Page 6 of Single Mom’s Undoing (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems #1)

CLARA

I t’s a date.

For the kids, anyway. For Damon and me, it feels like a bit more, though neither of us has found the right moment to take it in that direction.

At this point, we’re having too much fun watching Matty and Shiloh dip their hands in paint cups and doodle all over large sheets of paper that Lenora, Damon’s mother, was kind enough to lay out for them.

“Go easy, munchkins,” Lenora laughs, gently guiding them to keep the paint on the paper and not on the hardwood floor or the handwoven rustic carpets of Damon’s living room.

“You need more blue,” Matty gently tells Shiloh.

The girl thinks about it for a moment, then nods in agreement, proceeding to add more cerulean blue to her unique artwork.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Jackson Pollock would be proud,” I quip.

Damon chuckles. “They’re having a blast. ”

“Who wouldn’t be, making such an artsy mess?

” I pause and look around the living room, admiring the walnut paneling on the walls and the framed photos, the rustic furniture, and the homey fabrics covering the sofa and the armchairs.

“You’ve got a wonderful home, by the way. It’s very warm and welcoming.”

“Thank you. My mother did most of the decorating, and she does most of the living here, as well. Shiloh and I spend a lot of our time at the mansion,” Damon replies.

“What mansion?” I ask.

“My son and his friends decided that working together wasn’t enough, so they chose to also live together,” Lenora sighs deeply, a tense smile settling on her plump face. “Shiloh loves it, though. It’s a huge place with gardens and plenty of open spaces for her to safely run around in.”

“We call it the Vanguard Manor,” Damon tells me. “It has three wings, gardens, and training grounds for our Oregon-based agents. One wing is dedicated to the living quarters for the three of us, one wing is for the operatives, and the third is where our offices and boardrooms are.”

“Wow, talk about taking your work home with you, huh?” I mutter, genuinely surprised. “When I was still living here, you guys had your own places, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I had and still have this,” Damon explains.

“The mansion just seemed like the smart thing to do to move forward and take our business to the next level. It also meant spending more time with our staff, so we did it. It worked. And now, we’re rapidly expanding, so it was worth it.

Besides, Shiloh loves it there. Our live-in babysitter, Marie, also has some military training of her own, which is a huge bonus. It’s the safest place for my kid. ”

I blink. “Go figure. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the business boomed the way it did. I just never imagined such a way of living before.”

“Neither did we until we tried it.”

“He still comes home every other Sunday for my pot pie,” Lenora chuckles. “And Shiloh loves my peach cobbler too much to stay away for too long, don’t you, honey?”

“Yummy peach cobbler!”

“I remember that cobbler well,” I say with a smile. “I have to agree with Shiloh.”

“Look, Matty, more blue! Do you like it?” Shiloh asks.

My son nods and dips his finger into a yellow cup. “Yes, but you need a sun, right here.”

He doodles a yellow circle at the center of her sky.

Shiloh watches his every movement with sincere fascination, turning her head every once in a while to look at me and smile.

Every time, she makes me feel like I’m the center of her sky, too.

I don’t know what it is about this little girl, but she disarms me entirely.

“I told you. She really likes you,” Damon says, inching closer to my ear.

A little too close, perhaps, based on my rapidly beating heart. We’re seated on the sofa, while the kids and Lenora are on the floor, art utensils spread at our feet. As startled as I am by the proximity of his body, I’m enticed by how much closer we could get, so I slowly let myself lean into him.

My shoulder presses his ever so slightly, my breath hitching at the heat of the contact .

“She’s so attentive and curious,” I tell Damon, trying to keep the conversation anchored in the moment.

“Matty is a very patient and kind boy,” he replies. “They play well together. Did he have any kids to play with back in Portland?”

“A few. We tried preschool for a while, and we met a couple of kiddos who later came over for playdates. He misses them, asks about them sometimes. I’m glad he’s got Shiloh here.”

“Given his heart condition, you had to pull him out of school, right?” Lenora asks, giving me a warm look.

I nod slowly. “Yes. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the staff there were not trained for his heart issues, and there were so many kids for them to deal with already.

I just couldn’t risk it. He was better off at home with me and Kacey, our next-door neighbor, who helped watch him while I was at work. ”

“Carter tells me you had a nice job in Portland.”

“I did, yes.” I exhale sharply. “I couldn’t hold on to it, though.

We had big projects to work on, and Kacey couldn’t cover most of my overtime.

I ended up falling behind, missing meetings.

In the end, they had to let me go. But they were kind enough to give me a decent severance package, enough for us to get by until I came back to Blackthorn Falls for my brother’s estate. ”

“Stephan was a good man,” Damon says. “He did right by you.”

“He did. I just wish I knew about this sooner. I think it could’ve changed the tone in some of our conversations, at least,” I tell him .

“Trust me, anything you think you should’ve told him before he left us, he already knew,” Damon replies.

Matty gasps. “This is cool!”

He’s just discovered that red and blue combined create purple, his fingers wiggling with excitement as Shiloh scoots closer to his side with paint-glazed hands of her own.

“Can I paint?” she asks him.

Matty stares at his new discovery for a moment, then gives her a nod. “Okay.”

“Gotta give my little man credit. He knows when to concede,” I chuckle softly, then shift my focus back on Damon. “So, where is her mom now?”

Lenora rolls her eyes. “Don’t get me started on that woman.”

“Mom, come on. You promised.”

“I promised civility, Damon. Not speaking well of…never mind.” She pauses. “You have the floor, son.”

Damon laughs and leans back into the sofa, leaving a bit of room between us. I don’t mind it. I want to be able to focus on what he’s saying, not just how gorgeous he looks in that white cotton shirt and jeans that hug his thighs in all the right places.

“Elizabeth Winston,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to lead anywhere serious, to be fair. We had a thing, and then she got pregnant. She decided to keep the baby, I proposed, she said yes.”

“Then she figured she could just plop the baby in Damon’s arms and go back to her career, traveling the world buying paintings for her rich clients,” Lenora scoffs .

“An art dealer then,” I conclude.

“A good one, too,” Damon says. “Most of the original artworks in the Vanguard Mansion were purchased by Elizabeth.”

“Let’s just say that Damon dodged a bullet with that creature. Shiloh is the only good thing to come out of that situation,” Lenora says.

Damon gives her a look, but I can’t really blame either of them for feeling the way they do—especially Damon.

He’s caught between a rock and a hard place, especially where Shiloh is concerned, since he’s obviously trying to salvage her mother’s image for a child who has yet to understand what happened.

It’s his way of protecting his daughter.

And it makes me appreciate him even more.

“Uh-oh,” Shiloh says.

That gets our attention.

She just spilled a tub of yellow paint all over the paper and part of the floor, and she’s about to dip her hands into the puddle. Laughing, I get up, rushing to stop her from making an even bigger mess.

“Hold on, honey, you don’t want to—” I lose my thought as I accidentally step into the puddle, then slip and fall.

“Mommy!” Matty cries out, understandably worried.

I’m laughing even harder, covered in yellow paint as my son rushes over and touches my face and neck with his red and blue fingers.

It makes Shiloh giggle .

Matty pauses, realizing that I’m okay, then he starts laughing, too.

Shiloh reaches out and starts fingerpainting all over my jeans. Lenora is briefly frozen, not knowing how to react while holding back a chuckle, as Damon smiles and helps me up.

“It seems our kids have decided you’d be a more fitting canvas.”

“Pretty sure there’s a compliment somewhere in there,” I say, holding on to his strong arms as I struggle not to slip again.

“Okay, let me get the kids cleaned up,” Lenora says, springing into action. “Clara, you should wash up, too. Damon, take her to my room, honey, I’ve got some clothes in there she can borrow.”

“Oh, thank you, Lenora,” I say. “You’re too kind.”

Damon snakes an arm around my waist, and I feel his hot breath on my face. For a moment we lock eyes on each other, while our kids giggle, giving his mother a hard time with the cleanup operation. She can handle it, though, so I let Damon guide me away from the living room.

“Come on, let’s get you out of those clothes.”

Twenty minutes later, I step out of the steamy shower, sparkling clean and ready to dry myself with a towel. Except I don’t see a towel anywhere, so I walk out into Lenora’s bedroom and head straight for the chest of drawers to find one .

I pat myself dry, checking the sides of my neck to make sure I didn’t miss any paint, my mind wandering back to Carter, then Damon, then Jace. For as long as I can remember, I’ve orbited around them somehow. Three suns that were always in some kind of sync.

My three-body problem.

The air thickens as I feel a presence.

Turning my head slowly, I find Damon standing in the doorway. A hungry, dark look is in his eyes as he measures me from head to toe. I’m practically naked, only parts of me hidden beneath the towel. I stand perfectly still, staring at him.

“I forgot to knock,” he says.

“Sure you did,” I mumble.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Clara.”

“One childbirth later,” I chuckle nervously, suddenly insecure about my curves and the stretchmarks on my hips and lower belly.

“Nonsense. Motherhood has made you even more beautiful,” he says as he steps into the room.

The distance between us shrinks until only a few inches are left. It happens so fast that my fingers twitch, and I drop the towel on the floor. I stand naked before him, my breath coming short and my pulse quickening. My nipples harden under his burning gaze.

“Every inch of you is beautiful, Clara. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” he says, his voice low, sending shivers down my spine. “Every mark tells a story. ”

“You have some marks of your own, don’t you?” I whisper.

“Battle scars, yes.” He looks deep into my eyes and I’m damn near close to fainting. “I’ll tell you all about them soon enough. We’ll study each of them in great detail.”

“Will we?”

He raises his hand, knuckles subtly brushing the side of my breast as he brings it up to cup my cheek and pull me closer. His cologne—a mixture of orange blossom and tobacco—fills my senses, throwing my mind for a treacherous loop. My lips beg for his, but I say nothing.

The anticipation builds.

The tension rises.

I can almost taste him.

“We most certainly will, Clara. You’ve eluded us for long enough, but not anymore,” he growls. “It’s a matter of when, not if.”

He steps away.

I shiver all the way to my core, slick between my legs as Damon nods at the clothes on the bed. “I’ll see you downstairs. The kids are cleaned up, too.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Damon’s lips stretch into an uncertain grin before he steps back and closes the door. As soon as I’m alone again, I draw a deep, hearty breath. My head spins, my body temperature spiking as I realize what almost happened. What I so desperately wanted to happen.