13. Killian
KILLIAN
The opening summer event is exactly what it should be.
The south terrace is lit the way I’d wanted it, warm and unhurried, the vineyard rows disappearing into the dark beyond the edge of the lights.
The tables are right. The wine is right.
The flow of guests between the outdoor space and the tasting room is moving the way a well-run event moves, which is to say no one is thinking about the infrastructure at all because it’s working.
That’s Harper.
She’s been everywhere this week without being visible in the way that causes friction.
She found the service path problem I’d been watching for two weeks before Mallory had to show it to her.
She tightened the run-of-show in places I would have tightened it myself and left alone the things that didn’t need touching, which is a rarer instinct than people understand.
She worked alongside Mallory without crowding her and she pulled Sophia’s boutique launch details forward two days ahead of schedule while simultaneously managing the opening event and I haven’t had to say a word about any of it.
I’ve been watching her work for a week and she’s extraordinary at what she does.
That is a completely professional observation.
The other observations I’ve been making are less professional and I’ve been managing them with the same discipline I apply to everything else that requires managing, which is to say I’ve been doing a passable job and it’s costing me more than I’d like to admit.
She’s been different the past few days. Lighter.
The particular ease of someone who has landed somewhere they weren’t expecting to feel comfortable and has stopped fighting it.
I noticed it. Noticed also that Maddox seems constitutionally incapable of being in any room she’s in without gravitating toward her, and that Asher, who has been running on careful emotional conservation since Monica blew his engagement apart, has been looser than I’ve seen him in two years.
I’m not an idiot.
I know what that means. Maddox does what Maddox does and I’ve never had standing to say anything about it. And if Asher found something that cracked that wall open then I’m glad for him, I genuinely am.
That is also a completely honest observation.
The one underneath it, the one I’m not examining, is that she is twenty-four years old and laughs with her whole face and walked into a conference room in black with red bottom shoes and glasses and I’ve had to rebuild my self-discipline from scratch every time she’s been in the same room since.
I want to fuck her.
I’m aware of how that sounds. I’m aware of every reason it’s a problem. She’s Sophia’s best friend. She works for me. She’s twenty-seven years younger than I am. I’ve been keeping this in a locked room in the back of my mind and not opening the door and tonight is not the night I open the door.
Tonight I have rounds to do.
I work the terrace the way I work every event, moving from conversation to conversation, present without being a fixture, asking the right questions and saying the right things and genuinely caring about none of it because I built this business to stand on its own and nights like this one confirm that it does.
I’m midway through a conversation with a couple from Lyon who’ve been coming to Thorne Estates for eleven years, when I feel it before I see it.
The particular weight of Evelyn’s presence entering a room.
She comes through the terrace doors with Monica and I excuse myself smoothly from the Lyon couple and intercept them before they can get into the crowd and start doing what Evelyn does at events, which is locate the most valuable conversations and insert herself into them.
“Evelyn. Monica.”
“Killian.” Evelyn tips her cheek toward me in the way that means I should kiss it, which I do, because we’ve been doing this dance for over two decades and the steps are automatic. “Beautiful evening. The terrace lighting is a vast improvement over last summer.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“You should.” She accepts a glass from a passing server and looks across the terrace. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the Brooks girl.”
I keep my face exactly where it is. “Harper.”
“Yes. I think you should be careful, Killian. A young woman in that position, with access to your people and your events and your inner circle— I just wonder about her intentions. What do you actually know about her?”
“Enough,” I say.
“She turned up with Sophia out of nowhere—”
“She’s Sophia’s closest friend of six years, Evelyn.”
Monica is looking across the terrace with the tight, controlled expression she’s worn since the night in Vine. “She’s certainly made herself comfortable with the men in your life,” she says. “Asher especially.”
I don’t respond to that.
Evelyn’s voice drops into the register she uses when she’s being reasonable.
“I only mean that a girl like that, no real career, no stability, showing up at a billionaire’s vineyard in the south of France— one has to wonder what she’s actually looking for.
And you’ve given her access to everything. ”
“I hired a qualified events coordinator for the summer season,” I say. “That’s what I’ve given her. If you have concerns about the staffing decisions I make on my own property, I’d suggest bringing them to the board meeting where they belong.”
Evelyn opens her mouth.
Sophia’s voice cuts across the terrace. “Dad!”
She’s crossing toward us with Lorenzo a step behind her and she’s radiant in the way she gets when she’s had a good week and knows it’s going to keep being a good week. She reaches me and I fold her in, because I always do, and she presses a kiss to my cheek.
“The terrace looks incredible,” she says. “Mallory and Harper completely outdid themselves.”
“They did.” I pull back and look at her and feel the specific warmth that twenty-five years of this person hasn’t made ordinary. “You look beautiful.”
She waves a hand. “I know.”
Lorenzo extends his hand and I shake it and hold it a beat longer than necessary. “Lorenzo.”
“Senor Thorne.”
“I imagine at some point in the not too distant future you’ll want to speak to me privately about my daughter.” I say it pleasantly. “I want you to know I’m available for that conversation whenever you’re ready to have it.”
Lorenzo’s ears go red. “Sir, I—”
“Dad.” Sophia’s voice is several degrees past scandalized.
I shrug. “I’m just making myself available.”
She hits my shoulder with her open palm and Lorenzo is still the color of the Cab Franc we bottled in 2019 and I feel genuinely, uncomplicated happy for approximately ten seconds.
Then Evelyn speaks.
“How lovely,” she says, eyes moving across the terrace. “All very domestic.”
I follow her gaze.
Harper is standing near the vineyard path entrance with Maddox on one side and Asher on the other and she’s laughing at something, her head tipping back, completely unguarded, and Asher’s hand is resting at the small of her back.
Monica makes a sound beside me that she probably didn’t intend to make out loud.
Asher’s hand doesn’t move.
Something tightens in my chest that I don’t name.
“Oh for god’s sake,” Sophia says, reading her mother’s face. “She’s a grown woman. Who she spends her time with is her business and nobody else’s.”
“And that’s exactly the problem,” Evelyn says, voice dropping smooth and quiet. “No discretion. No sense of how things look. Have you seen how she looks at your father? Do you have no shame, Sophia? Are you so determined to disrupt this family that you’d bring someone like her here and let her—”
“Evelyn.”
She doesn’t stop. “It’s one thing when it’s my own daughter deciding to play at running a business instead of building something real, but to bring her slutty little friend here and let her sink her claws into every man on this property—”
“Enough.”
I don’t raise my voice. I never raise my voice. But something in the single word stops her cold.
I take the wine glass out of her hand.
“I think you’ve had enough tonight.” I set the glass on the tray of a passing server without looking away from Evelyn’s face. “Perhaps both of you should go back to your rooms.”
Evelyn stares at me. “You can’t possibly—”
“Lorenzo.” I say it without turning my head.
A beat. Then Lorenzo steps forward. “Of course.”
Monica closes her mouth.
Evelyn looks at me for a long moment with the expression of a woman calculating whether this is a battle worth having and arriving at the correct answer.
She straightens. “Goodnight, Killian.”
I nod once.
Lorenzo extends an arm toward the terrace doors and Evelyn walks through them with Monica a step behind and Sophia watches them go and then turns to me with a grin that is pure satisfaction.
“I’ll go with him,” she says, already moving.
“Make sure they actually go upstairs.” She stops and turns back and rises onto her toes and presses a kiss to my cheek, both hands on my lapels.
“Enjoy your event, Dad.” She holds my gaze.
“And make sure Harper has a great time tonight. She deserves some fun.” A beat, her eyes steady on mine. “So do you.”
She pulls back and follows Lorenzo before I can respond.
I stand on my own terrace.
The event moves around me, warm and well-run, exactly what it’s supposed to be. The Lyon couple have found new conversation. The vineyard rows are silver at the edges where the lights don’t reach. Somewhere behind me a server opens a new bottle.
I look across the terrace.
Harper is still there. Maddox has said something that made her laugh again, that full unguarded version, and Asher is watching her with an expression I recognize because I’ve been wearing a version of it for two weeks.
Sophia’s voice is still in my ear.
So do you.
I straighten my cuffs.
I cross the terrace.