Page 48

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Yonas—”

“Lakelyn, that truck belongs to you.”

“You bought me a brand-new Range Rover,” I reminded him, pointing toward the window. “I cannot break up with you and drive out of town in an eighty-thousand-dollar luxury truck you paid for in cash.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it looks terrible!”

“To who?”

“To me! To anyone with common sense!”

He shook his head, a genuine laugh breaking through his somber mood. “Lakelyn, I gave you that truck because your old ride broke down on the side of the interstate with my little homie in the back. I gave it to you as a gift, not a lease on your company. No strings meant no strings.”

I glanced past him toward the bedroom window.

The pearl-white Range Rover was sitting in my driveway right now, the cargo space packed to the ceiling with boxes and duffel bags.

Six months before, the transmission in my battered ten-year-old Camry had dropped out on I-95 while I was driving home with Kaidence in the rain. I had complained about the towing bill over dinner once. Two days later, Yonas had pulled into my driveway in that white truck, tossed the key fob into my lap, and told me to transfer my registration. When I had gotten furious and accused him of trying to buy my affection, he had just rolled his eyes and said, I bought you reliable transportation, Lakelyn. I didn't purchase your soul. Drive the damn car.

I looked back at him, searching his face. “Are you completely sure? Even after this?”

“Especially after this,” he said, his expression softening into something fierce and protective. “You got Kaidence in that backseat on a four-hundred-mile drive. I want to know both of you are in something safe that isn’t going to leave you stranded on the shoulder of some dark highway. Keep the truck.”

The generosity of it nearly unraveled the composure I had spent the last hour maintaining. My throat tightened, and I blinked rapidly against the sudden sting of tears.

“Don’t make me cry right now,” I whispered, wiping at the corner of my eye.

“Cry? Shid… you’re the one dumping me,” Yonas said, a faint smirk returning to his lips. “I’m the one who should be emotional. So the least I should get out of the deal is ruining your mascara.”

A wet laugh slipped through my lips, and I shook my head at him. “You are ridiculous.”

“Rich and ridiculous,” he corrected with a wink.

“Very.”

“Mommy!”

A small, high-pitched voice bounced off the walls of the hallway just before Kaidence appeared in the open doorway, nearly tipped backward under the weight of a Ninja Turtle backpack that was larger than his entire torso.

At five years old, Kaidence was all long limbs, endless questions, and more of Caspian showing up in him every day. I thought he looked like his father when he was a baby, but that had been nothing compared to five years later. The older he got, the more the resemblance sharpened.

His eyes had the exact same deep almond shape, the same heavy lids, and that identical, unbothered dark stare whenever he decided somebody in the room was doing entirely too much. Every now and then, he would make a face or tilt his head a certain way, and for one split second, I would see Caspian so clearly it hurt.

“You ready?” I asked, arching a brow at him.

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded.

I looked down at his feet. “You don’t even have shoes on, baby.”

He paused, glanced down at his bright blue socked feet, and blinked. “Oh.”

Behind me, Yonas let out a sudden bark of laughter.

Kaidence looked past my legs at him, his little forehead bunching up. “You coming with us?”