“I, uh,” I fumble for words as Ava stares down at her plate, the tips of her ears pink. “Well—”
“We’d like her to stay with us, Nash,” Luc says abruptly. Ava’s head jerks up as she stares at him, her eyes wide. He grins at her, unrepentant. “You need to help us persuade her,” he wiggles his eyebrows at Nash, and he crows delightedly.
“I can do that!”
He starts spouting off all of the things he loves about being here as the adults swap uncomfortable glances. I frown at Lucien, and he leans back in his chair with a whistle.
“What?” he says mildly when he catches us all staring. “We do want you to stay.”
His last words are soft, directly to Ava.
Max nods, clearly on board with this conversation, and Ava glances between me and Nikolai.
Nik is focusing very intently on his food, so I flounder for the right thing to say.
“Yes,” I settle on.Nice and easy, Bas. Don’t blow it.“We do.”
Her small smile takes root inside my chest and twists.
Clearing my throat, I jump up, taking my plate to the sink. “I have some things to sort out, so I’ll see you all later.”
I collapse into my office chair with a groan, leaning back to rub my hands down my face.
Smooth, Bastien. Real fucking smooth.
A knock comes a few minutes later. “Bastien?” a female voice calls, and I jump up. “Are you busy? I can come back.”
I rip the door open with a little too much enthusiasm, and Ava flinches, taking a reflexive step back.
“Sorry,” I apologize, rubbing the back of my neck. “Come in. You don’t need to knock, just push the door open.”
Ava follows me in and takes a seat in the wide leather chair she sat in before. It almost swallows her.
“Max said you might be able to help me,” she begins. Turning from the screen, I give her my full attention as she leans forward, picking a thread on her dress.
“Anything you need.”
“I want to do some research.” The words fall out on top of each other, a little jumbled, and I frown. “Research?”
She nods, looking away. “On…,” she touches her stomach, and I suddenly get it.
“On your pregnancy?” I ask gently, and she winces. “I guess so? The whole thing, really. I just – I don’t know anything, and I hate feeling so unprepared. If I know a bit more, I can start preparing, you know?”
“Hey, I get it.” I hold up a hand. “You don’t need to explain yourself. Let’s have a look.”
I set her up with an old laptop that doesn’t have a trackable browser and show her how to use it. “This won’t send up any alerts, in case anyone’s tracking certain search terms,” I tell her, and she stares up at me, her eyes wide.
“They could do that?”
Lifting my shoulder, I shrug. “Technically, but they won’t be able to do it with this.”
Clearing my throat, I sit back down in my chair and turn to my keyboard. “You mind if I have a look too?”
Those beautiful hazel eyes just blink at me, and I try to explain.
“I just thought, if you need any help or anything – I don’t know that much about kids, so it would probably be good to do some research, maybe? And you can talk to me about it. If you want to, that is. You don’t have to.” I laugh nervously. “Never mind.”
“No!” she leans forward earnestly, and our eyes meet. “It would be nice to have someone to talk to about it. Thank you.”
