<b>Chapter 189 </b>


    ~CELINE’S POV~


    The first thing I noticed was his heartbeat against my back.


    Steady. Strong. Real.


    We were tangled together like we had been sleeping this way for years instead of surviving another war yesterday.


    His arm was a heavy anchor across my waist, and for once, the weight didn’t feel like a cage…. it felt likeing home.


    I had never had a “morning after” that felt like this. Soft. Sacred. Like something worth protecting.


    The apartment was bathed in honey light, and I could hear the city waking up twenty stories below us.


    38


    But up here, in this bed that smelled like our desperation and his cologne, the world felt small enough to hold in my cupped hands.


    I traced the scar on his forearm…the one he had gotten at twelve when he had tried to build Caroline a treehouse and nearly killed himself with power tools.


    He had told me that storyst night, between kisses that tasted like oaths.


    “You’re thinking too loud,” he murmured against my neck, his voice rough with sleep.


    “How do you know I’m thinking?”


    “Your breathing changes when your brain starts spinning.” His lips found the spot behind my ear that made me shiver. “What’s got you so worked up at….” He lifted his head to squint at the clock. “…..seven in the morning?”


    I turned in his arms, studying his face in the golden light. Hair sticking up in every direction, stubble darker than usual, eyes still soft with sleep.


    He looked younger like this. Powerless in a way that made my chest tight.


    “I was thinking about how I could get used to this.”


    Something shifted in his expression. “Could?”


    “Will,” I corrected softly. “How I will get used <i>to </i>this?”


    The smile that spread across his face was pure sunshine. “There’s my girl.”


    He kissed me then, slow and thorough and tasting like forever. When he pulled back, his thumb traced my bottom lip like he was memorizing the shape of my mouth.


    “Stay here,” he whispered. “Let me make you breakfast.”


    “Hunter Reid cooks?”


    “Hunter Reid burns toast and scrambles eggs into rubber, but he tries very hard to impress the woman in his bed.”


    Iughed, the sound bubbling up from some deep ce that had been locked away for months. “Go. Impress me.” <fn529a> Official source is f?ndnovel</fn529a>


    * 52% <b>/ </b>


    6


    He kissed my forehead before rolling out of bed, gloriously naked andpletely unselfconscious. I watched him pull on sweatpants, muscles shifting under skin I had mapped with my tongue hours ago.


    “Enjoying the view?” he asked without turning around.


    “Awfully.”


    Hisugh followed him out of the room.


    I stretched in the sheets, still warm from his body heat, letting myself feel something I had forgotten how to feel:plete happiness.


    Then Caesar’s voice cut through my happiness like a knife.


    “MAMA! That mean Aunty Jesse is on TV again!”


    Ice flooded my veins.


    I grabbed Hunter’s shirt from the floor and ran toward the living room, my heart beating against my ribs. Caesar sat cross–legged in front of the television, pointing at the screen with his tiny finger.


    But it wasn’t Eleanor.


    It was Jesse.


    My sister sat in a studio chair looking like she had been crying for hours, her mascara streaked, her hands shaking as she spoke to the camera.


    “I need everyone to know that I lied,” she was saying, her voice deep with shame.


    “Everything I said about my sister Celine was aplete lie. Someone paid me to destroy her reputation, and I… God, I’m so sorry, Celine. I’m so fucking sorry.”


    The reporter looked scandalized by the swearword. “Can you tell us who paid you?”


    “I can’t say their name, but they know who they are. And they should be ashamed of themselves for using family against family like this.”


    Hunter appeared behind me with coffee and burnt toast, his face carefully uninterested.


    “How long has this been <i>on</i>?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the screen.


    “About twenty minutes. Your mother’s interview airs after this one.”


    I turned to stare at him. “My mother’s what?”


    On cue, the screen switched to show my mother sitting in our old living room, the one with the peeling wallpaper and broken


    blinds.


    She looked smaller than I remembered, older, like the effect of her lies had physically aged her overnight.


    “Celine is my daughter,” she said, her ent deep with emotion. “She might not be my real daughter. I had no right to talk about the affair because…” She broke downpletely.


    ??52%<b>?? </b>


    (0


    +38


    “Because I was jealous. Jealous that she escaped the life I couldn’t. She deserved better than what I gave her, and instead of being proud, I tried to tear her down.”


    The camera zoomed in on her tears. “Mija, if you’re watching this… I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I’m sorry I forgot <i>how </i>to show it.”


    I sank onto the couch next to Caesar, who immediately crawled into myp.


    “Why is Abu crying, Mama?”


    “Because sometimes grown–ups make mistakes, baby. Big ones.”


    Hunter sat on my other side, his arming around both of us. I leaned into his warmth, inhaling the scent of his skin beneath the coffee and smoke smell.


    “You did this,” I said quietly. It wasn’t a question.


    “They needed to make it right.”


    “How?”


    His smile was harsh enough to cut ss. “I reminded them that family loyalty should flow both ways.”


    I studied his profile….the strong jaw, the way his eyes had gone cold and calcting when he talked about protecting us. This was the man who had built an empire before thirty.


    The one who could destroy lives with a phone call.


    The one who had chosen to use that power for me.


    “Should I ask what kind of reminder?”


    “The kind that ensures they <i>never </i>forget where their loyalties should lie.”


    Caesar wiggled in myp, bored with adult conversation./’Papa, can we make pancakes now? You promised.”


    “I did promise, didn’t I?” Hunter ruffled Caesar’s hair. “Go pick out what kind you want. The box is on the counter.”


    Caesar scrambled off myp and ran toward the kitchen, leaving us alone with the soft sound of morning news and my mother’s continuing apology.


    I turned to face Hunter fully, tucking my legs under me. “Thank you.”


    “You don’t need to thank me for protecting my family.”


    “Is that what we are? Your family?”


    The question hung in the air between us, loaded with everything we hadn’t said yet. Everything we were both afraid to name in case speaking it out loud made it disappear.


    Hunter’s hand found mine, his thumb fracing over my knuckles. “Celino, you and Caesar and this baby…” He ced his other hand on my still–t stomach. “You’re not just my family. You’re my whole world.”


    My throat closed up with emotion, “Hunter…<b>” </b>


    10:53 Sun, 24 Aug


    52%


    <b>38 </b>


    “I know you need time. I know I’ve fucked up more than I’ve gotten right. But I need you to know that this…us….it’s not temporary for me. It’s not some phase I’m going through.”


    He leaned closer, his forehead resting against mine.


    “I’m in love with you. Completely, irrevocably, forever kind of in love with you. The kind that changes who you are at the cellr level.”


    Tears I didn’t know I was crying slipped down my cheeks. “I love you too. So much it scares me sometimes.”


    “Good scared or bad scared?”


    I thought about that. About the way loving him felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the fall could either kill me or teach me how to fly.


    “Both,” I admitted. “But more good than bad.”


    He kissed me then, soft and sweet and full of promises we were both still learning how to make. When we broke apart, Caesar’s voice echoed from the kitchen.


    “PAPA! I can’t reach the pancake mix!”


    Hunter groaned against my lips. “Duty calls.”


    “Go. I’ll be right there.”


    I watched him walk away, admiring the way his sweatpants hung low on his hips, the flex of his shoulders as he reached to help


    Caesar.


    This beautiful, powerful, dangerous man who made pancakes for my son and would burn down the world to keep us safe.


    I touched my stomach, thinking about the tiny life growing there. Our child would never know what it felt like to be unwanted, unloved, unprotected.


    They would grow up in a house where love meant action, not just words.


    し


    My phone buzzed with a text from Caroline: “Saw the interviews. Hunter’s terrifying when he wants to be. Love you both. Can’t wait to meet my niece and nephew.?


    Then one from Vincent: “Your boyfriend is officially the most ruthless bastard I’ve ever worked with. It’s hot. Don’t tell Hunter I said


    that


    And finally, one from an unknown number: “You won this round. Enjoy it while itsts. Anonymously”


    Eleanor.


    The happiness in my chest flickered, but didn’t die. Let her y her <b>games</b>. Let her scheme and plot and rage against the walls Hunter had built around us.


    She had misjudged him once. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.


    “Mama! Come see! Papa’s making Mickey Mouse pancakes!”


    I deleted the message without responding and headed toward the kitchen, toward the sound ofughter and the smell of coffee


    10:53 Sun, 24 Aug


    and the promise of a million more mornings just like this one.


    I was done being afraid of happiness.


    It was time to learn how to fight for it instead.


    <b>Chapter </b><b>90 </b>