Page 115 of Winning Brynn

Not a single penny of it has she spent on herself.

“What?”

“You’ve spent it all on Salem.”

“Okay…”

Fucking hell, the woman still doesn’t get it.

“Right, okay, let me ask you this, then. If I asked you to still look after Salem, to do everything you’ve already been doing, the same hours, the same responsibilities, but I wouldn’t pay you to do it, what would you say?”

Her eyes brighten with hope, her lips turning upward as if it’s Christmas Day and I’ve just gifted her a sibling for Gordon. “Yes. I’d say yes.”

“Why?” I demand.

“Because, b-because I…”

“Yes?”

Her chin lifts, her expression resolute, honest and rich with conviction. “Because I love her.”But then her lip trembles, and her face falls once more. “It doesn’t make us a family, though.”

“Jesus, woman, for someone so smart, you can be incredibly dense sometimes.”

She has the audacity to look affronted, as if I’m the infuriating one out of the two of us. “Excuse me?”

With a sigh, I slide my hands beneath her butt on the stool and scoop her up, setting her down on the island so I can stand between her legs. The position brings us nose to nose, so close that I can feel each of her shivering breaths against my lips. So close, that if I wanted to—which I do—I could kiss her before she’d even have a chance to blink.

But I don’t.

As excruciating as it is to hold myself back, especially when I haven’t tasted the sweetness of her mouth properly in over four days, it’s more important that she hears what I’m about to say.

“Apparently, I need to spell this out for you, so I hope you’re listening.” She grumbles something under her breath, but I keep going. “You haven’t been taking care of Salem out of obligation, or because it’s your job, or whatever other bullshit you like to tell yourself. You do it because you want to. Because you love her, and she loves you. Not as much as I do, because at this point, it’s frankly impossible. But the fact of the matter is, you love Salem, and Salem and I love you too, so if that isn’t what the definition of a family is, then I don’t know what is.” I suck in a breath and stare straight into her maddeningly beautiful eyes. “And if that still isn’t enough, then we’re a family because I fucking say we are. Do you understand me?”

She blinks. “You love me?”

I groan, though the sound is laced with amusement, because of course that’s the only thing she focused on out of all the highly important and unmissable points I was making. “What, like you don’t already know?”

Her mouth opens, then closes, as if she’s desperate to say something, but the words won’t come to her.

Capturing her other cheek in my hand, I bring our faces even closer together. “I love you, Brynn Wolfe, you kind, selfless, insufferably stubborn woman.”

Finally, for the first time in ninety-six long, unbearable hours, she smiles. And it’s real, and warm, and so goddamn mystifying that I’m afraid to blink for fear of missing even a millisecond of it.

“You know I love you too, right?”

I nod, because I do. “We’re a family.”

Her lips twitch. “A family,” she repeats, testing the taste of the word on her tongue.

“Uh-huh. And just because Salem’s birth mom is back in the picture doesn’t mean, for a single second, that we don’t want you anymore.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You won’t change your mind?”

“Never. Now, come here and let me make love to you until you never doubt your place in this family again.”

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