Page 14 of Anchor
The glass in her hand was half full, pale gold catching the faint balcony lighting. She hadn’t taken a drink in a while. He could tell by the way the condensation had gone patchy. She didn’t look up when he came closer.
“Your mother’s gone,” Reid said quietly, not bothering to smooth the words over. “She left without you. I’ve been asked to see you home.”
He noted a flicker, a fractional shift of her shoulders. There was no acknowledgment beyond the smallest thread of breath escaping.
“That sounds like her,” she said, voice flat. The kind of tone people used when they were too tired to play their part. He’d heard steel in her voice earlier this evening, the glinting kind, weaponized for social combat. She left it behind in the ballroom with the scent of champagne and sound of applause.
He hesitated before stepping closer, his jacket still draped over his arm. The air out here was colder than he liked. High-altitude wind slid across the terrace, unkind and sharp, lifting the edges of her hair. “You’ll freeze out here.”
“I’m fine.” She said it like it didn’t matter, like everything inside her had already gone cold anyway.
Reid didn’t argue. He didn’t want to test how thin the ice beneath that voice had become. He just leaned forward and carefully draped his jacket over her shoulders. She didn’t flinch.She didn’t shrug it off. That alone told him more than words would’ve.
Something had shifted in her, almost imperceptibly. Not softened, just... deflated. The fight had gone out of her posture, and he didn’t know whether that was better or worse.
“Slip your shoes back on,” he said after a moment, quieter now.
She moved like each action required conscious choice, sliding her feet into the heels without rush or care. Then she straightened, and her eyes met his. She was exhausted, yes, but more than that. This was a quiet surrender that didn’t feel like giving up. She was just done.
He gave her a moment. Then, without knowing exactly why it felt important now, he said, “We didn’t get a chance to trade names back when we were chasing those three bastards through the building.”
The corner of her mouth barely twitched with a breath, not a smile.
“I’m Reid,” he said simply.
A beat passed. Her fingers shifted slightly on the stem of the glass. Then she looked past him, toward the door, toward the security men pretending not to eavesdrop.
“I remember. Someone also called you Anchor,” she said quietly. “I just didn’t know if you wanted me to.”
Reid turned and opened the door to the interior corridor. He held it and waited. She followed.
The click of her heels on marble was subdued. There was none of the crisp, cutting rhythm from earlier. Each step landed like punctuation at the end of a sentence no one had wanted to write.
As they stepped inside, he glanced past her toward the security men. Neither moved, but their job was done now. They weren’t there to protect her but to contain her. And Reid wasn’tsure who should be more worried about that, her or the ones giving the orders?
Reid’s jacketwas warm against her bare shoulders, carrying his scent of faint soap, clean wool, and something darker she couldn’t name. She pulled it tighter without thinking as they walked, heels tapping softly on the marble.
Heather was gone. Of course she was gone. That was the pattern: arrive, assess, correct, withdraw. It was like clockwork. Claire had been a grown woman for years and still felt twelve every time it happened.
Reid didn’t fill the silence as they crossed the lobby. He moved beside her with the quiet precision of someone who didn’t need to be noticed to own the space.
When he opened the SUV door for her, Claire slid inside, the leather cool under her legs, the faint scent of cologne and vinyl mingling in the air. She folded her hands in her lap and watched her reflection ghost across the passenger-side window.
Reid joined her a moment later. He didn’t say anything as he started the engine, just adjusted the mirrors and pulled smoothly into the roundabout. The valet lane emptied behind them. The gala was truly over.
The city slipped past outside her window, filled with dark glass, gold streetlamps, storefronts with closed signs glowing dim in the windows. The SUV hummed like a secret in motion.
She didn’t look at him, but she could feel him. Not just beside her but aware of her. She felt it in the way he checked intersections before slowing, in how he didn’t fill the silence with questions or sympathy.
“You don’t have to…” she began.
“I do.” No hesitation. No glance.
The finality in his tone shouldn’t have caught her off guard, but it did. Something in it cut through the numbness settling over her all evening. It made her throat ache more than she wanted to admit.
He drove for another block. “Are you hungry?”
She blinked. The question hit her sideways. Her stomach answered before her brain could. She hadn’t eaten. A few sips of champagne, a canape she couldn’t remember, and that was it.
