51. Reid
Chapter fifty-one
Reid
More Than Ten Years Later
The meeting room hummed with low conversation.
California sun spilled across the table, catching the silver in my watch and the edge of Genevieve’s hair as she sat beside me, legs crossed gracefully, posture elegant and disciplined as the fitted cream dress I picked out for her early this morning skimmed along her body.
She was listening to one of my executives dissect quarterly projections, but her attention drifted every few seconds, toward me, the window, toward the ocean beyond the skyline. She’d been doing that more often lately. Thinking too loudly. Feeling too much.
I should’ve been paying attention too. But when she got like this on days like these, she had all my attention, despite her acting as if she didn’t love it.
She’d been doing better these days. Her reconnecting with Brielle had calmed the storm in her mind. But the rejection from Eugene, that was what had broken her all over again.
When they reconnected all those years ago, it didn’t take me long to realize it was more than just one call.
Only took me a few hours after the first to tap into the phone and find out Brielle had been onto her, knew she was more than just a distant relative.
And even then, she accepted her so easily.
It gave my Vieve a purpose again, brightened her days, calmed her nights.
I couldn’t take that away from her. Not again.
Of course she’d gotten attached again, and against my better judgement, I let her.
And even though it took a few nights of her on her knees under my desk thanking me for staying calm about her breaking the one phone call rule and a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of tech and connections to make sure Brielle’s husband wouldn’t be able to trace her, it was all worth it.
The only downside of this was Eugene’s refusal. His silence and rejection. She’d tried to hide her feelings about it from me… My wife, who couldn’t lie to save her life.
I could’ve put a stop to it years ago. Protected her from having hope. Shielding her away from being hurt. Keeping her hidden because she was mine. But she needed her daughter. They needed each other.
Though all I could think was how fragile this new balance was. How fast it could unravel.
How dangerous it was for her heart to be cracked open again—and how much more complicated it would be if anyone realized she wasn’t dead. Or that I wasn’t.
My phone vibrated once against the polished table.
The hand that wasn’t holding my wife’s picked it up.
My eyes roamed over the message and my blood ran hot the longer I read.
Slowly, I lowered the phone, pushing myself to my feet before I felt her tug my hand, her head snapping toward me instantly.
“Reid?” she whispered, voice soft, barely meant for the room to hear. “Honey… is everything okay?”
I lowered my head, brushing my lips against her temple, letting my fingers caress the tenseness out of her shoulders.
“I just need a minute. I’ll be back,” I assured her.
She watched me carefully before nodding reluctantly, turning back to the gentlemen who were conveniently not listening and definitely not watching our interaction.
I left the room in a haste, my rage growing as I dialed the number, holding the phone to my ear.
“Reid Kaufman,” Lockwood drawled, his usual twisted amusement curling through the speaker. “To what do I owe the pleasure this fine afternoon?”
“You incompetent bastard.”
“Shouldn’t have answered the phone…”
“You told me the Newman problem was handled.”
He paused for a moment. “Handled is… subjective.”
“It’s been fifteen fucking years, Lockwood. Marissa is alive,” I clipped out. “Gregory and Cheryl, the people who terrorized my children, the family that almost killed my daughter, could still be fucking alive.”
A low exhale slid through the receiver. It wasn’t surprise. It sounded more like annoyance. “So the letter reached you.”
I stopped pacing. “You knew already?”
“Reid,” Calvin began, tone straining under false patience, “if I had known there was a loose end—”
“A loose end?” I snapped. “The resurgence of the people I had you erase, the safety of my family is more than just that. You are about to become a fucking loose end if this is not fixed. You had one job, Calvin.”
“No,” he corrected coolly, “I had three. Eliminate the Newman family tree. Keep your son from losing his goddamn mind. And keep tabs on the daughter you don’t even know belongs to you.”
“You want to repeat that?”
“I’ll spell it out for you. You don’t exist. Your problems do. And unfortunately one of your so-called problems caused this fucking mess in the first place.”
“Don’t bring my son into this,” I seethed. “You decided to use him to kill them off.”
“And he delivered, did he not?” Calvin shot back. “But your military-trained bastard son? Try keeping tabs on a man with no emotional stability, abandonment trauma, and a walking PTSD ghost for a roommate. Eugene did what Eugene wanted.”
“I asked for results. Not excuses.”
“And for the last fifteen years, the targets were neutralized. Marissa was supposed to be dead,” Calvin snapped. “Emphasis on supposed.”
“Fix. It,” I gritted through my teeth into the phone.
“They won’t be a problem much longer—”
“They already are,” I cut him off, my chest rising in anger, fist clenched against my side.
“If this isn’t fixed,” I said, tone dropping into something colder than a threat, “your chance at the Russel table is finished. You want the Russel name tied to you? You want the immunity, the contracts, the empire that comes with it? Don’t you? ” He was quiet. “Answer me, dammit.”
There was another long exhale through the line. “I said I’ll fix it.”
“You damn sure will fix it. Because without me, you will never sit at that table. Without me, Archer doesn’t breathe the same air as Delilah Newman-Russel. Without me, Killian cuts you out of every circle you’re desperately trying to claw your way into.”
He stayed silent. “I can make you disappear, Lockwood. You think I don’t exist?
Let’s see what happens when I tell every one of your major stockholders to halt their business with you.
Let’s see what happens when your profits start to freefall.
Let’s see what happens when the boy you groomed for fifteen years to sit at the Russel throne gets yanked from the running before he even has a chance.
You have one chance to fix this. Do I make myself clear? ”
There was a heavy beat of silence.
“God,“ Calvin muttered, “I really shouldn’t have answered the phone.”
Rolling my eyes, I ended the call, shoving the phone into my pocket. The message was clear enough. His ability to comprehend it at an adult level… questionable. But that was Calvin Lockwood. A man too stupid to fear me properly… and just smart enough to know he should.
Turning back to walk towards the conference room, I froze in place as Genevieve stood in the middle of the hall, already staring at me with her curious, beautiful eyes.
I walked toward her slowly, letting the last of Calvin’s irritation shake off my skin. Her gaze tracked me the whole way.
I stopped before her, looking down at her knowingly, my hands entering my suit jacket pockets. “How much did you hear?” My voice was low but not angry.
Her lashes lowered for a moment. “…Not too much,” she whispered.
It was a lie, but a gentle one. Her tells were the same after all these years—the way her fingers curled slightly, the way her throat worked, the way she couldn’t meet my eyes for a full second.
My Vieve. My sexy little wife. And my beautiful, terrible little liar.
I slid two fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up to mine.
“Try again,” I murmured.
She swallowed. “Just… the part about you threatening to ruin someone’s livelihood…”
My thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. Fuck, I wanted to taste those lips again.
“Mm,” I hummed, leaning in. “And here I thought you were done lying to me.”
Her lips parted, her eyes widening. “I wasn’t—”
“You were,” I told her quietly. “And you’re terrible at it,” I muttered, nipping at her lip before my hand slipped to the back of her neck and into her hair, pulling her closer to me.
A flush crept down her neck… guilt, arousal, devotion all threading together the way they always did with her.
“Reid…” she breathed. I wasn’t sure if her tone was apologetic for eavesdropping, or asking for something more.
Regardless, my lips found hers again, my body humming.
She tasted so fucking good, so sweet, and all mine.
Her fingers curled in my suit jacket instantly, needy and instinctive, trying to pull me into her body.
I groaned internally, letting her tug on me just once before I pulled away. I wouldn’t be opposed to a little office sex to get my mind straight, but I had a stacked schedule today: back-to-back meetings, negotiations waiting on my signature, a senator expecting a call from Alexander.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I threw her over a desk and fucked her out of her mind… but we were on a tight schedule.
Her lips chased mine when I leaned back, breath still unsteady, her hands still fisted in my shirt, not even realizing she was doing it.
“Vieve,” I murmured, brushing my thumb over the corner of her mouth, wiping a smudge of her lipstick onto my skin, “don’t start something you know I don’t have the time to finish.”
A faint sound escaped her. Half-embarrassed, still half-needy as a smile threatened to grace my lips at her flustered state.
“Reid, stop,” she muttered, pulling away like what I’d said was ludicrous. I placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.
“Later,” I promised her against her skin, “we’ll have the jet all to ourselves, and then—”
She slapped my shoulder at that, a small gasp leaving her, and turned away before I could tease her further.
I didn’t bother to hide the way I watched her walk, her hips swaying, confidence slipping back into place. Her scent still clinging to the air, her taste still on my tongue. I licked my lips as I watched her.
Later… I walked after her, masking the face of a man with just a hint of self-control left.
Yeah, I was definitely going to have to fulfill my promise to her.