Masuk
The room was quiet except for the sound of our uneven breathing. My mind and body drained from the wave of pleasure and ecstasy I had just come down from. I knew that Kade Carter was an amazing man but I had no idea that he was an amazing lover as well.
"God, you're amazing." The man of my dreams muttered into my messy hair before he pulled away and plopped on the bed next to me, his heavy breathing music to my ears. We stayed like that for what felt like forever before I chuckled and he followed suit. "That was…" "Amazing?" He finished for me, propping up on one arm to look at me. I gazed into his eyes, touching his face, so happy that I was finally with my knight in shining armor. Kade Carter. After five years of looking for this man. Five years of wanting to be by his side after he shielded me from that staged mugging and saved my life, I was finally in his arms. This was truly amazing. Dreams really do come true. "You can take a picture you know." He poked, twirling my hair in his hand before pecking my cheek and getting off the bed. I blushed, realizing that I had been staring while my mind flitted back to the past for a second. "I just might." I teased, my eyes trailing his ass and then his broad back, nasty thoughts plaguing my mind once more but just as my eyes reached the tip of his right shoulder, everything stopped. I blinked. Then I blinked again. The pleasure drained out of me so fast it was almost physical, like someone had pulled a plug and left me hanging on for dear life. The hell? His right shoulder was smooth. There was no mole. I sat up slowly, a pit slowly forming in my chest. "So, maybe I just freshen up and make you some breakfast or maybe I have you for breakfast again and we order in some room service?" He offered, turning to me with a raised brow and lust in his eyes. I said nothing for a second, just stared into space. My Kade had a mole, so distinct that I had memorised it from the one night I had been close enough to see it during the attack. It was the kind of mark you could not miss and this man did not have it. I swallowed hard. This was not Kade Carter. The realisation set in and all I could do was grimace. I had tracked him down. I had found a way into his bed. My mouth had watered at being so close to him last night and now I felt like I had been through a drought for months. How had I not looked sooner? How had I been so stupid? I chuckled nervously and scooted off the bed, trying to keep my face neutral while my insides were doing somersaults. "I don't think I'll stay for breakfast. I have a long day ahead of me and after that amazing sex, it was just the pick-me-up I needed to get through it." I praised him as I picked up my clothes from the floor, rushing to put them on and get out before he could see past the act but he was perceptive enough to stop me, arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me into that strong chest of his. "Hmm, just stay for a little while. I'll handle work for you." He whispered into my ear, his nose rubbing my neck as his now rock hard dick poked the small of my back. Any other day that might have worked. Today it just made my skin crawl with guilt. I quickly pulled away and shot him a smirk, putting on my best seductress act. "Well, maybe you'll end up seeing me again. Who knows?" "Or I could see you again if you just come for dinner? I can cook a mean alfredo pasta." He said, taking a step towards me as I wore my clothes. I gave him a look and plucked my bag from the floor. "We'll see." The mystery man grinned, running his hand through his hair. "We'll see then." I put on my shoes and rushed towards the door to leave when I paused, my hand on the frame. My mind was still running in circles and there was a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that I could not shake. This man was not Kade Carter but he looked exactly the same, like a perfect copy that it was unsettling. I had to know who he was. I needed it to make sense. I turned to him, his eyes still on me. "By the way, I never did get your name after…" "After you pulled me away from the hotel bar and fucked my brains out?" He finished for me, making me laugh awkwardly. "Yeah." "I know your name though, miss Mia Perez." "But yours is?" I pressed, holding his gaze. "My name's Killian. Killian Carter." Carter? As in Kade's family name? They were too alike and this was too much of a coincidence to be anything else. Killian had to be Kade's brother, or his cousin, or his twin to have completely fooled me. When I came to, I smiled at him. "I guess I'll see you around Killian Carter." I told him, the lie flowing from my mouth effortlessly. Before Killian could even say another word I was out the door and rushing to my car in the hotel parking lot. As soon as I got in, I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and just sat there for a moment, staring at nothing, the full weight of what I had done pressing down on me. Then I let my forehead drop against the wheel and groaned. "How could you sleep with the wrong guy, Mia? Ugh." I stayed like that for what felt like hours before I pulled out my phone with a sigh and started digging. A few clicks on the right name told me everything. Killian Carter was Kade's twin. I had climbed into bed with Kade Carter's identical twin brother like some kind of spectacular idiot and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it now. Killian had been in the city while Kade had been abroad for months, closing a business deal and there was no news on when he was coming back to New York. I turned off my phone, chucked it in the passenger seat and turned on my car, wanting to leave this place when there was a ring from my phone. I glanced over at the text message from an unknown number. Killian here. I wanted to make sure that you had my number, princess. See you soon. I stared at it for a second too long before turning the phone face down and peeling out of the parking lot. There was only one reasonable thing left to do after a morning like this. Drink and forget that this ever happened.It was Eloise, predictably, who first raised the question none of us had quite voiced aloud."Have you three considered another child?" she asked one Sunday afternoon, watching Hope, now six and increasingly theatrical, perform an elaborate puppet show for an audience of stuffed animals arranged with great ceremony across the living room floor.I nearly choked on my tea. "Eloise.""I'm simply asking," she said, entirely unrepentant, her eyes twinkling with the particular mischief she'd developed over the years since her divorce, a lightness that suited her considerably better than the careful composure she'd once worn like armor. "I'm not getting any younger, and grandchildren are remarkably good company.""We haven't really discussed it," I admitted, which was mostly true, though the question had occasionally drifted through my own private thoughts more often than I'd consciously acknowledged.I brought it up that evening, somewhat tentatively, both twins settling into the conversati
By the time Hope turned five, our unconventional family had settled into a rhythm so thoroughly ordinary that I sometimes forgot, for days at a stretch, that we'd ever been anything other than completely normal.It was the school that finally reminded me.The call came on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday afternoon, the school's front office requesting that one of us come in immediately regarding an incident during recess. I left work in a rush, my stomach twisting with the particular dread reserved specifically for unexpected calls about your child, arriving to find Hope sitting outside the principal's office with her arms crossed, her expression a perfect, fierce echo of every courtroom face I'd ever practiced in a mirror."What happened?" I asked, kneeling in front of her, checking quickly for any visible injury."Tommy said I have two daddies because my mommy couldn't decide which one to marry," Hope announced, her small chin lifted defiantly. "So I told him that's not true, and
Two years after Hope's birth, I found myself standing at the edge of a decision I genuinely hadn't anticipated needing to make.The firm's senior partner, a quietly formidable woman named Diane Whitfield who'd mentored me since my earliest days as a junior associate, called me into her office on an unremarkable Tuesday with an offer that made my pulse spike for entirely different reasons than the chaos that had once defined every unexpected meeting in this building."We're restructuring the partnership," she said without preamble, her sharp eyes assessing me over the rim of her glasses. "I'm retiring within the year. The board wants to discuss you as my successor for senior partner."I sat very still, absorbing the weight of what she was actually offering. "Me. Senior partner.""You've earned it, Mia. Five years of managing director excellence, a hostile takeover survived with your reputation intact, and frankly, you've handled more genuine chaos in this building than anyone else curr
Hope's first birthday arrived with a speed that genuinely startled me, the exhausted, blurry early months somehow giving way to a year of small, accumulated milestones I'd absorbed so gradually I hadn't fully registered how much had changed until I found myself planning an actual birthday party for an actual toddler.She'd inherited, much to both twins' mutual delight and exasperation, a perfect blend of their personalities. Kade's quiet, focused determination showed in the way she'd approach any new toy with methodical, careful curiosity, turning it over from every angle before committing to actually playing with it. Killian's restless, fearless energy showed in her complete disregard for personal safety, an alarming tendency to attempt climbing anything taller than herself the moment nobody was looking directly at her."She gets the climbing thing from you," I told Killian for what felt like the hundredth time, retrieving Hope from the bookshelf she'd somehow scaled three rungs up b
Nothing, it turned out, fully prepared any of us for the actual chaos of bringing a newborn home.The first week passed in a sleep-deprived blur, the three of us stumbling through a routine that bore no resemblance to the careful, organized system we'd discussed in theory during the calm months of pregnancy preparation. Hope, it quickly became apparent, had her own opinions about sleep schedules, feeding times, and the general concept of nighttime existing as a period of rest rather than constant, demanding wakefulness."I genuinely don't understand how something this small can be this loud," Killian muttered at three in the morning on our fourth night home, pacing the nursery with Hope screaming against his shoulder, his usually composed hair sticking up at angles that suggested he'd given up entirely on appearances somewhere around midnight."She has excellent lungs," I said from the doorway, exhausted but unable to suppress a small, tired laugh at the sight of him. "I've heard that
The reception unfolded beneath a canopy of string lights Eloise had insisted on, despite both twins assuring her, multiple times, that the garden's natural beauty needed no additional decoration."Every celebration needs string lights," she'd said firmly, the one design opinion she refused to compromise on, and standing beneath them now, the warm golden glow scattered across the small gathering of people who actually mattered, I understood exactly why she'd held her ground.I sat at the head table, my swollen feet finally elevated on a cushioned stool Killian had practically wrestled away from a confused caterer, watching the small crowd mingle with an ease that felt, after everything, like its own small miracle.Cole found me first, sliding into the seat beside me with a plate piled embarrassingly high with appetizers."Okay," he said, mouth half full, "I need to formally revise my earlier skepticism. That ceremony actually made me cry, and I have genuinely cried at very few things i
The rest of the day was spent with my brain oscillating between fuming and crying. They were both so stupid, so stubborn. I regretted even going to the dinner with Killian. Maybe if I had completely ignored him I’d still have my semi- normal life. Although, a deep, hidden, secret part of me wanted
The question hung in the air like a guillotine blade. I didn’t answer Clover. I couldn’t.“I told you. None. I’m very single and you know it Clover.” I stepped around her, my heels clicking a frantic, uneven rhythm against the floor until I reached the safety of my office and slammed the door.But
The walk to my office felt like a funeral procession with an open casket, like everyone could see me dead and at my worst.The glass walls of the hallway were the windows of an aquarium. I and the Carter twins were on display for the people to watch.The moment the door to my office clicked shut, I
My coffee burned hot as I sat in my seat. The Carter twins had bought my company off the previous day and I had immediately clocked out of work early.Pretending to be sick was easier than staying.I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have screamed if I had stayed.My desk was full of the unfinished documents







