Chapter 18

Chloe

“Finn?” I inquired, and he turned his ear slightly towards me.

My eyes were getting watery, blurring his massive form from my vision. “Are you making me dinner, or…” My voice quivered, my nerves and my self-doubts coming back and getting the best of me. “Or are you… are you… providing for me as… as…”

I choked on a sob and covered my mouth with my shaking hand, turning my face away. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t get the words out. I was too afraid that I would say it and he would deny it, or reject me, or walk out on me. I had lived every day since he arrived knowing that he was mine, but he didn’t want me. But if I actually heard him say the words, I knew that would be the end of me. My heart squeezed in my chest, the pain a mixture of my hope of acceptance and my fear of rejection.

There was a clatter of a dropped pan, and Finn’s heavy footfalls echoed through the kitchen as he strode purposefully over to me, his firm hands a gentle caress on my cheeks as he turned my face t