LOGINBella POV"Are you a real family now?"Tom's question hung in the air between us, and neither of us answered right away. Caleb's chin was still resting on my shoulder, his arms still loosely around me, both of us blinking at our son perched at the foot of the bed in his dinosaur pajamas with that gap-toothed grin climbing up his face."Yeah, buddy," Caleb said quietly. "I think we are."Tom's face split wide open and he launched himself up the bed with zero regard for anyone's ribs, landing squarely between us in a chaos of bony elbows and wriggling. "I knew it," he announced, beaming at the ceiling. "I told Aunty Maya you'd figure it out.""You told Maya?" I said."She said it would take forever. I said it wouldn't." He looked very pleased with himself. "I was right."Caleb made a sound against my hair that was almost certainly a laugh he was trying to smother, and I pressed my face into the pillow for a moment, not trusting my own expression.My son had been running a timeline on u
Bella POVI rolled my hips once, slow, grinding down until he was buried to the hilt. Then I started riding him—deliberate at first, then faster, harder. My hands braced on his chest, nails scoring faint red lines. Every downward stroke dragged a rough sound from his throat. His hips jerked up to meet me, fighting the restraint, chasing more.I leaned forward, breasts brushing his chest, lips at his ear. “You’re so loud,” I whispered, voice wrecked and teasing. “Tom’s only a few rooms down. You’re gonna wake him.”He laughed—short, breathless, almost a groan—then bit his lip hard, trying to muffle the next sound. His wrists strained against the tie; the headboard creaked.“Using my own words against me,” he managed, voice-rough. “Evil.”I smiled against his jaw, then sat up straight again and picked up the pace—riding him relentlessly, chasing that second edge that was already building fast. My thighs burned, my core ached, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The sight of him like this—restr
Bella POVHe shut the bedroom door with a quiet click and turned to face me in the dim light filtering through the curtains. I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he held himself back like always—giving me room, waiting for permission but I wasn’t in the mood to wait tonight.I stepped forward as his eyes stayed locked on mine, dark grey and steady, watching every move. I opened his shirt button by button, spread the fabric wide, and pressed both palms flat against the hard planes of his chest. His breath hissed out sharp against my forehead.“Bella.” His voice sounded low. “We don’t have to”“I know.” I met his gaze. “I want to, all of it. No more exits.”Something snapped in his expression like control fracturing—and he kissed me like he’d been starving for it. Hands rougher now, he shoved the robe off my shoulders. It pooled at my feet. The way he stared at my naked body made heat rush from my throat straight down to my core.“You have no fucking idea,” he rasped, pa
Bella POVHe was in the kitchen when I came out, two glasses of water on the counter, his back to me. He turned when he heard my footsteps and handed me a glass without saying anything, which was very Caleb-like. I took it as we stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island and drank our water like two people who had just survived something and weren't entirely sure yet what the protocol was."I owe you an apology," I said. "Bella""Let me." I set the glass down. "I watched a business handoff in a car park and I spent days building a case against you in my head, and when I finally confronted you I made you feel like a suspect. That wasn't about you. It was about every man who ever gave me a reason to distrust them, and I used you as the target for all of it." I looked at him. "You didn't deserve that, you have spent months doing everything right and I handed you the bill for other people's debts. I'm sorry."He was quiet for a moment. Then he came around the island, not fast, giving
Caleb POVI knocked on the guest room door at nine-fifteen.Tom was asleep. The penthouse was quiet. I'd been sitting at my desk for an hour trying to work and reading the same paragraph on repeat, and eventually I'd accepted that there was only one conversation I needed to have tonight and it wasn't the one in my inbox.Bella opened the door in her robe, her hair loose, a report still in her hand. She looked at me and waited."I need to tell you something," I said. "Can I come in?"She stepped back and let me. Her bedroom door had been closed every morning this week. Not unusual on its own — she'd always kept her own space. But before, it was open by the time I passed in the morning. Now it stayed shut until she was fully assembled and ready to face the day.I sat in the chair by the window and she sat on the edge of the bed and I told her everything. Diana's admission. The logic she'd used to justify it — if she folds that easily she's not worthy. The grief underneath it, because Be
Caleb POVShe didn't answer for a long time. The bar was quiet around us — midweek, mostly empty, soft music doing nothing to fill the space between us. Diana turned her wine glass by the stem and looked past me at the middle distance with the expression I was learning to recognize as her thinking face, the one that looked like composure but was actually calculating.Then she said, "I was testing her."I kept very still. "Testing her.""If she folds that easily over a single conversation," Diana's voice was even, almost clinical. "Then she's not built for what your life actually is, Caleb. She'll fold under pressure. She'll fold when things get complicated, and they will get complicated, because they always do. Better to know that now than after you've rebuilt everything around her."I looked at my sister and felt something cold move through me that wasn't anger, not quite yet. "You decided to run a test," I said slowly, "on the woman I love. Without her knowledge. Without mine.""Som
Caleb pov "You can show him next time," Bella said, moving closer. "Come on, baby. Let's go.""But Mommy""Now, Tom." Her tone left no room for argument.Tom's face fell, but he started gathering his markers. "Will you come back, Caleb? Will there be a next time?""If your mommy says it's okay, th
Bella pov "Because you can influence how it happens," Jennifer said. "You can work with him to create a schedule that minimizes disruption to Tom's life. You can set boundaries about where visits happen, who supervises them, how Caleb is introduced. Or you can fight him every step of the way, spen
Caleb pov My throat closed up completely. I couldn't speak, couldn't move, could barely breathe. He remembered me. My son remembered me."Hi, Tom," Maya said gently, sitting down next to him. "Remember how I told you we were meeting someone today? This is Caleb. He's Mommy's friend, and he wanted
Caleb POVTuesday came faster than I expected and slower than I wanted. I'd spent the past three days reading parenting books until my eyes burned, researching child psychology, and planning activities that would make Tom smile the way he had during our first visit.I arrived at the hotel precisely







