Iwaspickingmywaythrough the corridors, wandering aimlessly, relearning my childhood home when Mrs. Pym found me. Her shrewd, green eyes bore into mine with a wariness she was careful to conceal.
It has never been clear just how long the Pyms have been serving the Usher Family. She had been our housekeeper since I was a boy. And like my father, I left the raising of my boys to her.
“Home, sir?”
“Seems that way.”
She hummed softly and folded her frail, sturdy fingers together. “Would you like some food or a drink in the study?”
I shook my head. “I’d like to know what I missed, if you have time.”
She inclined her head and followed me to my office.
In the hour that followed, I learned just how much I missed in my absence. I learned that the children — no longer children — were grown enough to run the house without me. I learned that they’d grown … close, despite Mrs. Pym’s attempts to discourage their bond.
“I did do my best, but ultimately…”
“They are grown,” I finished for her.
That evening at dinner, I arrived at the dining hall to find both my boys already in attendance. Both dressed in their dark trousers and clean, black tops. Not over the top formal, but respectful. Ames was showered, his strands unbound and wild around his face. Eliah still had a faint hint of blue discoloring his left cheek, but he’d done his best to scrub clean.
My boys.
The future heirs to the Usher empire.
Both so grown and so different. Seeing them, a feeling of unimaginable pride swelled in my chest, knotting with the guilt and regret I would never shake. Everything they were,everything they had become had nothing to do with me. Both were strangers with my face and my name, and it gnawed at me.
“Perhaps, after dinner, we could talk,” I offer.
A flimsy olive branch for the years when they needed me and I failed them.
Eliah smiled, unhampered and fully to his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
Ames’s heavy brows remained twisted with suspicion and impatience. But then lifted. Wiped away as if it never existed with the quiet clip of heels and Lenora’s arrival.
Twice in a single day, her presence kicked me in the sternum. It hit me with an uppercut that left me winded as she stepped into the room. A fucking vision in a simple, off the shoulder dress in plum. The neckline dropped low across the generous swells of her breasts and hugged every goddamn curve to her knees. Unbound, her strands gleamed with every stride. A riot of soft, heavy curls that made my fingers itch to fist.
She met my eye first and beamed.
“Sorry I’m late.” She gave a soft chuckle. “I couldn’t find my shoes.”
The shoes in question matched the dress with fuck me heels that made her legs appear endless and my cock stir.
“Because your closet is a mess,” Eliah teased, moving past me to offer her his arm.
“It’s messy organized,” she countered. “I know where everything is.”
“Clearly not,” Ames muttered, moving to her other side and dropping his mouth down to hers.
Eliah’s gaze immediately sprung to me, uncertain. A little scared.
I said nothing.
Instead, I returned my attention to the stunning woman between us.
“You look beautiful.”
Pink crawled up her throat and filled her cheeks. “Thank you.”
