“This is really good.” She said it like she was genuinely surprised.
“I had culinary training.” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but something like pride slipped through. “Used to use it occasionally.”
“Daddy’s the best cook in the whole world.” Lily beamed, and hearing her speak, praising me made something unravel in my chest. This was a miracle that had happened right before my eyes.
We ate in comfortable silence—the kind that didn’t need filling. Sarah finished everything on her plate and looked like she wanted seconds but was too polite to ask. I gave her more without asking, and she didn’t protest.
Lily fell asleep on the couch shortly after dinner, curled up with her head in Sarah’s lap. I carried her to her room and tucked her in, pressing a kiss to her forehead before backing out quietly.
When I returned to the living room, Sarah was still there, and I’d made hot cocoa while she’d been sitting with Lily. The old-fashioned kind, made on the stove with real chocolate and milk.
I handed her a mug and sat at the opposite end of the couch, leaving space between us.
“I didn’t expect you to come for me.” Her voice was soft, and she stared into her mug. “Earlier, I mean. When those men were there.”
I wanted to ask about them, about everything she’d been carrying alone. But she looked exhausted, wrung out, and pushing for information felt cruel.
“I needed to apologize,” I said instead. “For firing you. For not listening. I let fear control me, and I took it out on you when you were only trying to help Lily.”
“You were protecting your daughter.” She took a sip of cocoa. “I get that.”
“I was suffocating her.” The admission hurt—but it was true. “You saw what I couldn’t. That taking everything away wasn’t keeping her safe, it was keeping her prisoner.”
Sarah didn’t respond, and we sat in the silence for a while, drinking cocoa and existing in the same space without needing to fill it with words.
“It’s late,” I said finally. “We can talk more tomorrow—about everything.”
She nodded, and I stood to leave before I could say something I’d regret.
“Sarah?” I paused in the doorway. “You can stay as long as you want. However long you need.”
I left her there and climbed the stairs to my own room, suddenly more exhausted than I’d been in months.
When I finally fell into bed, I expected the nightmares. They always came. Joana’s death, Lily’s silence, everything I’d lost playing on repeat.
But tonight was different.
Tonight I dreamed of Lily’s voice—clear and certain. Dreamed of her small hand in mine, trust in her eyes, no flinching or fear. Dreamed of her laughing in the kitchen while we cooked, the way she used to before the world broke apart.
And then I dreamed of Sarah—her face when I’d found her with those men, the relief and surprise mixing. The soft way she’d looked at me when I offered her a place to stay. And it made me think. Of me.
Of the life I had.
Of the man I used to be.
CHAPTER 12
Sarah
Gianna corneredme in the kitchen the morning after everything happened.
“Start from the beginning,” she demanded, blocking my path to the coffee maker like a caffeinated guard dog. “And don’t leave out a single detail.”
I’d called her last night to ask permission to borrow clothes, which in retrospect had been a tactical error. She’d immediately known something was wrong and had spent the entire call extracting information while I stood in Hector’s guest room wearing a towel.
“There’s not much to tell,” I said, trying to edge past her toward the caffeine I desperately needed. “I needed a place to stay, and Hector offered.”
“Oh my god.” Gianna’s face transformed, her grin spreading wide enough to be illegal before noon. “I knew it. I knew he liked you.”
