51. CHAPTER 48 #2
Céleste, Isolde, Blaise and Debo—who just got back to Paris—were on one side, arguing about music and which city had the best nightlife. On the other, Orion’s inner circle lounged around a long table: Severin, Marcus, Eli, Zane, Julian and Adrien.
If you didn’t know better, you’d think they were just another group of rich men with too much charm and not enough conscience. I knew better now. Some of them were worse. Some were… not as terrible as they pretended.
Since Aurora came into our lives, I’ve had to spend more time with his group of friends. Especially Marcus, Julian, and Severin. They walked in and out of the estate like they owned a piece of the land.
I found out Marcus has a hidden streak of sentimentality he hides behind that stoic expression he carries around; he was the one who secretly sourced a rare, vintage rocking chair from an estate in Lyon because he heard me mention to Severin that I liked the wood.
Julian, despite his sophisticated London exterior, likes to play the devil's advocate just to see if you're smart enough to win the argument—though he started bringing me rare, vintage design books for my studio that he just happened to find in his travels.
He traveled a lot for work, at an alarming rate.
Severin, I was more used to, but we got closer as the months went by. He started teaching me the basic manual overrides for the estate’s security. Some days, he even had his men come to me for clearance on restrictions Orion would usually set himself. It was all still new, but I was winging it.
It felt nice having people watching over our little family, aside from my own circle.
While Céleste and Isolde brought the fire and the fashion, Orion’s brothers brought the backup.
It was a strange, lopsided collection of people, but standing there in the garden, It hit me that they formed a perimeter no one would be foolish enough to cross.
Aurora was making her rounds like the tiny monarch she was.
Elias cradled her first, looking far more comfortable than I expected, murmuring something that made her gurgle. Marcus tried to teach her how to fist-bump. She responded by grabbing his finger and drooling on it.
“I think she likes me best,” Marcus declared.
“She has taste,” Zane said, lifting her from his arms with a cocky smile. “Come here, princess. Let Uncle Zane show you what chaos looks like.”
He stood, swinging her lightly, expertly, but Orion nearly shot out of his chair.
“Zane,” he snapped. “Don’t drop my daughter.”
The entire table froze for half a second, then erupted.
Julian actually laughed. I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh. It felt quite strange and disbelieving, straddling almost half the table.
“You’re unbelievable Kade,” he mused, with a faint smile on his lips as he watched Aurora grab a handful of Zane’s shirt.
I watched them from a few feet away, Isolde’s arm looped through mine.
“You know,” she said, leaning in, “if someone had told me a year ago that Orion Kade would be hovering like that over a baby, I would have accused them of being high and out of their damn minds.”
“Careful,” I said. “His ears are quick to pick slander.”
She snorted.
Céleste sipped her drink. “So, how does it feel?”
“How does what feel?”
She gestured vaguely at the estate, the tables, the man watching our daughter like the whole world depended on her not dropping her pacifier. “Our business, you dipping your feet into the oil business, being a mother…. Having and juggling all of it.”
I took it all in.
“Terrifying,” I said honestly. “And… good.”
I watched Orion cross the lawn to reclaim Aurora, his expression a blend of warning and fondness as Zane reluctantly surrendered her.
He caught my gaze over her tiny shoulder. That tender look still did something unspeakable to me.
I thought back to when I’d fought the idea that love could exist in this world without tearing you apart. When I’d fought him. Fought myself. But in the end he hadn’t just protected my future; he had rebuilt his own. Brick by painful brick. He’d turned our home into a sanctuary.
Now, watching him cradle our daughter and arguing with his friends about how long she could stay outside without a blanket, I felt a certain peace nestling in my heart.
I’d always wanted a lasting love and a husband who’d long for me the way a man longs for his next breath when we were apart. Orion was exactly that and more. He exceeded the expectations I’d built up in my mind of what a loving husband should be.
We weren’t perfect. We were both ruthless in our own ways, both proud, both marked by families who treated affection as currency and power as a weapon.
Still, he’d gone out of his way to make sure every single move he made put a smile on my face. He’d done enough to prove my heart was safe with him, and that he was exactly where he wanted to be: beside me, building a life with our daughter, who already owned us both.
Later that evening, when the sky turned darker and the lanterns were turned on, Aurora finally fell asleep again—predictably, in Orion’s arms. He sat beside me on the lounge chair, her tiny head tucked under his jaw.
I traced lines on his forearm and rested my head on his shoulder.
“Tired?” he asked, rubbing on myy knuckles patiently.
“Happy,” I said, then added, “And a little scared,” because I needed to say more and I loved when he reassured me.
He turned his head, placing a kiss in my hair. “Of what?”
“Of losing this,” I confessed. "Of both our families, and everything that comes with your name. My name. Both our names together.”
He held my hand firmly, reassuring me as I wanted. “Then we’ll face it,” he said. “Whatever it is… all of it. Together.”