Page 102 of Resurrection

“Oh, yeah?” I raise an eyebrow. “Which one?”

“The one where you said you weren’t the happily-ever-after guy.” Her hand sweeps over me from head to toe. “Ta-da. Happily ever after.”

“I’m trying,” I admit as I give the bottle a few more shakes.

“I heard you down here with the baby last night. Seems like you’re doing pretty well.”

I chuckle and shrug. “I’ve always been a light sleeper. Getting up with him isn’t a big deal.”

Lena’s smile is kind as she turns back to the dishes. “Maybe not. But those little things make a relationship stronger.”

Silence fills the room for a beat as I shake the bottle. Relationship advice from her seems apt and odd at the same time. “Carys and I were talking about asking you to come with us to Cape Verde.” I palm the bottle, letting the warmth of the formula seep into my fingers through the glass.

“Is that an invitation?”

“If you’re willing to cut off her dickhead father, we promise you’ll always have a home and a job with us.” Hard to believe she shackled herself to that deadbeat.

She wipes the counter and doesn’t meet my gaze. “Even if Carys had been my child, I can’t imagine loving her more. If cutting off Charles is the only way I get to stay in her life and see Lucas grow up, then consider it done.”

I point and narrow my eyes. “I knew I liked you.”

She laughs. “You’d better get the bottle upstairs. Lucas has a strong internal clock.”

I rotate the glass from one hand to the other and head for the stairs. I take them two at a time and go into the master suite. A bassinet sits in an alcove in our bedroom. Nothing fancy, but we’re not sticking around here forever. This place is temporary, but what’s between the three of us is permanent. Someday this kid will call me Dad. I intend to earn that name, unlike my father.

Carys is rocking him, and when I enter, she looks up. Her blond hair is loose along her shoulders, and while she appears as tired as I feel, she’s still the most gorgeous woman in the world. She takes the bottle and angles it into Lucas’s mouth.

“Lena’s coming to Cape Verde.”

Carys’s whole face brightens. “You asked her?” Her brow furrows. “She didn’t buck at cutting off my dad?”

“Didn’t even hesitate.” I lean against the dresser closest to her. “She loves you like a daughter.”

When Carys glances up at me from watching the baby, her eyes are shining with tears. “Really? She said that?”

“Yeah, she did.”

She turns her face to the ceiling and sniffs. “I’m so stupidly happy right now. I never thought I’d get these baby years—get to see a person change day by day, each day making him more mine.” Her laugh is shaky. “It’s coming together.”

“It is.” The gnawing in my stomach surfaces.

“Have you talked to Hagen? Did he have any idea if it was Demid’s men who killed Eric in Russia?”

I shake my head. “I’m going to let it drop.”

She frowns. “Someday Lucas will probably want to know what happened.”

My gaze doesn’t waver from hers. “Then we’ll tell him the truth. Eric messed with the wrong people and paid the highest consequence. It’s a good lesson not to fuck around with people more powerful than you.”

“We’re going to assume it was Demid?”

“We’re in a good place right now. Do you want to take a chance we’ll ruin it with too many questions?”

With a shake of her head, she says, “No, you’re right. We’re safe and we’re happy. Part of me thought we might never get to be both.”

If my conscience was louder, I might long to tell her the truth. Whether or not I shot the bullets in Eric, he was a dead man out there. Really, I did him a favor by putting him out of his misery. Perhaps the gnawing sense of dread that keeps reoccurring might be my conscience, worried she won’t understand if she finds out. Unlike with my mother’s murder, the only person who can reveal the truth to her is me. I suppose it’ll stay a secret forever.

“You’re caught up in your thoughts,” she says with a smile. “Anything you want to tell me?”

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