Her Billionaires_ Boxed Set(134)

“You’ll drive me back to my place?” They’d left Dylan’s car in the apartment garage and come in the Jeep.

“I’ll drive us back to our place.” Dylan closed his eyes and leaned against Mike, nodding.

Sometimes it didn’t have to be so complicated.

Thank God.





Chapter Nine



Mike held the smartphone’s camera up and surveyed the soot-covered room slowly. Laura’s apartment building had just been opened for him and Dylan to come down, the fire investigation completed enough that they permitted residents to remove vital items. The conclusion: an electrical fire that started in the breaker box in the basement, directly under Laura’s place.

She was damn lucky. A few more minutes and...well, he wouldn’t be holding a camera streaming live video to her on her smart phone, her sweet face asking questions and giving directions as she rested under a down throw on his couch, looking relaxed and healing nicely.

His couch. At the cabin. When the fire investigators told her she wouldn’t be able to go back to her apartment for weeks, if not months, the structural damage too great for people to live there, the news had seemed to crush her. Quick to offer help, he and Dylan had both tried to get her to move in. Cabin vs. apartment?

She’d chosen the cabin. Who knew why, and he didn’t care. Josie was with her, helping to acclimate her, and now he and Dylan were on a mission to bring back whatever she wanted. Life as he knew it was over. Not just the past four painful, grueling months, but the time before that as well. He and Dylan would never be the same again. It was less about hiding the truth from Laura (twice) and more about what seemed to be a strange role reversal, with Dylan calmer, more reserved, more mature and Mike more emotive, charismatic, and, well—

Alpha.

“Not my circle chair!” Laura groaned as Mike pointed his phone at it. Black. “That used to be a really nice mauve.”

“It’s toast now,” Mike muttered.

“Laura, a restoration and cleaning company should really get in here before you take anything home,” Dylan interjected, arms crossed, brow furrowed, voice uncharacteristically stern and bureaucratic. “You shouldn’t inhale any of the soot from the fire.”

“Mike said he’d wash everything three times before I wear it,” she answered, voice echoing from the tinny speaker. Dylan shot him a look of pure evil. Mike’s saucy grin was his only answer.

“Suck up,” Dylan hissed.

Mike thought that over for a second. “I’ll own that.” Deeper grin. Dylan’s eyeroll felt like a victory.

Two hours later he and Dylan were straining to carry out a slew of choices Laura had made, from clothing to heirlooms to the cat beds, although he had repeatedly offered to buy her whatever she needed.

“Why does she want all this?” he asked Dylan as they crammed it into the back of the jeep. “Her coconut shampoo? Seriously?”

“It’s comfort. Control. Fire victims need it, so it’s good to do this for her. I’ve seen people cry over a dirty seventy-nine cent can opener. When your house catches fire and you survive, things take on more meaning.” Mike eyed a hand-knitted lap throw Laura had screamed about when found intact. Her grandma had made it. She wanted it for the baby’s crib.

“Her things, you mean.”

“Right. It’s not the same if you swoop in and just replace it all with a four-figure trip to Target.” Surveying the load, Mike started to understand. Laura hadn’t asked for appliances or expensive electronics. She wanted photo albums and video cartridges and clothing. Personal stuff you couldn’t really replace easily.

And the damn gallon jug of coconut shampoo.

“Gotcha.” Mike relished the drive back to the cabin, knowing she was there. Dylan had put dinner in the oven before they left, a slow-cooking roast, and tonight would be the first night they would all spend together.

As a family? The thought went through his mind so fast, like a blink, that he didn’t dare dwell on it. If he did, it might not happen.

Please let it happen. For the first time in months, the drive up the mountain felt like he was really coming home, Dylan singing along to some ’80s Christmas song, the late-autumn sun warming his skin as the prospect of creating a true home with Dylan, Laura and their baby warmed his heart.



“I still think you are nuts. And not warlock waitress nuts. Crazy. Cray cray. The baby needs to have a father on the birth certificate.”

Laura sat on the sectional sofa, butt sinking deep into the soft leather, a warm red down comforter keeping her toasty. Getting up would be harder than getting comfortable, but she had Josie to help. And, soon, Mike and Dylan. Snuggles moved a foot along the top of the sofa, chasing a patch of sun.