Page 42 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless

Jaden's face cracks open with joy. "Mom!" He scrambles off the stool, nearly taking it down with him.

I catch him against me, dropping my shoes to wrap both arms around the only piece of Jakob I've ever been able to keep. His body vibrates with energy against mine, the familiar weight of him both comfort and accusation.

"You're early!" he says into my collarbone.

"Apparently just in time to hear about your dad's explosive business tactics." The words come out lighter than I feel, gaze lifting to meet Jakob's over our son's head.

Something dangerous flickers in his eyes—amusement tangled with recognition. "Richardson's numbers were trash."

"So you... what? Made their spreadsheets explode?"

"More like their profit projections."

"With lava?" Jaden pulls back, face scrunched in magnificent confusion. "Like the volcano?"

The laughter rips through me like an electrical current, raw and uncontrolled.

Not the careful, measured sound I use at work functions or parent-teacher conferences. Not the polite social laugh I've perfected over years of professional distance.

This is something buried, unearthed without permission—the ghost of a woman who once let herself feel without guardrails.

It terrifies me.

I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be laughing, shouldn't be allowing this man to witness a single unguarded moment. Not after what it cost me last time.

But I can't stop—the sound pours out, Jaden joining in without understanding the joke, just delighted by my reaction.

When I finally catch my breath, I look up to find Jakob watching me.

The mask is gone.

In its place, a nakedness that makes my skin flush hot, then cold. He's looking at me like a starving man at a feast he's forbidden to touch.

Like I'm water after years in the desert. Like if every other person on earth disappeared, he'd still be staring at me with that same desperate hunger and terrifying tenderness knotted together in his eyes.

It lasts only a moment—one heartbeat where the walls between us turn to vapor—before he blinks and turns back to the stove, shoulders rigid with the effort of reassembling his control.

"Dinner's almost ready," he says, voice rough at the edges. "Chicken parm. Jaden helped."

"I cut the mozzarella," our son announces, sliding from my arms. "With a real knife."

"Supervised," Jakob adds quickly.

"Of course."

I set my coat and abandoned shoes on the bench, hyperaware of how easily I'm slipping back into this space. How my body remembers its patterns here. How my pulse hasn't slowed since the elevator doors opened.

"Wine?" Jakob asks, not quite looking at me.

"Water." I don't trust myself with anything that might soften the edges. "I need clarity tonight."

Something shifts in his face, and I can’t dig too deep or I’ll chicken out.

He hands me a glass, our fingers brushing in a contact that shouldn't send heat spiraling down my spine—making me yearn to experience the feel of those hands uninhibited against my body until I forget my own name.

But it does.

Jaden dominates dinner, voice climbing with excitement as he details the volcano's final design. Jakob and I orbit himlike cautious satellites, exchanging glances, passing food with deliberate care to avoid another dangerous contact.