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Mel wipes a quick hand across her face. "I'm not. Really, Lucian, mommy has happy tears."
I feel my guts squeeze painfully tight. And I know keeping the child from me must have hurt her as much as it hurt me because she's crying.
With joy, her eyes are alight, and though they're swimming in what is definitely tears, I know that she's happy.
Lucian lets me go and runs to Mel, who lifts him into her arms and sinks her head into his hair, hugging him tight. And finally, I look away from them because I feel weird. A way I've never felt since she left my house six years ago.
She lifts her head to smile at me, and though I don't return the smile, I do not look away. Someone sighs, and I startle, turning to clock another woman by the stove.
I almost swear before remembering my son in the room. But my voice is still tight when I address her. "Who are you?"
"She's Hailey. Lucian's nanny."
I exhale harshly and relax marginally. I pat my body and jerk to a rigid freeze of my entire muscles when I realize I do not have my guns on me.
I'd left them upstairs last night. I clench my fists, fucking mistakes like this are how people end up dead on the cold ground.
"Can I go see my room?" Lucian's voice breaks into my thoughts, and I wonder suddenly if I really want a gun around that innocence.
It's a question I do not have a quick answer for, which makes me feel a mess of emotions—makes me think Mel was right to keep him away from me.
The silent woman takes a look at my face, throws another look at Mel, and holds her arms out to Lucian. "Come on, I'll take you. Then maybe we can paint a bit?"
Lucian nods and wiggles down from Mel's arms, and then he's gone with Hailey. It's quiet for a long second with a pregnant silence.
"He doesn't hate me," I say.
Mel walks towards me. "I didn't train him to. I swear I never would've done that to us. It would've hurt me as much as you."
"And I'm thinking he's better off without me, because you're right. He deserves the childhood you can give that I never had."
Mel knits her brows like she doesn't understand where it's coming from. I shake my head because I don't want to think about it but I know it feels like the truth. Now that I have a son, now that I've met him.
I know without a doubt I never want any harm coming to him, and the fact that said harm might, in fact, come from me is downright more worrying than staring into the barrel of a gun aimed at my head.
"Stop, Xander. Let's take this a moment at a time." She slips into my arms and lays her head against my chest. Her chest expands on a deep inhale. "I'm so glad you've finally met him."
I lift her head with my fingers and press a hot kiss to her lips. She responds, running a hand through the hair at my nape to graze my scalp with her nails.
I probe at her parted lips and slide my tongue over hers slowly, and she creeps even closer as though she wants to climb into me.
I tug at the neck of her dress and slip a hand into the neck of the bodice to cup her breasts as she makes a sexy little needy moan that has me going rock hard in my pants.
"Fuck. You taste like heaven and a side of something sweet."
"Can't imagine what that tastes like, but I could say you taste even better." She puffs at me, tugging at my shirt.
I nip at her jaw, grazing my teeth along the soft, warm flesh to the corner of her lips, then to her ears, which I suck into my mouth and bite down on hard, leaving a mark and the ring of my teeth.
I lift her into my arms, and I'm about to deposit her on the kitchen island when the sound of footsteps breaks in between us.
I inhale hard and exhale a rush of hungry air, then straighten the bodice of her dress because anyone who gets a look at my wife will die a very torturously long death.
Ryder comes into the kitchen the next moment. His eyes are hard, and his lips are curled in a hard smile, which he directs at Mel first.
"Good morning, Melissa."
Mel pulls away and nods at him before throwing me a long look and folding a hand across her breasts. I know that look, and I recognize the look of desperation on Ryder's face.
