8. Reed
Reed
She doesn’t pull back immediately.
Her mouth is warm and she doesn’t pull away, and that’s the problem, that’s the thing I didn’t plan for. Her lips press back against mine and I should stop there, I know I should stop there, but my hand tightens at her waist and I pull her in instead because apparently this is who I am now.
I open her mouth with mine. She lets me. Her tongue meets mine and she makes a sound low in her throat that goes straight through me. I back her half a step toward the wall without deciding to, just momentum, just the press of her against me and the taste of her mouth.
She kisses me back like she forgot for a second that she wasn’t supposed to, her fist in my lapel, her body angled into mine, and I feel every inch of it.
My cock goes hard against her hip and I know she feels it, there’s no way that she doesn’t.
She doesn’t pull back, not yet, she kisses me for one more second like she’s decided that’s the one thing she’s keeping for herself.
Then her hand flattens on my chest and pushes. Not hard. Just enough.
She steps back. Her lipstick is gone. Her eyes find mine and she says nothing, chin up, cheeks doing something she can’t control, and she gives me absolutely nothing else.
“Practice,” I say.
“Sure,” she says.
She turns, walks to her room, and closes the door.
I stand in the hallway with my hand still raised where her waist was. My cock is half hard and pressing against my pants. I reach down and adjust myself with zero dignity and mutter “for fuck’s sake” at no one in particular.
“Finally.”
I turn around.
Harper’s at the end of the hallway in her school clothes, rabbit under her arm.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” She tilts her head. “Do you like her?”
“Harper.”
“Because I like her. She’s nice.” She shifts the stuffed rabbit to her other arm. “You should keep her.”
“Go wash your hands for dinner. Lucia will stay with you until we’re back.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Hands. Now.”
She turns toward the bathroom. I watch her go and press two fingers to the bridge of my nose.
I go to my room, close the door, and sit on the edge of the bed for a minute. I try my best not to think about the hallway, which means I pretend not to think about anything for the next ten minutes.
I get up and go to the bathroom, throwing some cold water on my face. I need it more than I care to admit. When I’m in control again, I confirm I look decent.
The tux is in the same order as always. Shirt, jacket, tie, cufflinks. I fix the parts that don’t need fixing. I’m wasting time with banalities and it’s all because I don’t want to think about her.
I check the tie in the mirror. I look like a man who has his life together. I have been lying to this mirror for years.
When I return to the kitchen twenty minutes later, Harper is at the island with toast.
“Be good, okay?” I tell her.
She nods.
I look at Lucia, who’s been her nanny for the last three years. “The numbers are on the fridge. Call me if anything comes up.”
“I promise,” she assures me. “But don’t worry. Everything will be okay. Isn’t that right, Harper?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Harper says. “Go have fun with Mia.”
As if summoned, Mia walks down the hallway in the green dress, heels, hair up, auburn pieces already escaping everywhere. My mouth opens a fraction before I close it.
“You clean up better than I expected,” I say, unable to process how she looks even better than she did before I kissed her.
“I know I look good,” she says, not breaking stride. She reaches the island and steals a piece of Harper’s toast with a wink. Harper lets her without comment, which is more than most people get.
We take the elevator to the garage and take the car. I drive. Mia sits in the passenger seat and the dress has hitched above her knee as she sat down, the hem riding up. I can see it in my peripheral vision, which makes it very hard to focus on the road.
I am aware of her thigh the entire seventeen-minute drive.
It’s the dress. It’s the kiss. It’s the small sound she made when I used my tongue and the way she kissed back before she stopped herself.
My cock settles into a persistent interest in the situation, pulsating and throbbing.
I breathe through it the way I breathe through Vanessa’s lawyers, Walsh projections, and Sharpe’s smile.
I breathe through the whole seventeen minutes.
If Mia notices, she says nothing.
The Lowell benefit is lit up and moving when we arrive, the photographer already positioned to the left of the entrance exactly where I told Mia he’d be.
I come around to her side of the car. She takes my hand without being asked, fingers sliding between mine.
I feel that too but don’t show any of it.
My hand goes to the small of her back as we move up the steps. She’s warm through the dress and she keeps her left shoulder angled toward me the way Celeste showed her.
Before we reach the top step I slow us down.
“Cameras are on us,” I say, low, close to her ear.
“I know,” she says.
I turn toward her, cup her jaw with my free hand, and kiss her.
I do it slowly, aiming for it to read as habit rather than performance.
She doesn’t stiffen. Her hand finds my lapel, the same place it went in the hallway, and she kisses me back the way she did there, like she’s decided to stop fighting the instinct and just let it happen.
The photographer’s shutter fires three times.
I pull back. Her eyes open. There’s a fraction of a second where neither of us has our face arranged yet.
She looks like someone who just remembered something she’d been trying to forget. I probably look the same.
Then she puts it away and I put it away and we walk in.
I watch three board members clock us from across the lobby and their faces settle into something less hostile. Celeste’s instincts, as always, are correct.
We work the room. Mia is good at this, better than I expected, warm and present without being loud about it.
She remembers names after one introduction.
She asks questions that make people feel interesting.
She’s doing exactly what the contract requires and is doing it so well that I have to remind myself that’s all it is.
Twenty minutes in, champagne distributed, I let my thumb move.
Just the edge of it, below the small of her back, the dress thin enough that the pressure lands. A slow stroke in a circle, marking it once.
She goes very still.
The champagne flute tilts in her grip and she catches it before it falls. She takes a sip and smiles at the woman across from us. She doesn’t look at me, and I move my thumb again. Her breath shifts in a way only I can hear because I’m standing close enough to hear it.
I keep my expression completely neutral.
The satisfaction washes over me, warming my chest. This is a lot more fun than I expected it to be.
She knows exactly what I’m doing, but she’s not going to call me out on it. We both know that, which encourages me even more to test her limits. It’s the most fun I had in these events.
Celeste appears at my left elbow forty minutes in. She only materializes in crowds when something needs managing.
“Enjoying the evening?” she says, to the room.
“Enormously,” I say, also to the room.
She angles her phone toward me, screen facing up, low enough that the couple to our left can’t see it. It’s an email from Vanessa’s lawyer.
Subject line: Re: Hawthorne Engagement.
Two sentences: We have obtained evidence that the engagement between Reed Hawthorne and Mia Calder is fraudulent in nature. We trust Mr. Hawthorne will govern himself accordingly.
I read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
I hand the phone back and take a sip of champagne.
Across the room Sharpe lifts his glass at me and I lift mine back.
I’ve dealt with worse things. Vanessa’s threats don’t even make a crack in the face I’ve been wearing in rooms like this for fifteen years.
“When did this come in?” I ask, low only for Celeste to hear.
“This afternoon. Before we left.” Celeste pockets the phone. “They’re bluffing or they have something. We need to know which before the hearing.”
I look at Mia. She’s still talking, still warm, still fulfilling her part of the contract.
“Smile,” Celeste says, under her breath.
I smile, plastering my usual polite expression on my face. I’ve been playing this game for years. It takes a lot more than that to rattle me.
“Fix it,” I tell Celeste.
“Already working on it,” she says, disappearing back into the crowd.