Page 42 of Binding Their Hearts

He could not in his lifetime offer her a more meaningful gift. Though he and Robert had been born healthy, their dearly wanted siblings had not. Mother hadn’t stopped trying. He wouldn’t exist if she had. And she wouldn’t—

He took a shuddering breath. Best to leave that path untouched today. “Jay and Alice will gladly take all the love you can spare, Mother. They’ve been starved of it far too long.”

“It’s settled, then. Your grandfather would approve.” She briskly shook her head. “And we shall rectify that hunger of theirs. Beginning by filling their bellies with good food.”

“And yours, Mother.” The rhythm of conversation restored his composure. “I daresay you’ve lost weight.”

She sniffed at him. “I know I’ve taught you better manners than to discuss a lady’s weight.”

He waited in silence more powerful than any prod.

Her sigh conceded his patience would outlast hers. “I confess, the joy of cooking for one is infinitesimal beside the joy of cooking for loved ones. But you know the cure for that, don’t you?”

He did. “More—”

“More visits, precisely. And grandbabies. You’re planning to give me those, aren’t you?” Her tone turned warm and teasing. “While I’m still spry enough to chase after them, please. Robert’s are growing so fast I can’t keep them in my lap anymore.”

He laughed and let her set the pace down the hallway. “I’ll see what I can do. Alice and Jay might have some say in that department.”

Chapter twenty

Alice

Alice inched the apartment door closed, wincing at the click of the deadbolt in the otherwise silent space. Pressing her forehead against the smooth surface, she curled her leg up behind her and tugged off a shoe. Everything protested—her shoulders, her back, her thighs, her calves, even the arches of her feet. Almost-twenty-nine-year-olds should not ache so much after a day of work at a desk.

More than a day, technically; her phone flashed the time—12:53—as she laid it on the work-dump table. Henry and Jay’s phones were missing, but they’d probably made an exception to the no-phones-on-the-nightstand rule in case she needed them after bedtime. She’d stolen a few minutes around ten to call Henry and urge him not to adjust their standard nighttime schedule, since she couldn’t predict when she’d be home.

The entire design team could’ve murdered the suit who’d spotted the bid request for the government contract two days before proposals were due. No big deal, just create a completely fresh and workable design for an area the firm wanted to expand into but didn’t work in yet. Idiots. The tension had trashed the relaxation she’d been clinging to since the weekend in Maine.

She rolled her neck and cracked her shoulders, belatedly peering down the hallway. The bedroom door stood ajar. She had better night vision than she knew if she could see that far in the dark. In a lumpy, ungraceful shuffle, she sagged her back against the door, yanked her shirt out of her waistband, and started unbuttoning from the bottom. She’d just brush her teeth and slide into bed with—

One of the lamps gave the living room a soft yellow glow. Beneath it, Henry sat on the couch, lifting his head and blinking slowly. In the clothes he’d been wearing this morning.

Fuck. No wonder she’d been able to see—the apartment wasn’t completely dark, duh, because Henry had waited up for her. Her brain’s computing power had maxed out at least an hour ago.

Jay slept on his side with his head on Henry’s thigh, a blanket thrown over him. At least her late night hadn’t completely ruined his sleep.

“Alice.” The thickness in Henry’s voice could’ve been sleep fog or warm relief at her arrival. He shifted forward and slipped sideways, gently nudging a pillow under Jay’s head as he rose. “Are you hungry, dearest?”

A guttural croak leapt from her throat, and she shoved her knuckles between her teeth to block the sob behind it. Her shoulders unlocked, hours of hunched stiffness shaking free.

Rushing forward, she stumbled into Henry’s arms as he came to meet her. A steady stream of whispered endearments filled her ears, and the sleepy-male muskiness of him filled her nose. As she burrowed against him, he swept strong hands down her back and up under her hair, clutching her closer.

“Not hungry.” Her mumble disappeared into his shirt collar. “Made the executive decision to order pizza for the team at nine.”

He’d probably set aside a plate for her in the fridge. Past his shoulder, she could just make out a tiny figure in front of her seat at the table. Jay’s origami gift for the night. She hadn’t been there to appreciate it, to appreciate him, when it was therapy day and he always shared at dinner what new thing he’d learned to crack apart the fucked-up mental prison his family had put him in.

“I’m sorry about the hours.” Nearly every night now she skated in the door a few minutes before seven, cutting it close on dinner—and always losing out on the prep time together in the kitchen, watching Jay set the table and Henry cook like he was conducting an orchestra. “I’m sorry I’m not here for you both. I’m missing so much.”

Jay, pushing himself up with one hand, scrubbed his eyes with the other. “Alice?” The abandoned blanket clung to his legs as he swung his feet to the floor. “You are here. It’s one late night.” Standing, he shook out the blanket and folded it properly before tossing it over the back of the couch. “We understand, don’t we, Henry?”

But it wasn’t one night. It was everything, all the minutes adding up, even all the time when her body was home with them but her head was still at work. Jay would take crumbs of her attention and be thankful for them if they were all she had to give. He deserved so much more.

Henry feathered her face with kisses, the lightest brushes of his lips tingling against her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “Is what you’re gaining important to you, Alice?”

Not more important than room checks with Jay, which she still hadn’t done this week, or the rope harness styles Henry kept putting her in after dinner. Those moments refilled her, pushed away the worry and the stress. She’d never been a crier her whole life. She was a doer, a fixer, a get-on-with-it gal.

“Not more important than you and Jay. But I can’t…” She forced herself back, away from Henry’s embrace. Acceptance from him and Jay spun funnel clouds in her stomach. Who knew that’s where a guilty conscience lived. “There are so few women on the design teams. If I step down, team lead won’t be offered again. My failures will hang over every woman for, ugh, I don’t know, however long the same bosses are making the hiring decisions.” All the years she’d gone to school, for what? Proving Dad right—she couldn’t hack it in the real world on her own. “I’ll never make project manager if I can’t handle team lead.”

---