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“Now you.” I squeeze my daughter lightly, and she chuckles. “Why aren’t you in the bed yet?”
“Daddy, set me down, set me down.” She tries to wiggle out of my hold, but I don’t let her. “Daddy,” she groans, and I fight a smile because I should be mad that she’s not sleeping yet, but how can I be when she is this cute. “Daddy, I couldn’t go to sleep just like that!” She bulges her eyes at me.
“Andddd, why not?”
“I needed to say thank you.”
“For what, Angel?”
“For my new bed, of course,” she tells me as if I should have known, yet I didn’t.
New bed?
“Set me down, please.” Victoria wiggles again, and this time I let her, and she immediately runs to Kira, who is pretending to be super busy in the kitchen. Opening and closing drawers for nothing.
“Kira.” Vee runs at top speed, and Kira turns around, crouching on the floor just in time for my daughter to crush into her as they embrace. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Victoria chants and kisses her cheek over and over. “It’s the best day ever! I love it so much! I couldn’t go to sleep without telling you!” Vee keeps shouting, and Kira smiles. Shyly at first, but then Vee jumps into her arms, and Kira gets up from the floor, holding my daughter with so many emotions swirling in her green eyes.
Emotions I didn’t know she felt.
“You are welcome, little mermaid,” she says softly, pressing Vee closer to her chest. “I asked for the softest one they had, but I needed to make sure it was fit for a real mermaid.”
I stand here, rooted to the floor, watching the two women who have my heart share something special.
My heart stops. My breath catches and refuses to fill my lungs because what I am seeing is the last drop in that ocean for me. That last wall I had was crumbling down to the floor in tiny pieces. Because I got the answer to my earlier question.
Kira loves my daughter.
Somehow, in the span of one day, she fell in love with my daughter, and Victoria did the same. That’s why she went to her school today. That’s why she is beaming with happiness while holding my daughter in her hands.
Chapter thirty-five
Vassar
Aweek. A week has passed since we moved into Kira’s lifeless apartment, and that’s all it took for my daughter to turn it into her own art studio.
The first drawing Victoria made was the morning after Kira got her that monstrosity of a bed my daughter loves so much, I will probably need to gut all the walls in whatever apartment we end up at to fit it inside.
And when I say monstrosity, I mean it. It’s a huge seashell. The one with a whole top part of the shell opened up, creating a realistic look. She also had tiny lights put into the ceiling, made to look like stars shining through the ocean water, and Kira turned a whole room upstairs into a mermaid palace with a mini castle in the corner, a million stuffed toys, and mermaid dolls. My personal favorite—and yes, I’m being sarcastic—was the little makeup desk that sang the “Under the Sea” song every time you pressed a button.
Let’s just say Victoria played it enough times that I already had to change the batteries.
Twice.
So, Vee drew a picture for Kira as a thank you, and if I thought my heartless boss would look at it and throw it away, I was dead wrong. Kira started framing and hanging up each one on her white walls, making Victoria’s day every day. Each drawing was different. Sometimes, it was just of Kira; sometimes, it was mermaid-related, and other times, it was Kira and Victoria together.
Those were my favorites, and I guess they were Kira’s as well because she took them to her room most of the time. The walls that were once cold and empty are now filled with life and colors. But it’s the one hanging on the fridge that Vee drew today that has my throat clogging up.
We just came from the shift the Conte de fée, tired and sated because, of course, we fucked like rabbits in her office and are both looking forward to that much-needed rest. That’s also how this whole week passed. We never spoke of anything serious or heavy. Me because I was afraid to spook it and Kira because…well, who the hell knows? But I’ve been enjoying the last six days, and I can feel the walls starting to close in. I know I need to have these conversations with her.
I need to know where this is going. I shouldn’t have just let it all slip like that, allowed Victoria to get too attached to Kira, but I am an idiot who tried to lie to himself.
And now here we are.
But I won’t let her go. I don’t care what it takes to keep this maddening woman around, I’ll do it.
But the picture…it might ruin my plan. It’s of the three of us together. Well, stick figure us, but us, each holding her hand while she has a huge smile painted on her face. Victoria had never drawn all three of us together like that before, and I see it the minute Kira notices the drawing.
Whatever color she had left in her cheeks drains.
