Page 74 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

“My son,” he snapped, cutting me off. “My son is a grown man who walked away from something good and didn’t have the sense to know what he lost.”

I flinched, but he didn’t let go.

“I love my son.” His hands cupped my face now, and his voice dropped—dangerously low. “But I care about you. About our daughters. About this life that snuck up and took me by the throat.”

I was breathing too fast. My hands trembled in his coat. “You don’t mean that. You’re upset. This is adrenaline?—”

“I’ve never been more fucking sure of anything.”

I searched his eyes, looking for a sign to confirm if he really meant what he was saying.

“Leo may be my son,” he said, voice ragged, “but you… you’re my family now.”

Tears stung the backs of my eyes. His words hit like a match to kindling, lighting up everything inside me that had been cold and afraid and alone for so long.

I wanted to believe him. I wanted this.

But the stakes were so impossibly high.

I stood there, wrapped in his coat and his arms, stunned into silence.

He meant every word.

I could see it in the rawness of his expression, the shake in his voice, the way his hands hadn’t left my body since he’d pulled me close. But even under the heat of his possessive vow, a part of me still trembled. Because words were easy. Reality… wasn’t.

His thumb brushed along my cheekbone, catching the tear I hadn’t even realized had fallen.

“You really mean it,” I whispered, not quite believing it.

“I do.”

I nodded slowly, breath catching in my throat. “Okay,” I said, voice small. “Okay.”

His eyes softened for the first time all night. His forehead pressed to mine. We didn’t kiss. We just stood like that—touching, breathing, clinging to something that felt impossible and inevitable all at once.

And still, under all of that, the truth sat heavy in my chest.

Carrie couldn’t know. Seth definitely couldn’t know.

And Leo… God, would there ever be a right time to tell him?

Dom's hand rubbed slow circles against my back. We stood there for what felt like forever, caught in that space between hope and fear, between what we wanted and what the world would allow.

Then, his voice rumbled low against the top of my head.

“You know what the worst part of all this is?”

I pulled back just enough to look up at him.

He gave me a crooked, almost-smile. “It goddamn ruined our date.”

A startled laugh escaped me—half gasp, half sob. And somehow, just like that, the tension cracked open.

God help me, I loved this man.

Chapter 28

Dom

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