Novels by chinazarejoicedennis

CHAPTER FIVEMara's Pov Marcus showed up on Thursday.I was home by six, Lily was in the living room arranging her stuffed animals into what she called a meeting, and I was in the kitchen pulling dinner together when the knock came. Firm. Confident. The knock of someone who had decided they had every right to be at this door.I knew before I looked.I opened it without the chain, which in hindsight was optimistic, and Marcus Voss stood in my doorway looking exactly like a man who had rehearsed this and was pleased with how he looked doing it. He was broad-shouldered, dark-eyed, with Claire's same energy of someone who walked into rooms expecting to be received well. That detail hit me somewhere old and sore."Mara," he said, like we were friends resuming a conversation."Marcus." I stepped into the doorway, not back from it. "Elias told you not to come here.""Elias tells me a lot of things.""And you're here anyway.""I am." He smiled, but it didn't reach far. "I'm not here to fight

CHAPTER FOURMara's Pov I chose a coffee shop twelve minutes from my office. Public, neutral, busy enough that neither of us would make a scene. I got there first, took a table near the window, and ordered black coffee because I needed the clarity more than the comfort.Elias arrived at nine exactly. He spotted me before I waved, which meant he'd been looking. He ordered at the counter and came to the table and sat down, and for a moment neither of us said anything."Marcus called a lawyer," I said. No preamble."I know.""Who?""A family attorney named Bryce Callahan. He does custody and visitation work." He wrapped both hands around his cup. "I found out last night after I messaged you. He didn't tell me he was doing it. He told me after.""Does Marcus understand what he's doing?""Marcus understands exactly what he's doing. That's the problem." He looked at me steadily. "He's not doing it to hurt you. I want you to know that. He genuinely believes Lily should know the Voss family,

CHAPTER THREEMara's Pov I didn't sleep.I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until two a.m., then gave up and made tea and sat at my kitchen table with my phone face down in front of me. The city outside was quiet in the way it only gets after midnight, and I sat in that quiet and thought about Marcus Voss.I had met him exactly once. At Claire's funeral. He was Elias's younger brother, shorter, louder, the kind of person who fills a room without trying. He had hugged me at the reception even though we had never spoken before, and he had said, *Claire talked about you all the time. She said you were the most loyal person she knew.*I had held myself together until I got to my car.That was the last time I saw him. But I knew who he was in the way you know the shape of a thing without touching it. Elias was the kind of man who carried his grief quietly and kept it personal. Marcus, from everything Claire had ever told me, was the kind who made grief into action. He didn't sit with thi

CHAPTER TWOMara's Pov I let him in because it was the right thing to do, and I have spent my entire life doing the right thing even when it cost me.I didn't offer him anything. No water, no coffee, no invitation to sit down. He stood in my living area and I stood near the kitchen counter with my arms crossed and my wine glass somewhere behind me, and we looked at each other like two people who had once made a very large decision together and were now standing on opposite sides of it."How long have you known?" I asked."About the diagnosis? Three weeks.""And you came here now.""Yes.""Why not three weeks ago?"He looked at the floor briefly, then back at me. "Because three weeks ago I was hoping she'd get a second opinion that said something different. She didn't."I understood that. The waiting period before you accept something is real. I'd had my own version of it after Claire died, those first few days where I kept thinking someone would call and tell me there had been a mist

CHAPTER ONEMara's Pov "You have to sign the birthday card, Lily. We don't just draw a cat on it and call it done.""But the cat is the present.""The cat is a drawing of a cat.""A good drawing."I looked down at my three-year-old, who was holding a crayon with the seriousness of a surgeon and absolutely zero intention of writing her name. The birthday card for her daycare teacher was now mostly an orange cat. There was barely a corner left for anything else."Fine," I said. "Help me write your name right here. This tiny space.""L," she said, pressing the crayon down so hard it almost tore through. "I. L. Y."Close enough.I sealed the envelope before she could add another cat, packed her lunch, wrestled her into her jacket, and had us out the door by seven forty-three. Seven minutes behind my personal target. Not bad for a Tuesday.This was my life and I had made peace with it.That's not me being dramatic. I mean it genuinely. I was thirty-two years old, a junior partner at Hargr