ChapterSeven
Mara
I feel a little evil after unleashing my daughter on Alec, but honestly, someone had to do it.The man clearly needs contact with reality—and with actual people.There’s this air around him, as if he’s spent years barricaded behind his own rules, convinced he’s a fragile snowflake who shouldn’t mingle with ordinary mortals.
Maybe that’s what my aunt meant when she insisted he needed help.Or guidance.Or maybe an intervention.I can’t remember the exact phrase anymore.Either way, I’m here to deliver whatever he needs in generous, inconvenient portions of joy ...the very thing he seems wildly allergic to.
“Time for homework,” I tell Mila.
She raises an eyebrow like she’s thirty, not eight.“Shouldn’t I be going to school like a normal child?”
“It’s March,” I remind her.“School ends in a couple of months.You should be done with fifth grade by June.Let’s finish the curriculum, and then I’ll figure out where you can go next year.”
Which is going to be difficult because I doubt they’ll admit a nine-year-old into sixth grade.Actually, I don’t want to send my child to junior high when she’s not ready for it.Now I regret not giving her summer breaks and vacation like a regular child.But what else was there to do?It’s not like I could send her to a summer camp with children her age while we were jumping from one place to another.
Ugh, I hate regretting decisions.Not that I’m regretting them.I just have to know how we’re going to handle this whole going-to-school subject.
“But I really want to go to school.”Mila presses her lips into a dramatic pout, as if I’ve personally taken a holiday away from her.
“You think waking up early and getting dressed for school is fun?”I ask.
“It—”
Before she can argue, there’s a knock on the door.
When I open it, Alec stands there with his arms crossed as if someone had offended him in a dream and he’s still carrying the grievance.
But that’s not what grabs my attention.He’s no longer holding the mug I gave him.Where is it?
Focus on the rest,Mara,I remind myself because there’s a more pressing issue.There are boxes.Everywhere.A tower of them around his feet.And two men behind him unloading even more from the elevator.
So it’s not him moving out because we created mayhem during breakfast.
“What is that?”I ask.
“You tell me ...”He narrows his eyes at me.“Is it Mara O’Shea or Lafferty?”
The way he asks it, you’d think I lied to him about a criminal record.Or orchestrated this entire hallway explosion myself by pretending I’m someone else.He looks genuinely bothered, which shouldn’t surprise me anymore.The man is easily irritated—by mornings, by life, by my general existence.
“My last name is complicated,” I admit.“But that’s not the issue.Why am I involved in your boxer-y mess?”
He points straight at me.“They’re delivering your belongings.”
“You must be mistaken.”I shake my head.“Those old boxes aren’t mine.My things are in plastic containers that should be perfectly preserved until I’m ready for them.”
“We have stuff in plastic containers?”Mila asks, already inching toward the hall.“Where?Can I see them?”
I groan.This is not what I need right now.
Alec lets out something dangerously close to a laugh—quick, quiet, but enough for my pulse to trip like a rookie on pointe shoes.And of course that sends a ridiculous little warmth through me, which I immediately reject, because no.Absolutely not.I am not reacting to a man who is one sarcastic comment away from igniting himself on pure attitude.
And yet my treacherous brain still registers the rough edge of his laugh, the curve of his mouth, the way he looks good even in mild irritation—broad shoulders under a plain sweater, jawline that should come with a warning label—no,absolutely not.We are not doing this.I refuse to develop crush-like symptoms over a man who thinks questions are useless and that we’re too noisy.
I tear my eyes off him before anyone—notably him—can notice whatever just tried to spark inside me.
Then, when I’m ready, I glare at him, mostly to reset my brain and stop the spiraling.I do not like this tall, broody, aggravatingly handsome hurricane of a man.The height, the shoulders, the voice that drops just a little too low when he mutters—it’s all irrelevant.Completely irrelevant.
He clears his throat like he wasn’t about to cackle.
