Updated Nov 23, 2025 • ~9 min read
The crying started at two forty-seven a.m.
I jolted awake, my heart racing, momentarily confused about where I was. Then the reality crashed down—Ophelia’s suite, the Vale estate, Lily.
Lily, who was crying.
I threw off the covers and stumbled into the hallway, my borrowed silk pajamas—because of course Damon had thought of everything—whispering against my skin. The nursery was just down the hall, close enough that the crying grew louder with each step.
I pushed the door open to find Lily standing in her crib, tiny hands gripping the rail, her face red and tear-streaked.
“Hey, sweet girl,” I said softly, hurrying over. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t stop crying, just reached her arms up in that universal baby gesture for pick me up right now.
I lifted her carefully, the way Macy had taught me, and she immediately pressed her wet face against my shoulder, her sobs muffling against the silk.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I murmured, swaying automatically. “I’ve got you.”
But she didn’t stop. If anything, the crying intensified, punctuated by hiccups that shook her little body.
Panic clawed at my throat. What was I doing wrong? Was she sick? Hurt? Did she need her bottle?
I carried her to the changing table, checking her diaper—dry. Not that then. Bottle? Macy had said she sometimes woke for a three a.m. feed.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, knowing she couldn’t answer but desperately needing to fill the silence with something other than crying.
I managed to grab a pre-made bottle from the warmer with one hand while keeping Lily secure with the other, and offered it to her.
She turned her head away, refusing, her cries turning to wails.
“Okay, not hungry. Got it.” My own voice was shaking now. “What do you need, Lily? Please, just tell me what you need.”
“She’s teething.”
I spun around to find Damon in the doorway, wearing nothing but gray sweatpants and exhaustion. His hair was disheveled, his chest bare, and despite everything—the crying baby, the late hour, the complete chaos—my brain short-circuited for a moment.
“What?” I managed.
“Teething.” He crossed the room, and suddenly the space felt much smaller. “She’s been fussy the last few nights. Macy said her gums are swollen.”
He reached into a drawer in the changing table and pulled out a small tube. “Teething gel. It helps.”
He squeezed a tiny amount onto his finger and gently rubbed it along Lily’s gums. She fussed for a moment, then gradually quieted, her cries subsiding into sniffles.
“There you go,” Damon murmured, his voice low and soothing. “Better?”
Lily blinked up at him with those brown eyes, and something passed over his face—pain and love and doubt all mixed together.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“First time solo night duty is always rough.” He capped the tube and put it back. “Macy should have warned you.”
“She probably thought you’d handle it.”
“I usually do.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “But I heard you get up, and I figured… two is better than one.”
We stood there in the dim nursery, Lily gradually relaxing in my arms, her thumb finding its way to her mouth. The intimacy of it struck me—the late hour, Damon’s bare chest just inches away, the shared task of soothing a baby.
This must have been what it was like, I thought. When he and Ophelia were together, raising Lily in these first fragile months. These quiet moments when the rest of the world fell away and it was just them and their daughter.
Except Lily might not be his daughter.
And I wasn’t Ophelia.
“She’s settling,” Damon observed, his voice still low. “You can try putting her down again.”
I carried Lily to the crib and lowered her gently. She fussed a little, her eyes fluttering open, but didn’t cry. I covered her with the light blanket, and Damon reached past me to turn on the small mobile above the crib. Stars and moons began to rotate slowly, casting soft shadows.
Lily’s eyes tracked the movement, already drooping.
“Come on,” Damon whispered. “Let’s give her a minute to fall asleep.”
We stepped out into the hallway, leaving the door cracked. My heart was still racing, partly from the adrenaline of the wake-up, partly from standing so close to Damon in the darkness.
“Sorry I panicked,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. “I should have known about the teething.”
“How would you know? You’ve been here one day.” He leaned against the wall, and I couldn’t help but notice the way the dim light played across his shoulders, the lean muscle there. I forced my gaze away. “It takes time to learn a baby’s cues. You’ll get there.”
“Will I?” The question came out smaller than I intended. “What if the DNA test comes back and she’s not yours? What if I only have two weeks with her before everything changes?”
Damon was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough.
“Then you’ll have been the person who showed up when she needed you. That matters, Keira. No matter what the test says.”
I looked up at him, searching his face. “Does it matter to you? If she’s not yours?”
I watched the war play out in his eyes—the truth he wanted to tell versus the truth he was afraid to admit.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve spent six months being her father. Holding her, feeding her, watching her grow. I love her. But every time I look at those brown eyes…” He trailed off, his jaw clenching. “Every time, I wonder. And I hate myself for wondering.”
The rawness in his voice cracked something open in my chest.
“You’re human,” I said softly. “You’re allowed to have doubts.”
“Am I?” He pushed off the wall, running both hands through his hair in a gesture of pure frustration. “Because I feel like a monster. Lily didn’t ask for any of this. She didn’t ask for Ophelia to cheat, or for her mother to die, or for me to spend every moment questioning whether she’s mine. She’s just a baby. She deserves better than this.”
“She deserves the truth,” I said. “And then she deserves people who will love her regardless of what that truth is.”
Damon’s eyes locked on mine, and the intensity there stole my breath.
“Can you do that?” he asked. “Love her even if she’s the product of Ophelia’s affair? Even if she’s a reminder of everything that went wrong?”
“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation. “I already do.”
Something shifted in his expression. “You’ve known her for two days.”
“I don’t think love works on a timeline.” I thought of my own feelings for him, years of longing that never diminished despite distance and time. “Sometimes it just… happens.”
We stood there in the quiet hallway, the weight of unspoken things heavy between us. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed three.
“You should get some sleep,” Damon said, but he didn’t move.
“So should you.”
“I don’t sleep much anymore.” He glanced toward the nursery door. “Too many ghosts in this house.”
I understood that. Ophelia’s presence was everywhere—in the art on the walls, the furniture she’d chosen, the very air we breathed. How did you sleep in a house haunted by your dead wife’s secrets?
“The guest house,” I blurted out. “In the back gardens. Is it occupied?”
He frowned. “No, why?”
“Maybe you should stay there for a while. Just until… until we get the results. Give yourself some distance from everything.”
“Run away, you mean.”
“Taking space isn’t running away. It’s survival.”
Damon studied me, and I wondered what he saw. The girl who’d fled five years ago rather than watch him marry someone else? Or someone who genuinely understood the need to escape?
“Maybe,” he said finally. “We’ll see.”
A sound from the nursery made us both freeze—a small whimper, then silence. We waited, but Lily didn’t cry again.
“She’s out,” Damon murmured.
“Good.”
Neither of us moved.
“Keira.” My name on his lips sent shivers down my spine. “Why did you really agree to this? To moving in, co-parenting, all of it?”
The question I’d been avoiding since the will reading.
I could lie. Could say it was just for Lily, just because Ophelia asked, just because it was the right thing to do.
But standing in the darkness with him, exhausted and raw and more honest than we’d been in years, the truth slipped out.
“Because I couldn’t say no to you,” I whispered. “I never could.”
His sharp intake of breath told me he understood the weight of that admission.
“Keira—”
“Don’t.” I took a step back, needing distance. “Don’t say anything. It doesn’t matter. This is about Lily, like you said. Just about Lily.”
“Is it?”
The question hung between us, dangerous and tempting.
“It has to be,” I said, my voice firmer now. “Goodnight, Damon.”
I turned and walked back to Ophelia’s suite before he could respond, before I could do something stupid like tell him I’d been in love with him since the day we met. Before I could ruin everything.
I closed the doors and leaned against them, my heart pounding.
Through the walls, I heard his footsteps retreating down the hall, toward the master suite he’d shared with my sister.
I climbed back into the enormous bed and pulled the covers up, but sleep didn’t come. Instead, I stared at the ceiling and replayed every word, every look, every moment when Damon had been close enough to touch.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Damon: Thank you for being here. For her and for me.
I stared at those words until they blurred.
For her and for me.
Not just Lily. Me too.
I typed and deleted three different responses before finally settling on: Anytime.
His reply was immediate: I’m holding you to that.
I set the phone down and rolled onto my side, clutching Ophelia’s expensive pillow.
Outside, the first hints of dawn were breaking over the gardens.
I’d survived my first night in the Vale estate. My first night as Lily’s guardian. My first night living under the same roof as Damon.
Only thirteen more days until the DNA results came back and changed everything.
Thirteen more days to pretend I was just here for the baby.
Thirteen more days to guard my heart like Beatrice had warned me to.
I had a feeling thirteen days wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
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