AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I just wanted to talk to you alone for a minute,” she mumbles. “Never mind.”
“No, wait.” I stop her. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. The sight of her, knowing what she has just done with my housemates, ignites a flicker of arousal. And the more I think about it, the harder I get, despite my exhaustion. “What do you want to talk about?”
She stands uncertainly, and I close the doors behind me, gesturing for her to sit again. Perching on the edge of the chair, she cocks her head toward me and peers worriedly at my face. “We’ve barely seen you around since I got here,” she says quietly. “Is that normal?”
“I’m running a business,” I say flatly, removing my jacket. I stride past her in the sitting room toward the bedroom, flicking on the lights. “But I’ve heard from Pike and Caden that things are going well with Lily.”
“They are,” she agrees quickly. “I’m just wondering how things are going with the adoption.”
“I told you we’d talk about that tomorrow,” I remind her, unbuttoning my shirt, a wall between us now as we continue our conversation. “Is something else on your mind?”
She falls silent for a moment, and I finish undressing, slipping into a robe. Every muscle in my body is aching, and I long for that shower.
“Aspen?” My head pokes out around the corner, and she’s risen from her chair, her slender figure standing awkwardly, as if she’s about to flee my bedroom. I stalk back into the sitting room to face her. “What’s really going on?”
“I don’t know,” she breathes, meeting my eyes. “I’m worried about you. You’re gone so much, and you’re supposed to be the face of this adoption.”
All her words rush out, and I place my hands on her shoulders, cutting her off mid-sentence.
“I know I’ve been gone a lot, but I promise tomorrow morning, first thing, we’re going to talk about this—all of it. Okay?”
She exhales. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem really stressed out. I mean, you’ve been gone for half a month, and when you come back, you barely say two words to us? Something has to be on your mind.”
Is she always this astute?
I force a smile. “It’s just work,” I reassure her. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Can I help?”
A wave of affection rushes over me. “It will come to pass like it always does,” I promise.
For a moment, we merely stare at one another, her lips so close, so accessible, but I turn my head away first. There’s just no energy tonight. I sense her disappointment as my arms fall away from her shoulders.
“I’ll see you at breakfast?”
“Sure.”
“Sweet dreams.” She smiles tautly and heads toward the door, casting me a last look as if she expects me to call her back, but I don’t. Not tonight.
* * *
“Papa Flint! You’re home!”
Lily flies out of her chair to embrace me when I enter the kitchen. The comingling of bacon and pancakes reaches my nose, and I scoop up the little girl and rain kisses on her cheeks, making her giggle.
“Of course I’m home, darling,” I tell her, my eyes falling on the rest of my makeshift family. “Don’t I always come home?”
Caden is conspicuously absent, but that’s not surprising for the early hour of the morning. He’s a plastic surgeon focusing mainly on cosmetic procedures, so he maintains a good work-life balance, often setting his own hours. His trust fund not only funded the opening of his own practice but also set him up financially for life. He has a team at his medical practice that handles most of the day-to-day tasks.
Pike sketches furiously, a cup of coffee still steaming in front of him as he sits detached from the table on the island. Zoe zooms around the kitchen, flipping the pancakes on the stove and checking on the bacon, pausing only to give me a welcoming grin as I deposit Lily back onto her feet.
The girl runs back to Aspen’s side, and my gaze lingers on her, even though she is busying herself with cutting up Lily’s food.
“Good morning, Aspen,” I say.
“Morning,” she chirps without looking up. I take a seat directly in front of her.
“Are you ready to talk now?”
