Page 103 of Fierce-Colson

“It’s not different. And I’d like to have him over for dinner this Sunday. With Bella. Unless you think that’s too much?”

She wouldn’t know until she asked.

“I don’t want to put pressure on him.”

“Are you in love with him?” her mother asked, her head angled.

The question didn’t feel like an ambush.

It felt like a mirror. One shoved right under her nose for her to see anything in there that said she’d been fearful of.

Her mouth opened, then closed. For once, there was no polished answer waiting on her tongue. No argument. No deflection.

This was about being real and raw with the woman in front of her who she trusted to be honest right back.

“I think…” she started, then let out a slow breath. “I think I might be.” Her mother didn’t smile smugly. Just waited. Then Marly shook her arms out as if it released everything that was so tight inside. “It’s not like fireworks and chaos,” she continued. “It’s not reckless. It’s not him being fun and me being controlled. It’s steady for both of us. It feels right. And that scares me more.”

The last part was the hardest to get out.

“Because?”

“Because I don’t want to rush it,” she said. “And I don’t think he does either. He’s been married. Divorced. Engaged. He’s raising Bella. He’s not walking into anything blindly.”

“And you respect that.”

“I do.” She tipped her chair back a bit. “Part of me wonders if he held back at first because he’s learned the hard way. Because he knows what happens when you move too fast. I don’t want him thinking I’m another mistake.”

Damn, she didn’t even know those words were trapped inside until she opened her mouth.

Her mother’s expression softened. “Has he given you any reason to believe that?”

“No. None.” She shook her head. “If anything, he’s been the one slowing us down. Making sure we’re intentional. That we are doing it right. Those were his words too.”

“Intentional is good,” her mother said.

“It is. But my life isn’t exactly low-pressure. The mayor’s already circling. Councilmen making comments. High-ranking police officials are constantly at my door. Colson’s superiors at that. People watching who I have dinner with. If this becomes a headline instead of a relationship…” She trailed off, trying not to even think of those things.

Of the fact that Colson made a comment about his father’s past.

No. She said she wasn’t worried about that and she wasn’t going to be.

She couldn’t let it bother her.

“It won’t,” her mother said calmly.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you. I know you’re careful even if there is part of you that maybe wants to move fast for the first time in your life.” She met her mother’s gaze. “You’ve spent your entire life anticipating what people will think. Positioning yourself so no one can question your motives. But at some point, you have to live your life as a person, not as a title.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I repeat, you were married when you were a DA.”

“And you think that protected me?” Her mother smiled knowingly. “People questioned your father and me all the time. They questioned my rulings. They questioned his influence. They questioned how we parented you and Zander. They questioned everything.”

“And you didn’t care?”

“I cared,” her mother admitted. “But I didn’t let it decide for me. I didn’t let it rule or control me. I might have let it slow me down some before I decided, but it didn’t change the decision in the end. My life, my personal life, that has always been about family only. Your father, me, you, and Zander.”

Her fingers drummed lightly on her desk. “I don’t want him to feel like he’s stepping into a spotlight he didn’t ask for.”