Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 285: Chapter 285 – Mommy! Are you coming home with us?

Voren didn’t turn around immediately, like turning around meant acknowledging an interruption he hadn’t invited.

”What.” Not a question. Barely even a word.

Jasmine stepped closer anyway, careful, like she was approaching something that might startle. ”Marigold won’t eat.” She kept her voice even, factual, giving him just the information and nothing extra.

”I’ll be there,” Voren answered, still not looking at her. He finally got Seraphine to look at him again with soft eyes and he was determined to keep things that way until he figured what happened to the memories they shared before she broke his heart.

His gaze was still on the middle distance somewhere past Seraphine’s shoulder, and Jasmine was smart enough to understand the dismissal for what it was.

But before she turned to go, her gaze moved to Seraphine just long enough. Whatever was in that look didn’t have a clean name. It wasn’t hostility exactly, but it wasn’t warmth either.

It sat somewhere in the complicated middle, layered with things Seraphine didn’t have enough context to fully read yet. Then Jasmine was gone, her footsteps quiet and purposeful back down the hall toward Marigold’s ward.

Voren opened his mouth.

”Who is she?” Seraphine asked first.

Something moved across his face. Not annoyance. More like the recognition that he’d walked himself into this conversation by suggesting friendship, and friendship meant questions, and questions meant he didn’t get to keep all the doors shut anymore.

”It’s a long story.” His eyes came back to hers, direct. ”And this isn’t the place for it.” He glanced down the hallway, the lingering observers, the fluorescent openness of a hospital corridor, the complete absence of privacy. ”The park tomorrow, with Marigold. Or my place. You pick.”

Seraphine pulled in a slow breath through her nose. Tomorrow was already stacked three layers deep. New business ideas that needed developing in the morning, and surgeries lined up in the evening.

”Tomorrow’s packed. Make it the day after.”

”Then it has to be my place.” Voren said it without hesitation, without making it a negotiation. ”I take Marigold to the park once a week, that’s her day. Not the right setting anyway.”

His eyes stayed on her, that particular steadiness of his that she’d stopped being able to fully dismiss. ”You know how careful I am. There are things I can’t go into out in the open.” His lips pressed together in a deep thought. ”Should I come get you? Day after tomorrow?”

His voice had shed the last of its edges, and Seraphine for the first time saw something fragile in them. Vulnerability. She hesitated. ”I’d need to call Corvine first.”

The name had barely left her mouth when her phone went off in her pocket, buzzing against her palm like it had been waiting for the cue. She glanced at the screen.

Corvine.

”Excuse me.” She stepped back half a step, just enough, and answered. ”Corvine. I’m just heading out now... don’t worry about it, I’ll grab an Uber.”

”I can drop you.” Voren’s voice came from slightly behind her, and from the phone, at almost the same moment: ”I can see what’s going on from here.” Corvine’s tone was dry, unbothered, the kind of dry that had an entire opinion tucked inside it that he’d chosen not to fully express. Yet. ”I’ll come in and get you.”

Seraphine closed her eyes for exactly one second. ”Fine. I’ll wait by the entrance.”

She ended the call and turned back around.

Voren was watching her with that look. The one she was starting to recognize as his version of amusement. ”You still can’t fully trust me.”

He said it without accusation. Just observation, flat and honest. Like he was noting the weather.

Seraphine didn’t confirm it and didn’t deny it, which was its own kind of answer.

”Anyway.” He let it go with the same ease he’d said it. ”Since you’re waiting, you might as well wait in Marigold’s ward.”

”Okay.” She agreed without argument, hoping for a chance to check for any birth marks on the little girl’s body. Voren was not known to have a woman, and now he had a child, made it suspicious.

They walked back down the hall together. Voren pushed open the ward door and Marigold’s head came up from the pillow so fast it was a wonder she didn’t tip herself over.

Her whole face reorganized itself into something that could only be described as unbridled delight, the specific, full-body joy that only children can produce without any self-consciousness about it at all.

”Mommy!” The word burst out of her. ”Are you coming home with us?”

Seraphine’s mouth had already started forming the correction, but Voren caught her eye and gave a small shake of his head, and Seraphine closed her mouth.

She crossed the room and settled onto the edge of the bed beside Marigold, and that’s when she noticed it. The food tray sitting on the side table, completely untouched.

Seraphine looked at it, then looked at Marigold with the most serious expression she could hold with a straight face. ”You haven’t eaten any of this?”

Marigold glanced at the tray with the particular look of a child who has already made up her mind and isn’t interested in renegotiating.

”I’m starving,” Seraphine said, letting the words land with full dramatic weight.

That got Marigold’s attention. Her eyes swung back, wide and suddenly very engaged. ”Then Marigold would feed mommy.”

”Hmm.” Seraphine tilted her head, like she was genuinely considering the logistics of this. ”Here’s the problem. Mommy is hungry because Marigold hasn’t eaten.” She kept her voice completely reasonable, like she was presenting simple math. ”If Marigold eats, then mommy would be satisfied.”

Marigold stared at her. Across the room, Voren chuckled.

Marigold’s eyes had gone very round, working through the logic of what she’d just been told with the intense focus of someone who suspects they’re being outmaneuvered but can’t find the flaw in the argument yet.

”Okay.” She sat up straighter, like she’d reached a formal decision. ”Marigold will eat.” Then she pouted. ”But mommy stays.”

”I’ll stay for a little while —”

”She’s leaving tonight.” Voren’s voice dominated hers, the earlier tension of the hallway fully gone. ”But she’ll come over to the house day after tomorrow.” He looked at Marigold. ”How does that sound?”

The effect was immediate. Marigold’s entire energy reorganized itself around this new information, processed it, assessed it, and found it acceptable.

”That should be fun.” Then, like the thought arrived fully assembled: ”Daddy, we should cook for mommy.” She turned to Jasmine with the authority of someone who expected agreement. ”Aunt Jasmine, don’t you think so?”