40

Ophelia

"Mom!"

I blinked, coming back to the moment. The eggs were burning and the bacon sizzling in the pan, and the oil started bubbling and popping into the air. How long had I been standing here, zoning out as I cooked Cecilia's breakfast?

Dumping the contents of the entire pan onto a plate, a speck of oil collided with my finger. "Fuck."

"Mom! That's a bad word!" Cecilia reprimanded me.

I turned around just as Lorenzo was coming out of the bedroom, dressed in a crisp suit and briefcase in one hand. "Yeah, mom. That's a bad word."

Sucking on my finger, I dumped the pan into the sink and turned on the faucet. "Yeah, well, I never advertised myself as a cook."

Lorenzo kissed my cheek and snickered.

"How about we all get breakfast to go on the way to school?"

"No can do," Lorenzo sighed. "I'm already late. I called in a backup driver for me, though. So Hennrey can take you."

I turned off the faucet. "Hennrey. Fuck, that's his name?"

"Mom!"

"Sorry, I meant to say shit."

Cecilia snickered, and I smiled back at her. I was lucky with her. She was perceptive enough to catch my curses and know not to repeat them. Cecilia understood the difference between right or wrong, when something was allowed to be said in public and when it should be kept in private. Her emotional intelligence at ten—ten and three quarters, as she would correct me—was higher than that of most people in their twenties.

"Yeah," Lorenzo said, plucking a burnt piece of bacon off the plate. "Hennrey's his name."

I tickled my chin and shook my head. "I always forget that. I must look like an asshole."

Lorenzo kissed my forehead. "Don't worry about it. I doubt he'll think about that in a few months time."

I leaned against the counter and gripped his hips. I couldn't have stifled my smile if I had tried. His words from yesterday echoed back to me.

I love you.

I was still riding the high of that. Love was not something I'd ever expected to experience again, and in hindsight, the love Carl had expressed to me had never been anything like this. It had never been genuine love. That love had been manipulative, controlling. But the love pouring from Lorenzo was real.

Lorenzo's love when we were young was one thing...it was some form of love most college-aged kids experienced. It was the culmination of being young, on your own for the first time, experiencing freedom outside the parent's house. It was the result of being forced into proximity during boring classes, which was made more interesting by the attractive dorm mate who lived across the hall.

That was typical.

In hindsight, maybe my relationship with Lorenzo in college had fallen into that category...but maybe not. It was an exception to the rule, to say the least. I'd spent ten years believing he'd abandoned Cecilia and me, thinking that what we'd shared back then had been a falsity, when in reality, he probably would have married me if he'd known I was pregnant.

That didn't fit into the category of childhood infatuation. That was different.

I craved the courage to muster the power to say those three special words back to him, but how was I supposed to do that? I still couldn't understand how I'd won the lottery of his love twice in my life.

Lorenzo grabbed another piece of bacon and grinned. "These really aren't bad."

Something he'd said stuck with me. "What did you mean by that?"

His brows furrowed. "Mean by what?"

"You said, 'I doubt he'll even think about that in a few months time.'"

He popped the rest of the bacon in his mouth. "Who?"

I threw up my hands. "Hennrey, your driver. Why did you say he wouldn't think about that in the future? Instead of saying why he wouldn't be bothered by getting his name wrong right now?"

I heard my own words and knew how ridiculous they might have sounded out of context. And yet, this wasn't out of context. Lorenzo had said those words.

But when he shrugged and gave me that effortless smile of his, my words sounded silly.

He threw the burnt end of the bacon back onto the plate. "I don't know. Because Hennrey is the most laid back person I know?"

I shook my head, feeling like a fool. "Right."

Lorenzo smiled and kissed my cheek. "He doesn't give a shit about things like that." He tapped my nose. "And neither should you."

"You guys!" Cecilia called out. "I'm going to start saying s-h-i-t in school if you guys say it at home."

Lorenzo's eyes widened. "Hear that? We're bad influences."

I wanted to feel as relaxed as he sounded, but something in Lorenzo's upbeat tone just felt off. "Guess so."

"Anyways," Lorenzo sighed. "I better get going.Hennrey—"he gave the name extra emphasis, "—will come pick you guys up soon. See you both for the press conference tonight?"

"See you then."

As Lorenzo kissed Cecilia goodbye and left out the front door, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something he wasn't telling me.

Cecilia looked up at me. "Press conference is the thing where we stand in the front of the cameras, right?"

Leaning on the counter, I smiled at her. "That's right. And you're going to do great."

"Because I don't have to say anything?" she asked.

"Exactly."

And what the fuck was I going to say? Just because I was no longer in Jonathan's scope of possible suspects didn't mean I liked the guy more than before. The relief that came with knowing I was off his radar also brought with it a lot of uncertainty.

Quinton was supposedly dead, and although we weren't super close, I hadn't mourned, I hadn't grieved, or felt a brief piece of loss...and why was that?

Because just like Lorenzo's relaxed attitude now, something just felt...off.

It had to do with the video of him in Calamari's house. When Quinton had assigned me the mission and explained how to get into Jonathan's office, he had given me a play by play, a detailed explanation that had sounded like he was reading from a blueprint.

Not like he had been there before.

And sure, maybe I was just overthinking this, but Quinton had never warned me about Jonathan's office being locked. That would have been something he would have mentioned if he'd been in the house before.

Cecilia dropped her plate in the sink, snapping me back into reality. "Ready to go, momma!"

"Sounds good, baby."

But on the entirety of the drive to her school, I couldn't stop thinking about that video of Quinton. As we pulled up outside her school, I kissed her goodbye, and as the door closed, my heart caught in my throat.

"Back to the Penthouse, Ms. Wellington?"

I hesitated at the question.