Chapter 6 - The Return to the Tower
Two days later, the black Cayenne pulled up to the private underground garage of the Drake Tower.
When the private elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse foyer, Hazel and Iris stepped out with wide, awestruck eyes. The sunset was painting the Seattle skyline in shades of bruised copper and burning gold, casting long, dramatic shadows across the hardwood floors.
Sloan walked behind them, leaning slightly on my arm. She was wearing a soft cashmere sweater I had ordered in three different colors, her posture rigid with that stubborn pride that ten years of single motherhood hadn't managed to bleach out of her.
"Is this really where you live?" Iris asked, pressing her small hands against the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooked Elliott Bay.
"It’s too big," Hazel declared, crossing her arms over her chest just like her mother used to do when she hated one of my business propositions. "It looks like a museum where nobody lives."
I couldn't help the laugh that broke out of my chest—a real, deep laugh that I hadn't felt in a decade.
"Well," I said, crouching down between them and looking up at the two girls who were essentially carbon copies of my own stubborn soul. "Right now, it looks like a museum. But I think we can fix that. What do you say we order three large pepperoni pizzas and throw every single minimalist pillow off this balcony?"
Hazel’s eyes lit up. "Can we?"
"Only if you ask your mother," I said, glancing up at Sloan.
May you like
Sloan was leaning against the doorframe, watching us with a soft, complicated expression that held all the tears of the past ten years and all the promise of the next fifty.
"Order the pizza, Griffin," she whispered, walking past me into the heart of the home she had once abandoned. "And buy some pillows we actually like. We're going to be here a while."
