“It’s serious?”
“We haven’t put a label on it. It’s too soon.”
“But you’re open to getting serious with him.”
When she flailed around, searching for the best answer, Aiyana dried her hands and moved closer. “I owe you an apology, Cora. This is none of my business, and Eli would be furious if he knew I was getting involved. It’s just that I’ve never seen him like this. His eyes follow you wherever you go, and I think I indicated on the phone that as tough and unreachable as he may seem, at times, his heart is so fragile...”
After clearing her throat, Cora met her gaze. “Well, I’m just as concerned for my own heart, if that tells you anything.”
Aiyana’s face creased into a big smile. “For you, it wasn’t quite as obvious to me, probably because I don’t know you as well. So... I’m glad I asked,” she said and pulled Cora into her arms for a warm embrace.
Cora breathed deeply, taking in the scent of her biological mother. She was hugging the woman who’d given her birth, a woman she was coming to love and respect more than she ever dreamed possible.
She probably hung on a little too long. When Aiyana tried to pull back, Cora couldn’t quite let her go, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kissed Cora’s cheek—and then Eli interrupted by poking his head into the room.
“What’s going on in here?” he asked.
Aiyana turned back to the dishes. “I just gave Cora the rest of the carrot cake, and she was thanking me.”
“You gave her all of it? No way! I get half,” he said, and later, once they were at his house, he decided to claim his share. But Cora didn’t mind, since he ate it off her body.
“Were you really hugging my mother because she gave you the cake?” he asked as he licked a final drop of frosting off her nipple.
She caught her breath as he made sure he’d gotten it all, wondering if now might be a good time to tell him who she was. He’d just given her the perfect intro—and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. What if their fledgling relationship couldn’t withstand the shock wave?
She didn’t want anything to come between them. Not only that, but Aiyana was so pleased they were together. Why risk ruining everyone’s current happiness when she had all year? “Yes.”
He dropped onto the bed beside her, seemingly sated and obviously tired. “Wow. You really like carrot cake.”
“I really like your mom,” she said softly.
“Doesn’t everybody?” He propped his head up with his hands. “What’s yours like?”
“She’s...different from Aiyana. Not quite so socially conscious, but she’s also a nice person. She did a great job raising me.”
“You don’t have any complaints about your childhood? The way you were talking at the restaurant, I thought maybe there’d been some problems.”
“No big ones.” Her mother’s vanity could wear on her. Lilly could be a little materialistic, but Cora couldn’t say anything derogatory about her. She already felt too disloyal just by being here—and getting involved in Eli’s life and Aiyana’s life...
“I’d like to meet her.”
Cora wasn’t about to invite Lilly to the ranch. She planned to keep this new world separate from the one she’d left in LA. Otherwise, she’d feel even guiltier. “She’s really busy.”
“Doing what?”
“She’s a big philanthropist, always involved in one community event or another.”
“That makes her sound caring.”
Except that she sometimes gave the impression she did charity work more because she was bored and liked the positive attention it brought her. “She is caring. It’s complicated, completely harmless. No one is all one way or the other, you know?”
“She doesn’t have a job?”
“Doesn’t need to work. But she has lots of friends she goes out with for...for brunch and movies and what have you. And she golfs,” she added weakly.
“Ah, I can see she’s completely buried.”
Cora heard the sarcasm but pretended she hadn’t. “She is.”
“We’re not that far from LA,” he said.
“Yeah. She’ll come visit. Sometime.”
He lifted his head to give her a funny look. “I mean we could go there any weekend you choose.”
“Maybe for Christmas,” she mumbled since the holidays sounded a long way off.
He didn’t say anything. He got up and went into the bathroom to turn on the shower so they could wash off the sticky residue of the frosting, and she leaned over to check her phone. She’d tried to reach Matt earlier, before going to the basketball courts to find Eli for breakfast, but he hadn’t picked up. He hadn’t responded to her text, asking him if he got home okay, either. She thought he was just going to write her out of his life, and was happy to have him do that. But when she took a moment to listen to the voice mail her mother had left while she was having dinner at Aiyana’s, her blood ran cold. In a voice choked with emotion, Lilly asked her why she hadn’t told them she’d gone to Silver Springs to meet her biological mother.