Chapter 25 Liora is sitting on the couch, huddled under a blanket, with the fire blazing in the fireplace. Her laptop is on her lap, and she's trying to do schoolwork while Hazel plays nearby. My little angel hasn't looked at me much since this morning. We finished in the shower, and then, like last night, she scurried away back upstairs. Outside the window, more freezing rain is falling. It's supposed to warm up tomorrow, but today we're locked inside. I'm at the counter in my kitchen instead of in the basement or on the couch beside her. I'm also working. Or at least I'm supposed to be. I make it maybe three minutes tops before I'm back to watching her. Thankfully my phone vibrates against the counter. Mason: Did you know that baby boys pee when you remove their diapers? It's like a fucking garden hose or a power wash. Sorel thinks it's hysterical, but she hasn't been peed on because she knows some baby voodoo magic to make him only pee on me. Fucking Mason. Thank God. Stone: Dude, I freaking told you baby boys do that and to put the diaper over his penis while placing the new one on. My smile grows. Mason: I tried! I don't have six hands, asshole. Why don't you come over here and show me how it's done? Stone: Sorry, brother. We don't all get to stay home and play house like you and Vander do. Some of us have to work for a living. Owen: I'm home. I wanted to be with my girls. Mason: Aw, that's so cute I almost threw up in my mouth. Me: Domestic life not how you pictured it, Mase? Mason: Other than the golden showers and lack of sleep, it's great. How about you? Care to finally share? I debate this for a moment, my eyes on her as she smiles and talks to Hazel, who continues to interrupt Liora's schoolwork. Not once does Liora act annoyed or put out. Me: You're going to think I'm fucking nuts. Owen: Not more than we already do. Do we need to move this to the chat with the women? Me: Definitely not. The last thing I need is Katy, Keegan, Kenna, Wren, and Tinsley spouting their smart mouths at me. Stone: Ah, so you're finally sleeping with her. Me: Started last night. She left immediately after both times. Owen: You must suck in bed then. Me: Don't be an ass. I'm amazing in bed. Stone: So says you, Thor, but women don't run when the dick is good. Me: *Middle finger emoji* Mason: Just put a ring on it and tell her you love her. Worked for me. Stone: And your parents, Vander. Right. On both of those accounts. Me: Not exactly my style. Owen: Admit you love her and end both your suffering. She won't run then. Me: Again, not my style. Owen: No, you're more the suffer-in-silence type, and for the record, you didn't deny that you love her. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Findηovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Me: I'm a criminal and she's a single mom. Stone: Your mom married your dad, who is in the same line of work as you are. Me: My mom was also a billionaire heiress and a midwife. Mason: Shit. You're actually thinking about all of this. Am I? I sigh. Yeah, I am. I always have with her. Even when we were kids, I was. We weren't going to end, and then Cassian died, and I blamed myself for not being there to stop him when I should have been, and he never wanted me with her, and I don't know. Me: There's a fake FBI agent working for her father who knows a lot more about me than he should. I'm also nearly positive he's more than just a hired goon. But I can't find anything on her father. Not even a speeding ticket, if you know what I mean, and she has no communication with him. Something isn't right. She's keeping something major from me. Or maybe I need to dig harder than I have been. I've been holding back because it's her and it felt like I was continuing to invade her privacy and space, and my father told me to take it slow. Maybe I'm going too slow, though. Owen: All the more reason to keep her close. "You know, even with your hot, nerdy glasses on, I can still see you staring at me." Busted. I grin. "Wasn't trying to hide it." "Well, you can stop anytime." "Probably when I'm dead then." She makes a noise in the back of her throat as she continues to work on her paper on her new laptop. "You think my glasses make me look hot?" "And nerdy," she adds as if I forgot that part, which I hadn't. "Mama, Mama." Hazel comes over holding a doll. "Sally is hungry." "Sally just had lunch an hour ago." Hazel shakes her head. "No. She's hungry now." Liora sighs and goes to set her laptop aside when I climb off my stool. "Hazel, do you like cookies?" Liora's tiny doppelganger blinks at me. Thank God she looks like Liora. If she looked anything like her biological father, I'd have to not only ruin him financially as I'm doing but also fly to Italy and kill him with my bare hands. Admittedly, I have a problem. "Cookies!" Hazel screams in delight, and Liora throws me a look. Crap. I likely should have asked her mother first. Too late now, and the woman hates me anyway. "Want to bake some with me?" "You know how to bake cookies?" Liora throws at me. "Have you not met my mother?" I parry back at her. "And as I recall, we baked cookies several times together." "I only remember once, and we burned them." I was hoping she'd remember that. "That's because my tongue was between your thighs, and you were so loud we didn't hear the timer go off on my phone." She blushes but forces a scowl. "But since that won't be happening right now, I think Hazel and I can make some cookies without burning them. That way you can get some work done." "What about your work?" "I was too busy staring at my pretty roommate to get anything done. Might as well bake." "Why are you being nice to me?" "Because you gave me your p-u-s-s-y this morning." I spell out the word and laugh as she rolls her eyes. "I'm kidding. Relax. It's a snow day. It's what you're supposed to do. I've baked with Rory a million times." "A million times?" she questions dubiously. "Okay. Not a million times. But her aunt Wren bakes with her all the time, and I help sometimes. Come on. It's a win-win for everyone." She studies me, uncertainty and something else I can't quite name warring within her. "If you're sure, that would be great." "I'm sure." She spins back around to Hazel, who has been watching our back and forth with the avid attention of someone watching the final round of Wimbledon. "Do you want to bake cookies with Vander?" Hazel cautiously nods, hope simmering in her blue eyes. At least she finally stopped having the kid call me Mr. Vander. "Okay. You can bake with him. But be polite and⁠-" "She'll be great. I've got her. Go in the other room and get your work finished." I wave to Hazel, who comes running at me while Liora watches us, even as she stands and picks up her laptop. I give her my back as I pick up Hazel and sit her tiny butt down on the counter, making sure she's safe while I go and grab our ingredients. "Do you want music?" I ask her. She nods. "K." I grab my phone and pull up Disney Radio on my music app. "Disney Radio?" Liora calls from the other room. "Are you trying to make my ovaries explode?" "Huh?" I call back, my brows scrunched as I take out the brown sugar. "I'm still trying to hate you." I chuckle. "Keep working on that, baby." "I will, thanks. Why don't you have an Alexa like everyone else in the world?" "Because I don't like bot devices, or any devices for that matter, listening. Now shut up and do your work." "That wasn't nice words," Hazel reprimands me, and I flip back around. "You're right. I'm sorry." "Tell Mommy you're sorry." Oh, hell. I sigh and sag to about half my size. "I'm sorry I said shut up," I grumble like a scolded child and catch Liora giggling from the other room. Hazel beams at me, scissoring her little legs back and forth, especially when I take out the chocolate chips and slide her down toward the standing mixer. Song after song plays that she hums or sings along to in her childlike way while she helps me crack eggs and add flour to a bowl, making a white mess of both of us. I feed her chocolate chips, and she shoves some in my face. She's as smart and playful as her mother. It makes me want to spoil her too. Would our child look like Hazel? It's impossible not to wonder. It's fun. I can't deny it. Only with this kid do I blow off work in favor of doing things only children can get away with. We fold the rest of the chocolate chips into the dough, and when we're all done and they're ready to go in the oven, I set her on the floor. She goes running off, and I turn around with trays full of unbaked cookies in my hands to find Liora leaning against the doorframe. "Now who's the one watching?" I tease as I slide two trays into the oven. She crosses the room and jumps up on the counter where I had Hazel a moment before. Grabbing a spoon from the drawer beneath her, she takes a scoop of the dough and pops it into her mouth. "Yum. That's good." "There's raw egg in there." She winks at me. "I like living dangerously." I come over and hop up on the counter beside her, set the timer on my phone and steal the spoon from her so I can take a bite of the dough too. "You were right. It's good." "See." She steals the spoon back. "You're swallowing my spit," I tell her, eyeing the spoon as she takes more dough with it and eats it. "It's the only thing of yours I'll ever swallow." "You're eating my batter, so we both know that's not true." I smirk at her. "Not your baby batter, though. And I think this is dough, not batter." She smiles, nudging me with her elbow. "Dough wouldn't have worked as well." I nudge her back, snatch the spoon, and eat more dough. I don't even want it. I just want to eat from her spoon like I'm a teenage boy all over again. "Thanks for baking with her." "You're welcome. It was fun. Did you get your work done?" "I did. You can go work if you need to." "Or we could watch a movie under the blanket. And when Hazel falls asleep, I'll make you come." She shakes her head at me. "We're not dating." I give her an affronted look I'm positive I'm not selling. "Whoever said we were? God, obsessed with me much?" She snorts and nudges me again. "You're not making me come anymore. No more sex." My lips pinch. "That sounds like a dumb rule." "You agreed to it." "I would have told you I was becoming a monk to get you out of that apartment. And we broke that rule, as I think we both knew we would." "We were scratching an itch." "Then consider us covered in hives." "No more scratching." "Why not enjoy this roommates-with-benefits situation we find ourselves in?" She leans forward and tilts her head so she can see my full face. "Is that what we are?" "You're the one who just said we're not dating," I throw back at her, wondering why I'm keeping this going but unable to stop it all the same. "What? Do you want me to kiss you again and ask you to be my girlfriend?" "Don't mock that." I wasn't actually. I was kind of thinking I might want to do that, but I won't. Girlfriend still sounds like an idiotic term in my head. But maybe that's because all the other women who wanted that title in the past weren't her. Last night I had her again, and now I never want to let go. The timer on the cookies goes off, and I'm saved by the bell. I hop off the counter, throw on an oven mitt, and open the oven. "See. Didn't burn them this time. They're perfect. Can Hazel have one? Full disclosure, I might have given her a dozen chocolate chips or so already." She does that quiet staring at me thing she does sometimes, and I let her continue as I put the cookies on the cooling rack and set the pans on the stove for them to cool as well. Liora still hasn't answered me by the time I'm ready for one, so I take matters into my own hands. "Hazel?" I call out, and she comes scampering from the old office that is now her playroom. "Do you want a cookie?" "Yeah!" I laugh as she jumps up and down, her hands in the air. "Yeah? Okay, kid. Come here. Do you like milk with them? Personally, I think that's the only way to eat cookies." She scrambles over to me but still has trouble climbing up onto one of the bar stools, so I help her along. "Milk!" Then she winces and turns to her mother. "Mama, milk? I have milk too?" "Yeah, baby. We have milk here." Damn. I hate that she even had to ask. I pour milk for Hazel into her kid's cup and place a cookie on a small plate in front of her. "It's still a bit warm, so be careful." "Okay," she singsongs, but in true kid fashion blows past my warning and takes a huge bite, only to instantly wash it down with milk. "Good?" She nods vigorously as she chews and swallows. I rub the top of her hair. "Good stuff. You helped make those. That's why they're so yummy." Hazel glows, and I snag two cookies and bring them over to Liora, who has been a statue since I took them out of the oven. I hand one to her that she takes and almost reflexively nibbles on it. "You'll never have that worry again," I tell her in a low voice so Hazel doesn't hear. "You'll never have to worry if you can afford milk or anything else." She stares at me, long and hard, but her eyes are glistening. "I mean it, Angel. Never. I'll make sure of it." She shakes her head. "You're not someone to make that promise to me, Vander. You don't know everything about my life." "Tell me then. Tell me," I implore because I need her to. I need her to tell me, not just for her, but for me too. She frowns and looks away, biting into her cookie and leaving me hanging. My heart hammers. "I loved you. So much. When Cass died, I..." I trail off and stare down at my half-eaten cookie. "I got there too late. I was with you, and we lost track of time, but I was supposed to meet him half an hour before that. If I had... well, he wouldn't have gotten so drunk waiting for me and fallen, and he'd still be here, and then maybe I could have told him, and he would have gotten used to the idea eventually. But I was an eighteen-year-old kid whose best friend had just fallen to his death because I wasn't there to save him, and he didn't want me with you, and I⁠-" "It wasn't your fault," she whispers, her voice hoarse, her eyes beseeching. "It wasn't. Please, please don't ever think that. Not for a second. I know you loved me, and I loved you, but we were kids, and promises like that aren't supposed to be made when you haven't lived life yet. We're fine just as we are, Vander. You're amazing and have done so much for us. More than I could ever thank you for. But we're different people now living very different lives." She drops a small kiss on my cheek and climbs off the counter. "Want to watch a movie?" she asks Hazel, and it's done. Case closed. Liora and Vander are history. Only we're the type of history I'll never get over or move past. Even if she already has.