Page 14 of Returning for His Unknown Son

“You’re definitely not the Starling I left behind.”

He didn’t it say it like it was a bad thing. Or a good thing, either. “I wouldn’t have survived the last few years if I was still that person. Discovering I was pregnant after your plane crash... I don’t have the words to describe the feeling to you. Perversely, it was the one thing that finally made me take stock. That made me decide I’d had enough of fate and Mama and everyone else running my life. You should’ve seen Mama and Ben when I started ordering them around. You’d have been proud of me.”

“I’ve always been proud of you, Pree.”

Priya touched him then. She couldn’t not. Not after that. She moved her fingers over the corded forearm still wound around her midriff. The rasp of his hair felt delicious against her palm. And at her back, she could sense the change in his chest and thighs, packed with powerful muscles that one didn’t acquire at a gym.

He was broader and wider and less...polished. So different from that suave, sophisticated Christian he’d once been. As if all the surface things had been stripped away from him, leaving only a core of steel behind.

But for all the changes in him—inside and out—everything in her still responded to him. Everything in her wanted to touch him and hold him and give him succor. Wanted to demand he give her what she needed, what she wanted only from him.

Slowly, he released her.

She turned, a strangely protective instinct rising up in her. There was no way she could even begin to imagine what he must have gone through. But what she could do, could give him—after everything he’d done for her—was to be here for him.

“Eight years is a long time to be on your own, Christian. Give yourself space and time to find your footing. Do the things that bring you peace and joy. Even the smallest things that might center you, things that you used to enjoy before.”

Leaning against the opposite wall, he smiled. “I can see how MMT flourished under your leadership.”

“Pinpoint the biggest problem first and then solve it. You and Jai taught me that.”

“So I’m the problem now, huh?”

She grinned. “A six-foot-three-inch brooding man, suddenly taking up space in my bedroom and my life...” She swallowed the words“and my heart.”He wasn’t allowed there. “You can’t say I’m wrong.”

He dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “I will take it slow.”

It was one of the things that had always made him stand out for her. Unlike so many men, Christian actually listened to good advice, no matter who gave it.

“What’s the one thing you desperately missed all these years? A perfect cup of coffee at your favorite café? An Armani suit? Maybe a ride on your bike? What did you really want and couldn’t have?”

“There was one thing I desperately wanted. Even when I didn’t know who I was.” His gaze on her mouth was like a laser beam, his intent unmistakable. “Even when I didn’t know who you were,” he finished silkily, a challenge in his blue eyes. “I wanted to taste that mouth that teased and tormented me, even during waking hours.”

Her chin hit her chest, shock blooming low in her belly. Her thighs trembled and she desperately wanted to clutch them together. “So you remembered my face?”

“Like a smudged picture,” he admitted. “And that piece of music you incessantly practiced in our apartment, during those few months...”

“When we were married. When I waited at home, playing my sitar like a sad, neglected wife and you twisted yourself upside down to avoid me and never came home...” Some devil in her demanded its due. “Those few months? I wondered if you ever found...other company.”

An expression flashed in his eyes so quickly she couldn’t identify it. “Do you really want to get into it now, Pree?”

“What else? What else did you remember about me?” she said instead, backing down. This was too important. More important than those first thorny few months of their marriage.

“Mostly, I remembered that I’d made a promise to you that I wouldn’t mess it up between us.” His tone of voice clearly conveyed how badly he thought he’d failed to keep that promise.

“Oh.” His gaze tracked her as she moved around the room, straightening things that didn’t need to be straightened. Her mind whirred, every small thing he revealed tugging her closer and closer to him.

He had remembered her—smudged image or not.He had remembered her.Her hungry, greedy heart jumped over that little nugget.

This had been inevitable from the moment she’d run her hands all over his body in the rain to make sure he was real. But Priya didn’t want it to be inevitable. She didn’t want to be swept along by grief or guilt or rage or relief.

She wanted it to be a choice. Her choice.

And his choice. But he wasn’t going to ask her. That was clear.

Slowly, she worked her way toward him, every nerve in her body on high alert.

“And now?” she asked, her hands itching to touch him, to hold him, to soothe the tension in his body.

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