The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

He watched to dumb down his thoughts so he could sleep. To relax.

The sight of her covered from neck to toe in silk had the exact opposite effect. The woman was trying to kill him. A long, slow, painful death.

He stood, clicked off the set. “I’m sorry it woke you.” He was not going to get an erection at the sight of her in a robe. Not to full stiffness, anyway. And he truly was regretful. She needed her rest.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I just came out to get some tea.”

But she hadn’t moved toward the kitchen.

“I guess I’m just not used to having the TV on in here.”

He needed her to move toward the kitchen. He had to pass where she was standing to get to his room. “I have it on every night.”

“You do?” She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. Greg sat back down. Sweat shorts didn’t hide much. He’d had just that one glimpse of her body, had focused on her face since seeing the robe, but this woman did something to him.

It wasn’t like he walked around with a hard-on in his pants on a regular basis. Most of the time his mind was so focused on other things that he got no exercise in that region at all. But with Elaina...

“I got in the habit during medical school,” he said. “I watch old shows, things that I find mildly entertaining but that take nothing out of me, to quiet my mind and get sleepy.”

“But...you watch it out here?”

“Sleep experts tell you that if you struggle to nod off, you should do nothing in your room except sleep, so that your body is trained to know what to do when you go there. Like a dog’s Pavlovian response, I guess. I’m not sure how valid the advice is, but it was mandated by someone my parents took me to when I was a kid, and I’ve just always kept up the practice.”

They were supposed to be getting to know each other. He figured this discussion qualified. And got his mind off her body and how badly he wanted to be allowed to touch it again.

“You’ve always struggled to sleep?” Her head tilt, the compassion in her voice, didn’t help him get any sleepier.

“I’m a full-steam-ahead type of guy. But I sleep fine once I wind down.”

She’d taken a step, finally. Toward the couch, and him, not the kitchen. “And you’ve been out here every night since you moved in?”

“Pretty much.”

“I had no idea.”

“That was the point. I won’t watch out here if it’s going to keep you awake.”

He could always get his flat screen out of the workshop where he’d ended up putting it and set it up somewhere in the office. He wasn’t into streaming on his phone—too small a screen for him. He spent his days dealing with small detail. Maybe he’d move the couch in there, too. He’d thought to keep things simple, since he was only likely there for a matter of months. Until the baby and Elaina were separated and he could have his own time with it.

“You’re fine,” she said. “Tonight’s the first night I’ve even heard it at all. And if I’d known that’s what it was, I’d have fallen right back to sleep.”

Interesting. And yet, there she was, saying she needed tea to help her sleep. And the natural conclusion to that was to assume she’d been awake long enough to need help falling back to sleep.

What had she thought the sound was? And how long had she been awake?

She hadn’t come out with her phone or any kind of weapon in hand. And there was the robe to consider. So probably not expecting an intruder.

More than that, if she’d thought there was any kind of danger, wouldn’t she have just picked up her cell phone and called him?

They might not run into each other all that much, but he was in the same building. Right down the hall...

“What did you think it was?” Curiosity got the better of him.

Her lack of immediate response whetted his appetite for an answer. Elaina, other than a couple of incidences of rambling or in his bed, was always calm, controlled. The most disciplined individual he’d ever met. And yet she stood there, fidgeting with her fingers, avoiding his gaze. Finally, chin up, she said, “I thought you had a woman out here.”

The idea floored him. A surge of anger followed immediately by incredulity, and then, lagging behind, a shot of...something else.

It was that last that had him saying, “And that bothered you?”