Aria’s POV
I woke to the sll of burning toast and the sound of Damien cursing creatively in the kitchen. Sunlight stread through the windows, warm and golden, and for a mont I just lay there, wrapped in his sheets, smiling at the ceiling.
This. This was happiness. I pulled on one of his shirts—a soft gray button-down that fell to mid-thigh—and padded barefoot to the kitchen.
The scene that greeted was both endearing and slightly alarming. Damien stood shirtless in pajama pants, frowning at a pan full of what might have once been eggs but now resembled rubber. Smoke drifted from the toaster, and there was flour everywhere, including in his hair.
"What are you doing?" I leaned against the doorfra, biting back a laugh.
He spun around, looking adorably flustered. "Making you breakfast. Or trying to, why is cooking so hard?"
"Because you’re terrible at it?" I moved into the kitchen, assessing the damage. "Damien, we have a chef. We could have just ordered sothing."
"I wanted to do it myself." He ran a hand through his flour-dusted hair, making it worse. "I wanted you to wake up to breakfast in bed like in the movies. But I" He gestured helplessly at the disaster zone. "I burned everything."
"I can see that." I rescued the toast from the toaster before it beca charcoal. "But it’s sweet that you tried."
"Sweet and unsuccessful." He dumped the rubbery eggs into the trash. "I wanted this morning to be perfect. Wanted to—I don’t know. Show you that I can take care of you."
"Damien." I turned to face him, my heart lting. "You do take care of . In a thousand different ways. You don’t need to cook breakfast to prove anything."
"But I want to." His voice was almost petulant. "I want to be good at dostic things. Want to make you pancakes and coffee and" He stopped. "I want to be the kind of partner who can do all of it. Business, romance and everyday stuff."
"You are that partner." I moved closer, wrapping my arms around his waist. "You’re exactly the partner I need. Terrible cooking skills and all."
"Yeah?" He looked down at hopefully.
"Yeah." I stood on my toes to kiss him. "Though maybe we should stick to ordering breakfast or allowing the chef to handle it, for the safety of the kitchen."
He laughed, pulling closer. "Deal. But Aria, I’m going to learn. I’m going to take cooking classes and practice and"
"Burn down the kitchen?" I teased.
"Probably." He grinned. "But I’ll keep trying. For you. For us. For the dostic life I want us to have."
"We’ll learn together." I rested my head on his bare chest. "I an, I can handle the basics — simple als, snacks, nothing too ambitious but anything beyond that and I’m just as lost as you are."
"So between the two of us, we can manage breakfast and maybe a decent pasta." He kissed the top of my head. "That’s sothing."
"It’s a start." I smiled against his chest. "We’ll figure out the rest as we go."
We stood like that for a long mont, swaying slightly to music only we could hear, surrounded by the evidence of his failed breakfast attempt.
"I love you in my shirt," he said suddenly. "You should wear my clothes more often."
"Possessive much?" But I was smiling.
"Absolutely." His hands slid down to grip my hips. "Seeing you in my shirt, in my kitchen, in my life—it does things to ."
"Things?" I looked up at him, seeing heat building in his eyes. "What kind of things?"
"The kind that makes want to pick you up, put you on this counter, and"
His phone rang, interrupting whatever he was about to say. We both groaned.
"Ignore it," I suggested.
"It might be about Noah." He reluctantly pulled away to grab his phone. "Hello?"
I watched his expression shift from frustration to warmth to amusent, all in the space of about three seconds.
"Good morning, Mrs. Dora." A pause. "No, not at all — we were awake." He caught my eye and had the decency to look only slightly guilty about that particular lie. "How is he?"
He listened, and the amusent on his face deepened into sothing softer. "Of course. Yes. We’ll be there within the hour." Another pause, and he laughed genuinely and quietly. "We’ll bring them. Yes. See you soon."
He hung up and looked at with that expression he still sotis got, like fatherhood was a thing that kept catching him pleasantly off guard. "She called to ask when we were coming," he said. "And to report that Noah has been up since six, has eaten breakfast, reorganized her entire bookshelf by color, and is currently " he checked his phone for the ti "attempting to teach Theo’s goldfish to do tricks."
I pressed my hand over my mouth. "The poor fish."
"Mrs. Dora seed more amused than concerned." He set the phone on the counter.
"She also said, and I quote " he adopted her no-nonsense tone with surprising accuracy " ’Tell Miss Aria I hope she got so proper rest, the boy has been enough excitent for all of us."
I burst out laughing. "She knows."
"Mrs. Dora knows everything." He pulled back into his arms without missing a beat, his chin dropping to the top of my head. "She has worked for this family long enough. Nothing surprises that woman."
"That’s both reassuring and mortifying."
"Mostly reassuring." His hands were warm at my back. "She also said to bring pastries from the bakery on Clent Street. Apparently Noah told her you always bring the ones with the almond cream when you’ve had a very good day."
I pulled back to look at him. "He said that?"
"Apparently he’s been paying very close attention to your moods." Damien’s eyes were warm with quiet delight. "We are raising a remarkably perceptive child."
"We are raising a child who is going to be absolutely insufferable as a teenager," I said.
"Also true." He kissed my forehead. "We should get up. Get dressed. Go collect our son before he dismantles Mrs. Dora’s entire house."
"Give twenty minutes to shower and make myself presentable."
"Want company?" His hands slid under the shirt, warm against my skin.
"Damien." But I was already lting into him. "We don’t have ti for—oh."
His mouth found that spot on my neck that made my knees entirely unreliable. "We can make ti. Quick showers are also very efficient."
"Efficient." I gasped as his hands wandered. "Is that what we’re calling it?"
"Would you prefer ’necessary’?" He was already walking backward toward the bathroom. "Because Aria, I need you. One more ti before we go back to being responsible parents."
"One more ti," I agreed, pulling him with . "But we have to be quick."
We were not quick. By the ti we finished in the shower and then again against the bathroom counter because apparently neither of us had any self-control whatsoever we were very definitely running late.
"Mrs. Dora is going to know exactly what we were doing," I said as we rushed to get dressed.
"Mrs. Dora already knows." Damien buttoned his shirt with considerably more calm than the situation warranted. "She factored it into the tiline. That’s why she said within the hour and not right away."
I stopped with one shoe on. "You think she gave us extra ti on purpose?"
"I think Mrs. Dora has been quietly managing this household since before I knew what I wanted." He crossed over and crouched to help with my shoe, easy and unhurried, like we had all the ti in the world. "And I think she is very glad we figured it out."
I looked down at him, this man on one knee at the foot of our bed, doing up my shoe like it was the most natural thing, and sothing in my chest pulled tight and sweet. "We should go," I said softly.
He looked up. Sothing in his eyes said he understood that I wasn’t just talking about Noah. "Yeah." He stood, took my hand. "Let’s go get our boy."
Dora House
We drove through Ravenwood’s quieter streets to collect Noah from Mrs. Dora’s.
We could hear them before the door even opened."MAMA!"
Noah shot through the doorway the mont it swung open, a small chaos of ssy curls and mismatched socks, colliding with my legs at full speed. I caught him on instinct, hauling him up and squeezing tight while he wrapped himself around like a koala with no intention of letting go. "Hi, baby." I pressed my face into his curls. "Did you have fun?"
"So much fun." He pulled back to look at with the gravity of soone delivering a full news report. "Theo and I built the biggest fort and Mrs. Dora and her sister made us hot chocolate with the little marshmallows, the good ones, Mama, not the plain ones and then we fought dragons until we fell asleep. Real ones."
"Real dragons," I said seriously.
"Enormous." He spread both arms as wide as they would go. "But we won because of the fort. Theo said next ti we should add a moat."
"Smart thinking," Damien said from beside .
Noah turned to him with shining eyes. "Can Theo co to our house next ti, Daddy? So we can show him the dinosaurs and build an even bigger fort? A better one?"
"Absolutely," Damien said, without a mont’s hesitation.
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