Page 58 of Make You Mine

But the fantasy evaporates.

Declan strides back into the room, and I straighten at once, the spell broken.

“I’m staying,” he says, sounding more defeated than I’ve ever heard him. “I can’t leave her side tonight.”

I frown. “Who could blame you?”

“I know it’s a big ask,” he goes on, “but would you mind going back to the house with the kids? It’s getting late and I… I just can’t leave her.”

He doesn’t need to explain.

My heart thuds, beating fast at his request.

He needs me. They all do.

“Of course. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take Willow and Emmett home, make sure they’re settled.” My hand lifts, fingers brushing his arm in a comforting touch. “We’ll be fine. You focus on Amerie.”

The words feel bitter in my mouth, but I let them linger. Step by step, it’s all coming together.

An hour and a half later, the Keating house greets me in silence, its warm hush settling around my shoulders the moment I step inside. The air carries that lived-in scent I’ve come to recognize over the weeks—clean linen, lemon wax, the faintest hint of sweetness from Amerie’s perfume.

The same perfume I’ve bought and begun to wear.

I close the door behind us and guide the children into the kitchen, flicking on the light with the ease of someone who knows every drawer and cupboard by heart. I move through the routines like a true natural—boiling the kettle, slicing bread, spreading jam in neat diagonal lines across toast. Willow sits at the table with her chin in her hand, her eyes half lidded and red rimmed, while Emmett dozes with his thumb caught between his lips, too tired even to whimper.

They eat what I feed them, too weary for objections. Upstairs, the rituals continue.

I run the taps and fill the basin, checking the water’s temperature with the inside of my wrist the way I’ve seen Amerie do. I coax arms into pajama sleeves and set out toothbrushes. I rinse and dry. I choose the bedtime story myself because Willow doesn’t have the energy to argue.

By the time I ease her beneath the covers, her limbs have gone slack, but her eyes remain open, glassy, and uncertain.

“Chels,” she whispers, “will my mommy ever come home?”

The question should move me. I suppose a more sensitive woman might feel more sympathetic. But I’m more aloof as Ismooth hair away from her face and tell her the harsh truth of life.

“Sometimes,” I say quietly, “mummies don’t come home.”

Her brows crease as she stares up at me in confusion. I can see the tears threatening to spill again. But I go on before she can work up the nerve to argue.

“Sometimes, when that happens… you get a new mummy. Someone who stays. Someone who looks after you properly. Someone who never goes away.”

I lean down and kiss her forehead, then wish her goodnight.

Emmett’s room is quiet when I pass through the doorway, the soft blue nightlight casting a watery glow across the crib. He’s sleeping soundly, fists curled.

Down the corridor, the master bedroom waits.

I walk toward it slowly, savoring each step along the way.

This is where Amerie used to sleep. Where she kept her lotions, her books, her wedding dress in the back of the wardrobe. This is where she woke each morning beside him, wrapped in the illusion that it would always be hers.

I close the door behind me carefully, turning toward the dresser to slip into one of the nighties she wears to bed. The lilac silk slides over my body and feels instantly revealing. I study myself in the mirror and shiver at how the sheer fabric leaves so much skin exposed.

He must love her in this.

There’s something deliciously wicked in the act of it, standing here in her bedroom, clothed in her lingerie, feet pressed into her rug, wearing her perfume. I move slowly, deliberately, every step a quiet saunter toward the bed, the hem of the nightie grazing the tops of my thighs with each shift of my hips.

I ease onto the mattress like it’s been waiting for me, lowering myself into the soft indent where her body once curled,and stretch across the sheets with the ease of someone already believing they’ve claimed the space as their own. The warm, masculine scent of him lingers on his pillow, and I bury my face in it for a moment, inhaling deeply, as if I can pull him into my lungs.

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