Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(54)

He was glad Tilly was willing to play that dirty, because he didn’t have the heart to and knew Reed didn’t, either.

Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief when Vanessa reached out, picked up one of the crackers, and started nibbling on it.

“Good girl,” Reed softly said from her other side. “That’s our good girl.”





Tilly ordering her to eat felt like a foglight in the solid inky blackness. Logically, Vanessa knew her friend was right. If Tony were here, he’d be upset at her not taking care of herself.

It took her a while, but by the time they were ready to head home again, she’d managed to finish everything.

She never could have done this without her men.

And yes, she was already thinking of them as her men.

They’d made it clear they weren’t going anywhere unless she wanted them gone.

She most certainly did not.

She never would have made it through the week without them, or their friends.

Her friends.

So much she’d lost, but so much she’d gained. Not that she wouldn’t trade all of them in a heartbeat to have her brother back, because she would.

But the cosmic irony didn’t escape her. In losing her brother, she gained a whole village of people stepping in, stepping up, and standing beside her, supporting her because of their love for her brother and her.

She lost a brother and gained two Sirs.

When they pulled into her driveway, she was stepping up onto the porch with Lyle when she heard Carlo growl behind her.

Headlights swept over them, and she turned to see a car pulling in behind hers.

Reed had Carlo on his leash, and the dog stepped back, ears flattened.

Shit.

The car shut off. Kelly got out, hesitated, and started walking toward them when Carlo barked a warning.

She stopped.

“Can we help you?” Reed asked.

“I…I’m Kelly. Tony’s ex. I wanted to come speak to Vanessa.”

“You can talk from there,” Reed told her.

While Vanessa didn’t have the energy to deal with her, she processed and stored away her enjoyment of Reed using full-on Dom tone on her and holding her there in her tracks.

Vanessa clutched the urn a little more tightly.

“I just wanted to say I’m so sorry. Can I come in and talk to you? For just a minute?”

Reed looked back at her, waiting.

She realized he was waiting for her to give him a sign one way or another.

How would Tony have handled it?

She nodded at Lyle, who spoke up. “You can have five minutes.”

They got Vanessa inside and seated on the couch. She wouldn’t let go of the urn, afraid if she did that Kelly might want to touch it.

She didn’t want her touching his urn.

Kelly looked more than uncomfortable sitting on the chair across from the couch. Reed had to put Carlo in his crate because he wouldn’t stop growling at Kelly, and Vanessa was afraid that, under the circumstances, he might actually bite her.

The last thing she wanted was that bitch trying to take Tony’s dog away because of a bite.

“Well?” Lyle finally said. “What did you want to say?”

“I’m sorry, we weren’t introduced,” Kelly said.

“No, we weren’t,” Reed said. “And your time’s running out.”

Kelly went red in the face, obviously not used to being talked to like that.

Finally, she spoke. “Look, I know you and I didn’t always get along great, and I’m sorry. I loved Tony. He was a good man. I’m sorry I didn’t come to the private service, but I couldn’t get away.”

Vanessa didn’t even want to know what pressing matters were so important it would overshadow that.

She didn’t care, either.

She stared at Kelly.

The other woman forged on. “I just…I didn’t want your last impression of me to be some greedy, spiteful woman. Things just didn’t work out between us.”

Knowing what she now knew, Vanessa kept her mouth shut.

One more try on Kelly’s part. “I hope we can be friends.”

At that, she laughed, and found her tongue unsealed. “Friends? Seriously? You didn’t want to be friends when he was alive, so why would I want to be friends with you when he’s dead? And by the way, no, he didn’t mention you in his will, if that’s what you were edging around for.”

Kelly straightened in the chair, her face going an even deeper shade of red. “That’s not why I’m here!”

“Bullshit,” Reed said. “You’re a horrible liar.”

Lyle stood. “And that’s time. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Kelly stood but now that Vanessa could speak, she wouldn’t stop. “He loved you enough to let you go to be happy,” she said. “He knew he couldn’t be happy with you or make you happy, so he let you go and let you think you took him in the divorce. You treated him like shit, said some pretty horrible things to and about him, when all he was trying to do was spare you the truth. Even after the shitty way you treated my family.”

She glared at Kelly. “All the times you tried to make him choose between his family and you, and he still was decent to you when he didn’t have to be. He could have simply up and left you one day while you were at work, and he didn’t. He wanted to be fair to you because he felt guilty. So while I’m sure he’d want me to show you some compassion, frankly? I don’t have any for you. Fuck. You. That’s something I wished I could have said to you long ago when I first met you and realized the kind of person you are, and I didn’t because I didn’t want to hurt my brother’s feelings.”