Page 144 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Julian doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. He’s wearing sunglasses pushed up into his dark curls, his shirt open over a tank. “You can bill me.”

“I’m already billing Killian for emotional damages from the duck cake.”

From a few feet away, Killian, who is talking to Luca near the grill, turns his head without missing a beat. “Denied.”

“You didn’t even hear the details.”

“I heard billing and my name.”

“That could’ve been positive.”

“It never is.”

Ryan, sprawled sideways in a lounge chair, lifts his drink. “I’d like to bill Killian for the emotional damage of being forced to wear shirts at family events.”

Liam looks at him from under the umbrella where he’s holding a plate of cut fruit. “You are not wearing a shirt.”

Ryan looks down at his open button-up like this is brand-new information. “Spiritually, I am oppressed.”

Sage, sitting beside Luca with his feet in the pool, says, “Spiritually, you need supervision.”

“Matteo supervises me just fine,” Ryan says, far too smugly.

The yard becomes instantly interested in a way that is frankly predatory. Ryan realizes his mistake approximately two seconds too late.

Luca slowly turns. “Does he now?”

Ryan points at the pool. “I think Mila is doing something adorable.”

“That was a terrible deflection, and you pointed the wrong way,” Adrian says from the shade, not looking up from where he’s assembling one of Mila’s new toys with the focus of a bomb technician.

Damon laughs softly from the edge of the pool where he’s sketching with his feet in the water. Roman’s in the pool, laughing at the way Ryan is clearly suffering.

“Leave him alone,” I say, because I am generous and because I would rather not discuss a Blackthorne owner at my daughter’s birthday party. “He has one brain cell, and it’s overheated.”

Ryan clutches his chest. “I expected betrayal from many people, but not you, Father of the Year.”

I lift my bottle toward him. “Then that’s on you.”

Julian laughs under his breath, fingers flexing once in my pocket. “You’re in a good mood.”

I glance over at him, and the sun catches his eyes, turning hazel warm behind the shadow of his lashes. “Our daughter is one, the cake hasn’t melted, nobody has fallen into the pool, and full custody means I can tell every imaginary critic in my head to fuck off with legal backing.”

His smile softens, and there it is—the small gravity drop beneath the joking. He knows what those words cost and what they mean. Full custody. The court order is tucked in a file in my safe and saved in three digital places because I am my lawyer’s favorite paranoid client now.

My name. My rights. My daughter. No pending question mark hanging over every bottle, nap, and medical appointment. No one can come to take her because of the house I live in or the way she arrived, or the lies Celeste told in the letter she forged.

Mila Matthews is mine on paper in the same way she was mine in my arms from the first night, and some mornings I still wake up terrified that I dreamed the ruling.

Julian’s hand leaves my pocket and settles at my lower back. “Love you, baby,” he says in a low tone just for me.

My face warms. Months of loving this man openly has not made me immune to him saying things in that low voice.

I should be used to this by now, the way happiness can sit beside grief without asking one of them to leave. I’m better at it than I was. Therapy helps. Julian helps. Mila helps, not because she fixes anything—that’s too much responsibility for a baby who once got mad at a banana—but because loving her gives my life a center that Celeste doesn’t get to own. Still, some facts sit quietly underneath every good day.

Celeste is still missing. The warrant for her arrest promises only prison as her welcoming committee if she ever shows up again. Her name turns up in conversations with Mara in most of our meetings. There have been sightings that weren’t sightings, tips that went nowhere, financial trails that dried up, people who lied because they were scared or paid or stupid.

Three of her sorority sisters have been formally implicated. More than implicated, really. Named. Charged in connection with drugging, blackmail, non-consensual recordings, conspiracy, and enough digital horror that I stopped asking Mara for details unless they directly involved my case.