Tilly stared at him for a moment. “That sounds damned pricey.”
“Well, yes, it would be. Nothing we can’t afford. Especially if this place is sold. Besides, this place technically belongs to the production company.”
“You already talked to them, didn’t you, you big fink?”
He grinned. “On my way home, after going to look at it. They were highly enamored of the plan, yes.”
Tilly flopped back on the couch. “Why do I even bother?”
“Give me one logical reason this won’t work? It eliminates one of your concerns about privacy, does it not? And it’s in a very low-crime area. Which is another concern. While this area is nice, there are far nicer.”
“When is the closing?” she snarked, already knowing he’d bought it.
“Wednesday afternoon. My, now who is the spooky one?”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Like you said. It’s a Domme thing. So why should we even bother swapping bedrooms for the baby?”
“It’ll be two weeks before we can move in,” he said. “And it’s two and a half bathrooms, top floor, gorgeous view of the mountains to the north. The building is only five years old and is the latest in earthquake resistant architecture. And there is a well-equipped gym for residents, plus a securely screened-in balcony lanai that is already child-proofed.”
“When do we get to see it?”
He held up a set of keys. “We can go over tonight, if you wish.”
Cris started chuckling. That quickly bloomed into a full-on, deep belly laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Tilly asked.
“Welcome to my world, Redbird,” he said. “Oh, Lan. I love that after all these years, you haven’t changed a bit. He did this same damn thing to me when he rented out the second office space we were in. He’d been looking for weeks and one day after telling me he wanted to expand, he made it look like he’d just lucked into the space.”
“In this case,” Landry said, “I really did start looking today. I asked Lucas if he knew of any places I should check out, and he’d seen the advertisement for that condo building. He gave me a budget that they’d meet me at, and I took care of the rest. It’s a new building, new stainless appliances, all the comforts, as they say. It truly was luck, in this case.”
“Well, we sure could use a little luck about now,” Tilly said, her gaze falling on the sleeping baby.
If only she knew the shitstorm surrounding her.
Fortunately, she never would have to know about it.
Not if Tilly had anything to say about it.
Chapter Thirteen
Cris volunteered to ride in the back seat with the baby while Landry drove Tilly’s car. Tilly rode shotgun.
“Nice of you to ask our input before going through with this,” she snarked.
He laced fingers with her and squeezed. “I swore I’d never try to Dom you unless you asked. I never said I wouldn’t be decisive.”
“Dammit,” she lightly said. “I’ll never win with you, will I?”
“Why would you want to?” Cris asked. “It’s almost more fun losing sometimes.”
“I shall remember you said that, boy,” Landry said.
He even had the garage code already, punching it in when he pulled up to the roll-up gate.
“Wow. That is secure,” she said.
“Of course it is.”
“I take it you put the deposit down already?”
“I wrote the real estate agent a check, yes. The inspector will be by early Monday to go through the place for us and do a walk-through.”
“I thought you were going back to Florida?”
“Change of plans, love. I’ve delayed our meetings until the week after.” He smiled. “We have a move to take care of.”
Even the parking garage was nice, clean, obviously swept and free of any stray detritus that many garages picked up, like pieces of paper and leaves. Cris got the carrier detached from the car seat base and carried the baby while Landry led them over to an elevator and punched in a code.
The condo was furnished, but with nothing personal in evidence. “It’s all rental furniture,” Landry told them. “It’s staged. It’ll take them that long to get it moved. I told them that was fine, because we didn’t need any of it.”
Tilly walked into the kitchen. Larger than their current one, the open plan had enough room for a table and had a breakfast bar as well. Plus there was a separate dining room.
In this condo, the master bath had both a large, deep soaking tub and a shower.
“Okay, I have to admit, that’s cool,” Tilly said.
“I thought you’d like that, love. And the pool is wonderful.” He walked her to a window in the living room and pointed down.
The landscaped courtyard was cast in deep shadows from the evening, but she spotted palm trees galore. “And the pool is open twenty-four hours,” Landry said. “So is the hot tub.”
She sank onto the couch. “Do I even want to know the price?”
“I refuse to tell you, love, because you’ll simply get upset. While I appreciate your thrifty nature, in this case, I’m overruling you. If you wish, you and Leigh can carpool to and from work some days, you’re that close.”
The doorbell rang. “Who’s that?” Tilly asked.
Landry, however, didn’t look surprised. “Ah, there they are.” He walked over and let them in.
Leigh, Lucas, and Nick, who carried Lily.
Leigh grinned at Tilly. “Well?”
“You’re as big a fink as he is.”
“Hey, I didn’t find out until after you’d left for the day, and I was sworn to secrecy.” She sat next to Tilly. “Well?”
She shrugged and pointed to Landry. “He gets the final word.”
Cris gave Landry a fist bump. “I think that’s the closest to a ‘yes, dear’ that you’ll get from her,” Cris said.
“I’ll take the win,” Landry said.
“Won’t this add to your drive time to the office?” Tilly asked the men.
Landry shrugged. “Maybe another ten or fifteen minutes. Honestly? I’d rather the time difference be in your favor than ours.”
“Aww. You’re the sweetest sadist.”
“Hush, love. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
“What reputation?” Cris snarked. “Everyone knows you’re a teddy bear outside of a dungeon.”
Landry’s hand shot out, grabbed Cris by the hair, and pulled him in close. “What was that, boy?”
Nick burst out laughing. “Yeah, those sadists will get you every time.”
Leigh walked the condo with Tilly. “I think this room would be the perfect nursery. What color will you paint it?”
The entire condo smelled freshly painted, every room the same, blah industrial white.
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t even gotten that far. We’ll have to go shopping again. I’ll need more furniture.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“I didn’t say it was. There are worse problems in life to have.”
Like being stuck in jail.
That was something she’d never done in her life. In fact, she’d gone through great pains to stay out of jail, especially while doing the pro-Domme gig following Cris’ unexpected departure. Any time she’d had a client she thought was trying to push for sexual services, she immediately dropped them. As a result, she never ran afoul of the law.
Although there were a few times had it not been for Landry or Cris interceding, she might have ended up in jail for beating the crap out of a fucktard who desperately deserved it.
Prison orange is not my color.
Cris caught up with them. “I take it you’re okay with this?”
“Not like I have a choice, but yeah, he did good.”
“Let’s walk downstairs and see the pool before we leave,” he said.
“Okay.” It would be nice to have a pool. They didn’t have one at the house in Florida, and the backyard was too small there for a decent one, a
nyway. Although they’d enjoyed Lucas and Leigh’s pool plenty of times, having a key to their house and free permission to use it anytime they wanted.
This time, Landry insisted on toting Katie’s carrier. Tilly was shocked at not just how quickly the men seemed to acclimate to being “fathers,” but how natural they appeared in the role.
No, hoping she stays in jail for a while is baaaad.
By the time they headed home again, it was nearly dark.
“What are you thinking, Redbird?” Landry asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“Maybe it’s a good thing we haven’t adopted before now,” she said. “I would have reacted a lot differently the other day when Sofia called. And I probably wouldn’t have been so eager to have her in our home, Cris’ cousin or not.”
“I had already thought that myself,” Landry admitted.
“Ditto,” Cris added from the back seat.
Tilly turned to look at him. “Really?”
“I love Sofia, but I’m no idiot. I would have put her up in a hotel. Maybe taken the baby still, but definitely not have had her around a child of ours. Not unless I was sure it was safe. Gang thugs aren’t anyone I want to get involved with. Just because I have a black belt doesn’t mean I want to get in a fight. Especially since a lot of those guys carry guns.”
“That’s one of the many things I love about you, boy,” Landry said. “Your common sense.”
“That’s not what you said when you first came around,” Tilly snarked.
Landry squeezed her hand. “There are exceptions to every rule, love.”
* * * *
Tilly fell asleep on the couch, starting awake to find the baby not on her chest where she’d been when she’d laid down just for a minute.
Landry chuckled. “Cris put her to bed over an hour ago. She’s fine.”
Tilly felt her heart start to slow to a normal rate. “Oh, good.”
Landry rose from the chair and held out a hand to her. “In fact, he already went to bed. Shall we join him?”
“To sleep, I hope.” She took his hand and let him help her up. “I’m too damn exhausted for anything else.”
“Just sleep. I’m rather tired myself. We had an early morning.”
“I think we’ll have plenty of them until she starts sleeping through the night.”
“He coaxed her into taking half a bottle before he put her down for the night. Perhaps that will help.”
* * * *
Landry got up to take the five thirty cry.
Tilly didn’t argue.
Since Cris also got up, she assumed the two of them had it under control.
It was nearly eight when she finally rolled over again and opened her eyes. Next to the bed, her personal cell phone was ringing. Blindly groping, she found it and answered.
“Yo.”
“Hey, Tilly. Did I wake you?”
Loren. “Kinda sorta halfway. I’m technically not awake yet, so don’t feel guilty.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s up?”
“You tell me. What’s going on? And when do we get to meet the little one?”
Tilly felt slightly guilty. She’d briefly talked to Loren on Thursday and gave her the quick version of events between returning to the office with Leigh and driving home again, but hadn’t had a chance to fill her in completely.
“It’ll take a while. Give me five minutes to pee, get coffee, and I’ll call you back.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.” She did just that, making sure everything was okay with the guys and the baby first.
Cris and Landry were stretched out on the couch, Katie asleep on Landry’s chest, Cris dozing. Landry was watching a news program.
“Was that your phone I heard?” he asked.
“Yeah, Loren calling. I owe her a call right back. Everything okay?”
“We’re fine, love. Go call her. Tell them I said hello.”
Tilly took her coffee back into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed to call Loren.
“That was six minutes,” Loren said.
“I had to wipe,” Tilly snarked, blowing across the top of her mug. “Where do you want me to begin?”
“At the beginning. I’m a little confused how this all happened. It didn’t make much sense the other day and I was having trouble hearing you.”
“Sorry. Damn hands-free system.” She gave Loren the long version of events.
A half hour later, Loren let out a low whistle. “Damn. So she’s in jail right now?”
“For the time being, yes.”
“When are you guys coming back to Florida?”
“I don’t know at this point. Soon, I hope.” She closed her eyes. “I miss you guys.”
“We miss you, too, sweetie, but this is more important. I can fly out there, if you want.”
Tilly started to say no, that was okay.
That she was strong enough to handle this.
That she didn’t need the help.
Those would have been lies, every last one of them. And Loren would have known it.
Loren and Ross had picked her up and kept her going—literally—when Cris left. They were her very best friends.
“Really?” Tilly asked.
“Sweetie, you don’t even need to ask. I’ll book the first flight out that I can for today and let you know when I’m arriving.”
“Thank you.”
“How are Cris and Landry holding up?”
“I’ve got some adorable pics to text to you. I didn’t even post them on Facebook.”
“I can’t wait. Let me get off here and find a flight and pack. I’ll have Ross take me to the airport. Will you be able to pick me up, or should I get a cab?”
“I’ll meet you there. How long can you stay?”
“How long do you need me?”
She swallowed hard. “At least until after the hearing.”
“Then I’ll plan for a couple of weeks, at least. Hey, I get to help you decorate a nursery in the new place, don’t I?”
Tilly swallowed back tears as she laughed. “I guess you will.”
“Good. Keep your phone close. I’ll text the details when I have them. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Lor.” Tilly hung up and stared at her phone for a moment. This wasn’t fair. Loren and Ross had always wanted children, too.
Through no fault of her own, Loren had the option taken away from her, too, thanks to some drunken assholes at a frat party who spiked her drink.
Cris tapped on the door and swung it open. “Is it safe?”
“Yeah.” She wiped at her eyes. “Lor’s flying out. Hopefully today.”
“Hey, great. She’s staying with us, right?”
“She better be.”
He walked over to the bed and sat next to her, pulling her into his arms. “This is the good kind of irony, for a change.”
“Loren coming to my rescue again?”
“Yeah.”
She snuggled tightly against him, now letting her tears flow. “Why am I reacting like this?”
“Because it’s an emotional time, Redbird. It’s okay to feel emotional.”
“I’m not going to want to let her go.”
“Let’s deal with that when it happens, not before. We have custody of Katie. That’s a given. Sofia understands we will not relinquish that custody until we’re positive she can care for her. Frankly, that’s going to be a while. At least a year, and even then perhaps longer depending on what happens at the hearing. She might end up in jail for a couple of years.”
“Really?” She immediately hated herself. “Sorry that sounded so hopeful.”
Cris chuckled. “We all make choices, Redbird. I get it. Uncle Gonzalo was an asshole. Or is one. I haven’t tried tracking them down yet. Not sure I want to. I keep going back and forth on that one. But the point is, Sofia made the choices she did. She could have left for Florida with me. She could have taken the easy out, and she chose to stay here. She made a series of bad
choices that compounded each one she made.”
“Sometimes people don’t think they have choices.”
“True, but you can’t tell me there wasn’t five minutes in the hospital she couldn’t have asked a nurse for privacy during a bath or something when she couldn’t have whispered she needed help. You cannot convince me of that.”
Tilly wasn’t so sure. “It depends on how scared she was.”
“They have security in hospitals, Redbird.”
“She might not have thought they could protect her. You don’t know if the people watching her were armed or not.”
“She had a baby to think about. She knew the environment she would be taking Katie back to. You can’t convince me that was a better option than risking asking for help. It took getting the crap beaten out of her—not the first time—and the asshole threatening the baby to finally snap her out of it.”
“And he threatened her that if she talked, he’d hurt the baby, or tell the probation officer what was going on and she worried the baby would be taken away.”
“Maybe not the worst thing.”
That irony wasn’t lost on Tilly, that she was now trying to defend Sofia in the woman’s absence.
“Do you really feel like that, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?” she asked.
“I really feel like that. What I did to you, that was stupid. But I knew you’d be okay. What she did…” He sighed. “I love her, but honestly? I’m angry with her. She could have accepted my help years ago.”
“And maybe she wouldn’t have Katie.”
“Well, if it wasn’t for us, Katie would be destined to a pretty miserable life. We’re charmed, no doubt about it. I don’t take that good fortune for granted, and I won’t let her go through the kinds of hell you and I had to go through as kids, even if it means standing up to Fi and keeping custody of Katie.”
Tilly wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse. “Okay.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming text message.
“Loren?” he asked.
“Yeah. She’s got a flight booked already. Wow, that was fast.”
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