Page 113 of His Surrender

“Good morning, Peanut,” I whisper, lifting her onto my lap.

She answers by immediately grabbing my thumb.

“I think she’s hungry,” Aubrey says.

“I think she just likes pretending she runs my schedule.”

Aubrey chuckles as she reaches for Liana’s bottle in the bag beneath the table. She hands it to me without either of us saying a word.

I adjust Liana against my arm automatically. She drinks it happily while Aubrey steals a piece of bacon from my plate.

“That’s my bacon.”

She looks completely unbothered. “You have five pieces.”

“I had five pieces.”

She smiles around another bite. “Sharing is caring.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Across the aisle, an older couple has smiled at us several times. I haven’t thought much of it until the woman catches Aubrey’s eye.

“You have the sweetest little family.”

Aubrey nearly drops her bacon. We’re both frozen in place.

The woman smiles warmly at Liana. “She has her daddy wrapped around her little finger already.”

Her husband chuckles. “And she’s clearly inherited her mother’s smile.”

For one suspended moment, neither of us speaks.

I could correct them. I probably should.

Instead, I look across the table at Aubrey who isn’t correcting them either.

She just smiles politely.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

The couple returns to their breakfast as though they simply commented on the weather.

The word lingers in my head. Family.

Not billionaire, CEO, or New York’s most eligible bachelor.

Not Liana’s nanny or Noah’s little sister.

Just … family.

I look down at Liana finishing the last of her bottle before glancing back toward Aubrey.

She wipes a tiny drop of formula from Liana’s chin with a practiced ease she’s somehow developed in only a few weeks.

She catches me staring. “What?”