Chapter Seven
~ Jai ~
I always woke up just before Grace started. She had a two-stage alarm: first, the low-level fussy mewl that was all throat and no lungs, a sound I’d learned to clock at exactly ninety seconds before the main event. Then, if you missed the window, she went to Defcon One.
This morning, my traitor brain fired before the mewl. I snapped upright in the dark, hand already out for the bassinet, the muscle memory of seven years’ worth of pre-dawn stand-tos merged with a month of baby science.
The crib sat in the guest suite’s east window, frame so pale it glowed against the black walnut floors. The city behind the glass was nothing—just a matte smear of cold blue, except where Mt. Hood caught the sunrise and threw it back like a threat.
Grace started winding up, feet kicking under the swaddle, head thrashing side to side in a move that would’ve looked violent if she weighed more than a sandwich. I caught her before the volume tripled, scooped her to my chest, and ran the quick diagnostic: dry, hungry, not leaking from any orifice.
The basics.
Out in the hall, the air was cold enough to give me a static charge. The penthouse had two modes: perfectly curated and waiting to be lived in, or haunted. At this hour, it was haunted.
I padded barefoot over the hardwood, Grace cradled in my left arm, and made for the kitchen by sonar—no lights, just the city’s dim and a weird second sense for other people’s expensive furniture.
The kitchen came up like a punchline: black marble island, two barstools, a bottle warmer the size of a food processor, and the faint afterimage of an argument I’d had with the coffee machine the night before.
I landed at the island, popped the hood light, and set Grace on the bouncy seat the housekeeper had magicked up overnight. She didn’t like it, but she tolerated, and for her, that was basically true love.
I ran the formula one-handed, Grace’s fist welded to my thumb, and flicked the powder into the bottle like I’d been doing it for years instead of days.
The hot water pitcher hissed. The bouncy seat’s metal springs creaked every time Grace flailed a limb.
The rest was silence, except for the white noise of the city, forty floors below.
Somewhere in the process, I registered my own reflection in the glass behind the kitchen sink. Sweatpants, faded t-shirt, cherry-sucker-red stain on the left shoulder, and a stubble situation that made me look like a criminal on the run.
Grace, on the other hand, looked like the world’s angriest snow pea, all pink face and sharp-edged squint, the fury of evolutionary necessity burning out of her skull.
I tested the bottle’s temp against the inside of my wrist. Perfect. Slotted the nipple into her mouth, watched the jaw flex, and let her do the rest. Instant silence. The kind that echoes.
Braham entered with zero warning. One moment, it was just me, the baby, and the ghost of last night’s conversation. Next, the air shifted, and there he was: suit, tie, lapel pin, every hair in place. He looked like the CEO of Time, Inc., come to audit my performance in fatherhood.
He didn’t speak. Just leaned one shoulder against the doorway and folded his arms, watching the bottle angle up and down in Grace’s mouth.
“Do you sleep?” I said, not turning around.
He arched a brow. “Do you?”
Touché.
I shifted Grace to my right arm, freeing the left to finish prepping the backup bottle. “She prefers her bottles at exactly body temp. I tried to explain how unreasonable that is, but she’s very set in her ways.”
He let the joke hang. “She gets it from you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He didn’t move, didn’t fidget, just watched me. It should have been unnerving, but after two days in his orbit, I’d stopped expecting personal space.
I ran out of things to do with my hands, so I gestured with the bottle. “You want to hold her?”
He blinked, once, slow. “Will she tolerate it?”
“Only one way to find out.” I stood there, arm outstretched, waiting for him to cross the gap.
Braham moved. He did it with a kind of predatory precision that was more attractive than I wanted to admit.
He took Grace from me with both hands, index and middle finger forming a shelf at the base of her neck, palm perfectly supporting her back.
He cradled her like he’d been coached by a Navy SEAL in infant extraction.
Grace paused, eyes wide. She didn’t cry. Didn’t squirm. Just stared up at him, the way she sometimes stared at the ceiling fan, like she’d found a new species and wasn’t sure what it ate.
Braham looked down at her with a poker-face. I watched his jaw unclench, just a millimeter, and for a second I wondered if this was what tenderness looked like on a man who could disassemble a wolf with his bare hands.
He tucked her closer to his chest, turned to the window, and said, “She likes the view.”
“You sure?” I asked. “She’s been glaring at it for an hour.”
He gave a low, almost-laugh. “It’s genetic.”
We stood in silence, the three of us triangulated between the kitchen, the window, and the idea of breakfast. I leaned against the island, flexed my toes against the tile, and pretended not to notice how Braham’s entire body shifted to absorb Grace’s weight.
She melted, finally, boneless against the lapel of his suit.
Her eyes drooped. It was the closest she’d come to sleeping since I’d gotten up.
I said, “You don’t have to dress for a hostile takeover at six a.m., you know.”
“I prefer to be prepared.”
I grinned, sharp. “For what? Milk emergencies?”
He met my eyes, no expression. “You’d be surprised.”
I believed him.
The penthouse didn’t feel empty anymore. It was a weird thought. The kitchen still smelled like cigars, but there was an overlay now—a cherry-sugar residue that came from my own skin and, apparently, the baby. It didn’t clash. It layered.
I watched the way he held her: not stiff, not anxious, just deliberate. His thumb traced a circle on her back, the motion almost invisible, but I saw it.
Grace’s hand flopped loose, caught on the edge of his shirt, then went still.
“You’re good at that,” I said.
He looked at me, and for once, the gold in his eyes went soft. “So are you.”
I shrugged. “You haven’t seen my work on diaper duty.”
He looked down at her, and I saw the corners of his mouth tilt, just a fraction. “I’d rather not.”
Silence. Not awkward, just present. I rolled my shoulders, stretched, and let myself appreciate the moment: me, a baby, an apex predator, and a sunrise that made the city look less like a threat and more like a promise.
Braham shifted Grace to his left arm, freeing his right. “Do you want coffee?”
I blinked. “You make coffee?”
“I have staff for that,” he said, but moved to the French press anyway, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
He worked the press like it was an extension of his own body—efficient, precise, no wasted motion. The kettle hissed, the grounds bloomed, and the smell of actual caffeine filled the kitchen.
My soul did a small, embarrassed somersault.
I watched him for a while, Grace sleeping deeper with every pulse of his hand on her back. He poured two mugs, set one in front of me, and didn’t bother with cream or sugar.
I sipped. It was good. Dangerous, even.
He sipped his own, then said, “You are welcome to stay as long as you need.”
I nodded, not trusting my own voice.
Grace exhaled, loud and wet, and snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm.
For a second, I let myself pretend this was normal.
Then the city came up in the window, all orange and white and humming with intent, and I remembered: nothing about this was normal, but maybe that was the point.
I set the coffee down, reached for the baby, and watched Braham’s hands adjust, careful and precise, as he passed her back. Our fingers touched. The jolt was small, but real.
“Thanks,” I said.
He just looked at me, gold eyes steady, and nodded.
I cradled Grace, let her settle, and watched the sunrise over the city. I could feel Braham’s gaze, but I didn’t look up. For the first time in my life, I didn’t mind being watched.
* * * *
The housekeeper Vera had, overnight, made the kitchen a shrine to baby containment. There was a bouncy seat on the island, a wipe dispenser like a piece of avant-garde sculpture, and a nest of sterilized bottles so dense I could have fortified a medieval castle with it.
Grace was in the bouncer, hands flailing, face pointed at me like she was mapping my weaknesses for later use.
I poured coffee, then set about making toast for myself. Braham had already plated his breakfast—a slab of egg white frittata that could have doubled as drywall, plus the kind of toast that suggested he’d never touched a carb before this century.
I took my place at the island, propped my elbows on the granite, and observed the man as he ate. No mess, no crumbs. He forked each bite with an even, measured pace, never once looking down at the plate.
All focus on me.
I broke first. “Don’t you get bored? Eating the same thing every day?”
“Routine is efficient.” He didn’t slow down. “It leaves more energy for things that matter.”
I grinned. “Like running an evil megacorporation, or fighting crime as a secret werewolf vigilante?”
He shrugged. “I’m not much for costumes.”
Grace gave a sudden, shrill yelp. The bouncer amplified it, springs squealing like gym equipment in a prison riot. I reached out and bopped the seat with my palm, setting it gently in motion. She went quiet. Soothed by movement, like most small mammals.
Braham watched the move. “You have a knack for it,” he said.
“For what? Babysitting? Or improvising with the resources at hand?”
He considered. “Both. You adapt.”
I stole the better half of his toast, bit it clean through, and shrugged. “That’s what separates us from the lower primates.”
He grinned, all teeth and minimal amusement. “You know, in the hierarchy of things, toast theft is grounds for war.”
I licked butter off my thumb. “Then you better step up your perimeter defenses.”