Page 20 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“What is this summer for you?” he asks.

I blink. “I’m sorry?”

“Is this a vacation? Are you taking a break from your life?” He says it without inflection, a genuine question without an agenda attached, or at least that’s what it sounds like. “The college roommate who taught my daughter how to balance a checkbook doesn’t strike me as the type who takes holidays on someone else’s dime just because she was invited. So what is it?”

I open my mouth and close it again.

He just described me with more accuracy than most people manage after knowing me for years, based on a detail his daughter mentioned in passing, and he’s sitting there like that’s a completely ordinary thing to have done.

I decide to be honest. Mostly.

“My previous employer was downsizing,” I say. “I was laid off a few weeks ago. Severance package, good references, clean exit. It was fine, just… sudden. I was in the middle of figuring out my next move when Sophia offered me the trip.”

He nods once. Nothing on his face tells me whether he believes this or not, which is deeply uncomfortable.

“And before that you were living in New York.”

“Yes.”

“So what made you move to Tampa? Sophia’s apartment.” He pauses, and something shifts at the corner of his mouth. Just barely. “Who do you think her landlord is?”

I stare at him.

He raises an eyebrow.

“You—” I stop. Process. “Sophia didn’t mention that.”

“Sophia mentioned you. She told me you weren’t the type to look for a free ride and that you wouldn’t cause any trouble. I took her word for it.” He watches me with that patient, assessing stillness and I have the distinct sensation of being very accurately read by someone who does this for a living. “So. New York.”

This is the part where I need to sound like a person making a reasonable life choice and not like someone whose parents imploded her career and sent her fleeing south with her dignity in a tote bag.

“I was never that attached to New York, honestly,” I say. “The city is great if you love that kind of pace but I… I felt like it was a good time to try something different. Step back from the grind, reassess, see what else is out there. And then Sophia said she had a room and it seemed like the right move.”

There is a silence.

Killian looks at me the way you look at a financial projection that has one number that doesn’t add up, not hostile, just patient, like he’s decided to wait for the correct figure to surface on its own.

I don’t even believe what I just said. I am a terrible liar and I have always been a terrible liar and that was perhaps the most unconvincing thirty seconds of speech I’ve produced since I tried to tell my fourth-grade teacher that my hamster ate my book report.

Asher, who has been sitting quietly at the other end of the table in the way that Asher occupies space, which is to say substantially but without announcement, clears his throat.

“So you’re exploring,” he says. Not challenging, just offering it back gently, like a door being held open. “Trying to figure out what comes next. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve all been there.” He glances at Killian. “Right?”

Killian holds my gaze for one beat. Two. Then he looks at Asher and nods. “Right.”

I could kiss Asher. Platonically. In a deeply grateful, entirely appropriate way. I could absolutely kiss him.

Killian turns back to me and the slight tilt of his head tells me the conversation is shifting.

“I have a proposal,” he says. “We have an opening summer event this weekend. My director of events, Mallory Summers, is running it. I’d like you to shadow her through the lead-up. Learn the operation, provide input where you see fit, contribute where it’s useful. Consider it orientation.” He pauses. “The midsummer event is where Sophia’s boutique launches. That one’s yours to run. Full coordination, soup to nuts. Mallory will support you, but you’ll be in the lead.”

I absorb that. The opening event is this weekend. Shadow first, then take point. It’s a smart handoff structure and he built it in about twenty seconds from scratch, which tells me exactly what kind of operational mind I’m dealing with.

“I’ll also pull a few of the active vineyard projects and have you take point on those while you’re here,” he continues. “You’d be compensated properly. Not a favor. A contract.” He looks at me. “You’d be working instead of pretending to relax, which I suspect suits you better.”

“I can relax,” I say.

From somewhere to my left, Maddox makes a sound.