“I get home after spendin’ a lot of my vacation on the phone with my dad, mom, brothers, gettin’ Fed Ex’ed shit to sign, goin’ over papers and emails, I come to my woman and she doesn’t even fuckin’ kiss me?” he asked and before I could answer (not that I was yet able to do so) he demanded, “So, tell me again how nothin’ is up your ass.”

“It’s a ploy,” I forced out and his stormy expression turned thunderous.

“What’s a fuckin’ ploy?” he bit out.

“That.” I made my arm move to indicate the letter from Hillingham. “It’s a ploy. It’s Dad and Mom’s way of saying they’re pissed at me. Trying to get me to react. Playing their games. I’m not going to lose my trust funds. Hillingham called me a week ago saying he’s shared that with my parents and I have nothing to worry about.”

Mickey scowled at me.

“You didn’t have to take your inheritance, Mickey.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that shit went down?” he asked, also tossing out an arm to indicate the letter.

“Because it was a nuisance,” I replied. “It didn’t mean anything. I got it on Thanksgiving and obviously that day other things took my attention. And to be completely truthful, I forgot all about it.”

Mickey drew breath in through his nose and looked over my head.

I stared at him.

He took his inheritance for me.

I kept staring at him.

He took his inheritance for me.

“All I need is you,” I said softly.

His eyes moved down to me.

Do what I gotta do.

He’d found that letter when he’d spent the night the first time all our kids were together.

And he’d done what he had to do.

“First, I have the Bourne trust fund, Mickey,” I began gently. “Prior to me turning thirty, if I did something that the board or my parents petitioning the board meant they could withhold it from me, they could have withheld that money permanently. Once I receive it, there are no caveats. It’s irrevocable. And that has enough money in it to live on comfortably.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek.

“Second,” I went on, “it could all go up in a puff a smoke and I wouldn’t care. Yes, I might eventually want better countertop appliances when we moved in together, but even that wouldn’t matter and not because I have my own. Because I’d have you. I’d have you and Auden and Pippa and Ash and Cill. If I had all that, since that would be having it all, what else would I ever need?”

“I got here, you barely looked at me,” he returned.

“You’ve been pulling away,” I shared. “I thought you were going to end things with me.”

His face again went stormy. “Are you fuckin’ crazy?”