Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(126)

Oh, she didn’t doubt his love for her and Ava Grace—that was plain. And she knew he wanted to build a future with her. But deep in her heart, where she could still hear her mother’s voice, she felt the word husband, and she wanted Erik to own that role in her life.

Standing, she walked to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of sweet tea, filling a glass and leaning against the counter as she sipped it.

He’d ask her, wouldn’t he? When the time was right? When he was ready? Maybe after they’d been in New York for a while, when they were settled in and life had resumed a steady beat. Maybe then he’d ask her.

Or, she thought, sitting back down at her computer, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he never would.

They already had a daughter together and could very well have another on the way. They’d be bohemian, living in one of the biggest cities in the world with their kids, unmarried, bound to one another solely by love. That could work, couldn’t it?

“Of course that could work,” she said aloud, with false conviction. More quietly, she added, “Love is what matters. Nothing else.”

Her brow knitted, she went back to work on her designs, hoping that the words would become her truth sooner than later, and hating that the traditional part of her would never truly believe them.

***

After school, Erik took Ava Grace for ice cream, then to Utopia Manor. The water had been drained from the house, the carpets had been removed for repair and cleaning, and work had already started on the hardwood floors.

He didn’t know when he’d ever set foot in the house again, but he wanted his daughter to see it—to see where he and Laire had met so many years ago, to see where their love story was born. She oohed and aahed as they walked through the mansion together, her little hand tightly clasped in his, her other hand holding Mr. Mopples’s flipper. He showed her pictures of him as a child and a teen, and pictures of her Aunt Hillary, whom he promised she would meet soon.

At four thirty, he texted Kelsey to confirm that he’d be picking her up at five, and when he turned around, Ava Grace was staring at the large portrait of Erik’s mother, hung over the fireplace in the living room.

“Is she a queen?” asked Ava Grace solemnly.

Erik squatted down beside her, hating like hell that the woman holding his daughter so rapt was the same woman who had kept them separated for the first five and a half years of her life.

“Nope. That’s my mother.”

Ava Grace turned to him. “My grandma?”

Erik took a deep breath, tilting his head to the side, wishing that things were different and he had a warm, loving, wonderful family to share with his little girl. “I guess so.”

“And will I meet her when I meet Aunt Hilnary?”

He grinned. After receiving two dozen penguins this morning, Hillary had achieved legendary status, which was reflected in the way Ava Grace said her name.

“Hillary.” Then, recalling her question, he quickly stopped grinning. “And no. You won’t meet . . . your grandma.”

“She’s dead like Nana?”

“No, baby,” he said, sighing as he stood up and looked at the regal face of Fancy Rexford, which made him grimace. “She’s just . . . far, far away.”

“And she can’t go to New York ever?” asked Ava Grace, slipping her hand into his.

“Not right now,” he said. “Maybe . . .” He flinched but forced himself to say the words for his daughter’s sake. “Maybe someday.”

She looked up at him, smiling happily. “Someday’s good enough as long as I got you and Mama.”

“You definitely have me and Mama,” said Erik, reaching down to pick her up so he could look into her eyes, marveling, as he did every time, how much they looked like his own. “In fact . . .”

Leaning forward, he whispered something into her ear, then drew away to look at her face. “Would that be okay?”

Her small face spread with an ear-to-ear grin, she giggled and nodded, clasping him around the neck as he squeezed her tight, his heart bursting with happiness.

***

By five o’clock, Laire was showered and dressed, wearing her favorite winter dress: a House of Scalzo original wrap dress in a zebra print with an oversize belt, three-quarter sleeves, and a plunging neckline. At a street fair in Paris, she’d picked up a chunky jet necklace, which she clasped around her neck, and she tugged on her black suede Roger Vivier boots, on which she’d splurged when Madame Scalzo had offered her a job. She darkened her eyes with kohl and dark brown mascara, and brightened her lips with coral gloss.

Checking herself out in the mirror, she grinned. Runway ready? Not quite. But sexy for a girl from the Outer Banks? Hell, yes.

As she closed her closet door, Ava Grace scampered into her room, telling her all about the castle on the beach called Utopia Manor, and she looked up to find Erik in the doorway.

She watched his eyes as they traveled slowly down her body, darkening with desire.

“Laire,” he breathed, “you look . . .”

She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“I mean, damn, woman!”

“Erik!” she exclaimed, her eyes widening as she looked down at their daughter.

Chastened, he chuckled. “Your mama looks like dynamite tonight, Ava Grace.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty.” Then she jumped up and down. “Mama! Kelsey’s here! She brought pizza, and we’re goin’ to watch a movie!”