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“Mom.”
She looks at me sternly. “I won’t apologize for that. I have to know. It’s only fair that I get the complete picture.”
Miles sighs darkly. “I’d rather not discuss that, but if you really want to know.”
“I do.”
“Then yeah, that was part of it. She’s incredibly attractive. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
I try not to beam too much at the compliment. It would be inappropriate to sit here, glowing with his words, when it could all be gone at the snap of Mom’s fingers.
“But it was more than that,” Miles goes on. “I couldn’t stop thinking about having a family together, providing for, protecting, and supporting her. As a first step, I couldn’t stop thinking about getting toknowher, but I knew it wouldn’t end there. I knew I’d be lost once we had a proper conversation, and I’dwantto be lost.”
His hand slides across the table toward me, and then he stops as though with effort. He curls it into a fist and glances at me. I read the message. He’s fighting the urge to touch me every moment like I’m fighting the desire to touch him. What we did last night blazes through me.
Mom stands suddenly, running a hand through her hair. “I should hate you. You understand that, don’t you?”
Noah looks up at her. “Elena…”
“Ishould,” she says. “I’ve finally found my dream man. I’m finally happy, and now we have to deal with this. What if this feeling you speak about—destiny or whatever it is—stops? What then?”
“It won’t.” My voice is far too loud, but I can’t contain the passion. “It’s not just afeeling, anyway.”
“No?” Mom asks, resting her hands on the table like an interrogator.
“It’s more like a plan,” I tell her. “Sure, it’s driven by a feeling, but IknowI want to have children with Miles. I know we’ll always be together, through the good times and the bad.”
“What if you can’t have a family?” Mom asks, looking at Miles and me. “Your dreams come from wanting children together, right?”
“That’s a big part of it,” Miles replies.
“So, what if you can’t? Are you going to leave her and find somebody else to become obsessed with?”
“I’m not leaving Layla,” Miles snarls.
Before the meeting, I asked him to contain some of his fire, but it breaks free now, his voice trembling.
“If there’s an issue with one of us or both, and we can’t conceive a child, we’ll explore other options.”
Mom glances at Noah tightly. “We’re doing just that right now.”
Noah takes her hand. The love between them is so apparent that a shard of guilt stabs me at the prospect of ending it.
“If that doesn’t work,” Miles continues, “I’ll still have the best woman any man could wish for. I’ll still be more blessed than everybody. She’ll still bemine.”
It’s a mistake. I know it is, but I reach over and take his hand. Mom tracks the movement, wincing, and then turns and faces the garden.
“I still haven’t decided what to do,” she says, not looking at us. “First, I have to know something.”
When she turns back, fear replaces the guilt in me.
She’s wearing her no-nonsense expression, which brought punishment and groundings when I was a teenager. I was always stunned to see it like she stopped being my momslashfriend and firmly became just a parent ready to discipline.
“If I told you I think this is sick,” she goes on. “If I said I think it’s gross, abnormal, and wrong. If I said that a step-uncle and his niece being together is something I can’t tolerate, what would you do then?”
Miles squeezes my hand. We both know the answer.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
