Page 100 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I look at Mila in the playpen when she starts making disgruntled noises and let the warmth of her pull me back into myself. “Are you safe?” I ask suddenly, because under the absurdity, that matters first.

“Yes,” he says immediately. “I’m safer than I’ve ever been.”

“Do you love him?”

Julian makes a face at me that says maybe do not go full therapist in the middle of his sugar baby confession. But then Brendon sighs and says, “Yes. And I was just joking about the whole sugar baby thing. He takes good care of me, and not just because we’re in a relationship.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. That’s… good. I’m glad you’re being taken care of, Bren. And… I should’ve called sooner. About all of it. About you.”

“You had your own shit you were dealing with, Eli,” he says. “You called now; that’s more than enough.”

It’s the same kind of grace he gave me earlier, and I don’t know if I deserve it any more now than I did then.

“We should talk properly,” I tell him. “Not just over the phone.”

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “We should. Maybe we could have something together for Thanksgiving—”

On the other end, Dominic says something again, and Brendon lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously fond for a man who just claimed to be humiliated.

“Do you need to go?” I ask.

Brendon huffs softly. “Apparently my… host thinks I haven’t eaten enough.”

I grin. “Host, huh?”

“Shut up, oh my god.”

“Sugar baby Lane.”

“Go to hell, Eli.”

We talk a little longer after that, despite him saying he needed to go. Not about Dominic too much because I can hear there are parts of that story he’s not ready to hand over all at once. Honestly, I’m not sure I’m ready to receive all of them without making a face he’ll hear through the phone.

When I finally end the call, I look at Julian and Luca. Neither of them says anything for a second. Then Luca points at me and says, “I need at least twenty-four hours before we unpack the fact that your cousin is Dominic Volkov’s sugar baby.”

“That’s fair,” I say weakly.

Julian looks at me and asks the real question. “You okay?”

I think about my parents on the front steps. About Brendon’s tired voice on the phone. About what it means that both of us got thrown out for refusing to live inside some bullshit version of family honor.

I let out a slow breath. “No,” I say honestly. “But I think I’m less alone than I was an hour ago.”

Julian’s expression softens. Luca’s too, though he covers it faster.

Right now, that’s enough.

31

Eli

When Killian hands me the key to my new place a week later, I already know he’s going to make some kind of dry, terrible comment, because that’s what Killian does when he’s being quietly massive about something that would make a normal person emotional.

He stands in the gravel path outside the renovated outbuilding with one shoulder leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. He looks unfairly casual for a man who just took a neglected guest structure at the back of his family property and turned it into a place where my daughter and I can actually live.

Behind him, the building looks almost unreal in the late afternoon light, with a freshly painted exterior, new windows, a cleaned-up stone path, and a small porch with enough room for a chair and probably one of the duck-themed monstrosities the guys keep buying when they think nobody’s watching.

Killian drops the key into my palm, and the weight of it is small enough to piss me off because it shouldn’t feel this heavy.