19. Reid
Chapter nineteen
Reid
Ishould’ve stayed away.
I told myself those same words as I walked down those stairs, away from her tears and away from her hand that burned mine when I touched it. Repeated the lines over and over as her scent filled the car.
Told myself again when I saw her across the ballroom, bathed in low gold light, glass of champagne in hand, smiling with a woman who I’d recognized but whose face I couldn’t put a name to.
But that didn’t matter.
What mattered was her, standing there in one of the dresses I picked specifically for her, the one I touched with my own fingers just hours ago. My eyes fixed on the way it hugged her shape, caressed her body in ways my hands only ached to.
And she was still performing. Still putting on a fabricated smile, still hiding behind her practiced calm like it was her armor.
I hated that she still made my blood burn hotter than anything else in this world. That the sound of her voice made my hands twitch as they remembered the weight of her hips, the way she begged the last time and every time I touched her.
Going over to the bar, I ordered another whiskey on the rocks. It was stronger than my first, but the burn in my chest had nothing to do with the alcohol in my system.
My eyes tracked her across the ballroom despite my mental protests.
Just beyond the cluster of socialites and faux philanthropists, she was laughing, the woman she’d been conversing with long gone.
In her place was a man. Standing far too close, saying something that made her giggle behind the rim of her champagne glass.
Even in the bustling ballroom, I could hear her through the fog.
I’d heard that laugh before. It was soft, light… real. It used to be mine.
I clenched my jaw and set the glass down harder than I meant to.
The man’s hand lifted as he spoke, his gestures animated and smug. Trying too hard. Probably some fucking jackass with a half-inflated ego and no idea who he was smiling at.
My fingers curled around the edge of the counter beside me. I didn’t realize how tightly I was gripping it until I felt the ache in my hand.
I wanted to move. Close the distance. Watch him wilt beneath the weight of who I was and who she really belonged to.
But I didn’t.
Every time I let my control slip around her, she found a new way to hate me for it.
And for whatever reason… I needed her to hate me a little less. At least for the night.
“Reid Kaufman.” A voice cut through my mental spiral, a voice I recognized all too well from California.
Turning my head, my eyes landed on David Whitmore. A friendly rival in Silicon Valley, if such a thing existed. He knew the game almost as well as I did. Offering my hand to him, I shook his, my mind leaving Genevieve for a brief moment.
“David, always a pleasure… What brings you into town?” I asked.
“You know how word travels. Heard about your restructuring proposal for Newman Trust. Clever work. Risky, but clever.”
“And are you impressed?”
David offered a half-smile. “I’m intrigued. I’ll give you that… you move fast. You always do.” He looked at me evenly. “I just didn’t expect this play from you.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re tying your name to a sinking ship, publicly,” he muttered. “Inheriting your family’s decade worth of mismanagement…”
“You say that like I can’t lend a helping hand.” I chuckled, low, and his smile remained.
David swirled his drink, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“That’s the thing though, Reid. You don’t lend hands.
Newman’s liabilities don’t match their assets.
Holes in books, investor money scattered.
And now you’re stepping in, restructuring everything, making it all look legitimate again.
” He smiled thinly. “Bold. Most people wouldn’t see it. ”
I had to hide my slight annoyance. He knew the game too well, could see instantly the opportunity I was taking. “Most people aren’t you.”
“No, they’re not. Either way, people are watching.”
“I expected them to. But any press is good press.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Yes… but I’d watch your back with this new stunt of yours, Kaufman. The people watching now… I’d say they’re not as forgiving as the headlines.”
He hadn’t even given me time to process his “warning” before he walked away.
I rolled my eyes at his words. Whitmore was always a pain in the ass.
My eyes instinctively scanned the room for Genevieve again, but they froze halfway through the motion and landed on Gregory. He’d shown up.
Cheryl stood beside him shamelessly, laughing alongside him with the same investors that threatened to sue him just days ago. My jaw tightened as I watched him lift a glass, his grin wide, careless. The hypocrisy almost amused me.
My gaze cut back through the crowd, searching, knowing exactly what I’d find.
Sitting at the far table, still and silent, Genevieve’s eyes fixed on her fiancé and his date. Her eyes were glued to their every move. She looked like she’d been holding her breath, waiting for something to make sense of what she was seeing.
I exhaled once. My brother had many failures.
But actively losing her? The only woman who vouched for him, who stuck it through with all his inadequacies? That had to be his biggest downfall.
Every instinct in me said to cross the floor, to pull her out of that chair, out of that lingering gaze hurting her racing mind. Put a wall between her and what was breaking her and ignore all the years I spent resenting her, all the years that fueled the need for revenge.
And just as I went to take that step toward her, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
Pulling it out, I noticed I had a missed call from the lab. The vibrant sound that filled the hall dulled around me. The lights, the laughter, the clink of glass, it all flattened into static.
I stepped away from the bar, away from her and the noise as my chest grew tight. The corridor outside the ballroom was quieter, but the sound of my racing heart that drummed in my ears was anything but.
I called back. It rang once before a voice answered, crisp and clinical. “Mr. Kaufman?”
“Speaking.” My voice came out low.
The pause was brief, but my pulse counted every second.
“We’re calling to confirm the paternity results you requested.”
I paced the floor, hand running down my face in distress. I needed to know. Part of me already fucking knew the truth. But I waited anyway. Waited for him to say the words that would put me out of my misery.
“Go ahead.”
“…The results show a 99.98% match.”
The words didn’t seem to register, his calm demeanor staying in place like his words weren’t fracturing my mind, like they hadn’t just rearranged the last three years.
I didn’t speak as I stood there in the cold of the corridor, the phone pressed to my ear as something inside me cracked open.
“It is confirmed. You are Eugene Newman’s biological father.”