Too Late, Mr. Cooper: Your Bride Ran with Your Baby novel Chapter 126

Liam, ever the gentleman, pulled out a chair for Liliana. She sat down with practiced elegance, the amber beads on her hairpin swaying gently. She had just set down her small purse when a familiar child's voice piped up from the next table.

"Uncle, after we eat, can we go see a movie?"

"There's a new cartoon that just came out. All the other kids at preschool have their dads to take them. I... I don't have a dad. Can you take me, Uncle?" Logan's voice was small and pitiful, laced with a heartbreaking vulnerability that could melt any heart.

Liliana froze in place. Then she heard Linton's cool, detached voice reply.

"...Alright."

"And Mommy has to come with us!" Logan's voice turned excited, and he clapped his little hands. "Yay! Uncle is the best to me and Mommy! You're just like a real dad!"

"Uncle, I wish you could really be my dad! We would be the happiest family of three in the world!"

"Logan, don't talk nonsense," Isabella cut in with a gentle laugh, her tone feigning apology. "I'm so sorry, Linton. Logan is still young, and his ideas can be a bit naive sometimes. He doesn't mean anything by it."

"He's just a child," Linton said dismissively.

His cool gaze drifted toward the window, and his eyes widened slightly as he caught a familiar, elegant silhouette in the reflection. Liliana was looking right at him. Their eyes met through the gaps in the filigree screen, and for a long moment, they stared at each other in a heavy, awkward silence.

Liliana was the first to look away. As if she hadn't seen him, she calmly picked up her menu and whispered, "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

"If you had called me," Linton's cool voice replied, a placating tone creeping in, "I naturally wouldn't be with anyone else."

"So you're saying if Miss Hart doesn't call Mr. Cooper, you get lonely and have to find another woman to keep you company?" Liam drawled, leaning on his hand and looking up at Linton with a devilish, troublemaking grin.

Linton's eyes sank into darkness.

Liam continued, his voice a low, mocking laugh, adding fuel to the fire. "And not just any woman. Your own adoptive sister. Your childhood friend's widow. The mother of a three-year-old whose husband has only been dead for two months."

"Linton... you have some seriously twisted tastes."