Grace kissed her fingertips and pressed them lightly to Fionn’s head. She straightened his blanket and whispered her Danish prayer to her son.
They stepped out of the nursery, and Grace noiselessly closed the door behind her.
“You’ll call me if you need me,” Kingsley said, an order, not a request. “If anything happens, anything at all, you’ll come to me first.”
“Of course,” Grace said as they stood by her front door.
“You don’t have to work any more if you don’t wish to. You or Zachary. You can work from home, buy a new house in the country, travel. I don’t care. The money is yours and your son’s. I know you’ll put it to good use.”
“We will, yes. I can’t… Give me a few days to wrap my mind around all this.”
“You have plenty of time.”
“If Zachary has a heart attack tomorrow morning, I’m blaming you.”
“Have an ambulance on standby.”
“My God, Kingsley. I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Kingsley said. “After all that’s happened, we should be able to believe anything by now.”
Grace laughed, and he embraced her again.
“You’ll tell him Fionn’s well?” she asked.
“I will.”
“Do you think he’ll come visit his son?”
“When he’s ready. Give him time. He doesn’t want to interfere.”
“It wouldn’t be interfering. Tell him that.”
“I will,” Kingsley said. “He’ll be jealous I held him.”
“Kiss your beautiful girl for me,” Grace said.
“With pleasure. Both of them.”
“Where are you going now?”
“Paying a visit to an old friend,” Kingsley said. “That’s all.”
“Speaking of old friends, what happened to your Sam?”
“What happened to Sam? Four years after she came to work for me the worst thing possible happened. She fell in love.”
“That’s terrible,” Grace said. “Happens to the best of us, though.”
“She moved out to California with her girlfriend. They got married a few years ago.”
“Did you go to the wedding?”
“I was her best man. We wore matching tuxedos.”
“Sexy penguins?”
“That was us.” Kingsley threw his bag over his shoulder, crossed his arms over his chest. “I haven’t thought about that year in a long time. Blaise and Lachlan are married now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He stole her from me. Not that I blame him or her. She always had a weakness for accents. Australian beat French, apparently. They live in Sydney. Felicia moved back to London a few years after the club opened. Justin runs a home for gay runaways.”
“Quite a crew you assembled.”
“I was always a good talent scout,” Kingsley said. “I knew what Nora would be the moment I saw her.”
“You did. You were right.”
“Twenty years ago… It feels like yesterday. Yesterday and a lifetime.”
“I imagine it does.”
“Twenty years,” Kingsley said again. “All that time, S?ren’s been the constant. Him and her.”
“Nora?”
“Twenty years ago she got arrested and that brought S?ren back to me. Twenty years later she gets kidnapped and that brought my son back to me. I’m almost looking forward to the next time she gets herself into trouble. I always benefit.”
“Nora get herself into trouble? I doubt you’ll be waiting for very long.”
Kingsley gave Grace a kiss on both cheeks and pressed his forehead to hers a moment.
“We’re family,” Kingsley said. “S?ren is my family, and that means Fionn is, too. You understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “If Nora’s his godmother, you can be his godfather. Then he’ll have four wonderful fathers who love him.”
“Four?”