Page 96 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

Harper lit up at the idea, kissed me goodbye, and was gone within the hour, off to spend the afternoon getting talked into wearing something she’ll complain about and secretly love, surrounded by people who’ll keep her too busy laughing to notice her boyfriend going quietly, deliberately feral two buildings over. I watched her walk down the corridor toward Sophia’s suite, ponytail swinging, already texting someone about lunch, and felt the smallest twinge of guilt about how easy it was to redirect her. She trusts me. That’s the part that makes the manipulation sit wrong even when the cause is good.

Plan in motion, I head out to find my oldest friend and the single most fucked-up fuck-up currently operating this entire vineyard.

I find Killian in the east vineyard, walking the new terracing with a small, well-dressed crowd trailing behind him like he’s giving a tour to people who already own everything they’re looking at. Jason and Rebecca Miller, dressed like they bought the outfits specifically for this, nodding along at whatever he’s saying about soil composition. Evelyn at his side, hand tucked into the crook of his elbow like she’s been doing it for thirty years instead of just since the divorce that apparently didn’t end anything between them as far as access goes.

I stop at the top of the row and just watch for a second, because watching is the only thing keeping me from sprinting down the hill and dragging him out of this tour by his collar in front of every single one of them. Killian’s gesturing at the new trellis lines like he’s narrating a documentary, and Jason Miller’s nodding along with the specific enthusiasm of a man calculating exactly how much access this conversation might eventually be worth. Rebecca’s got her phone half raised, probably for a photo she’ll send to whoever she’s currently trying to impress with the idea that her daughter landed somewhere this nice.

I clock the whole tableau from fifty feet away and feel my hands curl into fists before I’ve even decided to be angry. Eleven days of watching Harper’s smile go half a beat late, and here’s Killian Thorne giving a personal vineyard tour to the exact people who put that delay there in the first place, his ex-wife glued to his arm like decoration.

“Maddox.” Killian doesn’t stop walking. “Now isn’t⁠—”

“I don’t believe now is the best time to discuss such matters,” Evelyn says, smooth as anything, like she’s hosting instead of trespassing.

“Matters like how much your illusions of grandeur continue to bewilder the masses?” I say, not even looking at her. “Can’t say you have a knack for shock, Evelyn.”

Her face does something complicated and furious that she recovers from in under a second, which is honestly impressive given the material she’s working with.

I don’t wait for Killian to finish whatever sentence he was building. I get a hand around his arm and pull, I’m not gentle about it.

“You and I need to talk. Now, Thorne.”

He could shake me off. He doesn’t. Whatever’s on my face is apparently enough to make the decision for him, because he says something short to the Millers about continuing in a moment and lets me walk him toward the chai without a single word of protest, which tells me more than anything he could’ve said out loud.

The chai’s cool and dim and smells like oak and fermentation, rows of barrels stacked higher than either of us, two of the cellar staff checking levels near the back wall. The temperature drop from the heat outside hits me like a wall, and so does the silence, the kind that makes every word land louder than it would anywhere else on this property.

“Everyone out,” I say, loud enough to carry.

Nobody argues with that tone. They go, fast, and the door swings shut behind the last one, and then it’s just the two of us and a few hundred barrels of wine that are going to outlive this conversation either way.

“What the fuck is going on, Thorne?”

“None of your business.”

I take one step closer, close enough that he’d have to actually try not to look at me. Eleven days of swallowing this, eleven days of watching it eat at someone I love, and he wants to give me two words and a closed door.

“Oh yeah? Whatever the fuck it is is fucking with our vibe. Harper says she’s fine but she’s not fine, and you’d know that if you’d actually looked at her once in the last eleven days instead of routing every question about her through Mallory like she’s a line item.”

Killian’s jaw works. “I’m aware of how it looks.”

“Great. Awareness. That’s super helpful. Asher’s not going to say shit to you because Asher doesn’t do confrontation, he just absorbs things until he’s quietly furious at everyone including himself. I don’t have that problem.”

“Clearly.”

“Don’t get smart with me.” My voice comes out harder than I mean it to, but I don’t pull it back. “You walked off arm in arm with your ex-wife on the single biggest night of Harper’s career, in front of her parents, in front of the whole estate, and then you went dark for eleven days. You want to explain that, or you want me to keep guessing, because I’ve had eleven days to guess and none of the guesses make you look good.”

Something flickers behind his eyes, fast, gone before I can name it.

“I’m doing this for Harper.”

I actually laugh. It’s not a kind sound.

“Sanctimonious shit doesn’t look good on you, Kil. Get off the cross, we need the wood.”

His expression doesn’t move, but something in his shoulders does, a fraction of give, like the line he’s been holding for eleven days just slipped half an inch.

“If I’d had them removed that night,” he says, finally, “they leave the property angry and humiliated in front of people who matter to this estate’s reputation, and a man like Jason Miller doesn’t absorb humiliation quietly. He goes to a reporter. He goes to a lawyer. He finds some version of this story where Harper’s the unstable one and we’re the predatory billionaires who isolated her from her family. None of it would be true. None of it needs to be true to do damage.”

“Okay. So instead you scheduled tea with them.”