Chapter 434 - 434: Morning Confessions.

Grey light crept in through the tall windows one inch at a time.

Kyle watched it happen. The shadows on the far wall softened, then faded. The outline of the coffee table sharpened. Somewhere outside, a bus groaned to a stop and pulled away again. London was waking up, and he still hadn't moved from the armchair.

Jasmine was a warm, heavy weight against his chest. She had slept through the rest of the night without another nightmare, one small fist still bunched in his hoodie. Wolverine stood guard on the armrest exactly where she had left him.

His arm had gone numb an hour ago. He didn't shift it.

A door clicked softly down the hall.

Cassandra appeared with Junior on her hip, her hair loose and tangled from sleep, a robe wrapped around her. Junior was wide awake, the way babies always were at the worst possible hour, gumming one of his fists with total concentration.

She stopped when she saw Kyle.

Her eyes went from him, to Jasmine, to Ella and Jane still tangled together on the couch, then back to him.

"You never went to bed," she whispered.

"Nope."

"Not even for an hour?"

"Not even for a minute."

Cassandra didn't scold him. She just walked into the kitchen, set Junior in the portable high chair, and started making tea. Kyle listened to the quiet sounds of it. The kettle filling. Cups clinking. The soft hiss as the water began to heat.

When she came back, she paused by the couch, pulled a throw blanket off the back of it, and draped it over Ella and Jane without waking either of them. Then she set one cup on the side table next to Wolverine and sat down on the ottoman in front of him, cradling her own.

"She had a bad dream?" Cassandra nodded at Jasmine.

"Around one. She found me on the balcony."

"And you've been holding her since."

"She was comfortable."

Cassandra studied him over the rim of her cup. It was the same look she had given him before the dinner with Eleanor. Calm. Patient. The look of a woman who already knew he was carrying something and was simply waiting for him to put it down.

"Kyle."

"Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

He could have lied. He was good at it. Total recall and Extreme Copycat meant he could build a story so smooth she would never find a seam in it.

But he was tired. And this was Cassandra.

"There's a girl here in London," he said quietly, careful not to wake Jasmine. "She's twenty-one. When she was four, something happened to her family. Something bad. She was taken away and hidden. Her father was told she died."

Cassandra's hands went still around her cup.

"She doesn't remember him," Kyle went on. "She doesn't remember anything from before. She grew up with another family. Good people. And her father..." He paused. "Her father has spent seventeen years believing he buried his little girl."

"And you found her."

"I found her."

Cassandra was quiet for a long moment. In the high chair, Junior let out a happy squeal and banged his fist on the tray. She glanced at him, and something passed over her face. Something old and raw.

"Does she want to meet him?" she asked.

"I don't know. I don't think she knows either." Kyle looked down at Jasmine. "Last night she asked me if he was kind to her. I didn't know the answer. So I found someone who did."

"Was he?"

"Yeah," Kyle said softly. "He was."

Cassandra set her cup down. She reached over and gently brushed a strand of hair off Jasmine's forehead, the way only a mother could.

"When I was fighting for Junior," she said, "there was a night I almost signed the papers. Shared custody. I was so scared of losing him completely that I nearly gave half of him away just to keep the other half." She smiled faintly. "And the whole time, the thing that scared me most wasn't the court. It was the thought of him growing up one day and wondering if I'd wanted him."

Kyle didn't say anything.

"Every child deserves to know if someone loved them," Cassandra said. "Even if they never see that person again. Even if it's too late for anything else. They deserve to know."

"Even if the truth comes with things she might not want to hear?"

Cassandra looked at him carefully. She didn't ask what things. She never did.

"Especially then," she said. "Let her decide what she can carry, Kyle. Don't decide it for her."

Kyle let out a slow breath. It felt like the first full breath he had taken all night.

"Thank you, Cass."

"Drink your tea," she said, standing up. "And then go to bed for at least three hours, or I'm telling Ella you cried during the deep-sea documentary."

"I didn't cry during the documentary."

"She doesn't know that."

-

Ella woke up ten minutes later, and she woke up loudly.

"Why is there a blanket on me? Who put a blanket on me?" She squinted at the room. "Why is Jane's knee in my ribs?"

"Because you fell asleep on her," Cassandra said from the kitchen.

Jane stirred, blinking groggily. Her hair was flattened on one side, and there was a smear of chocolate on her cheek from last night's éclair. "What time is it?"

"Morning," Kyle said.

Ella sat up and stared at him. Then at Jasmine in his lap. Then at the untouched tea beside Wolverine.

"Wait. Have you been sitting there all night?"

"Possibly."

"Like a creepy statue?"

"Like a responsible adult."

"Same thing." Ella swung her legs off the couch, nearly kicking Jane in the process. "You look terrible, by the way. Like a raccoon that's been through a divorce."

"Thank you, Ella."

"I'm just being honest." She stretched, then wrinkled her nose. "Did anyone order breakfast? Why does nobody ever order breakfast?"

Jane was already reaching for the room service menu, wide awake now that food was involved.

"I'll order," she said. "For everyone."

"Not like last time," Ella warned. "The waiter needed a trolley for each of your plates."

"That's an exaggeration."

"He needed two trolleys, Jane."

Jasmine finally stirred against Kyle's chest. She lifted her head, blinked at him with sleep-crusted eyes, and then looked around the room as if she had forgotten where she was.

"Did Wolverine keep watch?" she mumbled.

"All night," Kyle told her. "He didn't blink once."

Jasmine nodded, completely satisfied with this, and slid off his lap to go check on Junior.

Kyle stood up for the first time in hours. His knees cracked. His arm burned as the blood rushed back into it. He shook it out, grimacing.

Ella watched him from the couch, her expression shifting from teasing to something a little more careful.

"Hey," she said, quieter now. "You okay?"

"I'm okay."

"You'd tell me if you weren't?"

He looked at her. At the sharp, stubborn girl who had walked into his life as Jane's overprotective best friend and somehow ended up as one of the people he couldn't imagine losing.

"I'd tell you," he said. "When I can."

Ella held his gaze for a moment. Then she nodded and threw a cushion at him.

"Go to sleep. You're making the room depressing."

-

He didn't make it to the bedroom.

His phone buzzed before he reached the hallway.

Kyle pulled it out, half expecting Viktor or Tony. Instead, Maya's name sat at the top of the screen.

He stopped walking.

[[Maya: I slept.]]

A second message followed almost immediately.

[[Maya: First time in weeks I didn't have the dream.]]

Kyle stared at the words. Behind him, Jane was reading the room service menu aloud, Ella was objecting to every second item, and Jasmine was asking if Wolverine was allowed pancakes.

A third message.

[[Maya: Saturday. Not a café. Primrose Hill, by the bench at the top. 11 AM.]]

[[Maya: I want to show you something.]]

Kyle typed back before he could overthink it.

[[Kyle: I'll be there.]]

He waited. Nothing else came. But that was fine. She had given him a time and a place, and for Maya, that was practically a speech.

"Saturday," he murmured. "And Sunday, Tony's."

Two days. Two families.

One waiting to feed him. One that didn't know it still existed.

Kyle slipped the phone back into his pocket and finally walked down the hall to his room. He lay down on top of the covers without bothering to undress. His body was heavy. His mind, for once, was quiet.

The last thing he heard before sleep took him was Jane's voice from the living room, calm and absolutely certain.

"Three plates of pancakes. For me. The rest of you can order your own."