I woke up before Lexi did, and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, was her face. It made me smile that she was the first thing I got to see in the morning. I debated waking her up for the moment but decided she could stay for a bit.

Slipping carefully out of bed, I went to the bathroom to get showered up. Then I wrapped a towel around my waist, another around my shoulders to catch any drops of water from my hair, then went back to the bedroom.

I moved over to the bed to where Lexi was still sleeping. A glance at my phone’s screen on the nightstand told me it was about time for breakfast, so I reached a hand out to shake her awake.

“Lexi,” I called out gently. “Come on, Lexi. You need to get up and go shower. We should be going to have breakfast soon.”

It took a few minutes with me shaking her and calling her name gently as she grumbled and tried to squirm stubbornly away from me. But then she opened her eyes and blinked up at me, then sat up. Her hair was sticking up, her eyes were squinted at me, and she still looked a bit drowsy. But I couldn’t help looking at her and wanting to take her again, my eyes falling to her exposed breasts as the sheets fell away from around her chest.

“What time is it?” she asked, rubbing her eyes with a fist. Then she raised her arms up as she stretched her body out with a yawn.

Fuck.

I couldn’t stop eyeing her body, but it wasn’t the best time for this shit. We didn’t want to miss breakfast, and I’d probably made her sore last night.

Get your mind out of the gutter, I thought to myself harshly.

“Almost time for breakfast,” I told her, leaning closer to peck a kiss on her cheek. “Get showered and dressed.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling at me before stumbling out of bed.

I thought about helping her, but she stabilized herself and walked toward the bathroom. I watched her the whole way, wondering if she knew she was naked. She’d been so shy in the beginning; if she could be this open with me, then things were progressing well between us, right?

Before I could get any ideas, I walked out with my clothes in hand. There would be no one out in the hall this early in the morning, so I didn’t feel worried. After getting dressed, I wasted several minutes looking through my phone to see if I had any missed calls new texts, or emails. There were a few.

When I thought I’d waited enough time, I got out of my room. I walked slowly down the hall, my eyes on Lexi’s door, waiting for her to come out. I didn’t have to wait long; I was out of time to keep stalling unless I wanted to start taking a step every minute. Before she walked out, looking shocked to see me there.

“Hey,” she said, smiling.

“Hey,” I repeated, returning the smile.

We walked down the stairs and to the dining hall together. I had this large grin on my face, and when I glanced at Lexi out of the corner of my eye, I could see she was just as happy as I was. We sat down at the dining table, and immediately, food was set. I waited until the maids were gone, then turned back to Lexi.

“Dig in,” I said with a wave at the spread. “And let me know if there’s something you like or don’t like, okay?”

She hummed with a nod of her head. “It would be hard, though. How could I not like anything? The food here is always the best. Better than anything I’ve ever had.”

I smiled to myself, feeling just a bit proud, even though I never lifted a hand to make any of the food in the house.

“I’m glad that you like it,” I murmured. “Though, it does make me curious about you.”

Her wide eyes looked up at me as she crunched down on some toast, then took a sip of coffee.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

So, she would just tell me if I wanted to know? We ate a little bit, and she kept sending me looks, probably waiting for me to ask. But, just in case I got her mad like last time, I figured I might as well let the both of us have our fill first.

Then finally, I said, “I did want to know a bit about your home situation. I mean, I know you were just living with your mom…”

She sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I don’t remember much about my dad, though I do have a few memories of who I think could be my dad. There were no pictures of him around the house, though, so I can't know for sure. He died when I was young, and mom didn’t take it well.”

“Your mom and you don’t get along?” I asked. She wouldn’t have run away from home otherwise.

“I don’t know if I would put it quite like that,” she said slowly. “We got along just fine, but I guess we never really talked. She got me through school, and she liked to drink. I didn’t like that about her, because she’s not exactly a nice drunk. Things fell apart when it came to college, though, because I wanted to go, but she wanted me to work so she could work less and bring in more income. We probably argued more than we’d talked in years, just because of college, before I’d had enough and just left. She wanted to hold me back in every way possible, and I was determined. The decision was pretty easy to make.”

She said it all so matter-of-factly, I wasn’t sure if I should have felt sympathy for her or not. She probably wouldn’t want any pity, though. There was some more silence between us because I didn’t know what to say to her. She was the one to break it this time.

“What about you?” she asked. “I’ve been curious about Edward’s mom, but I didn’t know how to ask before. I’ve been around the place, and I couldn’t even find a single picture of her. Is it okay for me to ask?”

Her question brought back the memories, and I felt a lump in my throat. But I managed a smile and a small nod for her. Of course, she would be curious, and there was nothing wrong with letting her know, after all.

“There are pictures of her around, but I keep them all locked up in my room because Edward gets quiet for days after he sees them. I’m hoping... that there will be a time when he will be fine with looking at them, and I’ll put them back up.”

She slowed her chewing, her focus on me. “What happened to her?” she asked softly, probably reacting to the tone of my voice which was the furthest thing from happy.

“Her name was Kora,” I started quietly. She didn’t miss the past tense, and I saw her expression fall into one of sympathy. “We met in college and… it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. You could say we were rivals. Only she disliked me a lot more than I did her because she thought I’d paid my way through everything when she’d worked hard to get to where she was.” I smirked to myself at the memories. “I proved her wrong, of course. Somehow, we fell in love, and got married right after graduation.”

I could still picture how beautiful she’d looked in her wedding dress, mere days after we graduated because neither of us wanted to wait too long after we’d already passed one hurdle.

“It wasn’t long before we had Edward. She and I planned to have a lot of kids. But when Edward was a year and a few months old, she got sick. Or, more like we realized she was sick, we just didn’t know before.”

There was a short silence.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small.

I just shook my head, shaking off the memories along with it, and gave her a small smile.

“It’s fine. We looked for the best, but there was nothing we could do for her. She did her best to be there for Edward in her last moments. The two of them were very close. She spent more time with him than I did, so he took it hard when she passed away. It’s why I want another child so badly while Edward is still so young. I want him to have a sibling to play with as he grows up. I don’t know if it’ll help any, but he’s slowly coming out of his trauma. He talks now when before, he would go days, sometimes weeks without saying so much as a word. He’s getting better, but I was so worried before…”

I surprised myself a little with how open I was about this. The words had just come out of my mouth without a second thought, but now that I’d stopped, I thought I’d said too much. So much, that the memories were rushing through my mind, and I couldn’t stop them.

We finished breakfast, and I didn’t raise my head from my plate once. I was feeling a little emotional, and I found myself blinking a lot to push back tears. I’d revealed pretty much everything about myself, and now she knew all the cards I held.

The moment I was done, I got up and left without a look or a word to Lexi, heading to my room alone to pick myself up.