Page 112 of Dark King Daddy

She stood in the doorway with her coat still on and her hands still on the strap and said, “Will you take care of me tonight?”

The sentence was simple. She delivered the words in a voice without polish, without effort. A voice that was just her.

“Of course I will, Baby Girl.” It was pure pleasure to see the smile break over her face. “Now, go change into something comfortable,” I said. “Take your time. I’ll make dinner.”

She did not argue. She did not negotiate. She turned and walked down the hallway, and I heard the slippers shuffle and the door to her suite open and close.

I made the soup. Slid the quartered tomatoes into a pot with olive oil and garlic. Sliced an onion. Added stock. Let it simmer. The kitchen warmed. Steam rose and fogged the window above the sink. I sliced bread—thick, even pieces. Buttered both sides. Layered cheese—Gruyère and a sharp white cheddar—and set the first sandwich in the pan. The butter hissed. The bread turned gold.

I was cutting the second sandwich in half when she came back.

Lavender pajamas. Pink and cream striped socks. Misha the rabbit tucked beneath her right arm, the threadbare ear visible against her elbow. Her hair was loose. Her face was bare. She stood in the doorway and looked at me and at the table and at the food and something in her shoulders released—a small, visible settling, the way a held breath lets go.

“Sit, Little One,” I said.

She sat. I placed the bowl of soup in front of her. The grilled cheese on a plate beside it. I poured water into a glass and set it within reach. Then I sat in the chair beside her—not across, beside—and waited.

She ate.

She did not check her phone. She did not look at the clock. She held Misha in her lap beneath the table and ate what I had made for her.

When the bowl was empty, she set down the spoon. She looked at the plate. One piece of crust remained. She picked it up, dipped it in the last of the soup, and ate it.

Then she looked at me.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For needing this. After this afternoon. You took me out. You gave me an hour. And I come home and I can’t — I can’t stay adult. I can’t hold it together for one full day.”

I looked at her. At the lavender pajamas and the striped socks and the rabbit in her lap and the woman inside all of it who was apologizing for needing care from the man who had agreed to give it.

“Ksyusha.”

She stopped.

“This is a hard time. A time of change and adjustment. A time, in fact, of trauma.”

Her fingers tightened on Misha’s ear.

“Both of us are suffering right now. I know that this wedding is one of convenience. Of strategy. But I feel—and I think you do, too, that it is more than that. We need each other. I feel it. Do you?”

She nodded.

“Good. Now, you keep treating my company as something you’ve borrowed,” I said. “Something expensive that you have to return. Something you owe me for.”

“I don’t—”

“You do. You apologized for needing the evening after I gave you the afternoon. You’ll apologize tomorrow for needing the morning after I gave you the evening. You’ll build a ledger in your head and carry the balance and it will exhaust you more than anything I could ask you to do.”

She was quiet.

“I’m not lending you my time. I’m spending it. I chose to take you to the café. I chose to make you soup. I am hoping—right now, at this table—that you will ask me to stay.”

Her hand found my sleeve. Her fingers closed on the fabric. She did not speak for several seconds. The kitchen was warm. The soup pot sat on the stove, cooling. The last grilled cheese sandwich waited in the pan, uneaten.

“Please stay,” she said. “Daddy. Stay with me.”