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But it’s more than sex. More than “boss and employee navigates complicated attraction.” It’s the way he looks at Charlie when she rambles about a building she saw while riding the bus. The way he keeps hot chocolate stocked in the kitchen for her, even when he’s not home. The precise moment he put a copy of my new house key on his key ring and said, “This isn’t because I think you can’t take care of yourself and Charlie. It’s because I need to know I can keep you safe.”

It’s how easy he fits into the rhythm of my life without stomping out the beat I’ve fought hard to keep alive.

So I take a breath… and I tell them everything.

Well, noteverything.

I leave out the blood. The impossibly sexy fangs pressed to my neck. The way he’s fed from me and how it made me see stars in colors I didn’t even know existed. But I tell them about the break-in. About Kit. About how scary it all was, and how it hasn’t happened since. I tell them about Malachi showing up that night and how he didn’t ask me to be someone else—just helped me hold the line until I could breathe on my own again.

“Wait,” Penny says, leaning forward, coffee long forgotten. “So you’re telling us that after your stalker broke into your house, this Malachi—your vampire—showed up, handled the situation, and then basically moved in to play dad and watch trash TV with you and Charlie?”

I squirm in my seat, caught somewhere between defensive and flattered. “He hasn’t moved in.”

“Uh huh.” Angela cuts her eyes at me, scrolling on her screen again too smugly. “So he doesn’t have a key to your place?”

“If he has a toothbrush at your house, it counts,” Renée says, flipping a page in her cursed notebook. “If he has any clothes in your closet, it’s confirmation.”

“I’m with her on this one,” Penny murmurs. “Also, he sounds like the kind of man who calls you baby while he murders your enemies.”

I choke on my mimosa.

“He—he doesn’t call me baby,” I sputter, even though my face is heating up because he absolutely has. Softly. Once. Right before he pulled me onto his lap in his office and sank those wicked teeth into my neck again and—nope. Stop.

Tonya’s tone is soft with sincerity. “And Charlie?”

“She adores him,” I say quietly. “And not because he tries to win her over with stuff, though let’s be honest—he has done that too. But because he listens. And he never talks down to her. It’s like…” I trail off, searching for the right string to pull the thought free. “It’s like she feels seen. Like he respects her even though she’s twelve. And that means more to me than anything.”

Something cracks beneath my ribs. Not painfully. Just… wide enough to let more light in.

Tonya nods. “Sounds like he’s the real deal.”

“I think he might be,” I admit. The words lift something from my chest just to say them aloud, to acknowledge the truth of what I feel when he looks at me like I’m more than just some woman who pushed herself too hard for too long. Like I’m something worth fighting for.

By the time we leave Shorty’s, our bellies full of sugary carbs and mimosas, the morning has passed in a blur of stories, loud laughter, and warm reminders of sisterhood. We linger on the sidewalk, making promises to do this again next month—even though we all know schedules will get in the way and brunches might get pushed. Still, the promise feels real, grounding.

When I make it back home, I snort at the sight in the living room. Charlie’s already curled up on the couch with a bowl of cereal practically the size of her head. On either side of her are Eloise and Wren, both clad in different kinds of lazy weekend wear—Eloise in fuzzy purple pajama pants and Wren in what might actually be silk shorts and a matching camisole. I can hear someone in the kitchen, most likely Malachi.

I drop a kiss on top of Charlie’s hair and notice what the three of them are eating. “Is that Count Chocula?”

Malachi had filled me in on the silly revenge he takes against Lan, another vampire in the Inner Circle and Wren’s mate, when he annoys him.

“I have nothing to do with this!” his voice sails through the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

I raise a brow at Wren, the impossibly elegant vampire tech CEO. It still blows my mind that I’m getting used to having incredibly powerful people casually over at my house. For goodness’ sake, Eloise is literally considered the Queen of Vampires and she’s sitting next to my preteen giggling over some new dating show while eating cereal.

Wren has the decency to blush even though she rolls her golden eyes. She waves her spoon in the air as she clarifies. “He annoyed me. So he gets to deal with Emily all day and realize I took all of his favorite cereal with me.”

Eloise taps her spoon against her bowl. “He shouldn’t have messed with her calendar alerts. Now we all eat in victory.”

Wren takes another bite, then adds with a smirk, “Being mated to a vampire means accepting two things: dramatic retaliation and males who are obsessed with you.”

Charlie snorts. “Maybe you should have warned Mom. She blushes when Malachi kisses her neck in the kitchen in front of me.”

“Charlie,” I groan, my voice catching somewhere between warning and mortification. I drop into the mismatched armchair next to the sofa.

“What? You do!” she shrugs, clearly unbothered as she digs another spoonful from her bowl.

“Wren’s not wrong, though,” Eloise says, lounging deeper into the cushions like she’s settling in for the gossip hour. “He might not admit it, but Malachi’s been in full vampire mate mode lately. He installed that new security system, ordered you new blackout curtains, had your shower retiled?—”