Chapter Fourteen
A GENTLE TOUCH
Several months passed before Winston Hills became more than a promise waiting on a calendar.
Life dared to keep happening even when Lane Sanders had agreed to let Lennox Jackson court her like a proper gentleman and take her away for a weekend involving wine, pleasure, and a dominatrix named The Black Dahlia.
Khalil had been buried in business, tying up every loose end he could before the twins arrived and turned the Reed household into a beautiful, sleep-deprived empire of diapers, matching bassinets, and Cadence’s increasingly creative threats against gravity.
Because Lennox handled security for Khalil, that meant he had been on the road more often than Lane liked but less often than her pride would admit.
Lane had been busy too.
Nova was preparing to release her debut album under Khalil’s new label, and every day seemed to bring a new crisis dressed as opportunity.
Rollout meetings. Styling calls. Interview prep—marketing approvals.
One executive who thought “urban polish” was a usable phrase until Lane’s face made him rethink English entirely.
Nova was brilliant, electric, and ready, but brilliance still needed managing when an industry full of vultures started circling with compliments and contracts.
Lane and Nova had spent weeks helping her tie up loose ends before the twins came, because Cadence insisted she was fine while waddling like a woman whose center of gravity had filed for separation.
She still tried to approve nursery details, review Vogue follow-up questions, argue with KC about baby names, and pretend she didn’t need help getting off the couch.
“Girl, I don’t need help,” Cadence had said one afternoon, stuck halfway between seated and standing.
Lane had stared at her. “Your body is currently negotiating with
Cadence had threatened her with a throw pillow and then accepted assistance with dignity, attitude, and heavy breathing.
Through all of it, Lennox remained. That was the part Lane didn’t know what to do with.
He didn’t run. Not when she got quiet. Not when her mother texted and left her unsettled for hours.
Not when Jeanette’s first call from treatment left Lane sitting in her car outside The Full Plate Project with both hands gripping the steering wheel like she was trying to keep the past from climbing into the passenger seat.
He’d made a habit of being present in person.
Sometimes through calls from hotel rooms, cars, airport lounges, and once, irritatingly, from a helicopter because KC’s life had gotten ridiculous and apparently altitude now counted as office space.
He checked in without demanding. Asked before digging.
Sent food when she forgot to eat, but only after texting, Can I send dinner or will that get me cursed out?
After the incident with her mother, something shifted inside Lane.
She wasn’t healed. Healing was a race with a finish line, and wounds didn’t come with ribbon-cutting ceremonies and a complimentary sense of closure.
Lane wasn’t healed; she wasn’t even close.
Some days Jeanette’s name still landed in her chest like a hand against a bruise.
But with Lennox, the pain felt less alone.
There was no judgment in him when it came to that part of her.
No flinch. No pity dressed as tenderness.
He had seen her mother’s apartment, heard her sob in Cadence’s kitchen, held her while she asked questions no daughter should have to ask, and he had not looked at her afterward like she was broken beyond beauty.
He looked at her like he wanted to learn every crack so he could stop stepping on them, and then there was Jeanette.
Lane had known Lennox was helping in the broad sense.
She had permitted him to assist with finding safe resources, and he had sent her names of programs and treatment centers like a man determined to stay within the lines she drew.
But she hadn’t known he paid for the inpatient facility. Not until Jeanette told her. It happened during a call Lane almost ignored. Jeanette had been in treatment for three weeks by then. Her voice sounded different. Still shaky. Still carrying years of damage. But clearer. Less soaked in panic.
Jeanette had thanked Lane for the rehab center.
Lane was confused, but Jeanette told her Lennox had paid for her stay.
She knew Lane had given Lennox her blessing to help her mother, even if she was too hurt and stubborn to admit it.
Her favorite fine-ass cybercriminal with hero-complex tendencies had footed the bill for her mother’s treatment.
What’s more, he made sure to ask Lane and get her input before making the decision—no soft speech over candlelight about how generous he was.
Nothing.
Jeanette had kept talking, voice softer. “He came to see me too.”
Lane’s heart did something uncomfortable. “He did what?”
“He visited me.”
“When?”
“Last week.” Jeanette paused. “He didn’t threaten me.”
“That’s surprising.”
“He looked like he wanted to.”
“That’s less surprising.”
Jeanette’s laugh had been small, fragile, unused.
“He told me if my heart wasn’t in the right place, if I wasn’t ready to work and fight for you, then I needed to get clean and go start a new life somewhere else. No strings attached. He said he’d still pay if I stayed away from you, if that was what gave you peace.”
Lane had sat down slowly.
Jeanette’s voice broke. “He said loving you couldn’t be about what I wanted from you. It had to be about what I was willing to repair without being promised a reward.”
Lane had closed her eyes. That had pulled at her heart in a way she didn’t know how to defend against. Because Lennox hadn’t done it to impress her, he had done it because he understood something about love Lane still struggled to believe.
Sometimes protection meant helping someone else become safe enough to approach or strong enough to stay away. After that, falling for him became less of an accident and more of a daily occurrence.
He let his guard down in pieces. Told her about his mother, Mielle.
About the outside siblings. About the old council and the power he never wanted but learned to wield because leaving it to men like Jason Jackson felt worse.
He told her he missed basketball some days, not in a way that made him regret who he became, but in a way that honored the boy who once believed a court was freedom.
Lane learned him.
His favorite colors. Black and deep green.
His favorite food when he was exhausted.
Oxtails, seafood pasta, sweet potato pie.
His hatred of breakfast eggs, which still warmed some ridiculous corner of her heart.
The way he pouted when she sat too far away.
The way he pretended not to need affection while acting like a man physically wounded by the absence of her knee touching his.
The way he kissed the inside of her wrist during phone calls like punctuation.
She was falling deeper every day, and because the universe loved humbling women who thought they had emotional range, there had been one small hiccup.
A tiny hiccup.
A minor emotional detonation.
Really, who among them hadn’t stripped a luxury vehicle to its frame after a misunderstanding?
It started with lunch.
Lane had been leaving a meeting near the arts district when she decided to grab food from a new restaurant everybody kept raving about.
The kind of place with plants hanging from the ceiling, cocktails named after affirmations, and a host who said “Do you have a reservation?” like he was asking whether she had a passport to enter the kingdom.
She’d been standing near the bar waiting for her to-go order when she saw him.
Lennox.
At a corner table.
With her.
The same woman from the baby shower.
The one who’d shown up months ago draped in smugness and perfume, touching Lennox’s arm like she had memories in places Lane had since put a flag.
Tall. Pretty. Light-brown skin. Honey-blonde hair.
Body done by God, money, or both and dressed in designer casual that looked effortless only because a stylist had probably prayed over it.
Lane stopped breathing.
Lennox’s back was partly to her, but she knew his shoulders. Knew the set of his head. Knew the hand that rested on the table near his glass.
The woman leaned forward and touched his wrist. Lane didn’t hear what was said. She didn’t wait to. Her body moved before good sense could file an appeal.
“Well, look at this,” Lane said, voice carrying clean across the restaurant.
Lennox turned, and his face changed so fast Lane almost paused. “Lane.”
The woman looked over, and recognition slid into her smile. “Oh.”
That little “oh” pissed her off real bad. If him being there with her period was the ice cream, and her touching him was the whipped cream, then the “oh” was the cherry on top that sent Lane spiraling.
Lennox stood. “This is not—”
Lane held up one hand. “Don’t.”
“Lavender.”
“Don’t Lavender me in public while sitting across from clearance-rack temptation.”
The woman’s brows lifted. “Excuse me?”
Lane looked her up and down. “You heard me, polyester Pauline.”
Several people at nearby tables turned. The hostess froze, and the bartender slowly lowered the shaker he’d been using.
Lennox stepped toward Lane. “Let me explain.”
“No.” Lane’s smile was sharp enough to split bone. “You played with the wrong bitch.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t play with you.”
“You sure? Because from where I’m standing, this looks like a rerun and you know I don’t watch those.”
The woman laughed lightly. “He was just—”
Lane pointed at her without looking. “Speak again, and I’ll turn this farm-to-table establishment into a crime scene with seasonal garnish.”
The room went silent. “Lane.”
She picked up her to-go bag from the bar, turned, and walked out before anger became something wet and humiliating behind her eyes. He followed her outside, of course, and she was already unlocking her car.