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Aside from the day before, for three days,
he'd left us during the day. Gone off to do God knows what, in a car that blended in well. Following the dream where he'd begged "not her," I'd assumed he was finally growing tired of me. That he'd been going to see the woman he actually cared about and fighting for her, despite his determination to cheer me up.
But I didn't know a single man who went to such trouble for his girlfriend's birthday if his heart wasn't in it. My heart pounded in my chest, and the threat of tears returned for an entirely different reason.
I couldn't deal with the uncertainty anymore. I couldn't wonder what my place was in Ryker's life.
I couldn't keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The kids smiled at me, chattering happily, and I forced myself to enjoy that moment with them. It was the first year Ines was old enough to understand what a birthday was. The first time she'd ever tried to say happy birthday to me, and that was a memory I would hold on to forever.
Unlike what I'd expected, I hadn't had to be the one who tried to teach her.
The pancakes were delicious, and Ryker had gone to the trouble of making a strawberry sauce for me to use instead of maple syrup. The same way I would have done for myself. I ate until I couldn't stomach anymore, pleased that it was already near lunchtime and that I wouldn't need to feed the kids another meal for a few hours.
It was close enough that this counted as lunch, especially with the way they shoved forkful after forkful into their mouths. There was no way to avoid the mess they made of themselves, and I chuckled as I stood to clean up the plates. "Sit down, Tesoro," Ryker said. "Axel and I have got it."
I gave him a wide-eyed stare as my boy gathered up his and his sister's plates and brought them into the kitchen. Axel had never washed a dish in his life, such was the frenzied life of a mom who could do it much quicker if she just did it alone.
When Axel came back with a wet towel and helped clean up his sister's hand and face, my heart melted at the gentle affection he used with Ines. "You're such a good brother," I whispered to him.
He smiled at me brightly. "I have a great mom who shows me how." I blinked back tears, moving to stand so I could go shower and get dressed. With the rest of them clothed for the day, it felt ridiculous for me to still be in my pajamas. I was also a coward and needed to flee from the emotional onslaught that threatened my sanity with Axel's words. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"To get dressed."
"Ryker says you have to wait until after presents," Axel chuckled, and the glint in his eyes was knowing.
"Uh oh," I whispered. "What is he up to now?"
"Spoiling you!" Ryker called from the kitchen, and Axel laughed. "Little Man, go grab the presents you can carry. Your mom is going to sit on the couch."
"Help!" Ines yelled, chasing after her brother as they went for the garage.
"You didn't need to go to all this trouble," I said, crossing my arms over my chest as I stepped into the kitchen. He was just finishing loading up the dishwasher, straightening to walk over to me. He wrapped his arms around me, smiling down at me like the tension between us had never happened.
I wished I could forget it the way he was, but the reality that I might have softened toward him and he'd had another woman was a threat I couldn't forget. Finally coming to terms with the fact that I'd put my marriage on a pedestal for no reason, the last thing I wanted to do was enter into another loveless marriage of convenience.
No matter how much the package might tempt me or how wonderful the man was to my kids.
"It was no trouble, Tesoro. I made you pancakes, bought some flowers, got you some gifts and the kids and I are going to make you a cake."
"Please tell me I get out of cleaning all day, because I do not want to clean up from that disaster," I joked. Ryker chuckled, leaning down to touch his lips to mine gently.
"You get out of cleaning all day. Happy birthday, Sunshine."
"Thank you, Ryker," I whispered up. The sound of the kids racing back into the living room from the garage made me pull away. I wanted to stay wrapped in his arms forever, but I couldn't.
Not if I wanted to maintain my sanity.
???
When Ryker set out to spoil a woman, he went hard.
With the kids tucked into bed, I couldn't stop staring at the trio of large canvases with our photos on them. They added life to the bedroom. With pictures someone had taken at Matteo's house less than a week prior, we looked like a real family. The kind I’d always wanted and never thought I could have. The one of Ines and I picking flowers was sweet, and the one of Ryker rubbing Axel's head and grinning at him was playful.
But it was the photo of Ryker on top of me on the ground, his eyes lit in the moment when I smiled up at him that took my breath away.
I didn't think anyone had ever looked at me the way he did in that moment, and I didn't think I'd ever looked so happy.
