I was falling, and I was falling hard. I could only hope Evie felt the same and that, soon enough, we’d come up with a way to tell her brother.

A way that wouldn’t drive us all apart and ruin everything.

Chapter Eighteen

It was late and way past my bedtime, but I had no desire to end this and go home.

Smith and I had moved to a little booth beside the bar, and I was trying to keep it together, despite the fact that his jealousy had my heart singing. Why would a man care who a woman had a baby with if he was just in it for the sex? And more to the point, why the hell weren’t we having sex if he was just in it for the sex?

These were the questions that plagued me as we sat talking and nursing our next round of drinks. I quickly realized that thoughts like those were a descent into madness. I would literally drive myself crazy if I kept trying to analyze every word he spoke. Instead, I focused on the man in front of me.

I loved everything about tonight. The reservation he’d made at that swanky restaurant—and then promptly broken before stealing me away for a much more laid-back evening, which somehow had made the date even more intimate. Sharing laughs, telling stories, we’d been able to open up and be ourselves.

As I gazed into Smith’s eyes, I realized that something about him being older made him so much more desirable and charming than other men. A beer-swilling, hamburger-eating, football-and-video-game junkie he was not. Or maybe it was just that guys my age were so juvenile compared to Smith. He had friends and family who loved him, an impressive job that he dressed in a suit for every day, and that was before he came in to help rescue Sophia’s.

Everything about him was special and attractive to me. Just the life he’d built for himself was enviable. Most days I felt like a hot mess, munching on dry cereal from a plastic bag on my way into work, reading those sex-tips articles at night—hoping for inspiration. Yeah, I was a work in progress.

But Smith knew exactly who he was. A businessman, an athlete who enjoyed regular five-mile runs through the park on the weekends, a friend who could be relied on.

Or at least he did until I marched into his hotel room that night and confused everything.

“So, how do you like working for the company? Did you ever imagine you’d be working in women’s undergarments?” I asked.

He let out a short chuckle. “No. Never. I’ve always enjoyed lingerie, but usually it’s because I’m the one taking it off.”

Now I was the one letting out a giggle.

“I do really like working there, but I’m just a numbers guy,” he continued. “You and your brother are the true visionaries.”

“Just a numbers guy.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure you’re a millionaire, so yeah.”

Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. The drinks we’d downed were going to my head.

But Smith just shrugged. “My family is. I got lucky.”

“You won the lottery with them.”

Smith’s family was amazing, but I hoped I hadn’t just put my foot in my mouth.

We got quiet for a second. But I’d already started down this path, so it only made sense to keep going.

“Do you ever wonder about your biological parents? If you have any siblings out there?”

Smith sat up straighter. “Of course I do.”

“Have you ever looked into it? Hired a private investigator, anything like that?”

He shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, but no. Couldn’t do that to my mom.”

Mary. The woman who fostered, then adopted Smith was now simply Mom. It was sweet that he was so thoughtful, putting her feelings first, but this was his life too. Surely he was entitled to some basic information about where he came from.

“Do you want to know the truth?” he asked, and I nodded. “It gets to me sometimes, not knowing, living life as one big question mark. Even the little things like when I go to get a physical and the doctor wants my family’s medical history, or wondering how I got my hazel eyes.”

It was crazy how much I could know about this man, and yet he constantly still surprised me.

Reaching over, I placed my hand on his. “I never thought about that part of it. Being in a family with people who don’t look like you.”

“Yeah. Maybe someday, maybe when my parents pass away, I’ll look into it. But you know, regardless, I don’t think I’d change a thing,” he said with a shrug. “Even after all the hard times early on. It was tough getting shuffled around, especially because I was so young and didn’t understand. I wanted to be loved so badly and couldn’t figure out why no one wanted to love me back.”

His tone was so matter of fact, like that of a man far removed from that pain, but my throat ached with tears at the thought of a four-year-old Smith being packed up and moved from house to house.

I wanted to go back in time, find his birth mother and father and slap them both upside the head for leaving him. Sure, maybe they’d done it because they couldn’t provide a good life for him anymore, but in my emotional state at that moment, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that Smith had suffered, and I hated the thought of it.

“My parents are really wonderful,” he continued, oblivious to my internal struggle. “And my relationship with Pam and her family is probably one of the best things in my life. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

I nodded in agreement. Cullen and I were close like that, and it was a bond that could never be broken.