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19
Through the window,my eyes land on Ella, out in the garden. As the days keep getting nicer and nicer, she’s started to move from working in the library to working outside. Which has the extra perk of my being able to see her from my office window.
As such, I’ve started choosing her daily attire again—which mostly now consist of very, very short sundresses. Lots of plunging necks.
A lack of undergarments.
But at this moment, as I watch her, I’m not dwelling on thoughts of bending her over or watching her ride my cock.
I’m stuck on the information I teased out of her the other day, concerning Julianna and Bastian Pierce. Who are now pregnant.
There was something in Ella’s eyes when she told me—in the moment, but then later when we talked in slightly more detail about it. And while I’m as casually happy as the next person about the news—and more than a little smug about being able to call Braddock a grandfather before he’s forty-five—something is lingering for me.
It’s that look in her eyes. And it worries me.
Because, while I’m not anti-children, I don’t think that’s in my cards. It just isn’t. And thank fuck it wasn’t part of my fairly disastrous marriage to Matilde.
And now? Now I’m past that part of my life. Julianna and Ella are the same age. And yes, Bastian is older as well. But he’s thirty-five. I’m forty-fucking-three. I’d be over sixty before my kid went to university. Statistically, I’d be fucking dead before they really started families of their own.
Meanwhile, Ella is twenty-one. And there’s a clock that either just started ticking or is about to. And I don’t know what that means for us.
I frown, blinking as that word hits me sideways.
Us.
My mouth thins. Where the fuck did that word even come from? This… thing. This arrangement. This literal contract we’ve signed was supposed to be, by definition, temporary. It has an end date.
And yet, that bothers me. I choose not to think about there being a period anywhere in this sentence she and I are writing.
It might be there, though, no matter what I decide to ignore.
My pulse hums as my eyes drop to hers through the glass.
And if thisdoesstay past its expiration date, and if I have read the look in her eyes like I think I have… what now? How is it remotely fair for me to trap her to me, knowing I can’t or won’t give her what she might want?
I mutter to myself as I whirl away.
When the fuck did this get so complicated?
My phone lights up on the desk with a call.
“Kristoff—”
“I’m about to send you something.”
His voice is thin, and yet lethal sounding in tone. My eyes narrow.
“What did you find?”
“As I said, I’m about to send it.”
He breathes deeply.
“I hate that I went down this hole, Ransom. And you’d better remember that I only did this because of Thomas.”
“Thank—”
“Do not thank me for this, Noel,” he growls quietly and then sighs. “This was found on an old, network-connected hard drive of Oliver’s. It’d been wiped, but my people gleaned a few disc images. What I’m sending you appears to be page one of a PDF.”
