Gavin's Child. Caroline Cross

what if she lost? What if she were forced to share custody, to hand Sam over to Gavin for a day, a week, a month at a time? It wasn’t that she thought Gavin would be an unfit parent; yet even if he qualified for Father of the Year, to Sam he would still be a stranger.

      There was no escaping the truth. No matter how she felt, she had to do what was best for Sam. And what would be best for Sam would be for him to get to know Gavin here, in his own familiar home, where she could be on hand to help and watch over him.

      But it would only work if it was done on her terms.

      She took a deep breath. Without quite knowing how she got there, she found herself on her feet, needing to meet Gavin on a more equal level when she capitulated. “All right. You win. You can move in.”

      A deep, savage satisfaction lit his eyes, turning them as blue as a hot summer sky. “Good.”

      She smiled faintly. “On one condition.”

      Suspicion hardened his features in an instant. “What’s that?”

      “Where Sam’s concerned, regarding discipline, rules, setting limits, I have the final word.”

      He didn’t like it, but then, she hadn’t expected him to. His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

      She sighed. “Because he’s only two and a half years old. Right now, he’s testing his boundaries, and he needs consistency. I don’t want him caught between us, getting two different sets of signals.”

      He thought about it. “Okay,” he said finally, then promptly imposed a condition of his own. “That’s fine…for now. As long as we can talk about it in a month or two.”

      In a month or…two? Suddenly, the enormity of what she’d agreed to slammed into her full force. She was actually going to live with Gavin again. They would eat off the same set of plates and drink from the same glasses. They would share a newspaper and shower in the same tub. His clothes would mingle with hers in the hamper.