The Billionaire's Bought Bride and Instant Mom Chapter 127

Orion

Every night since that conversation, I'd found myself lying awake, my body responding to the memory of her words with an intensity that was frankly embarrassing. The image of her clinical honesty—admitting that prolonged exposure to me could lead to "highly inappropriate behavior"—had ignited something primal and possessive in my chest.

I'd dated models, actresses, women whose entire careers were built on being irresistible. None of them had ever affected me the way Aveline's matter-of-fact confession had. The way she'd looked me dead in the eye and basically admitted that I made her lose control.

*Christ,* I thought, adjusting my position uncomfortably. Even now, just thinking about it, my body was reacting like I was seventeen again.

"This is what you get for marrying someone before you meet them," I muttered to myself, taking another drink. "Your wife turns out to be the most arousing woman you've ever encountered, and she treats you like a medical curiosity."

Still, beneath the frustration was a deep satisfaction. She'd felt it too—that electric pull, that overwhelming chemistry that had been driving me to distraction for weeks. Her body knew what her mind was trying to deny.

A soft knock at my door interrupted my brooding.

"Come in," I called, expecting Mitchell with some late-night correspondence.

Instead, my six-year-old son peered around the door, his arms full of colorful stuffed animals and toy cars.

"Daddy?" Ryan's voice was small and uncertain. "Are you busy?"

My expression softened immediately. "Never too busy for you, buddy. Come here."

He padded into the office in his dinosaur pajamas, clutching what looked like half the contents of his toy chest.

"It's past nine, little man," I said gently, crouching down to his level. "What's keeping you awake?"

Ryan arranged his toys in a careful line on my office carpet, his brow furrowed with the kind of serious concentration only children could manage.

"Look what Miss Sera brought me today," he said, holding up a particularly elaborate stuffed dragon. "She said it's for being such a good student. But Daddy..." He looked up at me with worried eyes. "She hasn't visited us in a few days. Did I do something wrong? Is she mad at me?"

I felt a pang of guilt at the genuine concern in his voice. Sera's feelings for me aside, she had been genuinely kind to Ryan, and he'd clearly grown attached to her.

"Oh, sweetheart," I said, settling cross-legged on the floor beside him. "Miss Sera isn't mad at you at all. She's just... well, she's a grown-up now, and grown-ups sometimes get very busy with their own responsibilities."

Ryan nodded solemnly, lining up his toy cars with meticulous precision. "Like how you have to work late sometimes?"

"Exactly like that." I watched him play, struck by how much more mature he seemed lately. "Ryan, can I ask you something? If Miss Sera gets so busy that she can't visit us anymore, and she can't bring you presents... would that be okay with you?"

I tried to keep my voice casual, but this conversation felt more important than I'd expected. If my relationship with the Ashford family was going to deteriorate—which seemed increasingly likely—I needed to know how it would affect my son.

Ryan considered this with the gravity of a philosopher contemplating the universe.

"Well," he said finally, "Miss Sera is my friend. And if she's too busy to visit, I would miss her." He looked up at me with those serious dark eyes that reminded me so much of myself. "But everyone has their own things to do, right? And everyone makes new friends too. That's just how life works."

I stared at him, genuinely amazed. "Where did you learn to be so wise?"

He shrugged with six-year-old nonchalance. "Miss Aveline says that sometimes people come into our lives for a little while, and sometimes for a long while, but every person teaches us something important. And that's okay."

*Miss Aveline.* Of course. I should have known her influence was behind my son's remarkable emotional intelligence.

"Miss Aveline taught you that?" I asked, my chest tightening with something warm and unfamiliar.

"Uh-huh." Ryan started counting on his fingers. "She also helped me make five new friends at school! Tommy, and Emma, and Jake, and Lily, and Marcus. Before, I only talked to grown-ups, but now I have lots of friends my own age."

He beamed at me with such pure joy that I felt my throat constrict with emotion.

"She said that having friends makes everything more fun. And you know what, Daddy? She was right! If I can go to school every day and see my friends, I'm happy."

I pulled my son into a spontaneous hug, overwhelmed by gratitude for the woman who'd given him something I'd never been able to provide: genuine connections with his peers.

"You know what?" I said, an idea forming as I held him. "Since you're being so incredibly mature and wise, I think you deserve a special reward."

Ryan pulled back to look at me with eager curiosity. "What kind of reward?"

"This weekend," I said, unable to suppress a smile at the plan taking shape in my mind, "I'm going to see if Miss Aveline would like to spend the day with us. Maybe we could go somewhere fun, just the three of us."

Ryan's entire face lit up like Christmas morning. He actually bounced in my arms with excitement.

"Really? You think she'll say yes? Can we go to the zoo? Or the museum? Or that place with the big slides?"

His enthusiasm was infectious, and I found myself laughing at his rapid-fire questions.

"We'll have to ask her what she'd like to do," I said. "But I think... I think she might say yes."

*I hope she says yes,* I thought. *Because I'm not just doing this for you, buddy. I miss her too.*