I spun the mobile again, slower this time, letting the animals drift past her line of sight. “They’re your team now, okay? They’re gonna watch you sleep. Make sure the monsters stay away.”
I picked up a small teddy, its fur impossibly soft, and waggled it in front of her. She reached for it with those clumsy grabby hands and made a cooing sound that went straight through me. Cole had bought this for her, or ordered it overnight, probably without even thinking twice.
It shouldn’t have meant anything.
It did.
And I had no idea what to do with that.
SIX
Cole
New Year’sEve was tomorrow, and the whole city felt wired—bright, loud, revving itself up for parties I had no interest in attending. I was in my office instead, forty-five floors above Chicago, surrounded by glass and steel and the legacy of a family that never quite let go of me.
Severs-Braxton occupied the forty-third through forty-sixth floors of a glass tower. Back when the company started, when my great-grandfather married into money and founded it, it was a small investment outfit tucked into a cramped brick building in Old Chicago. Then came expansion, mergers, real estate, tech—each generation padding its ego by adding another industry to the empire. And now I was the latest Braxton sitting at this oversized oak desk, pretending I fit the mold.
The city stretched out beneath me, headlights smeared in the early-evening drizzle. I should’ve been reviewing the performance sheets and projections scattered before me. Instead, all I could think about was Morgan.
Morgan… and little Gabbi.
Alex had asked if I could share my number with Morgan, and of course, I’d said yes, and our exchange had been short but…
I craved more. I wanted to know how Gabbi was, whether she needed anything, and whether her dad needed anything. Either of them might need me. I’d re-read our short exchange so many times, and that was ridiculous.
Morgan:Hey… Alex gave me your number. I just wanted to say thank you for everything.
Cole:You’re welcome.
Cole:How’s Gabbi?
Morgan:She’s good. Settling. Staring at me like I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.
Cole:Good.
Brilliant. Pulitzer-worthy texting right there. Was Morgan looking for me to reassure him that I was sure he knew what he was doing? I didn’t know how to do that. I knew how to get Rowan to work the case; I knew how to get my lawyers on Morgan’s side, but I didn’t know what the right thing to say to Morgan was.
Nope. Not happening.
“Cole?”
I blinked and looked up. My PA—Lennox Hart, twenty-six, too competent for his own good—was standing in front of my desk, holding a tablet full of reports. He had that patient look he got whenever he realized I’d stopped listening.
“So, as I was saying… EBITDA variance for Q4 looks stable as long as?—”
I had no clue what he’d been saying. “Right,” I said. “EBITDA. Yes.”
Lennox raised an eyebrow. “Did you even hear a word I just said?”
I sighed. “Not a single one.” Morgan and Gabbi had somehow become a kind of obsession for me, and I know business is quiet between Christmas and New Year’s, but still, my head was not in the game.
He huffed a laugh and put the tablet down. “Want to tell me what’s got you so distracted you’re ignoring end-of-year projections? Because that’s new.”
“Did I get any deliveries today?” I asked, and he frowned, went out the door, and came back within a few minutes holding a box.
“This one?”
I tried to act cool, but I still reached for it faster than I meant to, opening the tape and peering inside. Inside were a couple of baby care books, even one specifically for single dads. Underneath them was a pack of silicone bibs, a tiny lavender-scented nightlight shaped like a cloud, a thermometer with a soft-tip probe designed for infants, a set of hypoallergenic soaps because she “might have sensitive skin,” and a white-noise machine with eighteen different sound profiles and child-safe volume limits.
