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“You are one smart motherfucker,” I hear Landon grumble somewhere behind us.
“You have it. If that’s what you need, you have it,” Julius says softly.
We pull apart, and they head out with a couple of nods my way. But when the door swings open, we are all faced with my little furious witch, and I smile at that defiance she has written all over her posture. She didn’t like being left out of whatever was happening here.
Julius rolls his eyes at her crossed arms and rapidly tapping foot. “He passed, relax.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means you two are coming to every family dinner we have from now on, and bring that daughter of yours,” he says to Kira, and I see those green eyes filling with tears.
Julius just casually threw out that Victoria is Kira’s daughter as well, and now my girl is shaking. “H-how did you even know that we are really together now? That literally just happened last night!”
“Ah, don’t need the specifics, sis.” Jules lifts his hands up, and Landon laughs. “But your lovey-dovey pictures of entering Conte de fée together this morning are all over the internet.”
Oh hell, we didn’t pay any attention to anyone as we walked out of the car when we arrived, and I’m pretty sure I was kissing her every step of the way.
“Speaking of which,” Landon interrupts. “Please let me know when your highness will be ready to grace the man who brought you two together with a little thank you interview, yeah?”
Kira rolls her eyes, but I see the little smile hidden in there. “Set the date.” She looks over to me and I nod. “We’ll be there.”
Chapter forty-six
Kira
The interview we did with Landon last week made national news and not just in culinary circles. Apparently, a whole lot of people were invested in my personal life, and now they are calling us the ultimate “dream couple.” Seriously, people need to get a life. Because I’m not planning to share a single minute of mine with them.
In the week since the night that uncovered all of my and Vassar’s secrets, I’ve been living in some unrealistic reality where I have everything I could possibly dream of. I have a man who doesn’t go thirty minutes without telling me he loves me. Spending every spare second with him and sleeping soundlessly in his arms. The one who sits and listens to every dark memory I have and then wipes them off my mind forever with his love and many orgasms.
I have a whole new relationship with my brother and his fiancée, whom I adore and beat myself up for not getting to know earlier. We met up for another family dinner, which went a whole lot better but still with plenty of bickering between me and that shameless demon, Landon.
I think it’s safe to agree we won’t ever be each other’s besties. I love riling him up way too much.
But for the first time in my life, I know how it feels to love and be loved because I’m feeling it more and more every day. Vassar and Victoria have been showering me with it in abundance, and I am learning to show it better on my end.
We already have a system where we take her to school together each morning, and I pick her up because Vas is busy with kitchen prep for dinner services. I’m working on having a new team for that, but it’s taking longer than expected, and I do have a new restaurant opening up in London that I need to focus on as well.
But we make this work, and I love it.
Each day, she runs to me when I pick her up with a blinding smile that melts away a little bit more of that hurt I’ve accumulated over the past years. She is the best balm for my wounds, and I don’t expect Vee to think of me as her mom, but I do enjoy being her friend more than anything.
Every day after school, I take her out anywhere she likes, and I let her decide where that should be. My little girl—yes, I might have started calling her mine inside my head—gets so excited thinking up all these places she wished to go with her own mother, and my heart soars at seeing that smile I help to bring up.
Vee isn’t the only one who gets to put checkmarks on things she wished to do with her parent because every time I hold that tiny hand in mine, I feel love like I’ve never felt before. My relationship with Vassar might have started out weird and a bit forced, but there’s none of that with Vee. She clicked right into my heart from that first night I saw her standing in their crappy apartment, clutching that mermaid blanket.
Back then, I ran because I knew what she could do. What spending time with her would do to me and I didn’t think having that forever was in the cards for me.
Henry pulls up to her school, and I walk out, standing at the front door well before the bell rings. My eyes catch on some blonde hair and a botoxed-out face that is staring at me. Somewhere in my mind, I feel like I know her, but I’m sure I’ve never met this woman before.
Two seconds after the bell rings, Victoria flies out of the door and runs straight at me with that same bright smile, wearing the two pigtails I mastered to do this morning—thank you, YouTube tutorials—because ever since that morning, she found us in bed with her dad, I’m the only one allowed to do her hair, and that meant learning how to do it very quickly.
“Hey, little mermaid.” I bend down to my knees with a smile and pull her into a tight hug, which she gladly returns. “How was your day at school?”
“Oh, oh, it was sooo good.” She jumps up and down with excitement she can’t contain, and those two small ponytails bounce up and down, making me smile even more. “We made ladybugs. Like, for real, real ladybugs. I made one for you and Daddy.” Vee starts tugging her backpack off her shoulders when a woman with that bleached, blonde hair I noticed earlier comes up way too close to my little girl, and I don’t even think as I tug Vee behind my body.
“Hi, babyyyy,” the woman coos, tilting her head to the side to get a better look at Victoria. And I’m just about to send this creep in a bright pink tight sweater the fuck away when I feel Vee stiffen and grab my hand, squeezing it hard.
The second she does that, I don’t have to ask who this blonde woman wearing too strong of perfume and clothes that would fit Vee better than her is.
