and found out we had a kid together.”

Her eyes widen. “So now, everyone not only thinks I’m a whore, but also a whore who hid your kid.”

I hold her gaze. “Let someone say something like that about you, and they’ll have an appointment with the dentist on Monday.”

Her face flushes, her eyes dilating as she gazes up at me. “Thatcher, you can’t expect me to go with you.”

“I do, actually.”

“I’ll be so embarrassed.”

“Why? Nothing of the past matters. Only that we came to the party and brought our little girl. Oh, and a gift. We’ll have that.”

She looks unsure of herself as she shifts her gaze away from me. “There you go with that ‘we’ again.”

“At least you’re not denying it,” I say with a smirk, which she glares at.

“I planned to do just that.”

I wink at her. And no matter how hard she tries to keep them still, her lips curve up. “Sure, you were.”

She looks away again, shaking her head as a scowl comes over her face. “I don’t know, Thatcher.”

“Please,” I ask softly. “I want to show you guys off.”

She scoffs at that. “I’m not worth?—”

“Don’t do that,” I interrupt, my heart in my throat. “Don’t say that. You know it’s not true, and if I made you feel like that, then my next question, you just need to say yes to.”

Her brows pull in, her lips pursing as she kicks at the marble floor. “What?”

“I’d like to take you out, if you’ll let me.”

I watch her shoulders go taut, and I know she’s chewing on the inside of her lip. “It’s probably for the best. For us to talk in private.”

I don’t like that at all. “I don’t want it to be for the best. I want you to want to go to spend time with me.”

“Thatcher,” she whispers, her body trembling beside mine. “Don’t you see how much this terrifies me?”

“I do,” I say, staying where I am so I don’t attack her to make it all better. “But can’t you see that I just want a chance to explain myself, to show you what I wanted before I made a jackass of myself?”

She presses her lips together. “I don’t know.”

Unable to resist, I turn so that my front meets her side. She looks up at me as I snake an arm around her to pull her to me. She struggles only a tiny bit before she is plastered to my chest, her eyes on me as she sucks in big lungfuls of air. I lean in so that our foreheads almost touch. Our noses are so close, just as close as our lips, but I don’t allow mine to touch hers. I only want to be near her, for her to see the desperation in my eyes. Her eyes are full of lust as she gazes up at me, heaving air in and out.

“Dushen’ka,” I practically plead, “give me a chance to show you how good it can be between us.”

“Thatcher, I know how good it can be. But I also know how bad it can be.”

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