I’m just about to dive back into work when I hear male voices downstairs and then two sets of footsteps coming up. I glance down at my ratty yoga pants and ancient Sea World T-shirt and mentally groan. Damien may think I’m stunning all the time, but as a general rule, I like to at least brush my hair.

I’ve just decided to make a break for our bedroom to quickly primp, when they step into view. I freeze in the middle of the kitchen, confused. Because Damien is standing with Noah Carter.

“Hi,” I say, looking between the two men and wondering why Damien didn’t tell me we were having company. “Did you guys have a meeting planned?”

“You said you needed more time,” Damien says. He gestures to Noah. “I brought you the next best thing.”

I stare at him, then at Noah. Then back to Damien. “All right, I’ll bite. What are you talking about?”

“I have a month before my contract starts with Stark Applied Technology,” Noah says as if that explains everything.

It doesn’t.

I look to Damien, then hold out my hands in an expression that says I got nothing.

“Hire him,” Damien says. “I promise you won’t regret it. You have coding to blow through? The man’s a genius.”

“Hire him,” I repeat as I let Damien’s suggestion sink in. Then I smile, first at Noah, then at my husband. “You really are amazing.”

Damien grins. “So they say.”

“All right,” I say to Noah. “You’re hired.”

“Excellent.” He cocks his head. “You do have major medical and a decent severance package, right?”

I roll my eyes and point to the kitchen table. “Your workstation. Come on, I’ll show you what I’m doing, and we can set up a file-sharing protocol.”

He nods and follows me. Damien lingers, leaning against the refrigerator. “Don’t look so smug,” I say. And then I mouth, thank you.

He actually does look a little smug when he leaves, but I realize I’m smiling, and since that feels pretty good, I decide to give it a pass.

Noah’s as sharp as advertised, and having him around gives me a little time to breathe. Over the next few days we hit the deliverables, outline the next phase, and I even have some time to poke around on the Internet, exploring a few ideas that have been bubbling in the back of my mind.

And for the first time in a long time, I genuinely feel good.

I pause for a moment, just to let the pleasant emotion linger. It’s been far too rare lately, and although it’s wonderful to feel my heart lighten, there’s a little bit of guilt there, too. Like I shouldn’t be ready to laugh again yet.

I push the guilt aside, though. I don’t need it. Not yet. Not when the sorrow still comes in waves.

The intercom buzzes, and I leave my seat across from Noah to go and check in with the guard. “Hey, Jimmy. Do we have a delivery?”

“A guest, Mrs. Stark. She says she’s your mother?”

He says it as a question—one I don’t particularly want to answer.

“Oh. Well, okay. You can send her down.”

Damien’s in the gym, but I call him over the intercom, and by the time I transfer a couple of files to Noah and head downstairs, he’s waiting for me in the entryway in gray sweats and a UCLA T-shirt.

“I can send her away,” he says. “You don’t even have to see her.”

I shake my head. She’d been on my mind before, but since the miscarriage, I’ve been thinking more and more about family and parenting and mothers and daughters. “No,” I say. “No matter what else she is, she’s my mother. She’s family.”

“She hurt you.”

I nod because there’s no denying that truth. “I know. But Sofia hurt you. She hurt both of us.” I lift my head to look at Damien. “She’s family, too, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

I can see on his face that he wants to argue—and honestly, I know the arguments he’ll make because I can make them, too. That Elizabeth Fairchild was never a real mother to me. That I was a pretty dress-up doll to her, never a little girl. And that, once I became inconvenient, she had no use for me. At least not until I married Damien. Only then did I become interesting—and even then, only until she realized she wouldn’t be getting any of Damien’s money.

I know all that—I do. And yet there’s still a hole in my heart that is the shape of a mother’s love. And though I know that my sister fell through that hole and never managed to crawl out again, I can’t escape its dogged temptation.

“Sweetheart,” he says, but in a voice that makes it clear he knows I’ve already decided. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“Maybe,” I admit. “But you’ll be here if I do.”

When the doorbell rings, I jump, then hurry to let her in, pausing only for one deep breath before I open the door wide.

“Mother.” I hesitate, then step to the side. “Come in.”

“Elizabeth,” Damien says. “What brings you here all of a sudden?”

She flashes her most charming smile at him. “You look as dashing as ever, even in such unappealing attire. And, of course, I came because of the tragedy.”

She turns to me. “I saw you at the premiere,” she says, sweeping inside then standing still as she tilts her head from side to side, taking in the whole, huge room. “I was one of the plebeians in the crowd. I called out to you—did you hear?”

“I heard you, Mother. I was a little preoccupied, what with losing my baby and all.”

She makes a tsk-tsk noise. And though she says nothing else, I get the distinct impression that she’s criticizing me for making such a spectacle of myself.

I hold tight to Damien’s hand, grateful when he says nothing, but simply squeezes back.

My mother sighs heavily as she crosses to the sofa and takes a seat. “I wanted to come see you at the hospital, but I didn’t know how long you’d be there.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “I wasn’t in the mood for company.”

“You mean you didn’t want to see me. No, don’t argue,” she says, though I’ve made no move to contradict her. “You probably still don’t, but there are times when a girl simply needs her mother.”

I press my lips together and nod, and all the ways I’ve healed over the last few days seem to slip away from me as tears fill my eyes. Because she’s right. I wouldn’t trade Damien and my friends and all of their support for anything, but I can’t deny that I would have liked a mother’s arms around me through all of this.