Vaughan, clearly stunned, just stared at her. And she didn’t even feel the need, not for a moment, to apologize.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. You did make sacrifices. You have made an effort to keep the girls near my family. They see that, too, and totally appreciate it, Kelly.” He sighed, but kept their fingers linked. “None of us are who we were eight years ago. Ezra has gone through hell and fought his way back. Damien fell in love, got married, he’s going to be a dad in a month or so. Paddy was totally blindsided by Natalie but I fully expect him to be proposing soon. They all like you. They’ve all told me to get you back. My dad’s given me some pretty freaking great advice. They want us—you, me and the girls—to be a family. One hundred and ten percent, they’re all behind me, wanting us to work out. Truly.”

“You know, here’s a thing. None of us are who we were, that’s true. But you want to keep glossing over the seeds of this entire mess. Not just the years after we split. But the way your mother has been to me since day one. This isn’t about my sacrifices. That’s parenting, Vaughan. This is about the shitty attitude your mother has had since the moment she met me. She thinks I’m a gold-digging whore and she thinks that because you never told her the truth. That makes me sort of ragey right now, come to think of it.”

“I’m going to see her next week at the ranch to talk to her. About everything. And to tell her she has to welcome you the way she has Mary, Natalie and Tuesday. It can’t work any other way. Thing is, and I’m not defending her, but I think she’s been trying to find a way to admit she might like you for a few years now.”

“I already let you put your penis in me, stop lying.”

He burst out laughing, bringing her hand to his mouth to kiss her fingertips. “Not lying! I swear. She’s a mom. She sees you and no one can look at the job you do and deny how great you are at raising our girls. We’ll talk. I’ll explain and yeah, confess. And we’ll all move forward. You, Maddie and Kensey are my priority. Do you believe me?”

She didn’t hesitate before nodding. She just hoped he kept them his priority and didn’t run off when it got hard.

The truth was, yes, they all had changed. Heaven knew she wasn’t the same, either. She wanted to fit with the Hurleys, too. Wanted to feel like more than an outsider who brought the kids over to see them.

“There’s no moving forward until she hears the truth and reacts appropriately.”

“All right. I’m sorry this happened. I wanted tonight to be special and romantic.” Vaughan had realized, when Kelly told him about what Stacey had done for them, that other than sleeping and sex and parenting stuff, he hadn’t been paying enough attention to the romance, that intimacy they needed to keep building and renewing. Strengthening them like a shield from whatever storms came along.

He raised his glass and touched it to hers. “To second chances.”

“Redemption.”

He drank and then took a while to watch the candlelight glinting against the gold of her hair, the sparkle of her earrings, the gloss of her nails. So exquisite but she made it look effortless.

“You look so gorgeous. I want to get out a spoon and eat you up in three bites.”

Her smile drew him closer.

“That’s a nice thing to say.”

“I forget sometimes how stunning you are. And then you get all dressed up, or I see you in some fantastic outfit for work and I remember. I remember sitting, watching you get your makeup done for a show. I remember what you look like, that walk of yours, as you owned that runway. Boom. Boom.”

“My agent has me come in to teach the newbs how to walk. Twice a year. Like orientation with Aunt Kelly. God, they’re all so young. Fresh-faced off the bus from nowhere, USA. I see them a year later, the ones who make it anyway, and all that fresh-faced stuff is fading.”

“Along with the supermodel thing, I forget sometimes that you didn’t have much of a normal life as a kid.”

“Says the rock-star rancher.” But her tone wasn’t angry or upset. Just amused. “We were in the Philippines when I was Kensey’s age. Then we lived in Turkey. I’ll give Rebecca credit, she found every freaking casting call she could, no matter the location. After that is when Rebecca left him, taking me with her. When we got back to the United States she put me in classes and about a year later I was picked up by Exclusive. Still with them, actually. Twenty years in July.”

He’d seen the photos of her, a fourteen-year-old walking on the runway. She’d been part of a new wave of models at the time. The all-star team, so to speak.

He wanted to know more about her life. Back when they’d been together she’d told him some, but he hadn’t pressed for more than she’d given. Probably a mistake. In any case, one he didn’t want to repeat. “Do you see your mother much? Or your father?”

“He died three years ago. He’s buried in Tacoma. I found out a few months after.”

“I’m sorry.” He was. He couldn’t imagine the pain of having one of his parents just walk away like her father had.

She shrugged. “People die. He drank too much and it killed him. Or so I’m told. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since before we met.”

“You never told me the whole story.”

“Dinner out with a gorgeous man is not the time for that shit.”

“It’s part of you. I want to know. How can I understand you if I don’t?”