Chapter 14
ALEXEI
I hear the floorboards creaking before she arrives at the door, my head snapping up from the computer at once. I’ve been reviewing footage of the night of the fire, trying to identify who exactly it was who set the damn blaze in the first place, but, so far, I’ve come up with a stone-cold nothing.
And then, there she is, Cara. Standing in the doorway just like she did on the night this fire happened, when she came to check on me.
Only this time, she is not wearing the drawn expression of a woman who doesn’t know what to expect, nor is she in her long tee.
No, she has a smile on her face, and is wearing a light dress that falls down to just below her knees.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” I reply, leaning back from the desk.
The sight of her, no matter how angry I might have been at her yesterday, salves something in me I didn’t even know I needed to pay attention to.
Her sweet expression, the way she cocks her head to the side as though she is apologizing for interrupting me like this.
“I... I was wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner,” she offers, and I raise my eyebrows. I hardly keep track of the days passing at the best of times, and now she’s here, talking about dinner?
“Join you?”
“Yeah, me, Max, and Nina,” she explains. “I figured that you would be pretty busy, but I thought it might be... nice for you to have a little time with your kids.”
She seems certain, her mind already made up.
At least she is not trying to take them outside, I suppose I should be grateful for that at least, though I’m struggling to find it in me.
When Olev came to my office to tell me that she had taken the children outside, after insisting to them that I had given her permission to do just that, I should have chewed her out on the spot, but I could tell she was only trying to help.
I had told her I wanted all of her focus on those kids, and I could hardly say that she had failed me in that matter, could I?
But now, I’m distinctly aware of the possibility that someone might have seen them.
That someone might have had the chance to lay eyes on them when she took them out of the house.
Given how closely the warehouse had been surveilled, there was a good chance that they had decided to go after my home base, too, and that would put my son and daughter at the epicenter of it.
I’ve heard nothing about it, no threats coming my way since the incident, so I’ve to hope that the guards have done a good enough job scaring people away and keeping them from getting involved in anything they can’t handle.
But I won’t be sure for a long time, if ever, and that bothers me.
“Max has been asking about you,” she explains. “I think he really wants to spend some time with you. He and Nina have become such good friends, and it would be really nice if you could get to know her better...”
She raises her eyebrows at me hopefully, and I sigh, closing the laptop.
“Alright, I’ll do it,” I reply. “When?”
“About half an hour,” she replies, grinning. “I got Marsha to help me make a curry today, so it’s not a total mess.”
“Glad to hear it,” I chuckle. “Give me some time to wash up and I’ll be down there soon, alright?”
“Great,” she replies, her smile widening before she heads off down the corridor.
I watch her for a second before I make my way to my room, wondering if I can really risk taking the time away from work like this.
But, shit, I’ve been up to my ears in it for days now, and nothing more has come out.
Maybe it would do me good to clear my head and spend some time with my family instead of getting myself caught up in everything that was going on outside the walls of this mansion.
I take a quicker shower and change into a t-shirt and jeans, striding past the guards and checking to see that everyone is on their appointed spot on the door. They take the safety of this place with deadly seriousness, likely because they know what I’ll do to anyone I’ve reason to doubt.
But I push that aside as I key in the code and step through the door, the corridor already lit up with the sound of laughter and something sizzling in the kitchen. A delicious scent floats down the hall, and I follow it to the kitchen, where Cara, Nina, and Max are dishing up curry on to plates.
“There you are!” Cara greets me brightly, as Max runs over to give me a hug. Nina gives me a slightly nervous smile, and I nod at her, not wanting to come on too strong, but I wish I could give her a hug, too.
“Perfect timing,” Cara continues, as she takes a seat at the dining table, gesturing for the kids to do the same. It takes a second for Max to unlatch himself from me, but he takes his seat and Nina and I do the same.
“I didn’t know you were such a great cook,” I remark to Cara, and she laughs, shaking her head.
“Oh, I’m not, but I’m trying to learn,” She replies.
“Marsha was kind enough to give me one of her recipes today. I think I could just about manage to recreate it, as long as I’ve a whole afternoon to make it happen.
..” She takes a bite of the dish, closes her eyes, and groans.
“God, though, that might be worth it,” she replies, and she glances over to Nina. “What do you think, Nina? Good?”
“Great!” she replies, putting her thumb up, and Cara grins and reaches over to muss her hair.
“We used to have this great Indian place not far from where we lived before,” Cara adds, a little wistfully. “If I could just get the recipes from there, I bet I would be able to figure out how they make them so delicious...”
I tense slightly at her mention of her life before this.
It’s hard not to wonder if she wants it back, at least some parts of it, given the way that I’ve closed everything around her here.
But she swiftly brushes it off, no doubt able to guess that it’s the last thing I want to talk about right now.
“What were you guys studying today?” I ask.
“Studying? I don’t think I’d go that far, I’m hardly getting them to college level,” Cara teases lightly. “But we were looking at some beautiful art, weren’t we, guys?”
They both nod, their little faces lighting up in unison. Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine that they haven’t known each other their entire lives, with just how similar they seem.
“Yeah, we looked at these old teacups!” Max replies, and I cock an eyebrow, glancing to Cara for clarification.
“I had a kid’s art book, and it has artifacts from around the world,” she explains. “We looked through some of them and talked a bit about where they came from, went to look at a globe so we could see how far they had travelled...”
Soon, the two kids are filling me on everything they’ve done that day, and I listen as I enjoy the delicious curry that Cara made for me.
The way they talk over each other, excitedly adding in little details that they felt the other had missed out, is so damn cute, and I know that Cara feels it, too.
She catches my eye occasionally, and I can see the warmth and care for the kids written all over her face.
The rest of the evening passes quicker than I can even keep track of it, the conversation flowing with a surprising ease.
Cara talks to the kids in a way that really gets them going, and she sits back and sips on her water as she listens to them speak.
And, beneath the table, I shift my leg slightly, so that it is leaning against hers.
I don’t know if she even notices at first, but then, I feel her pressing back against me a little bit, and I grin.
Oh, yeah. She knows.
Soon enough, our plates are clear, and she claps her hands together.
“Alright, guys, let’s get this place cleaned up,” she announces. “Nina, Max, you take the plates to the sink, I’ll wash up-”
“No way,” I assure her, standing up before she can. “You made dinner, it’s my job to clean up.”
She glances up at me, clearly slightly surprised by my insistence. “You sure?”
“Certain.”
“Well, you’re not going to hear any argument from me,” she replies, tucking her hands behind her head and stretching out slightly. The angle I’m standing at, I can see the way her hair waves down over her shoulder, brushing against her collarbone in a way that is distinctly difficult to ignore.
I help the kids with the dishes, and soon, we have the place tidied. As I’m putting away the last of the cutlery, she ushers them towards the door.
“You should be getting ready for bed,” she tells them both, and Nina protests.
“But I was going to—”
“Whatever it is, I promise we can do it tomorrow,” she replies gently. “Come on. Bed, now.”
She steers them through to their rooms, and I hear her soothing them as she calms them down for bed.
The sound of her voice drifting through from next door, it brings a smile to my face, because it’s the first time I’ve really been able to share this with someone.
The feeling of being a parent, of caring for these kids as though it is the most natural thing in the world.
I’ve done all of it alone till now, and I didn’t realize what I was missing.
By the time that she has come back through, I’ve poured us both a glass of wine, and she looks at the bottle on the counter with some surprise.
“I thought you would be getting back to work by now.”
“You want me to leave you to it?”
She pauses for a moment, and then reaches out to take the glass of wine, her lips gliding along the rim as she takes a long sip. “No,” she replies, almost casually. “No, I think you should stay.”
I grin, and we both take a seat at the breakfast bar, her stool next to mine. We are so close that our legs are almost touching again, but I hold back, not wanting to rush her, though she must have known where my mind was right now.
“Kids asleep?”
“Out like a light,” she replies, planting her chin in her hand and smiling. “They had a busy day. And I think Max was really glad that you were able to join us.”
“I was really glad for it, too,” I reply, and move a little, so that our feet are touching.
I notice a slight pink flush rise to her chest as she attempts to navigate that sudden feeling of closeness, the one that I’d been trying to deny myself since I walked out of her bedroom that night a couple of weeks ago.
“I would have just sat in that office all night if it hadn’t been for you,” I continue. “Going over and over what happened, but I... I was much better off spending it with you and the kids.”
She smiles, that sweet warmth lighting up her eyes again. “I’m glad you thought so too,” she murmurs back.
I take a sip of the wine, fixing my gaze on hers, watching to see every inch of her expression. I don’t want to miss a thing, not with her. I feel like we have so many years to catch up on, and so much time to fill in when we could have been all over each other.
“You’re really good with them,” she remarks.
“I don’t know about that...”
“Well, I do,” she replies firmly. “And I think you’re amazing with them. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone, parenting, but I can tell just how much Max adores you.”
“Did it come naturally to you?”
“Did what?”
“Being a parent.”
She falls silent, staring into the wine glass for a second.
“You know, for a long time, I thought it didn’t,” she admits.
“I felt like I was stumbling through all of it, you know? Like I was just waiting for the next thing to turn up that I would trip over, and I would go out on my ass trying to keep up with it. But now, when I look back, I think... I think, yeah, I actually did a pretty good job, all things considered.”
“You had your sister around, right? What about your parents?”
She pulls a face at the mention of them. “Ugh, don’t get me started on them,” she replies, trying to lace her voice with some lightness, but I can tell that she does not mean it. “They... they’re not in my life anymore, let’s just say that.”
“And you want it to stay that way?”
“As long as they are the way they are, then yeah, I do.”
“And what way is that?”
She goes quiet once more and shakes her head. “I don’t think I want to get into all of that now,” she confesses. “It’s... a lot. That’s all you really need to know.”
I’m tempted to push a little further. I’m not used to being brushed off when I go searching for information, after all. But the way she says it, I don’t want to ruin what we have going on here by making her talk about something she doesn’t want to speak about.
“You got it,” I reply, and she lets out a slight breath, as though relieved I’m not going to delve any deeper into that part of her past. I reach for the glass of wine again, my arm brushing against hers, and I notice her bite her lip when we touch again.
“So what do you want to talk about?” I ask her, lowering my voice, the tone of the conversation changing at once.
She lifts her gaze to look up at me, searching for the words to respond, but none of them seem to come to mind, at least at first. Maybe because she’s fighting the desire with every little thing she has, or maybe because the depths of it go so deep that she doesn’t know where to begin.
“What happened the other night,” she breathes back, her voice low and throaty as though we are right back there in her room.
My gaze flicks down to her lips for a moment, and I remember how they looked when they were closed around the head of my cock. I feel something stir within me, something heating at the thought of what she did for me that night. “What about it?”
“How much...” She trails off, smirking slightly, a flicker of mischief in her eyes. I move my hand to her leg, coaxing her to go further, not to hold back now. “How much I want to feel you inside of me again.”
And, with the words spoken, there is no denying it any longer. I lean towards her, tuck my hand behind her head, and our lips crash together as our wine sits on the counter between us, forgotten.