Page 70 of Saved by Him

“I think I can find somewhere,” Jalen said. “Are we allowed to leave the area?”

“Even Elise is saying you didn’t intend to kill him,” Agent Matthews said to me. “Actually, she said you were trying to stop him from hurting her and her baby.”

Clay looked at me with surprise. “You savedElise?”

“I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone else,” I said softly. “No matter how much she pisses me off.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Agent Matthews reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “She gave me this to give to you, Jalen. I’m guessing it means something to you.”

Jalen took the paper, read it, then smiled. “It’s the official conception window. A weekbeforeI slept with her. The baby can’t be mine.”

Relief washed through me. Adeline’s visit had made me certain that Jalen wasn’t the baby’s father, but this meant we were done with Elise’s games.

“She wrote a note on it too,” he said. “You were right. We used a condom. I’ll sign the papers.”

“No apology,” I said with a shrug. “But on the plus side, you’re going to get a divorce.”

“I didn’t want to get it this way,” Jalen said.

For the first time, I heard something new in his voice. Something hard. And I wasn’t the only one who heard it.

“We’re going to talk to the cops,” Agent Matthews said. “And then we’ve got paperwork piling up back at the office. We’re going to be busy for a while with this case.”

Clay leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “If you need me, all you have to do is call.”

I nodded. “I know.” I waited until they left before I asked Jalen what was wrong.

He stared at me. “You could’ve died today. Why did you risk yourself for Elise? Dammit, Rona!”

“Are you mad at me for saving her life? Really?”

He cupped my face in his hands, careful to keep his fingers off my wound. “I can’t lose you. Don’t you understand that yet? Losing you would kill me.”

I curled my fingers in his shirt. “And I couldn’t have lived with myself if he hurt someone else when I could’ve stopped him.”

Jalen rested his forehead on mine. “Please, sweetheart, don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“Ever?” I echoed. “That sounds an awful lot like a commitment.”

He smiled. “One step at a time, right?”

I wanted to enjoy this moment, but there was one thing I had to know before I could. “When you heard Elise was pregnant, was it the baby you didn’t want, or was it just her?”

He raised his head but didn’t step away. “You want to know if I want kids?”

I nodded.

His eyes skimmed down to my belly. “Are you–”

“No, but if we’re looking to the future, it’s something we should talk about.”

He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. “I want to be a father someday, but only if you’re the mother.”

I closed my eyes and finally let myself feel all the hope I’d been pushing down for so long. I was going to have a family.

No, I amended. I alreadyhada family. It was just going to get bigger someday.

---