Page 37 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

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.