Jagged

Zander knew about Zara.

Reece tamped down the urge to howl with elation and guessed, “And Cinders knows this and he’s pissed.”

“Very much so,” she confirmed.

Reece said nothing.

Wilona Cinders did.

“Zander wants to meet his aunt.”

“You name the day and time, she’ll be there and you know it,” he said instantly.

She nodded.

Then she shocked the shit out of him when she added, “And I want to help you with your custody case.”

Reece blinked. “What?”

“I have stipulations.”

He uncrossed his arms from his chest and planted his hands on his hips, saying sarcastically, “Why does that not surprise me?”

She didn’t respond to that.

Instead, she announced, “I want to raise him.”

Reece’s anger started edging back.

He dropped his arms and made to move away. “Not gonna happen.”

“No!” she cried, lifting a hand toward him. “He’ll meet Zara. She can come over any time. I promise. Any time, Mr. Reece. And Zander can come to your place. He can spend the night. Have his friends over if he wants. We’ll do Christmases together. Thanksgiving. All of it. I’ll do anything, and I know Zara and I haven’t been close, but I promise. I’ll do anything. Between us, we’ll make it good for Zander. I swear.”

She lifted her other hand, turning both palms up, beseeching and, fuck him, with her posture and the look on her face, the bright in her eyes, even he wasn’t immune.

“But he’s my boy,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the word boy. “I’ve had him since he was so little. He couldn’t even hold his head up. And he’s happy. I’ve worked hard to make him happy because I want him to be happy. I don’t want Xavier to hurt him. I want him to have people around him who love him. And I don’t want him to be caught up in any of Xavier’s nastiness. I don’t want scars on him like that.”

The tears glistened in her eyes as her voice dropped lower.

“I don’t want him to have scars like his mother had. I don’t want him to survive childhood like she did…” She pulled in a breath and shared, “Like I did. I want him to be happy.”

A tear slid down her cheek and Reece closed his eyes.

Probably unintentionally, Xavier had broken the cycle, giving his grandson to a woman who’d learned. A woman who couldn’t conceive. A woman who knew the precious entity she had in her hands and handled it with care.

He opened his eyes. “I’ll talk to Zara. We’ll want a meeting with Zander the minute you can arrange it. We’ll speak to our attorney about the rest of it and either Zara or our attorney, Nina Maxwell, will contact you to discuss things further with you.”

“Zander can’t wait to meet her,” she said immediately.

“She feels the same.”

“Tell her…” She lifted her hands to her face for a second before she dropped them. “Please, Mr. Reece, tell her that it wasn’t my decision to keep him away from her. I would have gone to her but I didn’t think…” She trailed off.

She was right not to think Zara would be receptive to a visit. Zara was not a fan of either of her aunts. But times apparently were changing.

And Reece was fucking glad she didn’t. This was news he wanted to share.

“I think she’s got a pretty clear understanding of how her father works, Mizz Cinders. But I’ll tell her.”

She nodded.

He turned to leave her.

“Mr. Reece?” she called.

He heaved a heavy sigh and turned back.

“Thank you.”

Fuck him. She meant that.

And she meant it deeply.

Reece nodded.

She looked up the stairs as if seeing them she could see Zara, tell the future, understand how she’d react.

Then she moved away.

Reece watched her go.

Then he jogged up the steps.

* * *

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, God, God,” Zara chanted as Reece stood in his sweaty workout clothes and watched her dancing around their living room, her soft hair bouncing, her face lit with a massive smile.

Needless to say, she took all that day’s news better than he did.

She stopped, whirled, dashed to him, and halted abruptly so she could slap her hands so hard on his chest he had to swallow a grunt.

“Zander wants to meet me!” she shrieked in his face, then threw her arms around him, also throwing her body at him. She did this so he had to go back on a foot so they didn’t topple down.

He wrapped his arms around her, noting with little surprise her priority in dancing around in joy was her nephew, not the fact that she was a millionaire.

Before he could say a word, she jumped away, breaking from his arms, and cried, “Oh God! I need a new outfit!”

Reece felt his lips curve into a smile.

Jesus.

Women.

“Not sure a nine-year-old boy’ll care what you wear, cookie,” he told her.

She shook her head and started pacing, declaring, “I have to go to the mall.” She whirled on him again. “Immediately!”

“Maybe you should let me call this new shit in to Nina before you head to the mall.”

He wished he could eat those words when her face instantly fell.

“Do you think Aunt Wilona will renege?” she asked.

“No. The woman I spoke to would lay her life down for that boy. But your father is unpredictable.”

“Then we need to do this on the hush-hush,” she stated and he grinned.

“That’d be good. So you be good. Don’t go spreadin’ word around town with all your girls. Don’t fly off to the mall and buy a meet-with-Zander outfit. Your dad’s investigatin’ me. We already know that. We don’t know what else he’s up to. He could have someone watchin’. He might even already know about that meet I just had with your aunt outside. We just got a couple of huge breaks. You need to play it cool.”

She nodded, her head bobbing vigorously. “I can be cool.”

She was totally not going to be cool.

“Arlene’s out,” he told her and she scrunched up her nose.

“This is true. Arlene has a big mouth,” she agreed.

“Inner circle, babe. Nina only until she sorts shit out and you get a sit-down with that boy. We do not want to tip our hand that we know about that money or it might disappear. We do not want to set your father into doin’ somethin’ stupid that’ll hurt Zander if he knows Wilona made an approach. The more people who know, the more chance word will spread even if folks don’t mean any harm. We keep this under our hats. And that means more