Chapter 43
ALEX
“This is a joke, right?” I step out of the shower and into the towel Elijah’s holding out for me. He wraps it around my waist and kisses my cheek.
“Nope.”
“So…” I murmur, rubbing the towel across my thighs. “Gabriel and Noah? In this penthouse? With us?” I raise my brow, still expecting him to laugh and say he’s screwing with me.
But he doesn’t.
He passes me a pair of jeans instead. “And the girls, sí,” he says, all calm and domestic, like this is how mornings are supposed to go. Then he drops to his knees and helps me step into my pants.
“I’m a big boy, you know? I can put on my own pants.”
“I’m aware.”
His voice dips into something that makes me forget how to breathe for a second, and I hate how easily my body betrays me.
Actually… no, I don’t. I’m fully enjoying it. Relaxing into it. Letting it happen.
My pants are still caught at my calves when his mouth finds my inner thigh as he speaks quietly against my skin. “It’s alright to admit that you care for someone else, you know? Our hearts are big for a reason.”
His hands slide up the backs of my legs as he speaks, thumbs pressing slow, grounding circles, like he’s keeping me here with him.
“Are you trying to tell me that you still love Gabriel?”
Elijah doesn’t answer right away. His lips move higher, then pause.
One hand squeezes my calf before he finally looks up.
“I love you,” he says first, like he needs to put it somewhere solid.
“And yes, I still love him—but not in the way you’re thinking.
There isn’t a version of my life where he disappears.
There are too many years there. Too much shared air. ”
He kisses the inside of my knee, light, almost absentmindedly, his hands steady where they hold me.
“If you hadn’t walked into my bar when you did—” He stops, shakes his head, fingers tightening briefly against my skin. “It doesn’t matter. You did. And I chose you. I’m still choosing you.”
His palms smooth upward again, slow and familiar.
“But Gabriel’s life will always be tied to mine. We have a child. We have a past I don’t want to pretend didn’t matter because it did. But you came along, and you changed everything. And the only place Gabriel has now is beside us, not between us.”
He leans his forehead against my leg. “He’s not a threat, Alex. He’s part of the ground I stand on—part of the ground you stand on too. He’s family, my love. Our family.”
For a second, my body believes him. Believes all of it. I lean into him, relaxing under his touch—his truth.
And then my brain clocks back in.
Oh.
Shit.
No underwear.
No way in hell am I walking out of this room free-balling. Not when I’m pretty sure Gabriel is on the other side of this door.
I slap his hand away—not hard, just enough to regain control—shuffle over to the armoire, yank out a pair of briefs, and grab a different pair of jeans. The motions are sharp, automatic, like I’m afraid that if I pause for even a second, everything else will rush in.
After everything Noah told me yesterday—on top of what happened between him and Elijah, and now what Elijah just said—the fact that I can still move, still think, feels like a small miracle. My body runs on muscle memory alone, as if it hasn’t caught up to what I know.
I keep circling the same impossible truths, unable to make them settle: that someone is dead, that Noah is the reason—and that the man who once held him captive is the same one who took my parents from me. And then… there’s Meera—his sister.
The connections knot together in my head, refusing to make sense. Every time I try to grasp the shape of it, my mind slips away. Like it’s protecting me from something too large to hold.
Teya’s jaw is going to drop when I tell her.
And knowing her, she’ll want every detail, word for word, pause for pause.
That thought alone tightens something in my chest. I don’t know how to explain that there are some things you only survive once, and only if you don’t say them out loud again.
That speaking them gives them weight, history, a permanence I’m not ready for.
They become real in a way you can’t undo.
Then again… something tells me she’ll understand.
At least I slept. That, too, feels undeserved.
If it weren’t for Gabriel—his steady presence, the quiet way he anchored the room—I’m not sure my mind would have stopped spiraling long enough to rest. Even now, the truth presses in at the edges, heavy and unreal, waiting for the moment I won’t be able to look away from it anymore.
The shower helped. For a moment, it felt like I vanished—gone off the grid to some remote island where nothing exists but steam, cascading water, and the faint scent of coconuts.
The ceiling spray worked its magic, easing the knots in my shoulders, quieting the static in my brain.
Muscles relaxed. Nerves unwound. For the first time in forty-eight hours, I was able to breathe.
But peace, as usual, doesn’t last.
I glance over my shoulder. Elijah’s still kneeling on the floor, watching me—too handsome for his own good, the kind of sight that still steals my breath away in a way I don’t bother questioning anymore. Then I remember—
“Where’s Gabriel?”
He smirks, flicking his gaze toward the bed. “Missing him already?”
“Ha. Ha,” I deadpan, tugging a shirt over my head. “The guy spiked my coffee. Tried taking advantage of me.”
Elijah stands up. “He did no such thing, and you know it.”
I do, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t complain about that motherfucker.
I glance back at Elijah.
His smile is gone.
“Say it,” I mutter, jamming my foot into my sneaker. “Whatever wisdom you’ve got brewing in that bourbon-soaked brain of yours, just get it over with.”
He brushes off his knees like this is some kind of ritual. “You’re scared.”
I scoff. “I’m not scared. I’m skeptical.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” I toss the towel onto the bed, dragging my hand through my damp hair.
“Listen, I get you wanting to keep Gabriel in the mix. He’s family.
He matters to you. Okay—he matters to me too.
And you’re going to pretend you didn’t hear that.
” I pin him with a sharp stare. “But I’ve got a whole damn library of reasons why this is a bad idea. ”
Elijah steps closer, fingers brushing mine. “You think this is about playing house. It’s not. It’s about shelter. About giving that kid—Noah—a safe place to land.”
I exhale sharply, not from frustration, but because I hate that he’s right. Again.
“And Gabriel?” I ask, voice tightening. “Is this about shelter, too, or is this about something else?”
Elijah doesn’t answer right away. He walks over to the window, stares out over the city like it might offer up a simpler version of this mess. When he finally turns back, his voice is softer.
“He wants to help. And truthfully, I think we all could use some healing. Plus… he wants to be closer to us.”
“You,” I snap. “He wants to be closer to you.”
Elijah exhales, slow and patient, like he’d been expecting this.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Alex. Gabriel is a family man.
You know this already. Okay, yes… of course he wants to be near me.
Like I was saying, there’s history. A daughter…
our daughter,” he says, looking me straight in the eyes, making sure I understand that I’m included in the truth of it.
He takes a few steps closer, searching my face.
“But he also wants to be around Emilee. You. And now… Noah. All of this, every messy piece of it, he wants to be a part of. A family, Alex. And deep down, I know you love him too.”
Knowing he’s right, but refusing to let him win that easily, I mutter, “Don’t get any ideas about them sleeping in our bed.”
Elijah chuckles. “Well, Gabriel’s certainly going to be disappointed, but—”
“I’m being serious.”
He closes the space between us, grabs the back of my neck, and crushes my furious mouth with his. It’s the kind of kiss that steals breath and thought—swift, silencing.
When he pulls back, his voice is low, firm. “Do you really think I’m going to let Gabriel sleep in our bed?”
“You did last night.” I bite back.
“That was your doing,” he counters. “And the second I saw him lying beside you, holding your hand, I woke his ass up and moved him into his own bed—with Noah.”
“Okay,” I relent, sighing like I’m agreeing to adopt a Chihuahua, not two grown men. “They can live here. But Gabriel better keep his stupid remarks to himself.”
Elijah walks to the door, already grinning. “Now, that I can’t promise you.”