141 Chapter 141

Seraphina’s POV 1

I woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon.

For one perfect, stupid moment, I forgot where I was. Forgot what I’d done. My hand reached across the couch for Adrian, the way it always did in the mornings when he’d crawl into bed with me.

Empty space.

Reality crashed back in. The Morrison’s living room. Three hundred miles from my babies.

From my family.

*Former family,* I corrected myself, sitting up and wiping my face. *They’re better off without you.*

But the thought felt hollow. Wrong. Like trying to convince myself the sky was green instead of blue.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” Margaret’s voice floated in from the kitchen, bright and warm. “Coffee’s ready! Come eat before it gets

cold!”

I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and padded into the kitchen, where Margaret was flipping pancakes with the same easy efficiency she

probably brought to everything in her life. Robert sat at the table reading a newspaper, reading glasses perched on his nose.

“Morning,” I managed, my voice rough from crying.

“Sit, sit!” Margaret gestured to the empty chair with her spatula. “You look like you didn’t sleep at all. Here, drink this.” She pressed a mug

of coffee into my hands before I could protest.

Caleb appeared in the doorway, hair damp from a shower, looking disgustingly well–rested. “Morning. You sleep okay?”

“Fine.” I lied.

His eyes said he knew better, but he just grabbed his own coffee and settled across from me.

Margaret loaded my plate with pancakes, bacon, eggs–enough food to feed three people. “Eat up. You need your strength.”

picked at the food, managing a few bites to

pulled me back, “Where’d

quickly.

looks–the kind that said they were having an

setting down his paper. “We want you to know that you’re

couldn’t-”

firmly. “You absolutely could.

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141 Chapter 141

“You’ve already done so much. I was thinking… maybe I

that need-”

think we’re going to let you wander off alone into some city where you don’t know anyone? Where anything could happen to

a child-”

family.” Robert’s quiet voice somehow carried more weight than any shout. “And family doesn’t abandon each

words hit me like a slap. Family doesn’t abandon each

I’d

don’t want to

not imposing,” Caleb said. “Actually,

looked up at him.

in his chair, casual as anything. “Business has been picking up. I could use an

I don’t know

need someone to handle the front desk, answer phones, manage appointments,

all that organized, professional stuff you’re actually good

a wonderful idea! And you’d be right here, safe, with

pay you much,” Caleb admitted. “But it’s steady work, and you’d have a

“I don’t want charity-”

not charity if you’re working

at my untouched pancakes, my mind spinning. Stay here? Work at

Harbor. So far from who I used to

again, I wasn’t that person anymore, was

I said finally. “I was thinking… maybe it would

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