Impact (Suncoast Society #32)(37)

“I know, right?” He headed for their bedroom to change out of his work clothes. “I’ll get started on that. I want to get everything put away. If CPS decides they want to do another home visit, I’d rather her nursery be a dedicated room and not our office-slash-dungeon.”

“They don’t know it was a dungeon.”

“That’s beside the point,” he called back.

Tilly settled on the couch with Katie as the infant worked on the bottle. At least she had a good appetite. Tilly would relax if next week at the appointment the baby had gained a considerable amount of weight.

And if the blood work came back okay.

If Katie’s blood sample came back with any drugs in her system, Tilly would want to put Sofia under the damn jail, much less even think about letting the woman regain custody.

Cris had made good progress on swapping the bedroom out when Landry came home bearing Chinese take-out. They ate on the couch, Katie asleep on a quilt on the floor.

“He’s right, love,” Landry said. “I prefer her to be in the guest room.”

“Ooh, let’s go look at paint this weekend,” Cris said. “Before we go shopping for furniture.”

“There’s furniture in the guest room,” Tilly reminded him.

“Yeah, but some of that will need to go into the other room.”

Landry held up his hands. “Before we go crazy, let’s think about this. Perhaps we need to invest in a larger space.”

“Why?” Tilly asked.

“If Sofia is going to be living with us, I’d rather not be on top of each other, as it were. At least a four-bedroom place. I did a little looking online this morning and found an upscale condo not more than a mile from Nick, Lucas, and Leigh’s place. Private courtyard pool, play area for children, and a private, gated parking garage. Also, a doorman around the clock.”

Tilly stared at him for a moment. “That sounds damned pricey.”

“Well, yes, it would be. Nothing we can’t afford. Especially if this place is sold. Besides, this place technically belongs to the production company.”

“You already talked to them, didn’t you, you big fink?”

He grinned. “On my way home, after going to look at it. They were highly enamored of the plan, yes.”

Tilly flopped back on the couch. “Why do I even bother?”

“Give me one logical reason this won’t work? It eliminates one of your concerns about privacy, does it not? And it’s in a very low-crime area. Which is another concern. While this area is nice, there are far nicer.”

“When is the closing?” she snarked, already knowing he’d bought it.

“Wednesday afternoon. My, now who is the spooky one?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Like you said. It’s a Domme thing. So why should we even bother swapping bedrooms for the baby?”

“It’ll be two weeks before we can move in,” he said. “And it’s two and a half bathrooms, top floor, gorgeous view of the mountains to the north. The building is only five years old and is the latest in earthquake resistant architecture. And there is a well-equipped gym for residents, plus a securely screened-in balcony lanai that is already child-proofed.”

“When do we get to see it?”

He held up a set of keys. “We can go over tonight, if you wish.”

Cris started chuckling. That quickly bloomed into a full-on, deep belly laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Tilly asked.

“Welcome to my world, Redbird,” he said. “Oh, Lan. I love that after all these years, you haven’t changed a bit. He did this same damn thing to me when he rented out the second office space we were in. He’d been looking for weeks and one day after telling me he wanted to expand, he made it look like he’d just lucked into the space.”

“In this case,” Landry said, “I really did start looking today. I asked Lucas if he knew of any places I should check out, and he’d seen the advertisement for that condo building. He gave me a budget that they’d meet me at, and I took care of the rest. It’s a new building, new stainless appliances, all the comforts, as they say. It truly was luck, in this case.”

“Well, we sure could use a little luck about now,” Tilly said, her gaze falling on the sleeping baby.

If only she knew the shitstorm surrounding her.

Fortunately, she never would have to know about it.

Not if Tilly had anything to say about it.





Chapter Thirteen


Cris volunteered to ride in the back seat with the baby while Landry drove Tilly’s car. Tilly rode shotgun.

“Nice of you to ask our input before going through with this,” she snarked.

He laced fingers with her and squeezed. “I swore I’d never try to Dom you unless you asked. I never said I wouldn’t be decisive.”

“Dammit,” she lightly said. “I’ll never win with you, will I?”

“Why would you want to?” Cris asked. “It’s almost more fun losing sometimes.”

“I shall remember you said that, boy,” Landry said.

He even had the garage code already, punching it in when he pulled up to the roll-up gate.

“Wow. That is secure,” she said.