3. Chapter 3
Graham
Ifall asleep in the leather chair in my study sometime after two in the afternoon. The lamp is still on when the dream takes me.
She is in my bed.
That's the first thing I register, in the slow way you register things in dreams. Jade Alvarez is in my bed, and the gray Linden Lake afternoon has gone, replaced by the kind of dark that only exists in my own head. The yellow cardigan is gone. So is everything else.
She's looking up at me from the pillows the way she looked at me in the kitchen an hour ago. That deep, observant brown. That mouth set in the line that has decided what to do with me.
"You're staring, Sterling."
"I'm taking inventory."
"Of what."
"Of every reason I shouldn't be in this room."
I cross to the bed. I lean over her, one hand braced beside her head. The shape of her, the soft and the sharp, registers in a way I do not have a category for. Dark curls across white linen. The pulse at the base of her throat.
"Tell me to stop," I say, my mouth at her throat.
"Why would I do that."
Her palms move flat against my chest, the heat of her hands a current I feel down to my hips. I take her wrists and pin them above her head, one-handed, and her breath catches in a way that goes straight through me.
She says my name once. Then again, lower. The whole world reduces to the sound of it.
"Look at me."
She does. Her eyes go dark, pupils blown wide. I want to memorize this. The flush climbing her chest. The way her thighs shift restless under me.
"You don't get to be quiet now," I tell her.
"What do you want me to say."
"Tell me what you want."
She wets her bottom lip. Slow. Deliberate. She knows what she's doing.
"You first."
A laugh catches in my throat. Of course. Of course, even here, in my own head, she won't make it easy.
I drag my free hand down her side. Slow. Following the curve of her ribs, the dip of her waist, the swell of her hip. She arches into the touch like she can't help it, and the small sound she makes nearly undoes me.
"I want," I say, my mouth moving to the hollow below her ear, "to take my time."
"That's not a want. That's a method."
"Then I want to hear you. Every sound. I want to know exactly what works."
Her breath stutters. I file it away.
I kiss down her throat. The notch of her collarbone. Lower. I take my time because I said I would, because she dared me to, because in this dream she belongs to me and I am going to prove I deserve it. My mouth closes over her, and her back comes off the bed.
"Sterling—"
"Right here."
I keep her wrists pinned. The other hand maps her, learns her, and finds the place that makes her hips lift and stays there until her breathing breaks into something ragged.
"Look at me," I say again.
She drags her eyes open. The line of her mouth has gone soft now. Undone. That careful, watchful woman from the kitchen is somewhere underneath this one, and the knowledge of it does something to me I'm not prepared for.
"I've thought about this," I tell her. Honest in the way you can only be in a dream. "Every time you cross the kitchen in that cardigan. Every time you bend down to talk to my daughter. Every goddamn time you look at me like you know something I don't."
"I do know something you don't."
"Tell me."
"Not yet."
She tilts her hips up against my hand, and whatever I was going to say leaves me. I let her wrists go. I need both hands. I need my mouth on her. I need the sound she's making to keep making it, lower and lower, until it's just my name and the shape of a please she will not say out loud.
When she breaks, she breaks quietly. A shudder. A long breath. Her fingers fisted in my hair like she's keeping me there on purpose.
I come back up the length of her. Slow. I want her to feel every inch of the way I take.
"Sterling."
"Still here."
"Come here."
She pulls my mouth down to hers, and the kiss is nothing like I imagined.
She rolls us. I let her. She settles over my hips and looks down at me with that mouth, that line, that knowing.
"My turn to take inventory," she says.
The doorbell rings.
I come awake in the leather chair. Heart hammering. My body in a state that no amount of cold professionalism is going to disguise.
The lamp is on. Pierce's call notes are spread across the desk. The clock says four-fifty.
The dream sits in my chest like a brand.
The doorbell rings again.
I drag a hand down my face. The taste of her is still on my tongue, which is impossible because I have not touched the woman. I stand up, adjust myself, straighten my collar, and tell myself that that woman walked into my house yesterday.
That woman is already eating my sleep.
I am not, under any circumstance, allowed to think about her like this.
The doorbell rings a third time.
Outside, an engine I recognize. The black town car. The matched set of in-laws who have spent the last year waiting for me to fail.
I straighten my cuffs and walk to the front door, willing the heat out of my face. The dream is a problem I will deal with later. The Whitlocks are a problem that does not wait.
The car idling in the gravel looks like a hearse for my reputation. I stand on the porch with my hands fisted in my pockets to keep them from shaking.
A few minutes ago, I told Jade to stay in the carriage house. Practically barked it at her. She looked at me for a long second and nodded without asking why. I don't want her to see what I turn into when these people show up.
The car doors open in perfect synchronization.
Arthur and Beatrice Whitlock step out like they were curated by a high-end department store specifically to make me look like a disaster. Arthur in a charcoal wool coat. Beatrice draped in a pashmina the color of frozen cream.
"Graham," Beatrice says, her voice like syrup poured over a razor blade. She climbs the porch steps without waiting for an invitation, her heels clicking against the raw, un-sanded boards. "You look tired, dear. Is the construction not going well?"
"It's going fine, Beatrice. The house will be finished before the hearing. Just like I told the judge."
Arthur stands at the base of the steps, eyes scanning the stacked lumber and exposed wiring near the door. He doesn't look at me. He looks at my failures.
"We aren't here to discuss the architecture, Graham," Arthur says. "We're here to see our granddaughter. We've been told things are chaotic here. A new woman in the house?"
Before I can respond, the front door creaks open.
I stiffen, expecting Iris. It's Jade.
She's wearing the yellow cardigan, which looks like a middle finger to the Whitlocks' monochrome elegance. She's carrying a tray of lemonade, ice clinking against the glass.
I do not look at her. I cannot look at her. The dream is still too close.
"Oh, you must be the grandparents!" Jade says, her voice cutting through the tension on the porch like a blade wrapped in silk. She offers a smile that is too wide to be genuine yet looks perfect. "I'm Jade Alvarez. The new nanny. It's so wonderful to meet the people Iris talks about so much."
I watch Beatrice's face. The frozen cream ripples for a second before smoothing back. She looks at Jade. At her curves, her messy curls, her vibrant clothes.
The help. A distraction. A mistake.
"The nanny," Beatrice repeats, smile returning without reaching her eyes. "How charming. It's so brave of you to take on such a complicated situation. Graham has never been particularly careful with the staff."
The needle goes in smoothly. A reminder of the rumors they've spent years fueling. The familiar heat rises in my chest.
Jade doesn't flinch.
She sets the tray on a crate of tiles and steps toward Beatrice, closing the distance that usually makes people uncomfortable.
"I think the bravery is all Iris's. She's been so resilient.
She's currently in the middle of a very important puppet show.
Would you like to join us, or should I bring her out? "
Arthur finally climbs the steps. "We'll see her inside. I trust the house is safe for a six-year-old? I'd hate for her to trip over a loose wire. Or a bottle of whatever you're using to cope these days, Graham."
"The house is safe, Arthur." My voice drops an octave. "And I'm sober. Have been for seven years. Not that you ever let the facts get in the way of a good story."
Jade catches my eye. A brief, sharp look. A silent command to shut up.
She arrived here this morning and is already running the show.
"The living room is perfectly safe," she says, turning back to them. "We've sectioned off the construction zones. Please, come in. Iris has missed you."
The hallway is a skeleton of what a home should be, but the living room has been transformed. Jade has cleared away the sawdust. Colorful rugs cover the floor. A small cardboard stage sits in the corner. Iris is perched beside it, Judge the stuffed owl on her lap.
"Grandma! Grandpa!" She leaps up and runs toward them.
The most energy I've seen from her in weeks. She throws herself into Beatrice's pashmina.
Beatrice strokes Iris's hair, but her eyes stay on Jade. "She looks thin, Arthur. And her hair. Did you use a different shampoo? It looks a bit wild."
"She's healthy, Beatrice. Jade's been taking her down to the lake."
Arthur walks over to the cardboard stage and nudges one of the boxes with his toe. "Cardboard? Is this the best a Sterling can provide for his daughter's imagination? It seems temporary. Much like this entire living arrangement."
Jade picks up Barnaby the puppet and makes him bow toward Arthur. "Barnaby says that sometimes the best stories are built out of things people throw away. He thinks a big, strong man like you probably knows a lot about building from scratch."
Arthur blinks. He looks at Jade, then at me, his expression souring.
"I know about building legacies, Ms. Alvarez. Legacies not built on police reports and tabloid scandals. Our attorneys have filed a motion to unseal certain records. It's only a matter of time."
The cold hits before the anger does.
The sealed records. Bar fights, reckless driving, two arrests at twenty-one and twenty-two. My lawyers had guaranteed they'd stay buried.
"That's sealed, Arthur. As you well know." My hands are flat against my thighs. I keep them there.
"A man who gets arrested for assault doesn't just change, Graham," Beatrice says, pulling Iris closer. "He just learns to hide it better. We're concerned this environment isn't far enough away from those impulses. Not with a child involved."
Jade steps forward, her hand resting lightly on Iris's shoulder. A subtle movement. A claim.
"I think Iris is the best judge of who her father is today. Iris, can you go get your sketchbook from the kitchen?"
Iris nods and scampers off. The silence that follows smells like old grievances.
Jade doesn't leave. She stands between me and the Whitlocks, chin up.
"You're very protective, Ms. Alvarez," Beatrice says, dropping the sugary veneer. "I wonder if Graham told you we're close friends with the judge. Or that we've already spoken to the home investigator. This isn't just a visit. It's an assessment."
"I'm aware of who you are, Mrs. Whitlock. And I'm aware of what this is. But if you truly care about Iris's well-being, you'll see that she's happy. She's safe. And she's with her father."
Arthur laughs. Dry, rattling. "She's with a man who is one bad headline away from a corporate coup. Your board called us, Graham. They're worried the Sterling Solution is actually just a Sterling problem."
The walls close in. The board, the in-laws, the judge. A pincer movement designed to strip me of everything I have left.
Iris returns with the sketchbook clutched to her chest. She hesitates at the doorway, then walks slowly to Beatrice and holds it out.
"I drew the lake."
Beatrice takes it with the care of a woman handling something fragile. She turns the pages. Arthur leans over her shoulder.
"That's our house. With Daddy. And Jade," Iris says. "Jade is in lots of them. She's the yellow one."
Beatrice's smile tightens. "How thorough."
Arthur clears his throat. "These are very good, Iris. You get that from your mother."
The room goes still. Iris looks at her shoes.
Beatrice closes the sketchbook a touch too quickly. "Well. Arthur, we should let these people get back to their renovation."
She kisses the top of Iris's head, eyes on me over the girl's shoulder. "We'll be seeing much more of you, Iris. We've filed the paperwork today, Graham. Expanded guardianship. We don't believe this environment, or this influence, is conducive to her grieving process."
They walk out. The gravel crunches under their heels like breaking bone.
I stand in the middle of the room, staring at the cardboard stage.
Jade doesn't say anything for a long time. She just starts picking up the lemonade glasses. Efficient, controlled, lips pressed into a thin line. She's angry. Not at me, for once, but for me.
"They're going to take her," I mutter. I sink onto a half-finished bench, head in my hands. "They have the judge. They have the board. They have my arrest records. I'm a billionaire and I'm going to lose my daughter to two people who think she's an accessory to the family portrait."
Jade sets the tray down with a loud clatter. She walks over and stands close. Close enough that I catch vanilla and citrus. The dream surges back, uninvited. I look at the floor.
"They're bullies, Graham," she says. Hard now, no playfulness in it. "Bullies only win when they think they've picked the weakest target."
"I am vulnerable. They're going to unseal my past. The merger is hanging by a thread."
Jade leans down, her face inches from mine. There's a tiny scar near her eyebrow I hadn't noticed before.
"Then don't be alone," she says quietly. "If they want a stable, traditional family man, give them one. The bigger person gets their daughter taken away. The winner does whatever it takes."
I search her face, looking for the catch. "Why are you telling me this? You don't even like me."
"I don't have to like you to know those people shouldn't have Iris. Everything else is just paperwork."
My phone vibrates. A text from my lawyer.
Guardianship motion filed. Initial hearing in six weeks.
I stare at the words until they blur.
"Paperwork," I repeat.
"Paperwork," she says.
The word sits between us in the dust-flecked air, and I can already feel my brain turning it over, looking for the angle, looking for the system.
"Get some sleep, Graham. You look like a man about to make a bad decision in the middle of the night. Whatever it is, sleep on it first."
She walks toward the kitchen and doesn't look back.
I do not sleep that night. The house feels too big, the quiet too thin. I sit on the porch watching the lake until the sky starts going gray.
When I finally sleep, she is there again.
I wake at three with my hand on a pillow that smells like nothing. I lie in the dark and acknowledge the new problem. I have known this woman for a couple of days and I am already in trouble.