“If we had an event we were going to, it was our habit that I would collect Chris as Ilsa finished preparing for the evening and I would bring him to her in order that she could say goodnight to her son.”

He watched understanding light in her eyes before she whispered, “Oh God.”

But Apollo’s attention again drifted, as did his unfocused gaze, his thoughts turning to his son and what he must have felt the evening before, walking into Madeleine’s room, seeing her dressed for the gale wearing the colors of Ulfr house, appearing much like his mother about to do something he saw his mother so often do.

He gave a start when he felt Maddie’s hand light on his jaw and he returned his gaze to her to see she’d lifted up from the bed and gotten close.

“I can imagine that although I look like her, I didn’t seem much like her, until last night,” she noted.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“And I can imagine that what I am to you could seem innocuous to him, until he understood what we were doing last night and what I am to you became clearer.”

“Indeed,” Apollo again agreed, although he felt some disquiet at her use of the words “what I am to you” rather than how she should refer to herself as “who I am to you.”

“Crap,” she murmured before he could remark on this and he noticed her gaze had gone unfocused and had moved to his shoulder just as her hand fell away from his jaw.

He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze to regain her attention. This succeeded and her eyes came back to his.

“We will give him his time, poppy,” he told her. “Clearly, he wishes to try to sort through his emotions on his own. We must allow him to do that. We will, however, keep an eye on him, and if that time is too lengthy, I will have another word. Yes?”

Her brows drew together and she queried, “Are you asking me or telling me?”

He moved a bit away from her, confused as to her question, but answering, “I’m asking.”

Something shifted through her features but she merely mumbled, “All right.”

“Maddie,” he started. “Why do you ask such a question?”

“Hmm?” she inquired in return, clearly evading his query with a vague one of her own.

“Is ‘hmm’ the answer to my question, dove?”

“Well…” she said but trailed off and said no more.

“Madeleine,” he said her name as a warning and he watched her draw in breath through her nose before she straightened her shoulders and looked into his eyes.

“I’m not his mother,” she stated, her voice strange, quiet, and something else he’d never heard from her.

Something that sounded like pain.

“No, my poppy, you aren’t,” he replied gently. “But even so, I don’t understand why you’ve mentioned it.”

“Well, you asked what we should do with Chris, who has an issue he needs to sort out. And that’s, well…it’s not really any of my business how you deal with Chris. You’re his father. I’m nothing to him.”

At this, Apollo blinked and again felt fire in his chest. This time, it wasn’t the fire of feeling the remembrance of the grief he’d not too long ago shirked, grief his son re-experienced just the night before.

This time, it was the fire of anger. Anger he controlled due to the subject and Maddie’s sensitivity to it, but anger he felt nonetheless.

“You’re nothing to him?” he asked, his tone soft with disbelief but tense with ire.

“I mean, not nothing nothing,” she said quickly, reading his tone and undoubtedly the look in his eyes. “But I’ve no say in how—”

“Cease speaking,” Apollo ordered and she clamped her mouth shut. “It’s my understanding that we’re building a life together,” he noted. “Am I mistaken in that?”

“No,” she whispered.

He was pleased with her answer.

That said, he was still not pleased.

“And as you are in my life, my children are in my life, you are an adult who is close to them and will grow closer, do you not think we should confer as to how we deal with the varying matters that will arise as they mature?”

“I didn’t think I—”

“Think it,” he interrupted her. “It’s preposterous to consider that you would be in my life, will be my wife, we’ll live out our days together, days we will share with my children for years to come, and you will not help me to raise them.”

She held his gaze, something working in hers. He again had not seen it before but this time it was not pain.

Far from it.

He felt the burn release his chest when he saw that this time, it was hope.

He watched her eyes get bright before he saw her swallow and then she whispered, “Okay, then I think it’s a good idea to give Chris some time and then approach him if it doesn’t seem like he’s working it out on his own.”

His voice was again gentle when he said, “Then we’re agreed.”

She nodded.

Apollo lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against her knuckles. She watched him do this and he watched her eyes get soft when she did.

She lifted her gaze back to his and remarked, “You keep giving me things.”

He liked very much that she thought of him wishing her to be a part in his children’s lives in that way as him “giving her things.”

It was arguable, but he could have liked it more, the look of contentment and gratitude in her eyes at receiving it.

“I would endeavor to become accustomed to that, Madeleine, for I intend to continue doing it.”

Her eyes already warm, the skin around her mouth softened and she moved. Leaning in, she touched her lips to his and asked, “And what can I give you that you’d like to become accustomed to?”

He knew he had all of her that he could have. What he didn’t have, night by night, day by day, she was giving to him. He asked questions, she answered, giving him her life, the vile people in it and the knowledge of the fractures they’d made to her soul. And he hoped this knowledge would provide him with the information he needed to heal what was broken inside her.

But what he wanted most was her heart.

He knew she “pretty much” cherished him.

He wanted more.

With Maddie, he always wanted more.

But he had to win that before she gifted it to him.

And he would.

He released her hand, moved his to her neck and slid his fingers back and up into her hair before he bared his teeth and nipped her lower lip.