Page 124 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

Asher laughs, throwing his head back before settling on the couch with me, because it’s no secret that Killian is difficult, but I love him as much as I do Maddox and Asher. And Killian’s right, the four of us need to talk.

46

ASHER

Killian’s office has an emergency wardrobe situation that none of us have commented on directly, which is how we handle most things in this family. It’s why Harper walks out of his office in a clean dress and Killian walks beside her in a fresh suit while the previous one folds itself quietly into a garment bag. I’ve counted four suits in that closet over the past few months. I have not said anything. Maddox has also not said anything. We are all very evolved.

By the time the four of us are settled in Killian’s suite, Harper’s on the sectional with her legs tucked under her, leaning into my side. Killian’s at the other end with her feet in his lap, his thumb moving across her ankle. Maddox is in the armchair with a drink. I’ve made Harper tea, which she accepted without arguing, and coffee for everyone else.

Killian opens his mouth and Harper holds up one finger.

“Start from the beginning,” she says. “Not a summary. The beginning.”

He looks at her for a moment and then nods, and he does.

He tells her about the morning he pulled the final guest list for Midsummer and found her parents on it under Evelyn’s invite code. He tells her about the call to Mallory, the login history he pulled, the voicemail from Rebecca thanking Evelyn for the invitation and mentioning investment opportunities. He tells her about walking into Evelyn’s office that same night and what was said there, which is more than Harper knew he knew, and I watch her face shift while she listens, something going careful and still.

“Why didn’t you pull their reservation?” she asks, when he stops.

“Because pulling it publicly gives them exactly what they came for.” He leans forward slightly. “A man like your father doesn’t absorb humiliation quietly, Harper. He goes looking for someone to make into the problem. If they’d left Midsummer angry and publicly removed, he’d have gone to a reporter, found some version of this story where you’re unstable and we’re predatory billionaires who isolated you from your family. None of it needs to be true to do damage. So instead I scheduled them.”

“Scheduled them,” she repeats.

“My property. My timeline. My witnesses. Every conversation documented. Every meeting recorded through the estate’s standard business protocols. I let them pitch me the Thorne Curated Collection because I needed them to keep talking, needed them on the record, needed a complete picture of what they were actually building before I pulled the floor out from under them.”

Harper is quiet.

“They’re not going to stop,” he continues. “Not with a polite no. Not with a public removal at an event. The only thing that stops people like your parents is consequence, and that requires documentation, witnesses, and enough rope for them to have hung themselves thoroughly before anyone pulls it taut.”

“You’re going to have them arrested,” Harper says slowly.

“I’m going to give everything we have to the appropriate authorities and let the law handle what the law handles. Maddox’s file, the estate documentation, the recorded meetings, Evelyn’s phone records. All of it.” He holds her gaze. “They’ve done this before. Not to you specifically. To other people. With full documentation. What happened to you in New York wasn’t the first time they’ve walked into someone’s workplace and made implications.”

Something moves across Harper’s face that I can’t entirely read, something between relief and a grief she hasn’t fully let herself feel yet about the people her parents actually are versus the people she’s always quietly hoped they might become.

“I don’t know if I want that,” she says, and her voice is softer than it’s been all evening. “They’re still my parents.”

Maddox puts his drink down and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and when he speaks his voice is the version he uses when he means every word and needs her to know it.

“Sweetheart. There are things in that file I don’t want to spell out for you right now because tonight has already been a lot and you deserve one evening that doesn’t add more weight. But I need you to trust me when I tell you they are not good people.” He pauses. “The things they’ve done, to other people, families, people who trusted them the same way their own daughter trusted them, it goes further than you know. And the only good thing that has ever come from either of them is you. The one person the three of us love unconditionally and will spend the rest of our lives making sure they cannot touch.”

Harper looks at him for a long moment and he doesn’t look away, and she nods once, the kind of nod that means she’s filing it, letting it sit, not fighting it.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay?” Maddox says.

“Okay,” she says again, quieter. “I trust you. I trust all three of you. That’s not the same as being fine with it, but it’s what I’ve got right now.”

Nobody says anything for a beat, and I let it breathe because some things need a moment before you add to them.

Then Harper looks at me.

“And you,” she says.

“Me,” I confirm.

“You knew?”