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“When Ogram called with the good news that he’d found his mate, I told him a human couldn’t be his true mate.”

A grimace breaks across my face before I can stop it.

“I was an asshole, yes. Another regret.”

“I’m sure he understood.”

Grüsh nods. “Fortunately, my brother is as generous with his forgiveness as he is with everything else.”

I have to wrap my arms around my waist to prevent reaching for him. “We all make mistakes.”

“My biggest mistake was with you,” he says, staring into my soul with those dark eyes I missed so much in the years he was gone. “I shouldn’t have let you go.”

“You didn’t. I let you go.”

“I should’ve done more. Come back sooner. I can’t undo the past, but I’m damn sure going to do whatever I can to change what happens from here.”

Hoping for a future with him is a recipe for more heartbreak. Yet here I stand, desperately wanting to combine ingredients and get cooking.

“In that call, Ogram said he knew Hope was his mate the moment they met. He described it as a truth you feel in your heart, body, and soul, that it’s something you have to experience to understand. And I did understand, because I felt it with you. The moment we met. Every single minute we were together and all the time we spent apart. I have literally been around the world and back, and the only pull I’ve ever felt was to you. Noamount of success with my music filled the emptiness of not having you in my life. There has never been anyone but you. You are my true mate, Catherine. I’ve always known it. I wish I hadn’t denied it all this time. I should’ve trusted my heart, not a passed-down coming-of-age talk claiming reproduction is the center of the mate bond.”

It’s everything I’ve wanted to hear since the day we met. The day I fell instantly and completely head-over-heels in love with a seven-foot-tall man of a species I didn’t know existed until that moment.

I owe him the level of honesty he gave, even if he walks out of my life for good. “I can’t give you children. That’s why I stayed behind. It’s why I didn’t answer when you contacted me.”

“The only reason children ever crossed my mind was because I didn’t have the breeding urge while rutting, and you never got pregnant. I assumed either it wasn’t genetically possible for us, or I wasn’t fertile. And I didn’t care. Since you never brought up having kids, I thought you didn’t care either.”

The dam breaks and tears slide down my cheeks.

Grüsh’s arms close around me before the first tear has time to fall from my jawline. Instead, it, and all the rest currently flowing like unrestrained rivers, are absorbed by the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

“I overheard your conversation with Hope at the hospital. The baby you lost, our child,” he says, gently stroking my hair with one hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t just lose a baby, I found out I’d never be able to give you any because of my misshapen uterus. We’d never talked about having a family, but I always figured we would someday, after you had a chance to establish yourself in the music business. If I’d told you I had a miscarriage, you might’ve felt obligated to stay. Not just in town—with me. Iwanted you to have everything, including finding your true mate and starting a family one day.”

“I would’ve stayed because I love you, Cate. I would’ve stayed because I wanted to support you, support us, for however long we needed. Leaving to pursue music could’ve waited. Or happened some other way. If having a child was important to you, then it would have been important to me too, and integration would’ve given us the opportunity to adopt.” His broad chest sinks beneath my cheek as he releases a long, heavy breath. “If I’d listened to my heart and soul, told you that you’re my mate instead of convincing myself you couldn’t be, we wouldn’t have lost six years together. You shouldn’t have gone through that alone.”

“Well, what doesn’t kill you makes you an emotionally closed-off workaholic entrepreneur with a thriving bar,” I say with a half sob, half snort.

His amused grunt vibrates beneath my ear. “And a grumpy, antisocial, multi-Platinum songwriter.”

Giving in to the peace our honesty has created, I wrap my arms around his waist, tilt my head back and rest my chin on his chest so I can look up at him. “Now that all our heartbreak and frustration are out in the open, what are you going to write songs about?”

“Second chances. New beginnings. Watching sunsets with the person you love until it sets for the last time.”

Fresh tears well in my eyes, blurring the view of my favorite face in the whole world. “Love songs.”

“Life songs.” His fingertips gently brush the moisture from my cheeks. “The life I want to share with you.”

Being in his arms, looking into his eyes, has always felt like being in a cocoon. Safe, warm, private. But cocoons are temporary. We can’t stay in it forever. We always have to leaveit behind and brave the real world with its challenges and obstacles.

Not yet, though. Not yet.

Chapter Twelve

GRÜSH

There’s a lot still to say. Promises I should have made a long time ago. Plans to make.