Aiden's POV
The DNA results were due in one week, and I couldn't focus on anything else.
I tried. Buried myself in work—quarterly reports, acquisition proposals, meetings that blurred together into a meaningless hum of corporate noise. But my mind kept drifting back to Brooklyn. To three kids with dark hair and stubborn jaws. To a woman who was slowly dismantling every wall I'd ever built.
Thursday evening, I was forced to attend a charity gala—the kind of event I usually avoided but couldn't escape this time. I was making small talk with a senator's wife when I spotted Michael across the room, champagne in hand, watching me with barely concealed hostility.
Our paths crossed near the bar. Unavoidable.
"Wolfe." Michael's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Enjoying playing house with my family?"
I didn't rise to the bait. "I'm enjoying getting to know three incredible kids. You should try it sometime—without the credit card."
Michael's jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he might throw a punch right here, in front of Manhattan's elite. But Michael just laughed—a cold, brittle sound.
"We'll see who's laughing when the results come back."
He walked away, and I let him go. There was nothing to be gained from escalating. Not here. Not now.
Friday evening found me at Elara's apartment, helping with the bedtime routine. I'd become part of the rhythm now—bath time chaos, toothbrushing negotiations, the sacred ritual of story time.
Tonight it was a book about a bear who couldn't sleep, and all three kids were piled against me on the couch, heavy-eyed and fighting unconsciousness.
Oliver was the last to give in. But even as Elara carried him toward the bedroom, he reached back for me.
"Can you sleep on the couch? In case I have bad dreams?"
I looked at Elara. She hesitated, something flickering in her eyes, then nodded.
I stayed.
After the kids were settled, I found Elara in the living room. She was curled into the corner of the couch, knees pulled to her chest, looking smaller than I'd ever seen her. Vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.
I sat down beside her—not touching, but close. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin. Close enough to catch the faint scent of vanilla and jasmine that haunted my dreams.
The apartment was quiet. The city hummed distantly outside. And between us, the air was thick with everything we hadn't said, everything we'd been dancing around for weeks.
"Aiden, I—" she started.
"Whatever you're going to say," I interrupted gently, turning to face her, "know this first." I held her gaze, letting her see everything I'd been hiding. "I'm not here because you might be the mother of my children. I'm not here because of the DNA test or the paternity question or any of that."
She stared at me, barely breathing. Her lips parted slightly, and I watched her pulse flutter at the base of her throat.
"I'm here because of you." My voice dropped, rough with emotion I couldn't contain anymore. "Just you. The way you laugh. The way you fight for those kids like a lioness. The way you've survived things that would have broken anyone else and come out stronger."
I reached up slowly, giving her time to pull away, and brushed a strand of hair from her face. My fingers grazed her cheek, and she inhaled sharply—a small, shattered sound that undid something in my chest.
"I'm here because somewhere along the way, you became the only thing I can think about." My thumb traced the line of her jaw, featherlight. "You're the first thought when I wake up. The last thought before I sleep. And every thought in between."
Her eyes glistened, tears threatening to spill. She leaned into my touch, almost imperceptibly, like she couldn't help herself.
"Aiden..." My name was a whisper on her lips. A prayer. A warning.
"Tell me to stop." I shifted closer, my hand sliding to cup the back of her neck. Her skin was impossibly soft, impossibly warm. "Tell me this isn't what you want, and I'll walk away right now. I'll pretend this never happened."
She didn't tell me to stop.
Instead, she reached up and pressed her palm flat against my chest, right over my racing heart. I knew she could feel it—the way it hammered against my ribs, betraying everything I'd tried to keep contained.
"Your heart," she breathed. "It's beating so fast."
"It's been doing that since the moment I met you."
Something broke in her expression. The last of her resistance crumbling.
She leaned toward me, and I mirrored the movement. Inches apart. Then less. I could feel her breath warm against my lips, could see my own reflection in her darkening eyes. The space between us was electric, charged with five years of fate and weeks of wanting and this single, crystalline moment of almost.
My hand tightened in her hair. Her fingers curled into my shirt, pulling me closer. Our foreheads touched, and I heard her breath catch—a sound so intimate it set my blood on fire.
"Elara." Her name came out broken, reverent. A man at the altar of something sacred.
Her lips brushed mine. Not quite a kiss—just the ghost of one, the promise of one. Soft as silk, devastating as a hurricane. I felt that barely-there contact in every cell of my body.
I was going to kiss her. I was going to kiss her and never stop, and damn the consequences, damn the DNA test, damn Michael and the past and everything that wasn't her mouth and her hands and the way she was trembling against me—
"MAMA! AIDEN!"
Oliver's cry shattered the moment like glass.
I was on my feet before I realized I was moving, crossing to the kids' room, all that desperate want transforming instantly into desperate fear. Oliver was sitting up in bed, face wet with tears, reaching for me in the darkness.
"Shh. I'm here." I scooped him into my arms, and he clung to me like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world. "You're safe. I've got you."
I rocked him gently, murmuring reassurances, using the breathing trick until the sobs faded to hiccups. His small body gradually relaxed against my chest, his heartbeat slowing to match mine.
"Bad dream," he mumbled into my shoulder. "There was a monster."
"No monsters here. I checked. The only thing in this room is you, me, and your brother and sister."
"You'll stay?"
"I'll stay." I pressed a kiss to his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."
His breathing evened out, and I felt the exact moment he slipped back into sleep—the way his body went heavy, trusting, completely surrendered to safety.
When I looked up, Elara was standing in the doorway.
The light from the hallway silhouetted her, turning her into something ethereal. Her lips were still flushed from our almost-kiss, her hair still disheveled from my hands. She was watching me with an expression so unguarded it made my chest ache—soft and aching and full of something that looked like surrender.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't have to.
I saw it in her eyes, clear as daylight: she was already lost to this. To me. To us.
And God help me, so was I.
Whatever those DNA results said, whatever happened next, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I was going to spend the rest of my life loving this woman and these children.
The only question was whether she'd let me.