Whatever this woman thinks she’s doing, if she thinks she’s found something in Vanguard, it won’t last. It can’t last. Because at the end of the day, Julia holds the strings. Julia always has.
She closes the file and dims the screens, leaving only Vanguard’s tracking dot pulsing softly in the darkness.
She’ll be watching. She’s always watching.
And when the time comes to remind him who he belongs to, she’ll be ready.
CHAPTER 12
VANGUARD
I can’t rememberthe last time I had a woman in my penthouse. It was either one of the hosts from a morning show for a segment on famous penthouses, or it was the time I came home from an event early and interrupted the cleaning lady, Sylvia, scaring her half to death. Either way, it’s been awhile.
And now, Mia is here, after I picked her up this morning for a continuation of the interview. She wanted someplace with no watchers, no handlers, and I knew this was pretty much the only place we could have total privacy. Danny is, of course, on the roof above keeping watch, but thankfully, he’ll stay there and let us be.
“So?” I ask, suddenly caring about her opinion on my not so humble abode.
I watch Mia move through my living room, her fingers trailing along the back of the leather sofa, her eyes cataloging everything.
“It’s very…” She pauses, searching for the word. “Clean.”
“You say that like it’s an insult.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, I do have a cleaning lady.”
She turns to face me, that sharp little smile playing at her lips. “It doesn’t look lived in. It looks like a showroom. Or a hotel.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve been here two years, and the place still feels like it belongs to someone else, like I’m just passing through, waiting for someone to tell me where I actually live. Someplace I can really call home. I’m not sure if that place will ever exist for me.
“I’m not home much,” I say. “Busy saving the world and all that.”
“Mmm.” She doesn’t sound convinced. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’satruth.” She moves toward the windows, the afternoon light catching the faint strands of gold in her dark hair. She’s wearing jeans today that make her ass look fucking fantastic, along with a soft sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder, revealing a lacy bra strap that’s been driving me insane. “You can have more than one, you know. Most people do.”
I don’t have a response to that, so I head for the kitchen instead. “You hungry? You bring your lactose intolerance pills? I make a mean grilled cheese.”
“A mean grilled cheese,” she comments, sounding amused. She follows me, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. “America’s superhero, domestic god.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, darlin’.” I pull out bread, butter, cheese, mayo, and the jar of pickled jalapeños I keep in the back of the fridge. “This is my specialty. Secret family recipe.”
“Your family had a secret grilled cheese recipe?”
“Well, I did. A secreteverythingrecipe.” I start buttering the bread, the familiar motions settling something in my chest. “When you’re poor, you learn to make food stretch. My momwasn’t much of a cook even when she was sober, which wasn’t often, so I figured things out.”
Mia is quiet for a moment. When I glance up, she’s watching me with an expression I can’t read.
“You cooked for Emma then.”
“Yeah.” Hearing her name still feels like a punch, but it’s softer now. Dulled. “Grilled cheese was her favorite. She liked it with tomato soup, but we couldn’t always afford both, so sometimes, it was just the sandwich. We always had jalapeños in the garden, though, and cheese was cheap. And for dessert…”
I trail off, the memory catching me off guard. Emma at the kitchen table, five years old, swinging her feet because they didn’t reach the floor yet, her face lighting up when I brought over the plate.
“Cinnamon toast,” I finish, back in the present. “Bread and butter, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Quick and cheap and easy. She thought it was the best thing in the world.”
