“First rank,” Bastien had corrected in a move that was as stupid as it was audacious.
Her father had arched a brow at that. “You getting lippy with me, soldier?”
“No, sir. My lips are reserved solely for your daughter.”
Her father had started for his throat. But her mother had caught him before he could kill Bastien. “Brandon … calm down.” Then she’d turned to face Bastien with an evil glint in her eyes. “Are you trying to insult us?”
“No, ma’am. Just really nervous. Sadly, whenever I’m nervous, I get stupid, and things come out of my mouth that even I cringe over.”
Her father had finally laughed. “Well, at least he’s honest.”
“I am that, Commander. Again, stupidly so. And when it comes to Ember, I have a special level of moron that’s reserved solely for her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bastien had shrugged. “That I’d jump into a decaying hole on fire during a massive bombing run and risk a building coming down on me to keep her safe and to protect whatever she loves.”
Clapping him on the back, her father had handed him an ale. “Good man. For that, I’ll let you live.”
Ember had never known anyone to charm her parents, before or after Bastien. Out of all their daughters’ boyfriends, he was the only one they’d ever liked. Him and Tasi the only two that her parents had welcomed in as their own.
Like it or not, he is family. Through their son, she would be forever tied to him.
With that thought on her mind, she leaned forward to reset his nav system.
“What are you doing?”
“Before you take off after Barnabas, don’t you want to meet your son?”
“More than anything.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
Bastien stared at her in complete disbelief that she was willing to do this. That she’d actually given him a son and hadn’t abandoned their child. It would have been so easy to give him up and free herself. Instead, she’d risked her life and that of her family to keep his son safe.
That was why he loved her so.
I’m a father.…
And with that thought came a whole new fear. “Can I ask a favor?”
“I’m not having sex with you in a fighter. You can forget it, buddy, right now. You’re not that cute in a flightsuit.”
He laughed at her droll tone. “Technically you’ve already done that. Years ago. Many times. So I am that cute in and out of a flightsuit. But that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
She dipped her gaze down to his groin, which was painfully swollen and woefully obvious. “No?”
He shook his head. “Can we not tell Florian that I’m his father?”
“Why?”
“In case I die, I don’t want him to have to cope with the pain of it. I’d rather just be a passing stranger he meets and never thinks about again.”
Ember choked at his words and the thoughtfulness. Bastien had always been that way—except for when he’d accepted Alura’s invitation to dinner.
You can’t hold that against him.
Well, she could. Yet in all fairness to him, he had called her first, and had she not been such a bitch when he asked about it, he wouldn’t have done it. So as much as she’d like to pin it all on his shoulders, she really couldn’t.
She shared as much blame in the fiasco as he did. Unlike the other men in her past, he hadn’t acted behind her back. He’d done everything above board. It’d always been one of his more endearing qualities.
And against her common sense, she leaned back in his arms so that she could touch the dimple on his chin that their son shared. In fact, they shared a lot of traits, which was strange given that they’d never met. “He knows what you look like, Bas.”
“How?”
How? Really? All he had to do was look in a mirror. The child was a clone of his father—which had been extremely painful for her at times. They even had the same warped sense of humor, and the need to lip off at the worst possible time. It’d given her a whole new respect for Bastien’s parents and the fact that they hadn’t drowned him as a child.
She smirked at him. “I gave him a photo of you, long ago. He keeps it in his room, next to his bed. And every night after he says his prayers where he asks the gods to watch over you, he kisses it goodnight and talks to you until he falls asleep.”
Raw torment shadowed his eyes before he reached to redo the settings.
Ember stopped him. “Don’t. Let him meet you. Just once. It’s all he’s ever wanted. You both need this, especially if you’re bent on suicide.”
Bastien wasn’t so sure about that, because as she said, he didn’t think he’d make it out of this alive, but he didn’t want to argue with her anymore. He’d done that enough for ten lifetimes.
Honestly, he just wanted to be inside her. To make love to her until the universe ceased to exist.
And every heartbeat that passed with her squeezed in front of him was its own version of hell.
“I should have taken a bigger ship.”