Oliver Ithought my mother was in the bathroom and hadn’t even noticed she was in her chair. When Lissa rang the doorbell, I was in the kitchen and descended the stairs, expecting the food delivery guy, but instead, I opened the door to the most unexpected sight. Lissa—freezing cold and achingly beautiful, snowflakes in her hair and eyelashes, and a flush on her cheeks. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and never let her go. And then she barged in and stormed upstairs before I could warn her I had a guest. And now they’re standing opposite one another, and Lissa looks like she’s seen a ghost. Mom, on the other hand, has a knowing look in her eye that confuses me instantly. I st ep into the living room, my eyes flicking between them as I try to figure out how they know each other. “Anne,” Lissa breathes, looking at me and then at my mother. “Uh...” “Hello, dear,” my mom says in a completely casual tone. “What a coincidence.” Lissa’s eyes are wide and alarmed as she slowly sits down on the couch. Truman comes over to lick her hand, and she looks down at him, stroking him absently. “Mom?” I say, frowning at her. “How do you two know each other?” “Well...” she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I didn’t know you two knew each other, of course, but we met when I was in the hospital.” Lissa looks at me again, a hand covering her mouth. “This is your mother?” she asks disbelievingly. “Oh, my god.” She covers her face with her hands, the tips of her ears going bright red as my mom smiles at me, a little glint in her eye. “I met Lissa in the hospital when I was in the cafeteria. Do you remember I mentioned a lovely girl who had helped me with my order? I had been so tired I could barely stand on my own two feet. She told me about her son and then introduced us. I knew you’d make a fuss, Oliver, if I wasn’t in my room at all times, so I would go and visit him when you weren’t around. He’s a charming little thing. Henry, right?” Lissa nods mutely, but doesn’t remove her hands from her face. I can’t speak, my mind whirling with a thousand questions I want to ask both of them, until my mom moves around us, making slow progress on her walker toward the door. “I’ll go and make myself a cup of tea. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was here, but it seemed as if you had quite a few important things to say to my idiot son.” “Mom!” “You carry on and discuss your... contract, and I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” I gape at her as she leaves the room, utterly lost as to what to say. Lissa still hasn’t looked at me, and I decide the best option is to remain perfectly silent and wait for her to say something. I want to tell her exactly how I feel about everything she said, but she seems to be struggling to breathe. “Lissa,” I say eventually, putting my hand gently on her shoulder. “Lissa?” “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” she says, so fast there’s barely a pause between the words. “I have to go. Oh my god.”
She rises, as if to leave the room, and I take hold of her shoulders and lower her gently but firmly back onto the couch, and I take a seat next to her. “You’re not going anywhere.” Her eyes harden as she glares at me, and I match her look with a glare of my own. “So... you’ve met my mother.” “Apparently,” she says, still scowling. “If you had just explained why you were in the hospital that day, maybe we would’ve known about that a little sooner.” “Lissa—” “But why would you tell me anything important about your life? It isn’t as if I actually matter to you!” “Wait a second—" “You sent me away without explaining anything. You gave me my freedom, practically finalized my divorce, helped me get Henry back, saved his life with the money I earned from you, and then you just dismissed me as if I didn’t mean anything.” I stare at her, so many words clumping on my tongue, as if they are trying to force their way out of my mouth. But I can’t utter a single syllable. The idea that she has just walked into my house and given me everything I ever wanted is so alien that my brain can’t form a full thought. I don’t deserve love. I’m too broken. Too shut down. “You’re just scared to let somebody know you.” My chest cracks open at those words, and it isn’t Lissa struggling to breathe anymore—it’s me. It’s as if there’s a war inside my body between my heart and my head. One wants to dance with joy, and the other wants to bury itself in cement and never move again. “Oliver?” Lissa is on her feet, her hands coming up to frame my face. There’s a tiny pause before her skin touches mine, as if she’s not sure if it’s allowed, and as her soft fingers run over my cheeks, I let out a long shuddering breath. It feels like I’ve been holding it for weeks. “I’m not scared,” I attempt, trying to get back some semblance of control. “What we had between us wasn’t real. You were only there because I was paying you to be.” My hands encircle her wrists, ready to pull her away, but she won’t let me, tipping my head up toward her to meet my eyes as she stares de ep inside me, to places no one has seen before. “And what am I doing here now, then?” she asks simply. “Am I required to be here? Or have I chosen to be?” I shake my head, mortified to feel tears begin to well in my eyes. She’s so incredibly beautiful, and I don’t deserve her kindness, her sweetness. “You don’t even know me,” I whisper as she gently rests her forehead against mine. “I’ve known you since the first day we met. The first time I set foot in your office, I knew I had found something I’d never had before, Oliver. And I don’t want to lose you. We both deserve some happiness, don’t you think? After all this time?” “Well said.” Lissa pulls away from me, turning to my mother, who’s standing on her walker in the doorway, looking directly at me, a sad smile on her face. “I could pinpoint the exact day you started working for my son, Lissa. He was happy. Content for the first time. He just didn’t know it yet.” Lissa turns back to me, placing a gentle kiss on my lips as I put a trembling, tentative hand against her hip. “What if it all falls apart?” I whisper as she leans in close, holding me tightly against her. “Then we’ll just try again until we put it all back together.”
I sit with Lissa on the couch for an hour, talking about anything and everything, my body wrapped around hers. My mother shuffles into the room periodically, bringing us some tea and cookies and muttering at me for being a terrible host. Truman is curled up on the floor beside us, and Lissa puts her head in my lap. I close my eyes and play with her hair, stroking it reverently as the snow ke eps falling outside. “Where’s Henry?” I ask, and she looks up at me with a little smile. “He’s with Bethany at my apartment.” “Can he come over here?” She chuckles. “I’d like him to be with us tonight, too.” I squeeze her gently. “I want you both to live with me.” She lifts her head off my lap, her eyes wide. “Oliver, that’s crazy.” “Is it? You need a quiet, safe space for him to recover. I have a stupid number of rooms I barely use. If we get sick of each other, you can always go and hide in one of them.” Snorting quietly, she lays her head on my chest now. “I could never get sick of you.” I smile contentedly. “Alright then, we’re in agreement.” “Are you making decisions without me again?” “Hm. Probably. It can be temporary. But you need a nicer place to live. You said so yourself, and I want you here with me.” She looks up again. “Then why did you send me away?” I shake my head slowly. “If I’m honest, I’m not sure I even knew at the time. It just felt... safer. I think I was convinced you were better off without me. All the time we’ve spent together has been on my terms, for my needs. I didn’t know if you would ever want to be with me. Not the man I am in that room. The real me, with all my flaws.” “Well, I do,” she says simply. “I think I’ve wanted to see the real you since the very first day.” I run the back of my hand over her cheek, curling a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re so beautiful, Lissa.” She rolls her eyes, never comfortable taking a compliment, and I shift beneath her, making her look at me again. “You are. You’re beautiful, inside and out,” I whisper. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life reminding you of that.” “Is that so?” she says, her eyes softening. “The rest of your life, huh?” “At least,” I say, kissing her on the tip of her nose. “Shall we go pick up Henry? Bethany’s welcome to come too.” “Don’t worry. She won’t want to be the third wheel; she’ll just be relieved you didn’t chuck me into the street.” I go still, with my phone held loosely in my hand, as I look back at her. “That would never have happened.” “I wasn’t so sure.” “I was so stupid. I’m sorry,” I say earnestly. “The minute I saw you on the doorst ep, I knew you were here to stay.” My chest aches as I look into her large, stormy-blue eyes. “I think if I’m being honest with myself, I knew it the second you walked into my office.” She beams at me, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “Really?” “Really really,” I say, kissing her temple. “Do you need to call Bethany to let her know we’re coming to get Henry?” “She can bring Hen here in an Uber, then take it back to her place once she drops him off. He’ll be so excited.” “To see me?” I ask uncertainly, as I feel my heart thud. “To see Truman,” she says with a mischievous grin, and I can only smile back as she sits up on the couch, the light of the fire playing over her face as I order an Uber. “Or to trade out some of your books for some new ones,” she says. “We’ve been reading nonstop lately.”
I glance up, seeing my mother in the hallway watching us. I don’t think she’s stopped smiling since Lissa arrived.
Epilogue Lissa One year later... “Oh, god.” Oliver makes a muffled sound of approval from between my legs as I come fully awake to find his tongue inside me, his hands pulling my body down the mattress. “Fuck, Oliver, it’s not even six o’clock.” “Hm,” he says, sucking at my clit and making my entire body jolt. “We have a tight schedule today.” His finger pushes inside me as I collapse back into the mattress. “Speaking of tight, let me get back to business.” I groan as loudly as I dare, mindful of Henry down the hall. If I know my son, he’ll already be awake, just waiting for any sound from our room so that he can come in and tell us it’s his first day at his new school. Oliver reaches across to the edge of the bed and pulls something toward him. It’s shiny and silver, and I haven’t seen it before. His dark eyes look at me as he moves it between my legs, a wicked smile on his lips as he pushes it inside me. “Jesus,” I groan, my legs widening as I push down against it. “What are you doing to me?” “Very naughty things,” he murmurs, his hand moving away from my body as he pushes the toy as de ep as it’ll go, and then fumbles with something in the sheets. “What are you—? Christ.” The vibrations hit me with a pulsing jolt, throbbing through my body as Oliver sits back on his heels, watching me. I’m panting, my hands gripping the sheet beneath me as my hips thrust upward, the feel of the toy unbearably good as Oliver watches me writhe beneath him. He catches my eye, holds up the toy's remote, and increases the setting to max. I flip over, jolting and writhing in the bed, pushing my body back against him, begging for his cock as he groans. “Please,” I gasp out. “Hm. Already? I had plans with this—” “Need you. Now.” I’m barely coherent as he grunts behind me, his fingers reaching inside to pluck out the toy as I push my arms beneath me. He lines up without delay, shoving his cock inside me in a hard thrust that immediately has me coming apart. I moan as he pushes right to the hilt and gives me a gentle slap on my ass. “You’re fucking beautiful like this,” he says, pressing his chest against my back. “I love it when you’re desperate for me.” He thrusts forward, and I have to bury my face in the sheets to stop myself from groaning too loudly. “I wish we had more time this morning,” he says in a low quiet voice while he’s fucking me into the mattress. “I want to use that toy again. I might put it inside you when we go to dinner on Saturday and set the vibrations to the top setting just to torture you until I fuck you in my car.” “Oh my God,” I moan desperately as he continues to drive into me. I come without warning, and Oliver’s hand rests on my shoulder as he pounds against me for a few more thrusts before he comes too, shuddering as he collapses on top of me.
I lie there for a minute, knowing I’ll have to get up soon, but I don’t want to move. His weight feels so good, a familiar soothing cocoon that I’ve taken advantage of as often as I can since I moved in with him. After another five minutes or so, there’s the patter of feet outside, and Oliver gently pulls out of me with a grunt, tugging the duvet over us to hide anything Henry shouldn’t be seeing as my son charges into the room, already dressed in his school uniform. “Mom, can we have pancakes?” he asks, running around to my side of the bed as Truman leaps up onto the covers to greet us. “I suppose so, since it’s such an important day,” I say, ruffling my hand through his hair. Oliver is already on his feet, pulling on his robe as he leans down and kisses my neck. “Come on, Hen, I’ll start them off, and if we’re quick, we can put chocolate chips in before your mom notices.” I laugh as he throws a pillow at me, smiling as he scoops Henry into his arms and carries him outside. He’s a completely different man from the one I met over a year ago. The silent, brooding creature I first encountered has mostly disappeared. That isn’t to say that the last year hasn’t been without any bumps in the road, of course. Henry’s cancer treatment was brutally hard, and I had days when I didn’t think I could get through it. Watching my son so sick and powerless to help him was awful, and I wouldn’t have been able to survive without Oliver, Bethany, and Anne to help me. But we did it. And if there was any doubt in my mind about my son’s strength, it’s been obliterated by how he tackled the whole thing. He was such a trooper... James is still a part of our lives, too, of course, but Oliver’s presence has changed my relationship with him entirely. I almost never see him. If I do have to speak with my ex-husband, Oliver is always with me, and James is visibly cowed by his presence. I have to admit, I kind of love it... Each day that passes loosens the chokehold James once had on my life, and there are times now when I realize I’ve gone days without thinking about him. Oliver’s relentless support in that regard has been amazing, even when he had his own issues to deal with. After leaving AGS, Oliver was in a period of limbo, unsure what to do next. He waited almost six months, spending most of his time with Henry and me. But eventually, he felt the need to get moving with his career again, and he’s been working tirelessly to set up his own law firm, a process that has been more challenging than either of us could have realized. Thankfully, we have had a lot of help along the way. As soon as Oliver left AGS, Adelaide quit too, insisting that he couldn’t possibly manage without her. That prediction turned out to be correct. She has been a rock, helping us get the firm off the ground and ke eping all the balls in the air. She’s the best, and I don’t know what we would’ve done without her. It wasn’t a huge surprise to Oliver that Noah was the one who let the managing partners know that Oliver and I had been sle eping together. Oliver was pissed for a long minute about that one, but he got over it. I glance at the clock again, pulling myself out of my thoughts as I realize I really do need to get up. Henry’s first day at his new school is my focus today, and it’s the cherry on top of a hard but successful year.
He’ll be attending the best private school in New York, and I couldn’t be happier. Henry’s education has been patchy at best since his diagnosis, and I have no doubt it will be transformed now that he is able to focus on learning without being sick any longer. He’s cancer-free. I still can’t wrap my mind around that, but the doctors have assured me that he’s doing great, and with the right diet and an active lifestyle, that will only continue. Speaking of which, I need to stop them from putting chocolate chips in the pancakes. It’s a wasted effort, however. I enter the kitchen to find so much chocolate in the batter that I’m surprised I can even see any of the pancake mix. I give Oliver a warning glare, but he just smiles at me happily as he dollops batter into the pan, and I don’t have the heart to be mad at him. We all sit together at the breakfast table, eating pancakes as Henry babbles excitedly about school. “Will you bring Truman when you come and get me?” he asks eagerly. “I want to show him my new school.” Oliver nods as Truman, hearing his name, jumps up onto the stool beside Henry, panting happily. “You are not allowed at the table when we’re eating,” Oliver says to him sternly. It never fails to make Henry laugh because Truman always ignores Oliver when he uses his mean voice. I chuckle at them both as Oliver reminds Henry not to feed chocolate to the dog. By the time we are out of the house, Henry is a little quieter, focusing on the walk to school. Oliver has told him that when he’s older, he’ll be able to walk by himself. I watch the little purple monster on his backpack swinging as he walks ahead of me, a smile spreading over my face. We walk through the streets, the leaves falling from the trees around us as Truman pulls on his leash, trying to get at the pigeons. Oliver reaches for my hand and interlaces our fingers. I never knew I could be this happy. Even during the good times with James, I never felt anything like this. “What time is your class today?” Oliver asks as we get closer to the school, and I check my watch. “Eleven thirty, but I’ll be done by one, so I can come and pick Hen up if you and Adelaide need to stay at the new building longer.” “No, no, I’m not missing Henry’s first pickup,” he says, sounding a little hurt that I even suggested it. “Alright. Well, I’ll meet you by the school gates around three, then.” “Sounds good.” It didn’t take long after I moved in with Oliver for him to bring up my degree. I had always wanted to return to studying law, hoping it wasn’t too late. We talked about it a lot and decided I’d give it a try. Going back to school has been the greatest joy of my life outside my family, and I’m so happy I made the leap. Of course, it helps to have a brilliant (and so very sexy) lawyer at home to debate with. “That’s Ruben!” Henry says, waving manically at a little boy on the other side of the school grounds. “You know somebody already?” I ask in amazement as he turns and hugs me, then hugs Oliver, pats Truman, and runs toward his new friend. My heart lurches a little as I watch him. Is that it? Doesn’t he need his mom for a bit longer? Oliver’s arm comes around my shoulders. “He’s gonna be okay.” “I know,” I say, wiping at the tears that have sprung into my eyes. “When did he get so big? He was a baby just yesterday.”
“I think we need to stop feeding him so many pancakes.” “Agreed!” I say. “You need to stop putting chocolate in his breakfast.” “That wasn’t my fault—Henry insisted.” “Henry is seven.” Oliver raises one eyebrow, shrugging at me as his eyes linger on my face. “God, I love you.” “Don’t try to get out of this by sweet-talking me,” I say with mock irritation as he kisses me, but the moment is ruined by one of the older kids wolf-whistling nearby, and he lets me go. We watch Henry playing with the children, looking so at home already, and I sigh happily. “He’s gonna be fine,” Oliver says again, and I nod. “He is. And he’s going to make an amazing big brother.” “Exactly,” Oliver says, “he’s practically—” He stops, going completely still beside me, and then turning, his mouth falling open. “A what?” he asks, bending down to meet my gaze, as he grabs hold of me. “He’s going to be a what?” I can’t fight the smile at the excitement in his eyes. “Oh, did I forget to mention that? He’s going to be a great big brother in about, oh, I’d say seven months or so.” “Oh, my god.” Oliver picks me up and spins me round, forgetting about poor Truman, who is dragged along by his leash as we whirl in place. When Oliver puts me down again, he hurriedly untangles the dog, patting him apologetically. “Sorry, Truman, I got overexcited.” His eyes are shining, and seeing that now familiar happiness bloom across his face makes my chest ache. “I love you,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” “I love you, too,” I say, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. “And I can’t wait to have a baby with you.” “Me neither,” he murmurs against my lips. “Does Henry know yet?” “No. I thought we could tell him together.” We both turn back to the school, watching Henry sprinting across the grounds with his new friends in hot pursuit, Oliver’s arm around my shoulders, his body so solid and warm beside me. I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of fresh-cut grass on the wind, feeling the life flowing through my veins and the happiness in my heart as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud, bathing everything in a warm, golden light.