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“Probably because I left,” she said quietly.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “We can’t put our lives on hold forever, though. We can’t always be by her.”
“I know,” she said, sighing.
“She kept saying something last night; I didn’t know what she meant. She kept saying, ‘Mommy hold you,’ over and over.”
Zoe held my eyes for a moment before answering. What I saw reflected back at me was nothing less than heartbreak.
“That’s what she says when she wants you to do those things. Or someone to do those things. So if she says, ‘I kiss you,’ it means she wants a kiss good night. ‘I hold you’ means she wants a hug.”
“Well, fucking hell.” I rubbed at my chest. “Like someone ripped my guts out.”
She gave me a tiny smile. Only one side of her lips curved up. “It’s in the binder.”
My eyes snagged on hers. “’Course it is.”
It was quiet for a moment, and in that quiet, words filled my head, rolled off my tongue before I could consider the ramifications. “If you don’t mind leaving those binders,” I said, “I promise not to burn ’em when I’m done reading.”
Zoe’s face filled with something I didn’t want to define. Couldn’t bring myself to read into it too deeply.
“You’re really gonna help?” she said quietly.
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t wise to tell her that it was as much about her as it was about Mira. That I couldn’t leave either of them alone in this situation anymore. It wasn’t wise to admit just how far she’d gotten under my skin.
That she hadalwaysbeen under my skin.
That when I didn’t see her, I could pretend she wasn’t there. But now it was like bloody hooks had been dug into my skin, and I felt myself being tugged in her direction every time she walked into the room.
“I’ll stay here,” I told her. “We’ll make a schedule, yeah?”
And much like she had the night I met her, standing at this exact island in Chris and Amie’s kitchen, Zoe held out her hand.
“We do this together,” she said. “I still want to slap the shit out of you most days, and I don’t think that impulse will go away anytime soon. But we do this together,” she repeated. “Deal?”
I fought a laugh, fought a massive swell of lust, adoration, and frustration. All the things I felt in spades whenever she was in the room with me. The things I’d ignored for years.
Would continue to ignore.
But this time, when I took her hand, there was no ring on her finger. No husband. No boyfriend.
Just me and her, and the little duck linking us together.
“We do this together,” I promised.
I took a deep breath, fought like hell to shove my fear aside, and slid my palm over hers. This time, with her cool skin against mine, I had to worry—just a little bit—that the damage done in this scenario would come from both of us. The difference was that Zoe had no fucking clue what she did to me. What she was capable of doing.
And if it were left up to me, she never would.
Chapter Ten
ZOE
Living next door to Liam was easy. For about a week. Mainly because I hardly ever had to talk to him.
He watched Mira three times. Once so that I could do an online meeting with a client. Once so I could run errands without interrupting naptime. And once because she basically demanded to go hang out with him.
