Page 60 of Filthy Rich Daddies
But a bigger part of me feels free. Light. Ready.
There’s something about watching Thalassa fold into our world so carefully, so gently, like she’s testing the weight of it on her shoulders before she decides whether she can stay. I want to be home when she does. I want to know if she chooses us. I want to be there to soften the floor if she stumbles.
And I want to be the one testing bottle warmers, researching sleep training, and losing my mind over the difference between one kind of swaddle and another. I want to be there when the wallpaper gets picked and replaced twice. I want to be the one she leans on when she’s too tired to finish a sentence, and the one who rubs her feet.
I want to take care of her and the twins. The thought makes me smile. Another set of twins in the family. I wonder whether they’ll be identical. Or maybe a boy and a girl. The thought pinches in my chest.
I don’t know if she wants that with us. I don’t know if she’ll keep the babies or put them up for adoption. She’s outside the termination window, barring complications. I don’t even know if she knows how deeply I’ve already handed her the reins to my future.
But I know this—I don’t want to be ten floors up, arguing over logistics, when she decides what comes next.
Colin’s waiting by the car, arms crossed, brow furrowed. I didn’t text. He just knew.
The twin thing, I suppose. I hope our kids have it too.
“Was it bad?” he asks.
“It was Marcus.”
He nods once. “So?”
“I stepped down.”
His eyebrows lift. “Shit.”
“I had to. He’s set the board up for a no-confidence vote. They wouldn’t stop him.”
Colin exhales, long and low. “You okay?”
I consider the question. “I think I am. I don’t want to be in that chair right now. Not with everything going on. Let Marcus play his hand. When Tic’s audit hits, we’ll have leverage.”
Colin tilts his head. “And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime,” I say, pulling open the car door, “I’m going home.”
I don’t have to say what that means.
Colin smiles. “Tell her hi for me.”
The car pulls away from the curb, and I look out the window, watching the skyline slide by. Home is waiting. And for once, I can’t wait to get there.
24
COLIN
Valentine’s Dayis supposed to be a good weekend.
It’s usually a massive sales weekend across every Copeland restaurant on the planet. Prix fixe menus, fancy cocktails, candlelight, heart-shaped desserts—half the food is plated in some elaborate geometric swirl I’ll never understand, and the other half is designed for Instagram. We do triple the business of a normal Saturday, and all I usually have to do is make sure the reservation system doesn’t hiccup under the weight of ten thousand simultaneous table confirmations.
This year, it implodes.
It starts with a slowdown Friday night—just a tiny one, a flicker in the system. People start complaining that the receipts aren’t printing. Then someone can’t close out a table. Then a credit card won’t go through. By eight Eastern, we’re crashing in waves. Tokyo first. Then Sydney. Then San Francisco. Like dominoes.
I haven’t slept since.
I’ve had maybe three hours total, split up into broken twenty-minute chunks—I think—and all of it on the server room floor with a hoodie rolled under my head. Every time I close my eyes, someone is calling me again. London’s lost their gift card system. Seattle says diners are walking out because no one can run cards. Then the real panic hits.
A leak.
