I move slowly. Check in without words—a hand at her hip, a pause, her small nod. She reaches back and grips my thigh and that's all the answer I need. I find a rhythm and stay with it,unhurried, watching her face. Her breathing changes. Her grip on my thigh tightens.
When she comes the second time it's slower and deeper than the first—a long shudder, my name in a voice I've never heard from her before, her knuckles white on the pillow. I hold her through every second of it. When I let myself go it's with my face pressed to her shoulder and her name in my throat and my hands gripping her hips hard enough that she'll feel it tomorrow.
We stay still for a long time after.
I roll to my back and pull her against me and she settles with her head on my chest and neither of us speaks. The lamp on my side is still on, casting its amber circle across the ceiling, and the city outside the windows is going about its night.
After a while she laughs.
Not at anything in particular. Just—laughs, a genuine laugh, the kind that comes out when you're fully relaxed and something small catches you, the kind I haven't heard from her in weeks. It's short and quiet and it fills the room.
I feel it in my chest before I understand why.
I've been waiting to hear that. Somewhere in the last eight months, I've been waiting for her to laugh like that. Not at anything in particular but just because she’s here with me and we are together.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing," she says, still smiling against my chest. "Just—I needed that."
"Why?"
She tilts her head up to look at me. "I didn't know if it was allowed."
I look at her. "Everything's allowed," I say. "That's the whole point."
She holds my gaze for a moment. Then she puts her head back down on my chest and I feel her smile against my skin.
The lamp hums. The city moves outside. Her breathing evens out slowly and I lie there in the amber light with my hand moving through her hair and think about my father sayingI'm proud of you. Both of you.
I think I understand now what he was proud of.
Not the Tennessee documents or the Richard investigation or anything having to do with business. It’s not any of the specific things we did or built.
I think he was just proud of us for being who we are.
I close my eyes.
Jade shifts against my side, already most of the way asleep, and I hold her tightly.
32
OLIVE
I've been sitting with it for three weeks. That's how long it's been since I stood in the study doorway and heard Nicholas tell Jade that he built the empire for himself as much as for Ashley. He'd been telling himself a story about purpose and legacy and didn't know anymore where the truth was. Three weeks of mornings in the garden and Nicholas working in the study with the door open.
He's at his desk when I come in. It’s Sunday afternoon and the house is quiet. No one else is here. Nicholas looks up when he hears me and something in his face shifts. But it’s not a surprise exactly.
I close the study door and sit in the chair across from him. Nicholas sets his pen down and just looks at me.
"I was there when Jade asked you about Ashley. I heard what you said."
"I know you were," he says. "I saw you."
"You saw me standing there?”
"Yes."
"And you said it anyway?”
