He looks down at Ella, then back at me. “Yeah. I think I finally am,” he mumbles.
“You know I was terrified,” I admit softly. “When you didn’t come home right away… I thought maybe that was it. That your dad had won.”
He shakes his head. “He nearly did,” he says.
My throat tightens at the admission.
“He tried to blackmail me, and all I could think about was you and Ella, and how you didn’t deserve to get pulled into all this shit.”
“And you said no?”
“Honey helped. She made them back down, and now I’m here. Right where I belong.”
My breath catches as a thousand thoughts whir through my head at once.
“I don’t know what the future looks like,” I say, flailing my hands around. “With Zach leaving… with everything changing. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Jamie reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together. Somehow, that small gesture is enough to relax me. “I don’t either, but I’m okay with that. I just want to be here. With you and Ella.”
Ella shifts, sighing softly in her sleep.
I smile, brushing a kiss over her hair. “That just might be enough.”
He nods. “It is for me.”
“That’s all I need.”
The noise fade around us as the stands empty, but I’m not in a rush to leave, neither is he.
Jamie has never looked better. With Ella sleeping on his shoulder, confetti in his hair, and his hand in mine, I feel something deep in my heart that I’ve been trying to avoid.
Love.
I love him so much.
Just as I’m about to blurt it out, Jamie looks over at me, his thumb brushing across my knuckles. “You ready to go?”
I smile. “Yeah, I am.”
Chapter 30
“Fusilli. Fu-silli, foo-silly,” Ella dances in her seat as she attempts to pronounce her and Princess Blanca’s favorite pasta. “Do you like fusilli, Daddy?”
It’s an absentminded question, one she has no idea means everything to me.
Daddy.
My throat tightens, and I have to swallow hard before I can answer.
“I love it,” I manage, shoveling a little more pasta in my mouth before I make it too obvious I’m an emotional wreck over my daughter choosing to call me Daddy on her own.
Tiff’s sitting opposite me, and when I catch her eye, she gives me a soft smile.
This is it.
This is what I fought for.
Everything I ever wanted.