“You do look healthy though,” she grunted.
If only she knew.
“Auntie Maya,” I giggled, patting her hand where it rested close to mine.
She softened. Just slightly. Just enough.
“You look happy.”
I glanced at Daddy.
“I am so fucking happy.”
???
The nightly routine of spreading the lightly scented shea butter over my belly had begun. Daddy worked the cream in slowly, both palms moving in wide circles, his eyes fixed on the small swell beneath his hands with an expression I’d stopped trying to describe.
He’d told me he regretted missing moments like this with Helena. Too busy building an empire to notice the small things until they were gone.
He’d resisted at first.
But then he took me to her grave.
Something in me had needed to go. To pay my respects to the woman who had given him Gabriel and given Gabriel to me—however indirectly, however painfully. The woman whose room I slept in before it became mine.
The tears that followed weren’t entirely for her. They were for the version of Daddy who had stood at that graveside alone for eleven years. Who had kept it tended and visited and spoken to, the way you only did for someone you never stopped loving.
“I shouldn’t have brought you,” he’d murmured, rubbing my back.
“You absolutely should’ve.”
We’d stayed for a while.
Silent.
I said what I needed to in my heart. I hoped she heard it.
His fingers continued their slow circles now, drawing my attention back to that dark head of hair bent over my belly. I wasn’t about to tell him about the grey strands threading through at the temples. He’d only take it as evidence that I needed to hurry up and give him three children.
“It was nice to have everyone over for the long weekend,” I murmured.
“Maya made it seem considerably longer,” he muttered.
I rested my hand over his as he worked.
The diamond sparkled beneath the soft glow of the lamp—blue fire catching the light the way he’d known it would against her skin. Against my skin.
Daddy was renovating the master bedroom as well as the nursery. Gone were the bland neutral tones that had no memory of anyone in them. In their place, something that would carry us—colours chosen with the same quiet deliberateness he applied to everything.
“How did you know I liked cornflower blue?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Frog Master discovered a post from four years ago. You went into great detail defending why you loved the colour so much.”
This man.
“Stalk much, Daddy?”
