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“Because groceries are one thing. Having someone pay your entire way through life is another. I’m not . . .” I look down at my bare feet on his marble floor. “I won’t be someone’s obligation. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was twenty-two, and before that, my parents took care of me, and then they died, and I figured it out. Badly, maybe, but I figured it out. I can’t unlearn that just because you have a nice apartment and a gold card.”

His thumbs rub slow circles on my shoulders. “I’m not asking you to unlearn anything. I’m telling you that you deserve better, and when you’re ready to figure out what that looks like, I want to help. That’s it.”

I swallow. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. No strings, no agenda. Just me being honest with someone I care about.”

Someone I care about. After last night, the words land differently—heavier, warmer, scarier. He cares about me. He’s not just being generous or charitable or noble. He actually cares about me.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, releasing my shoulders and stepping back to give me room.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and lean against the counter. “Sure.”

“If you didn’t work there, what would you want to be doing instead?”

That one’s easy. “Teaching. I always wanted to be a teacher. I finished my first two years of college on a scholarship and with money my parents set aside. Then the accident happened, and my parents . . .” I look down at my coffee. “I lost my focus. Lost the scholarship. That was two years ago. I’d love to go back and finish, but I make decent money at the club, and now with Ella . . .”

“You’d be a great teacher.”

I look up. He says it simply, like it’s obvious, like it’s a fact he’s known for a while and is only now mentioning.

“Thanks,” I mutter, but his words settle around me—warm, solid, the kind of thing I want to hold on to even though I know I shouldn’t get comfortable.

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” he says. “You go to work today. I watch Ella. And we don’t solve everything right now. We just . . . do what feels natural.”

“What feels natural?”

He fills his coffee mug and leans against the counter. A smile tugs at his mouth—small, private. “Yeah. Tonight, you sleep in my room. Not the guest room.”

My stomach drops and soars. He’s not hedging. Not playing it cool. Just saying it directly and looking at me with those blue eyes like the answer matters more than he’s letting on.

I’m trying to play it cool. Trying to channel the version of myself with witty comebacks and an unshakable poker face. “Okay.”

He grins, and before I can say anything else, he crosses the kitchen and kisses me. Brief, soft, coffee-warm. When he pulls back, I’m smiling, and I can’t stop.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

“Stop saying okay.”

“Okay.”

Ella shrieks from the floor—happy, kicking—and we both look at her.

“She approves,” he says.

“She has gas.”

He laughs.

I leave for work just before noon. The same time that Alexei heads out for his meeting. When I climb into my car, he leans down and kisses me, his hand on the back of my neck, and when he pulls away, his eyes are dark.

“Be safe,” he says.

“It’s a restaurant, Alexei. Not a war zone.”

“Still.”

I watch him drive away with Ella in the back seat, and for a minute, I just sit in the parking lot, keys in my hand, trying to reconcile the two halves of my life—the one where I wake up in a penthouse next to a man who looks at me like I’m the only person in the room, and the one where I’m about to put on body glitter and serve loaded potato skins to men who think a twenty on the table entitles them to stare at my chest for an hour.