23. Maddox
MADDOX
This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
I’ve been running that thought on a low loop since I woke up two hours ago because I keep needing the reminder that this is real and not something I’m going to blink out of.
Two weeks of performing detachment and then one honest night and the whole estate feels different this morning.
Lighter. Like someone opened a window in a room that had been closed too long.
Killian’s suite is the biggest of the four of ours and it has a proper dining table which is why we’re here, all four of us, Asher having appeared from his kitchen at seven with a bag of provisions that became the kind of breakfast you get at a place you pay significantly for, which is his version of marking an occasion without making it an occasion.
Harper is across the table from me in one of Killian’s oversized shirts and her own shorts and her hair is loose and she’s got both hands around her coffee and she’s talking to Asher about the midsummer florals which is about as far from the conversation we had two nights ago as you can get, and she looks easy.
Relaxed in a way she hasn’t been in two weeks.
Like she put something down and decided not to pick it back up.
I want to look at her for the rest of the morning.
I look at my phone instead because I have things to do.
The security firm, Castle Hill Consortium, is based in New York.
As a majority stakeholder, I’m able to utilize their resources.
See, I’m not just a pretty face, I make smart investments.
They sent through an initial profile on Jason and Rebecca Miller at six this morning.
I’d called Marcus, who runs the day-to-day out of the city, the morning after Harper told us what happened, before the sun was fully up, while she was still asleep in Killian’s suite.
Killian had been at his desk in his shirt with his coffee and I’d come in and told him quietly what I was doing and he’d looked at me for a moment and then nodded once, and that was the conversation.
I’d called Asher from the corridor. He’d said do it.
The profile confirms what Harper told us and then some.
The Millers have done this before. Not to Harper specifically, but the pattern is established, the paper trail is there for anyone who knows where to look.
Marcus wants to meet in person, go through the full file, discuss options.
That’s the New York part of this trip that I have not mentioned to anyone outside of Killian and Asher and am not planning to mention to Harper until there’s something concrete to tell her.
Milan is real. The investor meetings are real, the portfolio review is real, the property walkthrough in the seventh is real. I had all of it on the calendar before any of this happened and I’ve been rescheduling it for two weeks because I couldn’t make myself leave. I’m going to Milan, again.
I’m just stopping in New York first.
It’s not a lie. It’s an incomplete truth and I’ve told myself much worse things in my life and I’m telling myself this one with a clean conscience because I’m not keeping it from Harper to protect myself.
I’m keeping it from Harper because she told us what happened in the state of high-emotion honesty and she hasn’t had twenty-four hours to settle into having told us yet and walking in right now with a security firm’s preliminary file on her parents is too much too fast.
When there’s something to say, I’ll say it.
Until then, Milan.
“The east wall of the boutique space still needs its lighting resolved,” Harper is saying, making a note on her phone. “Mallory has the fixture order in but the installer isn’t confirmed until next week and I want to be sure it doesn’t get pushed past the launch window.”
“I’ll put Marco on it,” Killian says.
“Thank you.” She doesn’t look up from her phone. “And the catering handoff for Rosé’s opening, specifically— Asher, can we do a walkthrough of the floor plan this week? I want to make sure the service flow for the event doesn’t conflict with the main tasting room evening schedule.”
“Thursday after prep,” Asher says. “Kitchen is clear by four.”
“Thursday at four.” She adds it to her phone and then reaches for her coffee and catches me watching her and narrows her eyes slightly. “What.”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“I don’t have a thing.”
“You have a very specific thing where you look at someone like you know something they don’t.”
“That’s just my face.”
Killian makes a sound that is not a laugh and is also not not a laugh. Harper points at him. “You too.”
“I’m drinking coffee,” Killian says.
“You’re doing it while drinking coffee.”
Asher says nothing, which is its own verdict. Harper looks at him. He refills her coffee with perfect innocence. She accepts it with profound suspicion and the specific expression of a woman who is surrounded by men who are doing something and can’t prove it yet.
I look back at my phone before she turns those eyes on me again.
The Milan calendar block is open on my screen. The New York leg underneath it, separate calendar, visible only to me and Kyle, who I trust completely and who has been with me long enough to understand that some things don’t need to be in the shared system.
I close the New York calendar.
“I’m going to Milan,” I say, still looking at my phone. Casual. Informational. The kind of thing you mention the way you mention a weather forecast.
The table goes slightly quiet.
Not alarmed quiet. Just attentive.
“For how long?” Harper asks.
“A week. Maybe ten days. I’ve got investor meetings, a portfolio review, a property thing in the seventh arrondissement that I’ve been pushing for two weeks.
” I set my phone down and pick up my coffee.
“Kyle’s been sending me increasingly concerned emails.
I should probably look like I run a business occasionally. ”
Harper looks at me for a moment. Not the suspicious look from before, something quieter. Measuring.
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
She nods slowly. Looks at her coffee. Something moves through her face that I file away carefully, the specific expression of a woman who is deciding whether she’s going to say the thing she’s thinking or let it sit.
She lets it sit. But she looked.
That’s new. Two weeks ago she would have had her face completely under control. The fact that I caught it means she’s stopped performing the control as much and I feel that in the back of my chest in a way that has nothing to do with Milan.
“You should go,” Killian says, and I know the register he’s using, the one that means something other than what the words say, and Harper doesn’t have twenty years of this friendship to read it the way I do. To her it’s encouragement. To me it’s confirmation.
“I’ll be back before the midsummer event,” I tell Harper specifically.
She looks up. The quiet thing in her expression settles into something warmer. “You’d better be. I need someone who actually appreciates good lighting choices at the boutique launch.”
“Maddox doesn’t know anything about lighting,” Asher says.
“I know that warm bulbs are better than cool ones and I learned that from you,” I tell Harper.
“Sophia’s boutique is going to be beautiful because of me,” she says, “and I’m going to need at least one person there who acknowledges that out loud.”
“Consider it done.”
Killian looks at his phone. “I have a board call in twenty minutes.” He stands, which is a signal to the table that breakfast is winding down.
Asher starts clearing plates with the automatic efficiency of a man who cannot leave a table without straightening it first. Harper stands and stretches and says something to Asher about the Thursday walkthrough and he answers and they have a whole small logistical conversation that I watch from my chair without participating because I’m looking at her and thinking: a week. I’m leaving for a week.
The week is necessary. The work is real. New York is for her even if she doesn’t know it.
She finds me in the corridor while I’m heading back to my suite to start packing. I hear her behind me first, the particular sound of her footsteps, and then her hand is on my arm and I stop and turn.
She’s looking up at me with that measuring expression from breakfast, and then she puts both hands on my chest and rises onto her toes and kisses me. Not brief. Not casual. The kind of kiss that has weight in it, that’s saying something in a language neither of us is putting into words yet.
I put my hand at the back of her head and kiss her back and take my time about it because I have a week of not doing this to account for in advance.
When she pulls back she stays close, her hands still on my chest, and looks at me.
“One week,” she says.
“One week,” I confirm.
She nods once and drops back onto her heels and steps away and heads back toward Killian’s suite and I watch her go.
I look up.
Killian is in the doorway of his suite, shoulder against the frame, coffee in hand, watching me with the expression he gets when he’s already done the math and arrived at the answer three steps ahead of everyone else.
I hold his gaze.
He nods once. Small. Just enough.
I turn and go pack.