12. Reed
Reed
“Vanessa.” I keep my voice at its most neutral. “You don’t have a key.”
“Harper gave me the code.” She moves further in, cream coat still buttoned, eyes doing a sweep of the room.
She finds Mia’s jacket on the hook, the second pair of shoes under the console table, the coffee mug on the counter with the lipstick mark on the rim.
Her mouth pulls at one corner. “Settled in nicely,” she says, not to me.
Mia says nothing. Her chin is up.
“Harper’s asleep.” I step forward. “Whatever you came here to do, you’re not doing it tonight.”
“I’m her mother.” Vanessa turns to me with the smile she had ready before she saw us. “I have every right to check on her.”
“At eleven o’clock.”
“I was close by.” She sets her bag on my kitchen island like she never stopped owning the surface. “I’ll just look in on her.”
“You won’t.” I put myself between her and the hallway. “Tell me what you came here for and then go.”
She takes us both in and drops the civility she walked in with.
“Fine.” She pulls off her gloves, working each finger loose. “Vincent called me this afternoon and told me about tonight’s board dinner. Went well, apparently..” Her gaze moves to Mia. “How did you find them? Men who smile like they’re being friendly and listen like they’re building a case.”
“I managed,” Mia says.
“I’m sure you did.” Vanessa’s voice stays warm, but I know better. “I sat across from those same men for years. You learn to read the ones who smile while deciding whether you’re a problem.” She tilts her head. “Did they decide?”
“Ask them,” Mia says.
Vanessa looks at me. “She’s quick.” Back to Mia. “Reed likes quick. He gets bored otherwise.” A beat she lets sit just long enough. “He gets bored anyway, but quick buys time.”
“Is there a point to this?” I ask.
“The point is that my daughter is asleep in this apartment and I don’t know this woman, and neither does Harper, not really, and you’ve moved her in like the timeline is completely normal.” She sets her gloves on the island. “A judge would have questions about the timeline.”
“A judge will have everything they need at the hearing,” I say. “Scheduled, through the proper channels, with both our lawyers present.”
She looks at Mia again, and I watch her make the shift, the one where she stops arguing with me and goes for the thing I’m standing in front of.
“How much is he paying you?” she asks.
Mia doesn’t blink. “Paying me? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if I was being paid, I don’t think that’s your business.”
“I’m making it my business.” Vanessa’s voice turns cooler.
“I’m not attacking you. I’m telling you something useful.
” She steps closer to Mia. “I know about the bakery. The back rent. The notice Mr. Austin filed.” Another step, mouth close to Mia’s ear, voice pitched only for her.
“You seem like a woman who worked hard for what she has. Don’t let him make it collateral.
When this is over, and it will be over, you’ll go back to your little shop with nothing to show for it except a story nobody wants to hear twice. ”
Mia’s hands are shaking. The faint tremor at her sides, barely visible.
Vanessa straightens up. “If she’s really your fiancée,” she says, loud again, turning back to me, “a background check shouldn’t be an issue. Full financials, full history. Everything a family court judge would want to see about the woman sharing a home with your daughter.”
“Run it,” Mia says, not a crack anywhere in it.
Vanessa looks at her for a long moment, jaw tightening slightly, then picks up her bag and buttons her coat from the bottom up, taking her time with each button.
“Reed, I’ll be talking to the board before Walsh closes.
Not to cause trouble. As a mother on the record about what stability means for a six-year-old.
” She looks at Mia one last time. “I hope you’re as clean as you are brave, sweetheart. ”
I walk her out.
She goes without argument because she’s done what she came to do. I close the door and keep my hand on the handle for three more seconds before turning around.
Mia is in the middle of the kitchen. Arms crossed, eyes on the floor, working through a breath she’s counting out. Inhale, hold, release. I’ve seen it before.
“Say it,” I tell her.
“I’m fine.”
“Your hands were shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.” She looks up, eyes bright, jaw tight. “You just stood there, Reed.”
“I handled it.”
“She got in my face and you just stood there watching.” Her voice doesn’t rise. It goes very clear, which is worse. “Like it was just part of the evening.”
I say nothing.
“I’ve been up since five-thirty, I baked for four hours, I sat through that dinner with a fork in a death grip, and then I stood in your kitchen while your ex-wife told me I’d end up with nothing.
” She crosses toward me, not stopping until she’s close enough that I have to look down to meet her eyes.
“I know the logic. I know why you didn’t bite back.
I’m not asking you to blow up the hearing.
I’m telling you she said that to my face and you let her finish. ”
“Giving her a reaction before the hearing is exactly what she’s building toward,” I say.
“I know that.”
“Every time she provokes me in front of a witness, it goes in the file she’s building for the judge.”
“Reed.” Her voice drops. “I’m not asking you to torch the custody case. I’m telling you she stood in your kitchen and took a shot at me and you held the door open for her on the way out.”
The kitchen stays quiet.
“I know,” I say.
“Then say it next time,” she says.
She shoves me in the chest with both hands, full weight behind it, and I catch her wrists before she can pull back. She doesn’t try to. Her fingers curl against my forearms and we stand there, close, her face tilted up, both of us done pretending the distance was ever real.
I lower my head until my mouth is almost on hers.
“Tell me to stop,” I say.
Her fingers press harder. “Don’t you dare.”
I close the gap.
She makes a sound against my mouth the second I kiss her and she grabs my lapels, pulling me in harder.
I walk her backward into the bedroom kissing her the whole way, her hands already working my tie loose, dropping it, moving straight to my shirt buttons.
Protection crosses my mind for exactly one second.
Her hands are on my shirt buttons and her mouth is on my jaw and the one second passes without either of us saying a word about it.
I get the bedroom door shut with my foot and back her against it before she’s finished, my hands finding the zip on the navy dress and dragging it down her spine.
She shivers under my knuckles.
I spread my palm flat against her bare back, warm skin, no fabric left between my hand and her.
She shoves my shirt off my shoulders and runs both hands up my chest, her nails dragging lightly across my pecs.
I feel every inch of it. She looks up at me with my shirt on the floor, her dress half off, her hair coming down, and her eyes dark.
My cock is already hard and pressing against my pants.
She shifts her hips forward and feels it.
Her mouth curves. “There he is.”
“Take the dress off,” I say.
“You take it off,” she says.
I peel it down over her hips and let it fall. She’s in a strapless bra and underwear, auburn hair loose now, chest rising and falling fast. There’s a small scar on her left knee I’ve never noticed and paint-roughened fingertips I’ve watched for two weeks now.
“You’re doing the staring thing again,” she says.
“I’m allowed,” I say. “You’re in my bedroom.”
She reaches back, unclasps the bra herself, lets it drop, and raises her chin at me. Her breasts are full and her nipples are already hard from the cool air. I cross to her and cup both hands around them.
She inhales sharp.
I roll both thumbs over her nipples, watching her face.
Her eyes go half-closed, her lips part, and her hips push forward again.
I lower my head and take one nipple into my mouth, tongue circling it, lips closing and sucking.
She grabs the back of my head and holds me there, her other hand pressed flat to the door to keep herself upright.
“Reed,” she moans.
I suck harder, tongue working against her, and she makes a sound low in her chest that she swallows immediately.
We’re both aware of Harper being three doors down.
I drag my mouth to the other breast, lips pulling at her nipple.
She tips her head back against the door and breathes through her nose in hard pulls.
I drop to my knees and pull her underwear down her legs for her to step out of it I press her thighs apart with both hands and put my mouth on her pussy.
She gasps, cuts it off, gets her wrist to her mouth.
I drag my tongue through her lower lips, finding her wet, warm, and already swollen.
Her legs shake on either side of my head.
I circle her clit slow and she grabs a fistful of my hair, gripping it while her whole body tries to stay quiet.
I push one finger into her, feeling her clench tight around it, and her hips roll toward my face chasing the pressure.
I work her like that, finger and tongue, building it slow.
She’s shaking now, thighs pressing against my shoulders, her breath coming in broken pieces through her nose.
I add a second and a third finger, stretching her open.
She drops her head back against the door with a muffled curse that she barely catches in time.
She comes with her hand fisted in my hair and her hips grinding against my face, clenching hard around my fingers, shaking through it in long waves. I work her through every second until her grip on my hair goes loose.
I stand up.
She’s flushed from her throat to her stomach, chest heaving, legs unsteady. She looks at me with her lips bitten red and says, “Bed. Now.”