Joel Dealing with His Girlfriend (pre-wifey): Milestone
Joel x F!Reader
Set when Joel and reader are still dating
Warnings: Talking about soft dicks. Joel goes to pound town. multiple orgasms. fucking until unconscious.
18+ ONLY
- - - -
A typical Saturday evening with your boyfriend usually involved you reading in bed while your aforementioned boyfriend hugged your abdomen and rested. Joel is coddled up against your stomach, breathing deeply into your shirt. His face smothered in your scent and touch. Body lax, breathing deep and steady. One leg tossed over your calf. Sometimes you’d run your fingers through his fluffy messy tuff of hair, earning low purrs from deep within his chest. He'd nuzzle his nose against your tummy with a soft grin.
It suddenly dawned on you.
You put your book down , accidentally smacking his head where he let out an 'oomf' into your stomach.
“Why have I never seen you soft before?” you ask.
Joel had started getting used to these kinds of questions from you. Something told him early on this is likely what life with you would be like, so might as well get used to it. He barely reacted aside from casually grumbling into your body: “S’never a time where you n’ me in the same room, and ya lookin’ at my dick, and it wouldn't be hard.”
But that wasn’t good enough for you. “That can’t be true. Roll over right now.”
But Joel didn’t budget.
So you used your surprising leg strength and flipped him like a pancake.
Joel tossed over easily, but the way your eyes laser beamed down at his crotch made him cover the area sheepishly with the pillow.
You saw it anyway, the clear print tent on his front jutting out.
“Are you hard right now??” You ask in disbelief.
“When ya lookin’ at me like that? Of course I am!” He retorts defensively, shifting his hardened dick to a more comfortable, more discrete location without his trousers.
“I’m not lookin at you any different way.”
“Every look ya give me makes me hard…” he admits. His ears turned red.
“But... When will I be able to see it soft…” you draw your eyes into a cute pout.
Joel rolls his eyes. “When I’m dead probably. I can't stay soft when I’m with you.”
“So you’re just walking around with a boner all day every day?”
“No. It’s only after I get to see you.”
You suck your cheek in, looking away. You don’t want him to notice the unavoidable grin plastered on your face from his open and unashamed confession.
You tap your finger on your book for a moment.
"I want to see it soft," you declare.
Joel lets out a chuckle. "Never gonna happen."
"I've known you for a year. I have to know. its like. A milestone. Or something..."
He raises his brow.
You double down. "'Or something', I said! Its a thing. Look it up." When he doesn't relent, you get up on your knees, tossing the book aside. "What do I have to do to make it soft."
Joel laughs, leaning back with one hand behind his head. "You know, there you have been in the same room as me when i've been soft many times, babygirl. Always the same situation."
"Why don't I remember??"
"Cus you're always too fucked out droolin' in the sheets by then," he says cockily.
Something about his smug sexy grin riles you up, and you quickly find yourself straddling atop him.
His hands instinctively seek purchase on your thighs, stroking them up and down while his eyes racked up and down the gorgeous sight of you on top of him. "This ain't helpin' ya get any closer to seein' the 8th wonder of the world..." He hums. To emphasize his point, he drags your clothed mound against his bulge.
It made your insides warm and fuzzy for a moment, your brain slipping into that dizzy realm of pleasure. The one that makes you sway and melt, do whatever the hell Joel wants, and sleep so good afterwards--
No! you were determined to see that thing floppin' around like a deflated wet balloon, even if it was the last thing you saw!
"I need you to get soft."
"Its too late. Im rock hard."
"Make it go backwards!"
"Cant go backwards. Only go forward. Care to find out?" He teases with a smirk. Joel sucks his lower lip as he slowly starts a steady rhymth, rocking you in place, his feet planted a little more firmly so you had no chance of escaping.
You let out a low whine. The only way out, was through. For as long as Joel knew you, you never backed out of a challege.
You also never really win at these things... but he loved how that fact never stopped you.
1 hour later...
The most desperate, pained, pleasurable croak you could muster gets muffled into the betsheets as you bite down on the fabric.
"Ah huh. How ya doin' sweatpea?" Joel huffs. Powerful hips drive into your ass repeatedly, his hands gripping your waist like he meant to leave bruises there. Each thrust sent your forehead scraping forward against the mattress. It took all your night not to fall off the side of the bed.
This fucker! you thought. How the fuck does he do this?
Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as he expertly angles his cock down, smacking your g spot repeatedly.
Like always, you'd lost count of your orgasms. Like always, you stopped using coherent words and instead resorted to babbling whines to communicate. and Like always, Joel wasn't anywhere near slowing down.
"I ain't hear you, baby." He lays his body closer to yours, chest top your back, slotting against you like a mould. Slow, deep, method rolls keeps his tip planted deep inside you.
He was so solid inside your body. Outside your body. all over you, all of him. His scent, his taste, his touch. Intoxicating and addicting over and over again.
That fucker!
You could feel his breath tickle your as he whispers: "You still waitin' to see it soft?"
Thirty minutes ago you would have ground your teeth and stuck it out with your middle finger up, ass even higher, and mind set to the sky.
But now?
Now you just hummed stupidly, eyes blurry with tears, and brain so switched off, its a miracle you could ever form a thought.
It took less than 20 minutes from that before you were face planted, unconscious in his pillow, a drooling sight he never got tired of.
Joel laid back next to you. He sighed heavily, body ablaze with sweat. You didn't notice it, but he had cum three times, and he was beat. That was usually his max, granted he had saved all week until he could get his hands on you. He was patient like that, waiting for when you'd be in the mood, and not pouncing on ya. Sex was better when you were a stubborn, determined little thing.
But he was exhausted. and true to his word, his cock sagged tiredly against his lower belly.
Joel raises his brow before brushing the hair from your face. If there was a chance you were awake to peak it, you would have shown sign of being alive right now. Instead, despite his best effort to poke your cheek awake, you snored deeply. A well earned rest.
A chuckle escapes his chest. "So much for milestones," he says to himself. He doesn't stop brushing your hair gently from your face. His thumb grazing the soft expanse of your cheek.
"My girl," he hums softly.
He remembered the first time you slept at his place over a year ago, and the thought of waking up to you like this every day plagued his mind.
Its the same thought that tumbles through his mind as he rolls the little velvet box in his hand. He keeps flicking it open, then closed, and the beautiful diamond ring flashes at him repeatedly.
"Whatdda think? You gonna like it?" He asks to your unconscious body, presenting the ring.
you let out an even louder snore.
"Yeah. let's hope that's a yes."
Joel tucks the ring back in his bedside drawer. Not today.
Some day.
Then, the thought dawned on him. A terrible, awful, unthought of one that could thwart that dream from every happening.
What if you said no, all because you never saw him soft???
Can you pls make one where House has gone deaf and he refuses to get hearing aids, but his wife gets him one?
>>>The Sound of You <<<
Summery: House can handle pain. He can handle misery. What he can’t handle is a world where he can no longer hear his wife laugh.
Pairing: Gregory House x f!reader
Genre: Angst with Happy Ending / Established Relationship / Domestic /Emotional Hurt Comfort / Married House
The first week after House lost his hearing, he treated it like a challenge.
The second week, he treated it like a war.
By the third, everyone else was exhausted.
“HE CAN READ LIPS,” Wilson whispered loudly to Foreman in the diagnostics office.
House, sitting across the room with a tennis ball and a deeply offended expression, pointed without looking up.
“I can still tell when you’re gossiping, you giant blond giraffe.”
Wilson blinked. “See? He’s fine.”
He wasn’t.
Y/N knew it before anyone else did.
Because she saw the moments nobody else did.
The way House froze whenever someone spoke from behind him.
How he stopped playing piano because he couldn’t hear the notes correctly anymore.
How he snapped harder than usual when conversations became exhausting tangles of half-read lips and guessing games.
And at night—
God.
At night hurt the most.
House used to fall asleep to her voice.
Even if he pretended otherwise.
She used to read beside him in bed, rambling about stupid articles or hospital drama while he muttered sarcastic replies into the pillow.
Now the room sat in silence.
Heavy silence.
The kind that made grief feel physical.
“You should try the hearing aids,” she signed slowly one evening.
House scoffed from the couch.
“I’d rather eat glass.”
“You can’t ignore this forever.”
“Yes, I can. I ignored my father for eighteen years.”
She sighed.
He was still beautiful when he was miserable.
That was the problem.
Grey sweatpants. Old Princeton-Plainsboro shirt. Cane abandoned beside the couch because he was too irritated to bother with it. Blue eyes fixed stubbornly on the TV he couldn’t properly hear.
He looked angry at the entire universe for betraying him.
Again.
“I don’t need them,” he muttered.
Y/N walked closer.
“You missed three pages calling your name today.”
“I was concentrating.”
“You walked into a glass door yesterday.”
“The door moved.”
“Greg.”
“I hate when you use my government name.”
Her chest tightened.
Because underneath the sarcasm—
He was scared.
Terrified, actually.
Not hearing people meant losing control.
And House without control was like watching a storm trapped inside a glass bottle.
He looked away from her.
“You know what happens when people see hearing aids?” he said quietly. “They start talking slower. Louder. Like you’re stupid.”
Y/N’s expression softened immediately.
“Oh.”
That was it.
Not pride.
Not stubbornness.
Fear.
House had spent his whole life being the smartest person in every room. Losing his hearing felt like losing the weapon he survived with.
She sat beside him carefully.
“You know what I see?”
He rolled his eyes.
“A middle-aged addict with emotional problems?”
“I see my husband,” she signed gently. “Who still scares surgeons into crying.”
That made the corner of his mouth twitch.
“A beautiful man who still solves impossible cases.”
“Debatable.”
“A jerk,” she added.
“True.”
“And someone I love very much.”
His eyes flickered.
House looked at her then.
Really looked at her.
And for one horrible second she saw how tired he was.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like fighting the world every second of every day had finally become too much.
“I can’t hear you laugh anymore,” he admitted roughly.
The sentence shattered her.
Because House almost never admitted pain out loud.
Not this kind.
She reached for his hand immediately.
“You will again.”
He shook his head.
“And if they don’t work?”
“Then we figure something else out.”
“And if people pity me?”
“I’ll hit them with your cane.”
That actually made him laugh silently.
She felt tears burn behind her eyes because she couldn’t hear it properly either.
Just broken air.
Not his real laugh.
God.
She missed his laugh.
The next morning, House woke up alone.
Which was suspicious.
Very suspicious.
He limped into the kitchen squinting.
Y/N stood beside the table holding a tiny white box.
House stopped immediately.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even looked at them.”
“I’m looking right now. I hate them.”
She walked over slowly.
“They’re barely visible.”
“They’re tiny instruments of humiliation.”
“They’re hearing aids.”
“Same thing.”
Y/N cupped his face before he could retreat.
And suddenly House looked less argumentative.
Because his wife touching him always short-circuited his ability to function like a normal human being.
“You don’t have to wear them forever,” she signed softly. “Just try.”
House stared at her for a long moment.
Then at the box.
Then back at her.
“…You already bought them?”
“You think I’d survive this marriage without making reckless financial decisions?”
Another tiny twitch of his mouth.
God, she loved those tiny almost-smiles.
Finally—
With the suffering expression of a man being marched to execution—
House took the hearing aids.
“You’re evil.”
“You married me.”
“That was clearly a cry for help.”
She helped him put them in.
His hands trembled slightly.
That scared her more than anything.
Because Gregory House never trembled.
The room stayed quiet for a second.
Then—
House suddenly inhaled sharply.
His eyes widened.
The refrigerator humming.
The clock ticking.
Rain against the windows.
Small stupid sounds most people ignored.
He looked overwhelmed by all of it.
Then—
Y/N spoke carefully.
“Hi.”
House froze.
His eyes snapped to hers so fast it almost hurt.
Because he heard it.
Actually heard it.
Not muffled.
Not guessed.
Her voice.
His throat moved once.
Again.
And then House did something that almost never happened.
He cried.
Silently.
Completely devastated by it.
Y/N immediately wrapped her arms around him as he buried his face against her neck.
“I hate this,” he whispered shakily.
“I know.”
“I really hate this.”
“I know.”
But he held onto her tighter anyway.
And later that day, when Wilson walked into diagnostics and nearly screamed seeing the hearing aids—
House glared at him.
“One comment and I’m unplugging your life support.”
Wilson grinned.
“You can hear me again?”
House looked toward the hallway where Y/N stood watching nervously.
Then back at Wilson.
A softer expression flickered across his face for half a second.
“…Yeah,” he muttered quietly. “My wife’s annoying again.”
Where the reader is a doctor who doesn’t like blood. She watches someone draw blood from a patient then sways on her spot as he wraps his arms around her waist to steady her. "Are you ok?" He asked the reader she tries to speak but passes out in his arms as he catches her and holds her bridal style as her head lolls on his shoulder. He takes her to the Med bay and waits for her to wake up then confesses that he loved her for a long time. They become GF/BF.
Thank u ☺️
>>>Irony<<<
Summary: You’re a brilliant doctor at Princeton-Plainsboro… with one deeply embarrassing secret: you hate blood.
Pairing: Gregory House x Reader
Genre: fluff, hurt/comfort, soft House, confession, coworkers to lovers
Working at PPTH meant seeing things most people couldn’t handle.
Rare diseases.
Emergency surgeries.
Blood.
Lots of blood.
For most doctors, it eventually became normal.
For you…
It never did.
You were excellent at diagnostics — observant, intelligent, able to notice tiny symptoms others missed. But whenever blood appeared in large quantities, your stomach did a very inconvenient flip.
Which was why you tried very hard to avoid watching procedures involving needles.
Unfortunately, today wasn’t one of those days.
You stood near the counter in the patient room while Chase prepared a syringe to draw blood from the patient.
You kept your arms crossed, pretending to review the chart.
Totally calm.
Totally professional.
Absolutely not nervous.
Across the room, leaning against the wall with his cane, Gregory House watched everything with mild boredom.
And then he noticed you.
You had gone suspiciously pale.
House frowned slightly.
He had worked with you long enough to recognize that look.
Your shoulders had stiffened.
Your breathing had slowed.
Your eyes kept flicking toward the syringe before quickly looking away.
Interesting.
Chase slid the needle carefully into the patient’s arm.
Dark red blood filled the vial.
Your stomach dropped.
You swallowed hard.
It’s fine.
You’re a doctor.
You’ve seen worse.
The room felt warmer.
Your vision blurred slightly at the edges.
House pushed himself off the wall.
“Chase,” he said casually, “are you planning to drain the patient or just collect a sample?”
Chase glanced up. “What?”
“You’re taking forever.”
Chase frowned but continued wrapping the tube.
You tried to focus on the chart in your hands.
The letters swam.
The room tilted slightly.
Oh no.
Your fingers tightened around the clipboard.
You took a slow breath.
“Okay,” you whispered quietly to yourself. “You’re fine.”
But your body disagreed.
Your balance shifted.
The floor seemed to move under your feet.
And suddenly—
Strong arms wrapped around your waist.
You gasped softly as someone pulled you back against them before your knees could give out.
House.
You recognized him instantly — the familiar scent of his cologne, the firm steadiness of his grip.
His voice was unusually gentle.
“Easy.”
Your head spun.
You tried to focus on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
You opened your mouth to answer.
“I—”
Your vision went completely dark.
Your body went limp.
For a split second, everything froze.
Then House caught you fully as you fainted.
Your head fell softly against his shoulder.
Chase stared.
“…Did she just pass out?”
Foreman blinked in disbelief.
“She’s a doctor.”
House rolled his eyes.
“Yes, Foreman. Apparently doctors also come with an off switch.”
Your arms hung loosely as House adjusted his grip.
For a moment he simply looked down at you.
Your face was pale, your lashes resting softly against your cheeks.
You looked peaceful.
Fragile.
Something protective flickered across his expression.
Then he shifted his hold and lifted you into his arms.
Bridal style.
Chase’s eyebrows shot up.
“House—”
But House was already walking toward the door.
“She fainted,” he said flatly. “Try not to analyze the obvious.”
Your head rested against his shoulder as he carried you down the hallway.
Several nurses stared.
House ignored them completely.
⸻
The med bay was quiet.
House gently set you down on one of the beds.
Your hair had fallen across your face.
Without thinking, he brushed it aside.
Then he leaned against the nearby counter, arms crossed, cane resting beside him.
And waited.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
House didn’t leave.
He could have.
Normally he would have.
But instead he stayed, watching the slow rise and fall of your breathing.
His expression softened in a way no one else ever saw.
Finally, you stirred.
A soft groan escaped you.
Your eyes fluttered open.
The bright ceiling lights made you squint.
You blinked slowly.
Then you noticed someone standing beside the bed.
Your gaze focused.
“…House?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Congratulations. You’re alive.”
You blinked again, memory returning in pieces.
Chase.
The syringe.
Blood.
Oh.
“Oh no.”
House tilted his head slightly.
“That’s your first reaction?”
You slowly sat up.
Your face burned with embarrassment.
“I fainted.”
“Yes.”
“In front of everyone.”
“Yes.”
You buried your face in your hands.
“This is the most humiliating moment of my professional life.”
House snorted.
“You fainted dramatically. Points for style.”
You peeked through your fingers.
“You caught me?”
“Yes.”
You slowly lowered your hands.
“…Did you carry me?”
House hesitated.
“…Yes.”
“Bridal style?”
“…Yes.”
You stared at him.
Then groaned softly.
“I’m never showing my face in this hospital again.”
House shrugged.
“You’re the only doctor I know who passes out from blood.”
“The irony is painful.”
For a moment, silence settled between you.
Then you noticed something strange.
“…You stayed.”
House looked away.
“Someone had to make sure you didn’t fall off the bed.”
You smiled slightly.
“That sounds suspiciously caring.”
House shifted uncomfortably
“I’m not caring.”
“Right.”
You swung your legs off the bed.
The room tilted slightly again, but House immediately stepped forward.
His hand gently steadied your arm.
The touch was warm.
Careful.
You looked up at him.
He didn’t pull away right away.
For once, neither of you made a sarcastic comment.
The moment lingered.
House cleared his throat.
“…Wilson says I should tell you something.”
You raised an eyebrow.
“That’s already concerning.”
House rubbed the back of his neck, clearly annoyed with himself.
“I’ve liked you for a while.”
You froze.
He continued quickly, clearly uncomfortable.
“Actually… a long time. Which is stupid. And inconvenient. And probably your fault.”
You stared at him in disbelief.
“You’re confessing your feelings after I fainted?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your strategy?”
“You were unconscious. Less chance of rejection.”
You laughed softly.
House looked confused.
“You’re laughing.”
“Because you’re ridiculous.”
He frowned.
“That’s not encouraging.”
You stepped closer to him.
Closer than usual.
“You know something, House?”
“What.”
“I’ve liked you for a long time too.”
For once, Gregory House looked genuinely shocked.
“…That makes no sense.”
“Why?”
“You’re smart.”
You laughed again.
“That might be the worst compliment I’ve ever received.”
You reached out and gently took his hand.
House stiffened slightly, clearly not used to the softness.
But he didn’t pull away.
Your voice was quiet now.
“You caught me.”
“Yes.”
“You carried me.”
“Yes.”
“You waited here.”
“…Yes.”
You smiled warmly at him.
“That sounds like someone who cares.”
House sighed quietly.
“…Maybe a little.”
Your heart softened.
You stepped even closer.
Then you wrapped your arms gently around him.
House froze.
Physical affection was not something he was used to.
But after a moment…
Slowly…
His arms wrapped around you too.
Carefully.
Like you might disappear if he held you too tightly.
Your head rested against his shoulder.
“Next time I faint,” you murmured softly, “you should kiss me.”
House huffed quietly.
“That sounds medically irresponsible.”
You pulled back slightly and looked up at him.
“…So?”
He studied your face for a long moment.
Then, very gently, he leaned down.
And kissed you.
Soft.
Careful.
The kind of kiss that felt like something fragile finally falling into place.
When he pulled back, your cheeks were warm and your smile was brighter than he had ever seen.
House looked at you like he was still trying to understand how this had happened.
daddy Joel but not in that way, gets his own masterlist (I want yall to know this silly ass little line is the entire origin of this fic).
domestic fluff/ smut; Joel wants another baby.
main masterlist
NSFW !! 18+ only. MDI!
Warnings/content: no outbreak!au,established relationship (Joel and reader are married), husband!joel x wife!reader, some physical descriptions, results of childbearing, mentions of pregnancy, lots and lots of smut, unprotected p-in-v, oral sex, breeding kink (even if your eyes are wide open, you don’t need to squint), soft dom!Joel, age gap relationship, reader is early 30s & Joel is late 40s (met at 19 and 33), reader and Joel have 3 kids. No use of y/n.
Chapters come with their own warnings.
Series currently in progress.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
pt. 1 (One more): 7.8k - you and joel take your kids for ice cream on a restless night.
pt. 2 (persistent): 7.5k - joel is very intentional when it comes to getting what he wants.
pt. 3 (fruitful): 11.9k - you tell joel that he’s going to be a daddy again.
pt. 4 (sustained): 11.6k - joel plans an anniversary trip and has some tricks up his sleeve.
pt. 5 (cherished): 22.1k - joel’s schemes are far more elaborate than you had anticipated as you celebrate your anniversary.
pt. 6 (destined): 6.1k - (flashback) you and Joel recall how the two of you came to be.
pt. 7 (tethered): 7.4k - (flashback) Joel is so patient to take that next step in your relationship until you just can’t take it anymore.
pt. 8 (devoted): 12.8k - (flashback) you and past daddy Joel but not in that way navigate the new dynamics of your relationship.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
Can’t get enough of them– figured they were due for their own masterlist!
Honestly, feel free to leave any specific thing you might want to see with them. Possibilities are endless and I’m feral for them. This is one-shot friendly, no linear storyline really besides baby makin’. Thank you for following their journey along with me.
summary: co-parenting with joel has its ups and downs.
wc: 4.4k
tags: 18+, MDNI, NSFW, pre/no outbreak, reader isn’t specified as sarah’s mother/stepmother (you decide!), sarah is about 5 in this, infidelity (reader is seeing someone), jealous joel, joel is a pro yearner, lots of tears, handjob, joel miller the pussy eater, joel makes you answer a phone call when he’s eating your pussy, unprotected sex (be safe gang), hair pulling, vaginal fingering, oral (fem receiving), save a horse ride a cowboy, not beta read
note: this was originally supposed to be hateful make-up sex but i’m a big believer in subby pathetic joel so it turned out a lot sweeter. enjoy!😋
-
You’d always assumed Joel Miller would be your forever person. Together, you built a family, a home, a sanctuary, one that you thought was indestructible. As it turns out, forever wasn’t in the cards for you and Joel. You knew from the start that Joel was a workaholic. Towards the end of your relationship, you would only see Joel if you happened to be awake when he finally trudged through the door, grimy and sweaty from a hard days’ work.
Work drained Joel. The only thing he had energy for was Sarah. For all his faults that showed in your relationship, Joel continued to be the best father to that girl that he possibly could be.
Joel worked himself to the bone through unspeakable hours from Monday to Friday, so he got Sarah at the weekends. Sarah loved her weekends at her dad’s. She would excitedly relay stories to you when she came back about all the adventures they got up to.
So, in short, you and Joel made it work. You were civil to each other during pick-ups and drop-offs. You’d both told Sarah that mommy and daddy weren’t together anymore, but that you were still friends. But the truth was, you never wanted to be friends with Joel. You couldn’t be his friend. Gazes and touches lingered a little too long to be friendly, but for your sake, for Sarah’s sake, you pretended like you were okay with the new norm.
Sarah had been at Joel’s all week. He’d put in a holiday request with his firm so he could spend some more time with her. She had been buzzing with excitement when you dropped her off. You made the drive up towards Joel’s house, the one you’d once shared with him. You missed having more space, but missing the house meant missing Joel, and that was something you weren’t prepared to think about yet.
You knocked on the door, waving to the neighbours a few doors down who were sat on their porch enjoying the sun. The front door opened, and there was Joel. You did a double take. Something about him was different. He looked well-rested, the dark circles under his eyes from the unsociable hours he worked looked like they had long cleared up. He was clearly fresh out of the shower, his hair still damp and slightly curly the way it always was when he’d just showered. His muscles were bigger, his shoulders seemed somehow more broad. He wore a simple navy t-shirt and black sweatpants. It was strange seeing him without a belt of tools around his waist. A week away from his gruelling job had clearly been what he needed.
“Hey,” Joel greeted you with a polite smile, one hand still on the door and the other in his pocket. “You can come in, but she’s asleep. I think I wore her out this week.”
“I can come back,” you suggested. “Call me when she wakes up-“
“No, I insist. Come in,” Joel held the door open wider, stepping aside to allow you space to step inside.
“Are you sure?” you questioned. It didn’t seem like a good idea. It had been six months since you’d split, and the two of you were yet to spend more than five minutes together without Sarah. Hell, you were seeing someone new. Sitting in what had once been your family home with Joel, when he looked like this, for however long it took for Sarah to wake up could reopen old wounds. “I don’t wanna put you out.”
“Don’t put me out at all,” Joel insisted. “It’s hot out, come in for a drink or somethin’.”
You smiled at Joel and stepped past him into the house. It was like stepping back in time. Everything was just how you remembered it. “Want a beer?” Joel asked as he shut the door behind you.
“Sure,” you replied, distracted as you took in the photos on the walls. They were the exact same as when you’d left. Some of the photos still had you in them, holding baby Sarah and smiling out at the camera back when you thought this family would be a forever-thing.
Joel crossed to the fridge and took out two bottles of beer, twisting off the caps and throwing them in the trash before holding one out to you. You took it with a word of thanks, your fingers brushing against his. You blatantly ignored it. Joel leant against the kitchen counter, arms folded like he was trying to be casual as he sipped his beer.
“You look real nice,” Joel told you sincerely.
You smiled, the compliment igniting the same warm feeling inside you that his compliments always had when you were together. You ignored that, too. “You look nice, too, Joel.”
The silence between you should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was the way it always was: comfortable. The idea of that somehow made you feel more awkward. You cleared your throat and asked, “So how was your week?”
“Good,” Joel confirmed. “She had fun. I forget how much energy that kid has.”
“Tell me about it,” you grinned. “It’s like she’s on speed dial constantly. She was always like that, I guess.” You stopped yourself abruptly. Reminiscing was a dangerous game. You took another swig of beer to shut yourself up.
“How are you?” Joel asked.
You hesitated before answering. “Not bad,” you shrugged. “I’m, um… seeing someone.”
Joel’s eyes darkened. His jaw tensed. “I know,” he replied, his voice low.
You frowned. “How do you know?”
Joel sipped his beer, but you noticed he was holding the glass bottle tighter than he had been before. “Sarah told me.”
You stared at him for a moment. Sarah had met your boyfriend a few times, just in passing. You weren’t quite there with letting him take on the role of her father figure just yet. He was okay with her. That was it. Just okay. The guy clearly wasn’t used to being around kids. He wasn’t effortless with Sarah the way Joel was. But you knew that comparing any man you dated to Joel was a risky game, so you swallowed your pride and kept him around. Whether it was for your benefit, for Sarah’s, or so you could pretend he was the man stood in front of you, you couldn’t say.
“What did she say?” you eventually bit the bullet and asked.
Joel looked hesitant to reply, but he eventually let up, “She doesn’t like him.”
Your heart sank. You slammed the beer bottle down on the kitchen counter harder than you’d intended to and instantly turned your back on Joel. “I’m waking her up and then we’re leaving.”
Joel didn’t move. “It’s what she told me.”
You were halfway up the stairs before you turned back, pointing accusatorially at Joel, hissing through your teeth to not wake the sleeping child upstairs. “You’re full of shit, Joel Miller. You invite me inside, offer me a beer, family photos still on the walls, just to tell me our daughter doesn’t like the new guy I’m seeing?”
“You seem awfully touchy ‘bout it,” Joel responded, setting his bottle down, standing up to his full height and taking a step towards you. Arms still folded across his chest. Muscles bulging. Jaw clenched. “How serious is it?”
You glared at him. Months worth of anger towards Joel was bubbling up to the surface now. The late nights home, how he was such an incredible father that you felt your anger towards him as a partner was unjustified. How it still hurt you to see his face because losing him was the biggest mistake of your life. It was simmering dangerously inside of you and threatening to burst. “You have no right to ask me that.”
“If it involves my kid, I think I do,” Joel replied, his tone infuriatingly calm. “She said it makes her sad. Said you don’t seem happy with him.”
You felt appalled that Sarah felt that way, but your anger that you had to hear it from Joel of all people overrode that emotion entirely. “That’s for her and I to discuss.”
“Are you happy with him?” Joel took another step closer to you.
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
“Are you happy with him?” Joel repeated his question like you hadn’t spoken. He was so close to you now that you could feel his breath on your face. “Or are you just pretendin’ that he’s me?”
The nerve of the question almost struck you down. You let out a cruel laugh, demanding, “Why don’t we talk about you, Joel? How’s your moving on going? How come this place looks exactly like it did when I left it? You wanna talk about pretending, why don’t you do a little introspection?”
You’d expected the deflection to anger Joel. It was the reaction you wanted. Instead, he uncrossed his arms, his scowl changing to a hurt, dejected frown. “You really wanna know the answer to that?” he asked, his voice more vulnerable than you’d heard it in months. “What’re you gonna do if I tell you? You gonna leave him and come back?” You said nothing. You just stared up into his eyes, the eyes you’d missed so much, and watched as they filled with tears he didn’t even try to fight. “No. So there ain’t no fuckin’ point me even sayin’ it. So we should both just go back to pretendin’, right?”
Joel stepped back, studying your face through his watering eyes for any kind of response. You tore your eyes away from his, willing yourself not to cry with him. When Joel realised you weren’t going to give him anything, he nodded and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.
“I should go,” you squeaked, impatiently brushing away the tears forming at the corners of your eyes. “I’m gonna drive around… call me when she wakes up.”
Before you could take a step out of the kitchen, Joel’s hand reached for yours. You froze at the contact. “Joel-“ you croaked his name, the tears threatening to spill past your waterline.
“Wait.” Joel’s voice cracked as he spoke. His thumb brushed over the back of your hand. You didn’t remember him stepping closer again. “Please… just wait.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” you whispered, though you made no attempt to remove your hand from his grip. “I need to leave.”
“Don’t,” Joel breathed, both hands now cupping your face, thumbs brushing over your cheeks, wiping away your tears. “Please don’t leave again.“
You didn’t have time to tell Joel that you regretted leaving every day, before he was kissing you like he’d die if his lips weren’t on yours for one more second. Your hands grasped at his broad shoulders, welcoming the familiar feeling of Joel’s lips against yours.
Joel pulled away for air, where he whispered against your lips, “I’m sick of pretendin’ I’m okay with not bein’ yours anymore.”
“Joel,” you whined his name, “we shouldn’t. I can’t-“
“Tell me to stop and I will,” Joel’s tone was deadly serious, his eyes darker yet more sincere than you’d ever seen them.
You said nothing. Instead, you tugged him back down by the shirt and crashed your lips onto his once more. You knew it was wrong. You weren’t single anymore. But in that moment, what felt more wrong that you had gone so long without this. Without Joel.
Your hands tangled in Joel’s still damp hair, tugging gently, but hard enough to feel him groan against your mouth as he backed you into the wall, one hand pressed against the wall beside your head while the other rested on your lower back, pulling your body closer to his. One of your hands travelled from his hair to his face, running your thumb over the rough stubble that lined his jaw, then down his chest, under his shirt. You ran your hand over his soft stomach, before you undid the drawstring of his sweatpants and dared to move your hand towards his cock.
Joel gasped against your mouth when he felt your thumb swipe over his tip, dick twitching and already beginning to harden in your hand. “Is this okay?” you asked, slowly pressing kisses to Joel’s neck.
You felt his Adam’s apple bob underneath your lips as Joel tried to keep his composure, nodding slowly. “Y-yes. Please, darlin’.” A raspy moan left his mouth as you used your thumb to spread the precum leaking from his tip down and around his shaft. The hand that had been resting flat against the wall beside your head balled up into a fist as Joel leaned forward to kiss you again, breathing heavily against your mouth as you stroked his cock from the base to the tip.
Joel missed this. Not just your delicate fingers wrapped around his thick cock, but you, your scent, your presence, you. His chest rose and fell heavily as he chased your lips once more, groaning into your mouth as a way to regulate the volume of the moans he so desperately wanted to let you hear at full volume - Sarah was still asleep upstairs. He involuntarily bucked his hips into your hand, the nails on your free hand digging into his shoulder through his shirt to keep him stable.
“Fuck, baby ‘m close,” Joel whimpered into your mouth, and you could feel it. Years and years of memorising his body and the sensations that came with it wasn’t easy to forget. His body was tense against yours, his legs shook underneath him as he came into your hand with a throaty groan, the sound music to your ears as you continued to slowly stroke his cock as his orgasm passed, reduced to broken whimpers and quiet whines against your lips.
Joel took a few moments to catch his breath as you tucked his softening length back into his sweatpants. He kissed you softly and you felt him grinning against your lips. “Is she still asleep?” you muttered between kisses. Joel pulled away and was silent for a second so you both could listen out for any sounds from upstairs. When you heard none, Joel pulled you flush against his body again and kissed you like his life depended on it, backing you out of the kitchen, pulling away to steer you around the coffee table in the living room so you wouldn’t fall. The back of your legs hit the couch and you made to pull Joel down with you, but he grabbed you and pulled you back up before you fell.
“Not here,” he breathed against your lips, “we’re gonna do this, we’re doin’ this right. Not gonna fuck you on my couch like you’re some meaningless hookup.”
“We can’t do this upstairs,” you said, but a gasp punctuated your words when Joel’s lips trailed down your jawline to your neck, all while he backed you up towards the stairs. “Sarah’s still asleep.”
“I can be quiet if you can,” Joel said, his voice slightly muffled as he continued to nip and suck at the tender skin of your neck.
You nodded, the entire situation hitting you as Joel picked you up in his strong arms and carried you up the stairs. What was supposed to be picking up your daughter had turned into making out with and jerking off your ex-boyfriend in his kitchen. Your actual boyfriend would be sitting in your apartment wondering where you were. But when Joel closed and locked his bedroom door as quietly as he could behind you and then gently laid you down on his soft grey bedspread that reminded you of lazy mornings and countless nights being fucked stupid into this very mattress, you forgot about him all over again, and all that clouded your mind was Joel Miller.
Both of Joel’s hands rested on a space of the mattress either side of your head as he hovered over you on all fours, one knee between your thighs and the other on the other side of your right leg. He leaned down to kiss you again, his beautiful nose nudging your cheek. His lips peppered kisses over every inch of your face, eventually trailing down your jaw and latching onto a sweet spot on your neck. You hummed contentedly, one hand in Joel’s hair and the other on the back of his neck, dragging your nails along his skin gently but teasingly. Joel continued to suck and bite at your neck like he had all the time in the world. ‘Rush’ was not even in his vocabulary right now.
The hand on the back of Joel’s neck moved, sliding underneath his shirt and resting on his chest. Joel disconnected his lips from your neck for just a second, long enough to pull his t-shirt over his head and discard it on the ground without a second thought. He raised his eyebrows at you, not expectantly, but checking wordlessly that this was still what you wanted. You had known each other so long that the two of you just spoke each other’s language; communicating without words. You nodded, and felt Joel’s hand slip under your shirt, gliding over your stomach and down to the button of your jeans, popping it open effortlessly. The zip followed, and he yanked your jeans down and threw them away like they were irritating him.
Joel leaned back down and pressed wet open-mouthed kisses to your thighs, the hairs of his moustache tickling your soft skin. His index finger hooked around the waistband of your panties. “Missed this pretty pussy, honey. Got myself off thinkin’ about ‘er every night since you been gone. Lemme eat you out, gorgeous. Please. Need to taste you again.”
Your pussy was already soaked by the time you nodded and Joel peeled your panties off. “Fuck, look at you,” Joel groaned, teasing your entrance with his index and middle finger. He slipped his two fingers inside of you with ease, and you had to bite your lip to stifle your whimper of pleasure. “Forgot how fuckin’ beautiful you are when you’re soaked f’me like this.” He slipped a third finger inside you. “Bet your fuckin’ boy-toy don’t make you feel like this.”
The shrill ringing of a phone disrupted the rhythmic pumping of Joel’s fingers inside of you. He removed his fingers and leaned over the side of the bed towards your discarded jeans, pulling your ringing phone out of your back pocket. He flashed the screen in your direction. Your heart dropped when you saw your boyfriend’s name on the screen. “Speak of the fuckin’ devil,” Joel grinned mischievously, and before you could think of what to do next, Joel accepted the call.
“Yep,” Joel grumbled into the phone. “It’s Joel. Sarah’s dad. Yeah, she probably mentioned me.” You gasped in surprise when Joel shoved his fingers back inside your soaked pussy, upping his rhythm to an almost brutal pace. “Yeah, she’s right here.” There was a devilish smirk on Joel’s face as his eyes met yours, twinkling darkly. He held the phone out to you with one hand, still finger-fucking you with the other one.
You snatched the phone from him, and breathed into the phone, “Hey.” You sounded like you’d just ran a marathon. Joel watched you with a satisfied smirk and removed his fingers from your cunt once more. He leant back down, his nose nudged your inner thigh. You glared warningly at him, but that seemingly spurred him on.
“Why is he answering your phone?”
“I was checking on Sarah, he picked up the call so it wouldn’t ring-“ You cut yourself off with a strangled moan as Joel began to eat your pussy like a man starved, his tongue leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” you gasped as Joel’s nose bumped against your clit, tongue mercilessly swiping between your folds. You ran your free hand through Joel’s hair and tugged hard, the motion making him groan into your pussy as he devoured it.
“When are you and Sarah coming back?”
“Soon,” you answered far too quickly, biting the back of your hand to stop yourself crying out. Joel laughed at your answer, the sound sending vibration through your core causing you to shudder. It made you forget yourself for a second and you whined, “Fuck, Joel.”
Your boyfriend clocked the situation immediately. “Are you fucking him right now?” he demanded.
Joel’s nails dug into the meat of your thighs as he fucked you on his tongue. Your heels dug into his back as you lifted your hips against his mouth. The pleasure overrode the need for damage control in this situation and the phone dropped from your hand, abandoned on the bed beside you so both hands could pull roughly at Joel’s hair. You could hear your boyfriend calling your name and a slew of profanities down the phone but you were too far gone to care, so close to your orgasm.
Joel removed one of his hands from your thighs and grabbed the phone, pulling it closer to him so your boyfriend could hear every filthy noise coming from you, from his tongue on your wet pussy, and from Joel himself, the sorry ex-boyfriend. Joel remembered every sensation that came with your body, and grinned into your cunt when he felt your whole body begin to tremble. “That’s it,” Joel mewled, his voice raspy, dripping with arousal, but loud enough to be picked up on the phone call. “Cum on my face. That’s my fuckin’ girl.”
“What the fuck?! Yo, what the fuck?! I’ll fucking kill you, man!”
The sounds of your relationship falling apart were masked by your moan of pleasure when your orgasm hit you like a tidal wave and you came on Joel’s tongue. He continued to lick you through it, catching every drop of your release as breathy moans escaped your lips and your boyfriend screamed and swore through the phone speakers.
Your chest rose and fell as you recovered from the euphoric pleasure that had just ripped through you. Joel sat up onto his knees, his dick was hard in his sweats and his moustache was slick with your wetness. He picked up the phone and hung up the call in the middle of another scream of ‘I’m gonna fucking kill you!’ “Problem solved,” Joel shrugged like it was nothing and tossed the phone back down onto the pile of clothes beside the bed.
You laughed breathlessly, sitting up onto your knees to mirror Joel, grabbing him by the face and pulling him into another desperate kiss. “He’s gonna kill us,” you giggled against Joel’s lips, tasting your own juices on his mouth.
“Let him fuckin’ try,” Joel practically growled, and with that, it was forgotten about. You ached with the need to feel Joel inside you again. You climbed into Joel’s lap, feeling his hard cock against your naked core through his sweatpants as Joel pulled off your shirt and threw it on the floor with the other discarded items of clothing. He unclasped your bra with one hand and quickly turned his attention towards your tits, sucking and licking and swirling his tongue around your nipples. Joel Miller was unlike any other man you’d ever been with.
Joel kicked off his sweatpants and grabbed you by the hips, lining himself up with your entrance and helping you sink down onto his length. You both moaned at the sensation. You didn’t know how you’d forgotten how good he felt inside you, how well he filled you up. Joel sank his teeth into the soft skin of your shoulder to stifle his groans, one hand steadying himself on the bed and the other resting on your lower back.
Joel began to buck his hips upwards, the tip of his cock already hitting your cervix, and before you knew it he was fucking you hard and fast to make up for months and months of lost time. You raked your nails down his broad shoulders, unable to control the whines and moans Joel was fucking out of you.
“Baby,” Joel groaned, his face hidden in your neck as his teeth grazed your earlobe, “gotta- fuck- gotta keep it down.”
“Just feels so fucking good,” you whimpered as Joel continued his unrelenting pace.
“I know, baby, just be a good girl and keep quiet f’me,” Joel encouraged you, and then he shoved his fingers into your mouth to muffle the pretty sounds he was pulling out of you. He muffled his own moans by burying his face between your tits, his low groans sending vibrations to your chest as your walls fluttered around his dick, the feeling causing Joel’s head to fall back in pleasure.
“Fuck- this pussy’s fuckin’ perfect, honey. Can’t believe I ever let you go.” He was pussy drunk beyond belief and it was the sexiest thing ever.
You clenched around his cock, moans muffled by Joel’s fingers that still tasted of your slick. Joel continued to fuck you as your second orgasm washed over you, his thrusts losing their rhythm as he neared his own climax. “‘M gonna cum, baby, fuck… Missed you so fuckin’ much, oh, fuck-“
You slapped your hand over Joel’s mouth to stifle his cries as he spilled thick ropes of his cum inside you. You continued to ride him slowly, coaxing him through it until the bliss subsided. Both your hearts thumped in unison. It felt like you were well and truly one again.
Joel flipped you over so you were on your back and he was on top of you, propped up on his elbows. His dick was softening inside of you, but he did not pull out. “You’re beautiful,” he said, pressing his lips gently against yours. “I missed bein’ able to tell you that.”
You ran a hand through his hair, the other running over the already forming scratch marks over his shoulders from your nails. “I missed hearing you say that.”
He grinned down at you like you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, pushing your hair off your sweaty face. “I ain’t lettin’ you go again.”
You smiled back at him, wondering how you could be so stupid to lose him in the first place. “Good.”
You heard shuffling next door from Sarah’s bedroom. Joel pulled out and handed you your discarded clothes. You both dressed and made your way into your daughter’s room.
Sarah was lying on her back underneath her pink sheets, rubbing her eyes and yawning as you and Joel entered the room. “Mommy,” she exclaimed when she saw you. “Did you and Daddy make up?”
(ФωФ): domestic fluff, work day softness, kiss sneakery, annoying couple behavior, eventual sex, riding house into oblivion, afab reader. no pronouns mentioned, reader calls themselves a "hot housewife" but is referred to as houses "partner" no prns, just a mention of readers clit n hot housewife🙏🙏🙏🙏
tbh its mostly sfw, the nsfw comes at the end
i love this soggy old man sm.
i might repost this on ao3 too, i have ONE fic on ao3. its a house fic.
⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠄･ ⋆ ･
You don’t technically belong here.
You’re not on the clock. You’re not on call. And the front desk nurse definitely gave you the stink eye when you flashed your visitor’s badge and breezed in like you owned the place.
But you do own one very specific thing in this hospital.
Well. One person.
One disaster of a man currently on his sixth hour of ignoring basic human needs like food, water, and common sense.
So you walk through the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro like you’re on a mission, lunchbox in one hand, water bottle in the other, and a familiar devil-may-care smile curling on your lips. You even wore the hoodie he pretends to hate—the one that’s technically his but smells like you now.
A few nurses smile at you. One intern stares like she’s seeing a unicorn. You’ve visited enough times that people know you, but still rarely enough that your appearance turns heads.
Especially when you burst into Diagnostics without knocking.
House doesn’t look up immediately. He’s lounging in his chair, feet on the desk, twirling a pen between his fingers with all the grace of a bored cat. His team—Chase, Cameron, and Foreman—are mid-bicker, voices overlapping, something about liver enzymes and blood cultures and, probably, the meaning of life.
“Tell me someone brought coffee,” House says without looking up.
You don’t say anything.
You just walk in, slow and deliberate, and place the lunchbox right on top of the folder in his lap.
And then the water bottle.
Then, you lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Hi,” you say.
There’s a pause.
Then he finally blinks, looks up, and sees you.
And for a moment, the mask slips.
His eyes soften—just a flicker—and his lips twitch into something less sardonic, more fond.
“I didn’t order a personal chef with boundary issues,” he says.
“No, but you’re getting one anyway.”
Chase coughs awkwardly.
Cameron pointedly avoids eye contact.
Foreman mutters, “Every damn time.”
You ignore them all and pull up a chair beside House like you own the place. Which, emotionally speaking, you do.
“You haven’t eaten,” you say, flipping the lunchbox open. “I know you haven’t eaten. And if I don’t shove food down your throat myself, you’ll subsist on nothing but ibuprofen and rage.”
House narrows his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
“Romantic,” he says dryly.
You smile sweetly. “Chicken teriyaki. And a granola bar, because I know you forget dessert exists.”
He squints at you. “You’re enabling my childish avoidance of nutrition.”
“I’m preventing your body from eating itself.”
He eats.
Grumbling, mock-insulting your cooking, muttering about sodium content—but he eats. And when no one’s looking, you slip your hand under the table and lace your fingers with his.
He squeezes once, hard. Doesn't look at you.
But he holds on.
You give him his water bottle with your other hand and wait until he rolls his eyes and takes a sip, just to shut you up.
When his team clears out—some excuse about test results, but really, it’s because no one wants to witness this—he finally glances at you properly.
“You know,” he says slowly, like drawing out each word, “you could’ve stayed home. Slept. Watched trash TV. Painted your toenails. I’m not exactly prime lunchtime company.”
You lean in, pressing another kiss to his jaw. This one lingers.
“I know,” you murmur. “But I missed you. And I like bothering you.”
He grumbles something unintelligible, but his arm slips around your waist. Just a little.
Just enough.
“Also,” you add with a cheeky grin, “I thought you might appreciate a few stolen kisses between patient charts.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are we in a 90s romcom now?”
You lean closer. “Only if you kiss me back when no one’s watching.”
And sure enough, when Cuddy passes by five minutes later, glaring through the glass with a look that screams Gregory, do your actual job, you’re sitting innocently beside him, lips kiss-bitten, cheeks warm, and House is chewing thoughtfully while looking suspiciously satisfied.
When the office empties again, he leans in and kisses you without a word.
Deep. Slow. Almost hesitant.
“You’re disgusting,” he mutters when you smirk.
“You’re making out with me in your workplace.”
“God help me.”
You grin, smug, resting your head on his shoulder. “Don’t need God. You’ve got me.”
He makes a show of groaning dramatically, but his fingers trail lazily up and down your arm. Like he can’t not touch you. Like he needs to be reminded you’re here, real, breathing beside him.
You stay like that until his pager buzzes again.
He sighs.
You steal one last kiss before he pulls away.
“Bring me leftovers tomorrow,” he calls over his shoulder as he limps out.
“Tomorrow’s your day off.”
“Exactly. I’ll be hungry.”
You roll your eyes fondly, but your heart is full, stupid and warm.
You’ll bring him lunch again tomorrow.
And sneak another kiss, too.
Because even if he never says it in those exact words, you know the truth:
He works best when he knows you’re somewhere nearby—keeping him grounded, fed, loved.
..And hydrated.
---
The moment House’s cane tapped against the hardwood of the front hall, you were already in position like a military strategist. He was home. Finally.
You’d spent all afternoon preparing. Not because you were the type of person to wait on him hand and foot—House would’ve teased the life out of you if that were the case—but because you knew the way his shoulders slumped just a little lower after back-to-back shifts, the way his sarcasm came out slightly more biting when he was actually running on fumes. And because, somewhere deep inside his perpetually grumpy self, he would never ask for what he needed.
So, you gave it to him anyway.
He barely got through the door when his nose twitched.
“Something smells edible,” he grunted, tossing his bag to the side and half-stumbling into the living room. “And here I was expecting the usual ‘eat air and cry’ menu.”
You poked your head out from the kitchen doorway, wiping your hands on a towel dramatically. “Excuse me, I’ll have you know I slaved over a hot stove for at least thirty minutes. That’s premium effort.”
“Mm. You must love me or something,” he said dryly, dragging himself toward the kitchen by the scent alone. “Poor taste.”
“Absolutely tragic,” you agreed, grinning.
When he got close, you could finally take him in—creased button-down under his blazer, the stubble that had grown longer over the last few days, the weary creases by his eyes even as he smirked. He smelled like hospital soap, exhaustion, and the faintest trace of antiseptic.
He leaned in without a word and buried his face in your shoulder, the side of his nose brushing your neck. You didn’t even hesitate—your arms were already around him, pressing him close, fingers slipping up under the back of his shirt to stroke over his skin.
“You always smell better than the hospital,” he mumbled, voice muffled.
“I should hope so. I don’t exactly rub against the ICU on the daily.”
“Might be missing out.”
You laughed against his hair, squeezing him tighter. “You’re disgusting.”
“Your disgusting. You love this disgusting. And speaking of things I love—what did you make me?”
You finally let him go with a dramatic sigh, motioning toward the table. “It’s all ready, Dr. House. Go sit. Or fall. Either works.”
He dropped into his chair with a groan of relief, rubbing his thigh out of habit while you set the table. Pan-seared steak, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, and a tiny bit of something green you knew he’d push around but at least look at. You slid a beer beside his plate with a flourish.
“Who are you and what have you done with my partner?” he asked.
“I killed them. Now I’m the hot housewife.”
He took a sip of the beer, eyeing you over the rim. “You do realize this makes me want to skip dinner and go straight to dessert, right?”
You gave him a sly look and sat across from him. “Eat. Or I’m not letting you see the apron under this shirt.”
“You’re wearing an apron under the shirt?”
“No.”
He choked on a laugh, and something about the softness in his eyes when he finally started to eat made your chest squeeze. His sarcasm never went away, but when it was you, he let it soften at the edges. He let himself feel. That was more than he gave anyone else.
The meal passed with the usual banter—House throwing roasted carrots at you for being “a rabbit,” you threatening to “accidentally” pour gravy in his lap, both of you laughing like idiots over things that probably weren’t even funny. You cleared the table together, and when you were finally done, you leaned back against the sink and raised an eyebrow.
“Now,” you said, arms crossed. “Are you ready for me?”
He tilted his head, feigning innocence. “Was this all just foreplay?”
“House. I literally lit candles. Do I ever light candles?”
“Only when something’s on fire.”
You threw the dishtowel at him. “I ran a bath. And I’m letting you shower with me. Which is generous, because you’re grabby.”
“You say that like it’s a complaint.”
He slid off the counter and limped toward you slowly.
“You’re mine to be grabby with,” he said as his hand snuck around your waist, tugging you in. “Domesticity looks hot on you.”
You leaned up to kiss his jaw. “Shut up and get naked.”
—
Steam curled against the mirror, blurring the edges of your reflections as House stepped in behind you under the stream of hot water. You gasped slightly when the water hit your shoulders—he had cranked the temperature all the way up. He always liked it too hot, and you always let him win.
“You’ll boil me alive one day,” you mumbled, grabbing the soap.
“Mm. Tenderized and ready to eat.”
His hands slid around your waist again, but this time they didn’t stop. Palms flattened against your stomach, fingers dipping low, tracing lazy circles that made you lean back against him. He kissed your shoulder, then your neck, and the scruff of his beard scraped lightly against your skin. One of his hands moved up, cupping your chest shamelessly.
“House—”
“I’ve been dealing with blood, idiots, and Cuddy all day,” he muttered against your ear. “Let me feel something good.”
You rolled your eyes but didn’t stop him, leaning back further into his chest as both of his hands roamed. Not rough—just possessive. Comforting.
You turned in his arms finally and kissed him slowly. He tasted like beer, toothpaste and exhaustion, and he kissed you back with the hunger of a man who’d been living on bitterness and hospital coffee.
“Love you,” you whispered.
His forehead pressed to yours. “You’re an idiot.”
You smiled. “Takes one to love one.”
He grinned, and the way he looked at you in that moment—naked, wet, sleepy, and grinning like a man in love—was worth every moment you’d spent waiting for him to come home.
---
It started, as it often did, with you waking up to something pressing insistently against your backside.
You were warm. Wrapped in soft sheets. Limbs tangled with House’s. The air smelled like morning and him—skin and shampoo and something vaguely medicinal. You didn’t even open your eyes at first. Just exhaled a breath and shifted slightly in bed.
That was when you felt it again.
Thick. Hard. Warm.
Pressed right up between your ass cheeks, like it was meant to be there.
You didn’t need to turn to know House was still fast asleep. His arm was slung over your waist, his breathing even, that low rasp of sleep just starting to fade into wakefulness. But his body was already several steps ahead of him.
Typical.
You smiled to yourself, still barely awake, and wriggled a little closer. That earned you a low grunt.
“…if you’re gonna grind on it, at least commit to the bit,” he muttered sleepily into your hair.
You snorted, turning in his arms until you were face to face, and yup—there was that morning glare. Eyelids half-closed, hair a mess, scruffy jaw, and the world’s most unrepentant erection trapped between you.
“Not my fault you’re pitching a tent,” you whispered, grinning as your hand slid under the covers to palm him through his boxers. “Wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?”
“Medical malpractice.”
“Sure it wasn’t about me in nothing but scrubs?”
He opened one eye, his mouth twitching upward. “You in scrubs is hot. You out of scrubs is hotter.”
You slipped your hand past the waistband and wrapped your fingers around him, slow and firm, and his breath caught, teeth dragging across his lip.
“I could help,” you said softly, giving him a lazy stroke. “Before breakfast.”
“Are you the breakfast?” he asked, voice still gravelly, eyes now glued to your mouth.
You leaned in and kissed him softly. His hand tangled in your hair, and when you shifted to straddle him, his hips arched up immediately into your palm.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he groaned.
“Mm. I’ll revive you. Doctor’s orders.”
You reached over to the nightstand and pulled out a condom from the drawer—because House was a bastard, but he was always careful. You opened the packet, and he watched you like he couldn’t look away, like the very sight of you half-naked in the morning light had short-circuited every sarcastic neuron in his brain.
You rolled it onto him with slow, practiced care, and he hissed softly, hands gripping your thighs. Once he was sheathed and you were slick enough to take him, you eased yourself down onto his cock with a breathless moan.
“Jesus,” he muttered, brow furrowed, “how are you this warm already?”
“Your fault,” you whispered, rocking your hips. “You started it.”
His hands found your waist, guiding your rhythm even though he barely had the strength to lift his head. His mouth fell open as you moved—slow, deep, lazy like Sunday mornings should be. No rush. No urgency. Just the warmth of skin, the roll of your hips, the softness of your hands on his chest, your fingers laced with his.
“God, I missed this,” he muttered.
“You had me last night.”
“Not like this.”
He let you ride him in silence for a few minutes—aside from the low, broken groans he couldn’t hold back when you clenched or angled just right. His thumb brushed your clit in lazy circles, coaxing pleasure from you with that same knowing touch he used in diagnostics—only now it was you he was unraveling.
When your moans started to climb and your thighs began to tremble, he bucked up once, hard, and you gasped.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “Come on. Come with me.”
You barely had time to nod before your orgasm hit, crashing through you in a wave of heat and release. You clung to him as you came, shuddering, and he wasn’t far behind—his grip tightened, and he thrust up one final time as he spilled into the condom with a low groan, forehead pressed to your chest.
You collapsed against him, both of you breathless, your bodies tangled and sticky with sweat and satisfaction.
For a while, neither of you moved.
Then, House grunted. “I think I broke a rib.”
“You’re such a baby.”
“You rode me like I was a prize bull.”
You laughed and kissed his shoulder, nuzzling against his neck. “Worth it.”
He reached up, brushed your hair back gently, and kissed your forehead with surprising tenderness.
“Definitely worth it.”
---
After a shared shower—filled more with sleepy kisses and soft touches than anything dirty—you both ended up back in the kitchen, dressed in soft pajamas, your hair still damp, House’s limp a little worse than usual.
“I blame you,” he said, sipping coffee while flipping a pancake with surprising skill. “I’m gonna need my cane just to sit down today.”
“You always need your cane.”
“Not the point.”
You leaned against the counter, watching him. He was still bleary-eyed, still grumbling, but there was something in the way he moved—lighter. More at ease.
When you handed him a plate and he brushed his fingers over yours, you smiled. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to.
It was all there in the way he looked at you over his coffee mug.
Summary: Born and raised on the Upper East Side — mother’s an actress, stepfather runs an empire that’s suddenly “under review,” and your brother’s the reason you have gray hair. You married perfection in your 20s Years after your picture-perfect marriage went up in smoke, you left New York to “heal.” Now you’re back, in your 30s — and saw your ex-husband on the cover of TIME. Wow.
He got richer, your family’s going down, and somehow, you ended up working for him. Cried? Yes. Bad idea? Definitely.
What could possibly go wrong?
Warnings: 🔞 (EXPLICIT CONTENT, Smut, MDNI) rom-com, fluffy, angst, comedy, lying, grumpy Harry Castillo (because reader broke his heart), Reader is kinda selfish, little bitchy and bratty, wealth, divorce, exes to lovers, modern au, rich people problems, upper east side drama, divorced but not over it, office tension, slow burn romance, revenge, manhattan aesthetic, luxury angst, sharp dialogue, hurt, workplace power imbalance, boss!Harry Castillo, expensive gifts, drinks, money, language, sexual tension, oral sex, p in v sex, hate sex, kissing, slow burn, power imbalance, I might have missed some ? Each chapter will include its own warnings.
authors note: Welcome to my new Harry Castillo fanfic, I'm sooo excited! hope you all like it! This fic is not connected to the movie at all — completely original AU vibes. So don’t worry, there are zero movie spoilers, and definitely no leg-surgery plotline here!!! OC Characters (Ron=Harry's assistant, Emily=Reader's bestie, Chloe=Reader's elite friend, Mikey=Readers brother Scarlet&Richard=Reader's parents, Lara=Scarlet's assistant, Vivienne=Harry's mother, Sienna=Harry's sister)
Bonus:
The playlist: that inspires me while writing.
My chaos playlist: Used exclusively for dumb decisions, sibling fights, embarrassing situations, awkward moments.
ao3 link
angel's masterlist
Lessons:
Lesson 1: Never Call Your Ex When You’re in Trouble
Lesson 2: Don’t Underestimate an Ex With a Plan
Lesson 3: Don’t Poke a Queen in Heels
Lesson 4: Don’t Show Up at Your Ex’s House Unannounced
Lesson 5: You Can’t Hurt Your Ex Without Bleeding Too
Lesson 6: Never Share a Room With Your Ex
story timeline (contains spoilers if you haven’t read up to Lesson 6)
Lesson 7: Denial Is Not a Strategy, Darling
Lesson 8: Never Enter a Battle You Can’t Win
Lesson 9: Ears Lie. Hearts Don't
Lesson 10: Pain is Shared, Not Borne Alone
Lesson 11: Love Answers Only to Itself
Lesson 12: Careful. Life Doesn’t Spare What You Love
Lesson 13: Love Doesn't Belong on the Balance Sheet
Queen moodboard
Lesson 14: Nothing Worth Having Is Simple
Lesson 15: Never Mistake Restraint for Weakness new
series masterlist . previous chapter . next chapter
Lesson 15
Summary: After days of nausea, exhaustion, and memories you’ve tried hard to bury, you finally take the test — only to realize you may not be ready for the truth it holds. While Harry prepares himself to face a past he can no longer avoid, something happens that even he cannot anticipate. And by the end of the day… the target is once again the one thing he loves most.
Warnings and WC: 13.5k 18+⚠️SMUT/EXPLICIT CONTENT/ MDNI morning sex, oral sex -f- receiving, multiple orgasms, multiple sex positions, handjob, dirty talk, sexual tension, explicit language, rough sex, a little spanish and ukranian if you squint, shameless smut, cum eating, possessive behavior, aftermath, lust, desire, touching, fluff, kissing, expensive gifts, second chance romance, ex husband&ex wife, upper east side drama, rich family problems, Pregnancy test, angry!Harry, protective!Harry, prison confrontation, corporate power move, secret relationship tension, protective harry energy, scandal fallout, power couple angst, Harry sees red and goes feral, high society drama, violent outburst, manipulation revealed, emotional breakdown, dangerous obsession, new year chaos, unexpected reveal, possessive romance, dark romance vibes, society drama, corporate politics, past trauma mention, angst, mention of pregnancy, cliffhanger ending, OC Characters (Ron=Harry's assistant, Emily=Reader's bestie, Chloe=Reader's elite friend, Mikey=Readers brother Scarlet&Richard=Reader's parents, Yuliana=Reader's maid, Vivienne=Harry's mother, Sienna=Harry's sister, Dana=Harry's EA (Executive Assistant))
authors note: Sorry for the delay, guys 🤍 I keep telling myself I won’t write such long chapters anymore… and then I look up and somehow it’s past 10k again. At this point I think it’s just who I am as a writer 😅 Thank you so much to everyone who didn’t give up on the story, who waited patiently and kept sending me such kind and loving messages. Your support honestly means more than you know. I hope this chapter was worth the wait
Never Mistake Restraint for Weakness
You were still asleep when Harry woke.
His bedroom was quiet in that fragile way mornings sometimes were — as if the world itself hadn’t decided yet whether to be kind or cruel.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
He had always loved doing this. Watching you when you didn’t know you were being watched. When you were soft. Unarmored. Entirely his.
You were half tangled in the sheets beside him, the silk twisted low around your hips, one bare shoulder exposed to the pale winter light slipping through the curtains. Your hair was everywhere — on the pillow, across his arm, against his chest — as if the night had scattered you there and he had been too greedy to put you back together.
He remembered pieces.
Your breath catching against his mouth.
Your fingers gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
The way you had whispered his name like a secret that belonged only to the dark.
Four days. Four long, controlled, suffocating days. And then last night. His hand lifted before he could think better of it. He let his knuckles brush your cheek.
Soft. Careful. Reverent in a way that would have humiliated him if anyone else had seen it.
You stirred.
Your lips parted on a slow breath, your lashes trembling as if you were drifting somewhere between dreams and waking. Instinctively, you shifted closer, your thigh sliding against his, your hand finding his side as though your body still remembered the shape of him even when your mind didn’t.
Harry exhaled quietly.
God.
He had missed this. Not just wanting you. Not just touching you. Having you here. Within reach. Real. Alive.
His fingers trailed lower, along the line of your jaw, down the warm column of your throat until they rested where the sheet rose and fell with your breathing. Possession had never been loud with him. It lived in gestures like this. In the way he didn’t ask.
His thumb caught a strand of your hair, smoothing it back from your face.
“You should stay like this,” he murmured under his breath, his voice rough with sleep. “Right here. With me.”
As if you had heard him, you shifted closer in your dreams.
Your knee slid between his legs, warm and possessive even in sleep, your forehead brushing lightly against his chin as your bare breasts pressed softly against his chest. The contact was unintentional. Instinctive.
Harry went very still.
Then he lifted the sheet slightly, just enough to see you — fully naked, each slow breath lifting and lowering your beautiful breasts. He glanced down at himself, already hard, and all the memories came flooding back like a tidal wave. Everything he had done. Everything you had done together. It all felt unreal. Like a dream he didn’t want to wake from.
He reached down and took one of your breasts in his hand, squeezing it gently. A soft moan escaped your lips. You rolled slightly onto your back, your legs parting just enough to give him a partial view of you. There was still a faint trace of dried cum at your entrance from the sex you had hours earlier, but he could see the glisten of fresh wetness.
He slid his other hand down between your thighs and began to rub your clit very gently — just enough for you to feel it, not enough to fully wake you.
You shifted again, opening your legs wider for him without thinking.
He ran his fingers slowly up and down before slipping one inside you. Another quiet moan fell from your lips as he moved his finger in and out. You were still sensitive, still stretched from the night before, and he pushed in a second finger. The wet sound of his fingers moving inside you made his jaw tighten. It was one of the most addictive sounds he knew.
Well… there was one sound he liked even more. He’d get to that.
He slid in a third finger and shifted lower in the bed, moving his body down until his mouth hovered over your mound. He closed his lips around your clit, sucking gently while thrusting his fingers faster inside you.
You began to come in your sleep.
Pleasure pulled you awake slowly, your body arching before your eyes even opened. When you finally realized what was happening, you let out a breathless laugh and dropped your head back into the pillow.
“Oh my God, Harry… good morning to you too,” you murmured, still panting.
Harry lifted his head slowly, his mouth still warm against your skin.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he murmured.
You blinked down at him, still trying to catch your breath, still floating somewhere between sleep and the aftershocks of pleasure.
A slow smile touched your lips.
“Are you talking to me,” you murmured softly, voice still husky with sleep, “or to my breasts?”
His eyes darkened immediately.
Instead of answering, his hands slid back over your body, cupping your breasts gently, weighing you like something precious. “Hard to tell,” he said in a low voice. “They’re… extremely persuasive.”
You let out a breathy laugh, arching slightly into his touch despite yourself. "You do realize this is highly manipulative."
He smirked faintly and pressed one last slow kiss to your sternum before moving back up the bed. “You weren’t complaining a few minutes ago,” he said quietly.
You let out a small laugh, your hand sliding instinctively into his hair, fingers brushing through the dark strands. He leaned into the touch without even realizing it — like something inside him had been trained to respond only to you.
The sheets were tangled around your legs. The room still carried the faint scent of last night — sex and expensive cologne and the kind of intimacy that never fully disappeared by morning.
He hovered over you now, his weight careful, controlled, as if he was always aware of how easily he could overwhelm you — and how badly he never wanted to.
Your gaze drifted past his shoulder.
The clock on the nightstand. You stilled. Still early. A quiet, almost guilty sense of relief settled in your chest.
“You should still be asleep,” you murmured softly, brushing your fingers along the back of his neck. “We have time...”
“I was,” he replied. A beat. “Then I woke up.”
Your brows lifted, amusement flickering in your eyes. “And decided to… do community service?”
His mouth curved slowly, but the look he gave you wasn’t entirely playful. “I missed you,” he said quietly.
You let out a soft giggle, shaking your head. “Harry, it’s only been four days.”
“For me it felt like four months, baby.” He paused, studying your face.
“When I woke up and saw you next to me… I realized how much I needed this. Needed you. Makes everything else feel… manageable.”
You inhaled slowly. Because he wasn’t wrong. The last few days had been brutal.
Richard was still in the hospital — out of intensive care, but nowhere near recovery. Scarlet had practically moved into his private room. Lara had taken emergency leave just days before New Year’s after her mother fell ill out of state, leaving uncomfortable gaps in a house that already felt too quiet.
Your first full day back at Queen Financial came without warning.
Crisis calls. Emergency briefings. Board members performing calm while markets performed panic.
Meanwhile Harry was fighting everything alone. Legal proceedings. Media pressure. Corporate damage control. With Vivienne staying at Eloise’s side, the rest of the fallout had landed squarely on his shoulders.
By the end of the weekend you had both been so exhausted you hadn’t even managed to text each other.
And now—
Tuesday morning. For the first time since everything exploded, you were finally in the same bed.
Forty-six hours earlier.
Sunday.
The hospital smelled like antiseptic and winter flowers.
Your mother had insisted on fresh white orchids being placed by the window. They looked expensive and defiant against the sterile glass and chrome. Outside, Manhattan moved in distant, indifferent rhythms. Richard had been moved out of ICU that morning.
The machines were fewer now. The alarms softer. But recovery did not mean strength. Not yet.
He looked smaller in the hospital bed.
Not physically — he had always been a large presence — but in the way powerful men sometimes seemed diminished when stripped of their environment. No boardroom. No tailored suit. No authority except the fragile permission of his own heartbeat.
Speaking exhausted him.
You stood at his bedside with Scarlet and Mikey, explaining the situation at Queen Financial in measured tones. You chose your words carefully. Numbers without pressure. Strategy without panic. Facts that sounded survivable.
He listened with closed eyes, conserving energy. His fingers twitched once against the blanket.
For a moment there was only the faint mechanical rhythm of hospital equipment and the muted winter light stretching across polished floors.
He opened his eyes fully then. “I trust you,” he said, voice rough with disuse. “The company… is in your hands now.”
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no speech.
Just transfer of weight. Legacy, passed like something breakable. Your throat tightened despite years of training yourself not to react visibly.
You stepped closer, taking his hand between both of yours.
“I won’t let you down,” you said.
He closed his eyes again almost immediately, the effort already too much.
That was all he needed.
Despite it being Sunday, Gerard spent the rest of the afternoon with you in a quiet consultation room down the hall.
You learned quickly that crisis had its own language.
Scarlet stayed with Richard.
The doctors were cautiously optimistic. If recovery continued at this pace, discharge before New Year’s was possible.
Possible. Everything was conditional now. By evening the house felt unnaturally still.
Without Scarlet’s controlled footsteps. Without Richard’s presence filling rooms he wasn’t even in.
That was when Yuliana appeared in the doorway — a small suitcase in one hand, pride clearly swallowed somewhere along the way.
“I can stay,” she said simply. “I don’t need much. I can work for a lower salary… please don’t worry about that. Just… let me stay with you. For old times.” She hesitated. “My last employer’,” she added quietly. “She wasn’t kind. Not like you. No one ever treated me the way you did, Ms. Queen.”
You didn’t let her finish. You pulled her into a hug. You needed help. You needed someone who knew.
She had been part of your life since you were eighteen — through internships and late-night study sessions, through heartbreak and ambition, through the carefully choreographed years of marriage that had looked perfect from the outside.
Through the day everything shattered.
Through blood. Through broken glass. Through the terrifying moment your own voice had stopped sounding like it belonged to you.
She hadn’t been able to save you completely.
But she had fought.
And now, helping her settle back into her old room felt like stepping into a parallel version of your life — one neither of you had ever imagined returning to.
Lara had always been the stronger presence. The steadier one.
But in her absence… Yuliana would be enough.
More than enough.
Later that night Emily and Chloe arrived armed with takeaway bags, spreadsheets, and emotional loyalty. The living room glowed with lamplight and untouched holiday decorations. Champagne flutes stood abandoned from a season that had stopped making sense.
You talked. About market optics. About company. About Harry. About how scandal moved faster than truth in Manhattan.
Yuliana moved quietly in the background, setting out plates, slicing fruit, arranging small bowls like ritual offerings to productivity.
Emily tried. God, she tried. She mapped investor psychology like it was a battlefield strategy.
But the scale was different now. “This is insane,” you groaned eventually, pressing your fingers to your temples. “I need an assistant.”
“You need two assistants,” Emily replied immediately. “And possibly divine intervention. That’s all I can offer.”
You both turned toward Chloe.
She had already fallen asleep with her phone still glowing in her hand. You exchanged a look. “One casualty,” you murmured.
Emily collapsed backward onto the bed, yawning. “God, I need to sleep. My mom has the flu, which means I’m running the restaurant alone tomorrow. If you hear about a mysterious brunette terrifying customers with dark circles and caffeine shakes… that’ll be me.”
You smirked. “Fine. Sleep. I refuse to be responsible for a public health crisis caused by your lack of sleep.”
You stood. Too fast. The room tilted sideways. You sat right back down.
Emily caught your arm. “Hey. Hey. Are you okay?”
You pressed your palm to your forehead. “I just need sleep. And… my stomach feels strange. I’m going to get something to eat.”
She stared at you like you had announced gravity was optional. “At 3:40 in the morning?”
You shrugged. “Apparently stress makes me hungry.”
She was too tired to argue. Within seconds she was asleep.
The house was dark as you walked toward the kitchen.
Too dark. Too quiet. Then you heard typing. Sharp. Focused. Persistent.
You stopped. And nearly experienced a spiritual awakening when you saw Mikey at the counter, laptop open, actually working.
This was rarer than astronomical events. You moved closer silently.He didn’t notice.
You had picked up a knife to peel an apple, but when you saw the screen you froze. Board reports. Risk exposure notes.
Your chest tightened unexpectedly.
The past few days had turned your emotions into unstable weather. Sudden surges. Sudden cracks. Tears without warning.
You blamed stress. You placed a hand on his shoulder. He nearly launched himself off the chair. “Jesus, Fuck, Shit!” he yelped. Then he saw the knife.
Both hands shot up. “Wow,” he breathed. “Et tu, Sister?”
You rolled your eyes. “Oh please. Not the Julius Caesar bit before sunrise.” “You set the knife down with a sigh. “Stop being dramatic.”
“A woman sneaking up on me with a weapon at dawn has opinions about drama.”
“It’s basically morning. Why are you still awake?”
“Tomorrow’s meeting,” he said, nodding toward the screen. “Important. I’m finishing this.”
“That’s my job.”
“You’re exhausted,” he replied easily. “And you’re doing great. I’m just… doing the emotional support spreadsheet.”
Silence settled.
“Mikey.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re the elder heir,” you said quietly. “Technically this should be yours. Why aren’t you fighting me?”
He stared. Then laughed. “Relax, Succession. . This isn’t an HBO power drama.”
You almost smiled. “You’re the smart one,” he continued. “Everyone knows I’m the chaotic spare. Investors trust you. They tolerate me.”
He said it like it was obvious math. “You’re a real Queen. You scare people when you walk into rooms.”
Your vision blurred. You moved behind him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “And you’re the best brother I could have,” you whispered.
“Okay, no crying,” he said instantly. “Are you crying? Oh wow. Full tears.”
You were.
“Well… this escalated quickly,” he muttered, standing and pulling you into a hug. “We’ll figure it out. I mean… it currently feels like Rambo trying to do tax accounting while being shot at. But still.”
You hit his shoulder weakly. “Idiot.”
“Confirmed.”
You wiped your face. “Let’s sleep,” you said. “Tomorrow will be brutal.”
Monday Morning
You woke to the smell of coffee.
Not loudly. Not suddenly.
It drifted into your sleep like a memory — warm, familiar, almost tender.
For a moment you didn’t open your eyes.
Your body stretched instinctively beneath the sheets, muscles loosening one by one as you slowly lifted your sleep mask to your forehead.
“Ah…” you murmured, voice still thick with sleep. “Just like the old days.”
Yuliana laughed softly from the doorway.
She stepped inside carrying a silver tray and placed it carefully at the foot of the bed before moving to pull the curtains open. Winter sunlight spilled into the room in pale ribbons, washing the cream walls and silk upholstery in a quiet glow.
“Yes,” Yuliana said gently as she set the tray down. “It feels strange for me too. But… nice. Like the old mornings.”
You pushed yourself up against the pillows, watching her with sleepy amusement.
“A lot has changed in the past few years,” she added lightly as she handed you the cup. Decaf espresso. Lactose-free milk. “Apparently even your coffee preferences.”
You took the cup, inhaled the soft steam, then gave a small shake of your head.
“My taste hasn’t changed,” you murmured. “It’s still the same. My stomach just feels… off lately.”
“Ah,” Yuliana said slowly. “It was like that yesterday too, wasn’t it?”
You nodded. “It’s been like this for a week, actually.”
She paused. Thinking.
You lifted the cup, the smell hit you before the taste did. Too warm. Too dense. Too present. Your stomach tightened without warning. A thin wave of nausea curled low inside you — slow at first, then sharper, like something quietly twisting. You swallowed.
Tried to ignore it. Tried to behave like nothing was happening. Because nothing was supposed to be happening. You took a small sip anyway.
Instant regret.
Your face tightened. You pulled the cup away as if it had betrayed you. “Ugh… no,” you muttered, pushing it back toward her. “I really can’t.”
A strange heat flushed through your body. Your mouth filled with saliva. Your pulse kicked faster.
For one irrational second, fear moved through you — quick and cold.
Not again.
You covered your mouth and got out of bed too quickly.
The room tilted.
Your bare feet hit the cold floor as you rushed toward the bathroom, silk robe barely tied, one hand gripping your stomach as if you could physically hold yourself together.
Behind you, Yuliana’s voice followed — worried, immediate.
“Ms. Queen?”
You didn’t answer. You were already leaning over the sink.
Yuliana was beside you seconds later. “Are you okay?” she asked, her hand warm and steady against your back.
You retched, body tense, hair falling forward until you caught it in your fist.
After a moment the worst of it passed.
She handed you a towel.
You wiped your mouth, breathing unevenly, then turned the tap on and splashed cold water over your face.
When you finally looked up, your reflection startled you. You looked pale. Fragile in a way you hated. You gripped the edge of the sink and exhaled slowly. “This reminds me of when you were feeling like this before,” she added quietly. “You looked exactly like this… back then. You had the same nausea…and-“
The words landed before she realized what she had done.
You understood immediately. A flicker of sadness moved through you first.Then something colder. Something like fear.
Her face drained of color.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Queen,” she rushed out, voice tightening. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want to remind you of anything painful, I just— I wasn’t thinking—”
You walked past her, mind already racing. Questions colliding. Memories resurfacing.
She followed you into the bedroom, still apologizing under her breath.
You sat down at the edge of the bed and finally looked at her.
“Yuliana. Stop.” She froze. “Breathe,” you added more gently. “This isn’t the problem right now.”
She nodded slowly — then frowned. “Um… What… is the… problem, then?”
Your mother’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of your mind.
That night. The conversation. The promise.
If your father hadn’t collapsed, you would have already bought a pregnancy test. You would have already known.
Instead there had been hospitals. Board crises. Headlines. Markets. Survival.
And now this.
The nausea. The sensitivity to smells. The strange heaviness in your body.
Just like before. “Ms. Queen?” Yuliana said again. “What is it?”
You met her eyes.
“I think you were right,” you said quietly.
Her eyes widened. “Right? About what?”
“You were there last time too,” you continued. “You were the first one who knew.”
She waited. Trying to understand.
“When I took the test…”
She went completely still. “…Are you saying you might be—”
You shook your head quickly. “I-I don’t know. I’m not sure. But the way I feel…” You swallowed. “everything feels exactly like it did five years ago.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh. Oh… I actually thought about it yesterday,” she admitted nervously. “But I was afraid to say anything. I didn’t want to upset you. I just— I really hope you are…”
You looked at her — exhausted, overwhelmed — and still couldn’t stop the small smile that touched your lips.
Then you stood. Reached for her hands. “Yuliana,” you said quietly. “I need to be sure. I can’t go to the pharmacy myself. Go for me. Buy a test.”
She nodded immediately. “Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”
Excitement and worry tangled in her expression as she hurried out of the room. The door closed. And, you were alone with the possibility.
Your bedroom no longer looked like a place meant for rest.
It looked like preparation.
The deliveries had arrived while Yuliana was out — discreet, efficient, announced only by the soft roll of wheels over thick carpet and the quiet murmur of staff who understood urgency without needing it explained.
By the time you stepped back into your room, the transformation was complete.
A long custom brass garment rack stood near the tall windows, positioned deliberately where the pale winter light could fall across the fabrics. Dresses hung in careful spacing, each protected in sheer garment sleeves that whispered faintly when you brushed past them.
Cream. Deep navy. Structured ivory. A severe charcoal with razor-sharp tailoring. Midnight emerald that seemed almost black until it caught the sun.
New season. Private fittings. Pieces that hadn’t even reached boutique floors yet.
Shoes were lined beneath the rack like obedient soldiers — patent leather, suede, satin. Handbags rested in their dust covers like state secrets.
Your armor. Your inheritance. Your burden.
Scarlet had clearly taken control of the situation the only way she knew how — with discipline, fabric, and impeccable taste.
Your phone was still warm in your hand from the call.
“Yes, mother,” you had murmured earlier, fingers trailing slowly along the row of garments. “They’re perfect.”
“They must be,” Scarlet had replied coolly. “Perception is stability. And you’ll carry them exactly the way they were meant to be carried,” she added. “Authority isn’t announced — it’s worn.”
Your lips had curved faintly. “Good. I’d hate to waste good tailoring on amateurs.”
A quiet laugh had slipped through the line.
“There you are,” Scarlet had said. “That’s my girl.”
“Give dad a kiss for me,” you had added softly. “Tell him his daughter is exactly where she’s supposed to be.”
Now you stood in front of the full-length mirror.
Half dressed. Half undone. And very close to committing a crime against couture.
You changed quickly. Fresh underwear. Sheer black tights rolled carefully up your legs. A slow breath to steady your hands.
You stepped into the first dress.
Structured cream wool crepe. Clean waistline. Minimalist severity. It screamed authority without ever raising its voice.
Perfect. You reached behind you for the zipper. It stopped halfway. You frowned. Tried again.
Nothing.
You pulled your shoulders back. Drew your stomach in. Lifted slightly onto your toes as if posture alone might convince the universe to cooperate.
Still nothing.
Your reflection stared back at you with growing disbelief.
Then, softly, with controlled outrage:
“Perfect. Couture chooses violence on the morning I need psychological dominance.”
A bite paused mid-air behind you.
You hadn’t even heard him come in.
Mikey stood in the doorway in sweatpants and yesterday’s T-shirt, sandwich frozen halfway to his mouth, eyes narrowing like a man witnessing the early stages of an apocalypse.
“What happened?” he demanded.
You didn’t turn.
He squinted harder. Suspicion deepened.
“Wait — don’t tell me.” He started counting on his fingers, pacing toward you like an investigator in a crime documentary. “Did couture betray you? Did a heel snap mid-stride? Did someone call something off-the-rack in your presence? Did Vogue uninvite you from something? Did the trust fund collapse overnight?” He leaned in, lowering his voice dramatically. “…Did a Birkin get scratched?”
You stared at him through the mirror.
“Mikey,” you said finally, deadly calm, “if you don’t close that mouth in the next three seconds, I will personally introduce you to life without a monthly allowance.”
He blinked.
“…Okay,” he said slowly. “So this is worse than the Birkin.”
You exhaled, turning slightly so he could see.
The back of the dress hung open just enough to humiliate you.
“The zipper,” you said flatly.
He lit up with relief.
“Oh thank God. I thought we were dealing with a societal collapse.”
He put his sandwich down and stepped behind you with exaggerated seriousness. “Alright. Emergency intervention. On three, suck in whatever rich-people organs you’ve got.”
“I am already doing that,” you snapped.
He grabbed the zipper. Pulled. Nothing.
He pulled again. Harder. You sucked in a breath so sharply your ribs protested.Still nothing.
“Okay… and I say this with love,” Mikey murmured. “Is it possible — tiny possibility — that you maybe… gained a little weight?”
You went rigid.
Instead of hitting him, you let out a strangled sound somewhere between a groan and a prayer. “No,” you whispered. “No. This is not happening. Not today.”
He kept trying.
The zipper moved a millimeter. Then stopped again like it had personal vendettas.
“What have you been eating?” he muttered. “Secret midnight pastries? Stress croissants? Emotional carbohydrates?”
You glared at him through the mirror. “Stop talking.”
He kept tugging. “This thing has less give than our board of directors,” he complained. “Honestly I respect it.”
The door opened softly.
Yuliana stepped in — and instantly froze, reading the entire scene in one glance. Years of experience translated chaos into understanding before a word was spoken.
Mikey straightened.
“Good,” he announced. “Reinforcements. Because unless this zipper receives divine intervention, we are officially late.”
You pushed his hands away. “Out,” you said.
He held up both palms.
“Fine. Fine. I’m leaving. But just for the record — the odds of that dress closing are roughly the same as me becoming CFO.”
He turned.
Paused.
Then leaned back into the room again, eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion.
“Wait,” he said, pointing toward the nightstand. “Let me grab my sandwich before someone else eats it.”
He looked meaningfully at you.
“…I mean you’ve clearly been doing a thorough job of that lately.”
You didn’t even think.
The heel left your hand like a guided missile.
He yelped, ducked just in time and snatched the sandwich.
“Violence!” he announced dramatically while retreating into the corridor. “Breaking news! The Queen Family heiress resorts to assault after losing battle with a zipper!”
His voice echoed down the hall long after he disappeared.
You closed your eyes slowly. A breath. Then another.
You looked at Yuliana with a mixture of exhaustion and disbelief.
“He’s going to be the end of me,” you muttered.
Yuliana pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile.
Then you straightened slightly, the reality of the morning returning like cold air. “Did you get it?” you asked quietly.
She nodded at once.
From the pocket of her uniform she carefully pulled out the small pharmacy bag — discreet, white, painfully ordinary.
For a second neither of you spoke.
Her eyes flicked from the bag… to the half-closed zipper… to your waist.
A hesitation.
“Ms. Queen…” she began cautiously. “If you are… in that situation… it would be completely normal that the dress doesn’t fit the way it used to.”
You turned your head and gave her a look.
She stopped immediately and began moving. Her hands were calm. Efficient. She studied the rack like a general surveying battlefield options.
“This one,” she said after a moment, pulling out a softer structured dress — still elegant, still commanding, but forgiving at the waist. “Let’s try this.”
Relief hit you so fast it almost made you dizzy.
“Yuliana,” you exhaled, voice softer now, “I’m so glad you’re here. If this works… I will triple your salary.”
A faint smile touched her lips — warm, loyal, completely unimpressed by the financial drama of it all. “Let’s get you dressed first,” she said gently.
As she helped you step out of the first dress, your hand drifted unconsciously to your stomach.
A strange heaviness had settled there that morning. Not pain. Not exactly fear. Just… awareness. Like your body was trying to tell you something before you were ready to listen. You swallowed. “I need to take the test first.”
Yuliana nodded. “Of course. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
You took the small white box from her slowly.
It felt absurdly light for something that could change the entire direction of your life.
The test lay on the marble counter.
You had placed it there yourself. Deliberately. Turned upside down. As if the result might change if you refused to look at it.
You couldn’t get closer.
Every time you tried, your chest tightened — breath catching somewhere between hope and terror.
A soft knock sounded on the bathroom door. You flinched. Even though you already knew who it was.
“May I come in?” Yuliana’s voice was gentle as she peeked through the door.
You nodded. She stepped inside quietly, closing it behind her. One look at your face and the concern in her eyes deepened. You must have looked exactly how you felt — pale, shaken, suspended between past and present. It was strange. Almost cruel.
The last time you had stood in a bathroom like this… she had been there too. She had been the first to know.
Yuliana’s gaze drifted briefly toward the counter. Toward the test. “You haven’t checked,” she said softly.
You shook your head immediately, starting to pace.
“I can’t. I just… I don’t know what I’m going to see.” Your voice trembled despite your effort to steady it. “And I’m scared. Not of becoming a mother again — that’s not it. I just… I don’t know what my body is capable of anymore.”
You pressed your palm against your stomach unconsciously.
“They told me it was nearly impossible,” you whispered. “After everything… after the surgery… after the loss…”
The words felt heavy in your mouth.
Yuliana moved toward you then, taking your trembling hands in hers and squeezing them firmly.
“We’ll look together, Ms. Queen,” she said. “At the same time.”
Her voice was calm. Grounded. The way it had always been when your world tilted.
“Whatever the result is, you are strong enough to face it. You’ve survived worse than a piece of plastic telling you the truth.”
You let out a shaky breath. Nodded. Slowly.
You turned toward the counter.
For a second you just stared at the test like it was radioactive.
Then you reached for it.
You lifted the test and put it back down immediately.
“No,” you said under your breath. “I can’t. Not now.”
You stepped away from the counter like it might follow you.
“Either way, the result is going to live in my head all day,” you added, turning sharply toward Yuliana. “I have a board meeting. I cannot walk in there thinking about… this.”
Yuliana glanced from you to the test and back again. “But, Ms. Queen—”
A voice drifted in from the hallway.
“If the zipper crisis has officially been resolved,” Mikey called out, far too cheerful for the hour, “Queen Financial would like to remind its acting monarch that time is, in fact, real.”
You shut your eyes for half a second. Then opened them. “Yuliana,” you said. “Help me get dressed.” She didn’t move. You softened your tone — just slightly. “Please.” That did it. She followed you into the bedroom, still visibly unsettled. You stopped near the bed and turned back to her. “After I leave,” you said calmly, “get rid of the test.”
She froze. “…Get rid of it?”
“I don’t want to know yet,” you continued. “Look at it. Then tell me the result after New Year’s Eve.”
Her eyes widened in pure horror.
“Bozhe miy… (dear God),” she muttered under her breath, hand flying to her chest. “How am I supposed to not think about something like that? I will see it and then what — just fold laundry? Chop vegetables? Pretend my heart is not exploding?”
“You will,” you replied coolly. “You will think about literally anything else. My schedule. The staff rota. Mikey’s alarming life choices.”
She stared at you.
You held her gaze.
“This is important to me,” you said quietly.
A long beat.
Yuliana sighed dramatically, switching briefly into rapid Ukrainian under her breath — something that sounded like a prayer mixed with mild swearing.
“…Dobré, (Very well)” she muttered finally. “Fine. As you wish.”
The lobby of Queen Financial was quieter than usual.
Not empty. Never empty.
But quieter in the way institutions became quiet when something serious had happened. Voices were lower. Movements more deliberate. Even the marble seemed to carry tension beneath its polished surface.
People were watching. Not openly. Never rudely. But watching. You felt it the moment the revolving doors closed behind you. Heels against stone. Coat draped perfectly over your shoulders. Chin level. Queen composure.
Mikey walked beside you with his usual careless stride that fooled absolutely no one who knew him well.
The elevators opened before you even reached them.
Of course they did.
Upper floors had already been notified.
When the doors slid shut, the mirrored walls reflected a version of you that felt both familiar and entirely new.
Not just the heiress anymore. Not just the daughter.
Gerard appeared almost instantly, as if summoned by timing itself.
“Ms. Queen. Perfect timing,” he said, tone calm but efficient. “The board convenes in ten minutes. I’ll see you inside.”
He gave Mikey a brief nod and disappeared down the corridor without another word.
Mikey exhaled.
“Love that man,” he muttered. “Walks like he owns gravity.”
You ignored him and kept walking.
A young woman stepped forward from near the corner office — mid-twenties, neat dark bun, tablet held like a shield.
She smiled carefully.
“Ms. Queen? Hi. I’m Anna. I’ll be assisting you… temporarily.”
Her voice had that polite steadiness people developed when they were both nervous and determined to hide it.
You studied her for half a second.
Alert eyes. Good posture. No visible panic. Promising.
Mikey, however, had no such filter.
He looked her up and down.
“Wow,” he said. “Where do I file a formal complaint? I’ve been in this family for thirty years and no one has ever assigned me an assistant.”
You elbowed him sharply.
“Go prepare for the meeting,” you said sweetly. “Before I assign you unemployment.”
He grinned and leaned toward Anna conspiratorially. “She hits. Be warned.” Then he disappeared down the hallway.
Anna blinked once — then recovered. “If you’ll follow me."
She stopped in front of a large but clearly not primary executive office.
“This has been designated as your workspace for now,” she explained. “Given the interim nature of the leadership structure, permanent office assignments will be reviewed once the board formalizes succession protocols.”
Translation: You were powerful. But not yet officially installed.
You nodded once. “Understood.”
She opened the door.
Sunlight spilled across dark wood floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Midtown skyline cutting clean against winter blue.
And your desk. Covered in flowers.
You stopped. For just a second.
White peonies. Cream roses. Winter ranunculus. Minimalist orchids. Notes tucked discreetly between stems.
Anna stepped slightly aside.
“These arrived throughout the morning,” she said. “All addressed to you.”
Obviously, you thought.
You slipped your coat from your shoulders. She took it immediately.
“Thank you. Please give me a few minutes. Let me know when the board is seated.”
“Of course.” She left quietly.
The door closed. You moved toward the desk slowly. Your mother’s card first. Elegant. Controlled. Proud.
Emily and Chloe’s arrangement next — chaotic in comparison. Soft pastel blooms and a ridiculous handwritten note about surviving capitalism. A small velvet box rested beside them. You opened it. A framed photo. The three of you — laughing somewhere sunlit and careless.
You smiled despite yourself and set it at the corner of your desk. Then your gaze shifted. To the largest arrangement. Your favorite flowers.
Of course.
Two small boxes waited beside the stems. You opened the longer one first. Cartier.
Inside lay a slim gold pen. Heavy. Perfectly balanced. Your initials engraved near the clip in precise understated script. You exhaled slowly. A card rested beneath it.
For my Queen. Sign and lead.
— H
Your throat tightened. The second box was smaller. You already knew before opening it. You still laughed softly when you saw it. A delicate Hello Kitty charm in white gold and enamel. Minimal. Tasteful. Ridiculously you. Another card.
For the girl only I get to see.
— H
You closed your eyes for a moment. Just one. Then opened them again. Then you reached for your phone. You hadn’t touched it all morning. Between reviewing briefing files on the tablet and trying not to think about the test, you had simply tossed it into your bag and forgotten it existed.
Now you almost regretted that. Because the moment the screen lit up, Harry’s name filled it. Message after message.A slow smile curved your lips. They started early.
7:50 a.m.
Queen of Manhattan missing. Last seen stealing my ability to focus.
8:02 a.m.
Beginning to suspect hostile takeover.
8:10 a.m.
If you don’t answer soon, I might have to walk into your board meeting and create a very public distraction.
It will involve you.
And my mouth.
8:17 a.m.
Also… good morning, baby.
You exhaled softly.
God, you had missed him.
More than you had allowed yourself to admit.
Without thinking further, you pressed call.
He picked up immediately.
“Wow,” you said lightly. “Mr. Castillo. Were you sitting there desperately waiting for me to finally notice you?”
A low laugh answered you. Followed by a quiet exhale that felt like music against your ear.
“You’ve deprived me of your voice and your face for days,” he murmured. “You don’t get to judge how desperate I become.”
Your smile deepened.
“Fair.”
“How are you?” he asked. “I didn’t think you’d call before the meeting.”
“I wanted to hear you,” you admitted. Then you glanced at the flowers again. “Also… thank you. For the flowers. Subtle move.”
“I’m never subtle with you, mi vida."
You walked toward the window, Lower Manhattan unfolding below you in glass and winter light.
“There are only a few buildings between us,” you murmured. “And I still hate that we have to wait.”
“Me too, baby." He found himself standing at the window, phone still against his ear. Across the street, Queen Financial cut into the morning sky. Somewhere behind that glass… was you. “But I can’t do this for long,” he continued. “My heart has very poor tolerance for being separated from you. I need to see your face before New Year’s Eve.”
You laughed under your breath. “Is that a medical diagnosis or a threat?”
“Both.”
A gentle knock interrupted the moment.
You turned.
Anna stood in the doorway. “Ms. Queen? The board is ready.”
You nodded once. “I’m coming.”
Then you lowered your voice.
“I have to go, Harry.”
“You’re ready for this. They already trust you more than they admit. Don’t try to impress them. Just lead them.”
That landed.
You smiled faintly. “You’re extremely attractive when you’re right,” you murmured.
A quiet laugh slid through the line.
“Turns you on?” he asked softly.
“That depends,” you said. “Are you planning to use it against me?”
“You know I always do,” he replied.
Your pulse quickened. “I haven’t seen you in days and everything feels… louder when you’re not around.”
“Say it properly,” he said.“Tell me you want me there.”
A slow smile curved on your lips.
“Well…” you murmured softly, leaning back in your chair, letting the pen roll between your fingers, “I want you everywhere, baby.”
Silence. Then a low exhale — rough, controlled.
You knew exactly what that breath meant. You could almost see the way his jaw tightened on the other end of the line. The way his mind would already be running ahead of him. You let out a quiet laugh.
“Careful,” he murmured finally. “You’re one bad decision away from me actually showing up.”
“Mm,” you hummed. “You like the idea of causing a scene.”
“I like the idea of reminding people who you belong to,” he replied.
“Dangerous timing,” you said sweetly, glancing at your watch. “I have to be terrifyingly competent in about 2 minutes.”
“Go,” he said. “Be brilliant. When your workday is over… be ready. I’m coming for you.”
Gerard and Mikey walked in with you. Anna followed a step behind - silent, observant.
The moment you stepped inside, chairs straightened. Conversations died mid-sentence.
Twelve faces turned toward you.
Men who had known you since you were a child. Men who had watched you grow into an heiress they never had to take seriously.
And women.
Women who had survived rooms like this by becoming harder than the men in them. Women who measured you in seconds - posture, tone, resilience - deciding whether you were one of them or merely another legacy daughter passing through power.
None of them had ever imagined you would one day walk in and take the head of their table. And now they had no choice but to adjust.
The long walnut table gleamed under controlled lighting. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed Manhattan like a threat.
Lucas sat halfway down the right side.
You walked the full length of the room anyway. Unhurried. Untouchable.
“Good morning,” you said.
They all nodded.
Gerard took his place slightly behind and to your left. A deliberate signal. Support. Structure. Legitimacy.
You placed your pen on the table.
“I appreciate everyone making time on short notice,” you continued. “As you know, my father is currently under strict medical supervision and will not be returning to operational leadership in the immediate term.”
No one interrupted.
Good.
“Until further notice, I will be assuming his executive responsibilities.”
Lucas leaned back in his chair. “Temporarily,” he said.
There it was.
You turned your head slowly. “Leadership is always temporary, Mr. Whitmore,” you replied calmly. “Results are what tend to become permanent.”
A few board members shifted. Someone cleared his throat.
Lucas smiled. “The market seems unconvinced,” he said. “Shares dipped again this morning.”
You folded your hands. “Yes,” you said. “They did.”
Silence thickened. Then you slid a document down the table toward him.
“I imagine they’ll feel differently once they read this.”
He glanced down. Then back up. “What is it?”
“A restructuring proposal,” you said. “Along with defensive acquisition options should minority shareholders attempt to increase influence during this period.”
Now Gerard allowed himself a very small smile.
Lucas’s didn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re anticipating a hostile move?”
“I’m preventing one,” you replied.
The room changed.
You could feel it. The subtle recalibration. The moment they stopped seeing a grieving daughter and started seeing a strategic risk. You leaned forward slightly. “My father built this firm on stability,” you said. “I intend to build it on inevitability.” No one spoke. Mikey was adjusting his tie with a smirk on his face. You let the silence stretch. Not awkward. Strategic. Then you spoke again.
“I’m aware,” you said calmly, “that I have not been physically present in this building for the past few years.”
A few shoulders shifted.
Lucas watched you with open interest now.
“And since we seem to be operating in an atmosphere where speculation travels faster than facts,” you continued, voice even, “I think it’s only fair that I address the obvious.”
Gerard did not move. But you felt his attention sharpen.
“My family and I have gone through… difficult years,” you said. “Some of what you’ve read is true. Some of it is distorted. All of it has been painful.”
No dramatics. No apology. Just truth placed neatly on the table like another document.
“But personal crisis,” you went on, “is not a leadership qualification. Nor is it a disqualification.”
Now they were listening. Really listening.
“I am not naïve,” you said. “I understand that executive authority is not inherited overnight. Titles are not worn into legitimacy - they are built into it.”
Lucas’s fingers stopped tapping the table.
“I will not pretend to be a finished CEO,” you continued. “But I will also not pretend that this company can afford hesitation.”
“I was raised inside these numbers. Inside these negotiations. Inside these risks. This firm is not unfamiliar territory to me - it is unfinished responsibility.”
That landed.
You straightened slightly.
“Over the next quarter,” you said, “we will begin a structured internal realignment. Risk exposure will be reduced. Liquidity buffers increased. Strategic partnerships revisited.”
You glanced briefly toward Lucas.
“Especially the ones that assume we are currently vulnerable.”
Now even the older board members were leaning forward.
“I am not asking for blind confidence,” you finished. “I am asking for measurable time.”
Silence.
Then Lucas spoke. “Markets don’t trade in patience,” he said.
You met his gaze. “I’m aware.”
He tilted his head.
“In that case,” he continued smoothly, “I would strongly advise a public statement. Today. Clarify your… personal affiliations. Particularly your continued proximity to Castillo Capital.”
The air tightened.
A few board members looked down.
Cowards.
Lucas didn’t blink. “If investors believe governance lines are blurred,” he said, “they will respond accordingly.”
You let him finish.
Then you picked up the pen. Turned it once between your fingers. Set it down again. “I don’t take strategic advice from people whose first instinct is panic,” you said softly.
Gerard exhaled through his nose.
Lucas’s smile sharpened. “This isn’t panic,” he said. “It’s optics.”
You leaned back in your chair. “No,” you replied. “It’s opportunism.” A longer silence this time. Heavy. Measured. Final. “I will address the press,” you said. “But not because I’m being cornered into it.” You let your gaze move around the table. “One thing you should all understand very clearly,” you added. “My personal life has never dictated this company’s performance. And it never will.”
No one challenged you. Not even Lucas. Outside the glass, Manhattan glittered like a battlefield waiting for orders. Inside - you had just claimed command.
You didn’t knock.
The door opened with a decisive force that made the glass tremble in its frame.
Lucas didn’t even flinch. He was standing by the window, hands in his pockets, Manhattan reflected in the steel behind him like he owned half of it already.
“Well,” he said without turning. “That didn’t take long.”
You closed the door slowly. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Now he turned. “Winning,” he said simply.
Your lips curved. Not a smile. Something sharper. “By blackmailing a trauma survivor and destabilizing a publicly traded firm?” you asked. “How innovative. Wall Street must be trembling.”
His eyes flickered. There. “You’re emotional."
“I’m precise,” you corrected.
You moved deeper into the office.
He didn’t offer you a seat. You didn’t need one.
“The press pressure,” you continued. “The leak. The timing. The narrative linking Queen Financial to Castillo Capital. You want something. Let’s skip the performance.”
“I want equilibrium,” he said.
You laughed softly. “No,” you said. “You want revenge.” Your stomach twisted with disgust. “You leaked it,” you said. “Everything.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Yeah right,” he said, voice lowering, “At that party... Castillo treated me like I was disposable.”
“You are,” you replied sweetly.
That landed.
Harder than the slap would.
His gaze darkened.
“You really don’t understand the position you’re in,” he said. “You’re walking into a leadership vacuum with a scandal wrapped around your throat and a lover whose surname is currently radioactive.”
You let out a quiet, incredulous laugh.
“And why exactly is that your concern?” you asked softly.
“My boyfriend is the only thing you can think about these days?”
Lucas didn’t answer.
You stepped closer.
“Let’s be very clear,” you continued. “Even if I stand in front of every camera in Manhattan and deny having anything to do with him, nothing changes. Markets panic. Headlines move on. Power rearranges itself. That’s how this world works.”
Your eyes locked onto his.
“But what you don’t understand,” you added, voice sharpening, “is what Harry and I have already survived from the worst. You think we can’t handle someone like you?”
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
“He built his company from nothing,” you went on.
“From risk. From rejection. From being underestimated. He will stabilize it again. That’s what he does.”
You straightened slightly.
“And I will do the same here. As for you… Your days in this building are numbered. Harry and I will survive this. The company will survive this, and you’ve just declared war on two people who don’t lose.”
Lucas didn’t have an immediate answer.
And that was enough.
You turned and walked out.
Later that evening.
Harry’s car slid into the underground garage of Queen Financial like a shadow that had always belonged there.
He stepped out before the driver could even move to open the door.
For a brief second he stood still, scanning the concrete expanse - rows of silent cars, the distant hum of ventilation, the faint echo of footsteps that weren’t there anymore.
The building was already empty.
Workday long over.
He adjusted his coat and walked toward the elevator with purposeful strides.
His phone was still in his hand.
Your name glowing on the screen.
Five missed calls now.
His jaw tightened.
The elevator ride felt longer than it should have.
Like time itself was testing his patience.
The doors opened onto the executive floor.
Dim. Quiet. Almost sacred.
Assistants gone. Lights off.
Only the distant glow of Manhattan pressing against the glass walls like a living organism that refused to sleep.
He moved faster now.
Calling you again.
Listening.
Nothing.
Then-
Your office.
The door slightly ajar.
Harry pushed it open with careful fingers.
And stopped.
You were asleep at your desk.
Head resting on your folded arms.
Hair spilled across your face like dark silk.
Your laptop still glowing - spreadsheets, market projections, Gerard’s restructuring framework open on the screen.
You had already started working through it.
Of course you had.
But sleep had won.
For a long moment he didn’t move.
All the noise inside his head - investors, Eduardo, stock drops, damage control -
just… disappeared.
A slow breath left him.
Relief.
Something deeper.
He crossed the room quietly.
Reached out.
His thumb brushed a loose strand of hair back behind your ear.
Then he lowered himself onto one knee beside your chair.
Pressed a soft kiss to your temple.
God, he had missed you.
“You wore yourself out, huh…” he murmured.
His hand moved with extreme care - fingertips grazing the delicate bones of your wrist, tracing the line of your forearm, then lifting to your cheek.
He whispered your name like it was something fragile.
“Baby… wake up.”
Sleep was warm. Heavy.
You almost stayed there.
But his voice pulled you back.
Your eyes fluttered open.
And he was there.
Real.
Close.
Concern tightening the line of his mouth.
You straightened abruptly, blinking around the office.
“Oh my God… I fell asleep,” you said, horrified. “Harry - I’m so sorry.”
A quiet laugh left him.
His gaze softened when he noticed the faint red imprint of a document edge pressed into your cheek.
He lifted his thumb and brushed over it gently.
“You were working so hard you started signing yourself,” he murmured.
“Careful… the board might take that as a binding decision.”
Heat rushed to your face.
You let out a breathy, embarrassed sound.
“I can’t believe I did that.”
He was still looking at you like you were the only thing in the room worth seeing.
Still touching your face like he needed proof you were real.
“Come here, baby,” Harry said, extending his hand.
You reached for him automatically. You tried to stand. The room tilted. Hard.
“Whoa…” you murmured faintly, blinking as the floor seemed to sway like a ship fighting rough waves.
Harry caught you instantly, hands firm at your waist.
“Hey. Easy.” His gaze searched your face, sharp with concern. “Let me guess,” he went on quietly. “You got lost in work, forgot to eat, survived on terrible coffee and pure ambition?”
You pressed your lips together, guilty.
He noticed. Of course he did.
Without another word he reached for your coat.
Held it open.
Helped you into it with careful, precise movements like he had done it a hundred times before.
Then he gathered your bag, closing the laptop himself. You just watched him. Something about being taken care of like this made your chest ache. “Wow,” you murmured softly. “Harry Castillo acting like my personal assistant.”
He leaned in and kissed the bridge of your nose. “I wish that was my only job,” he said. “Dream position.”
You giggled.
“Wait… didn’t they assign you an assistant?”
You huffed. “They did.”
“Uh-oh,” he said immediately. “Sounds like she didn’t pass the Queen audition.”
You gave him a look.
“How bad?” he asked, amused, adjusting your hair.
“She printed my entire morning schedule in Comic Sans,” you said flatly. “Highlighted my investor call in glitter pen. And she tried to replace my board briefing folder with something labeled ‘Positive Affirmations for Leadership Energy.’”
Harry froze for half a second.
Then a slow, dangerous smile touched his mouth.
“She’s brave,” he said. “I’ll give her that.”
You snorted. “She means well,” you admitted after a moment.
“But she’s… strange.”
Harry watched you more carefully now. “Strange how?”
“She has almost no real experience,” you said. “They told me she just started. Yet somehow she was placed directly in my office.”
His expression hardened slightly, wrapping an arm around you as you walked into the dim corridor. “You think someone put her there?”
You shrugged one shoulder.
“I think Lucas enjoys playing long games,” you said coolly.
“And I don’t believe in coincidences when men like him are involved. I’ll replace her soon.”
“You should,” Harry said easily. “An assistant is supposed to absorb the chaos. Handle the noise. Protect your focus.”
You arched a brow.
“Very corporate of you.”
His hand slid around your waist as the elevator doors closed.
“I don’t like competing with spreadsheets,” he murmured near your ear.
“Let her deal with the world. So the parts of you that aren’t business… stay mine.”
Heat spread through your chest.
“That’s incredibly possessive.”
His mouth brushed the corner of your lips.
“Only where you’re concerned.”
Then he pulled back slightly.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go, gorgeous. You’re not the only one who skipped meals. I’m starving.”
The word food made your stomach twist sharply.
You swallowed. “Yes, yes, let’s go,” you said quickly, almost too eagerly, tugging him toward the door. “Immediately. Right now.”
He laughed and pressed quick kisses to your cheek. “God… I missed you,” he murmured. You leaned into him without thinking. “Can I just eat you instead?” he teased.
You giggled. “Feed me first. Then you can do whatever you want to me, Castillo.”
“Dangerous promises.”
The garage was colder. Quieter. And then you saw it.
The limousine.
Long. Black. Windows completely tinted like a secret on wheels.
You blinked slowly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” You turned to him. “Limo?”
Harry’s mouth curved. “Privacy glass,” he said. “No one sees in.”
You let out a soft laugh.
“Wow. I like this version of strategic planning.”
He opened the door for you and held your gaze. “After you… my Queen.” You stepped into the limo, fingers brushing his as you passed.
“Merci, monsieur.” As you slid inside, something nostalgic warmed your chest.
You had grown up in cars like this.
Galas. Charity balls. Political dinners.
Life choreographed down to the last flash of a camera.
But this felt different.
This wasn’t performance. This was escape.
Harry followed you in. The door closed with a muted, luxurious finality.
“Was this really necessary?” you asked quietly.
“Yes,” he said simply. Then he leaned closer. “Because I can do this…” His fingers brushed your hair aside with slow intention. His mouth found the warm curve of your neck. “…and no one will see. No one will hear.”
A soft shiver ran through you. You let out a breathless giggle, pushing lightly at his shoulder.
“Harry - stop.”
“I can’t,” he murmured against your skin, his voice rough, low. “I’ve been thinking about you all weekend.”
His hand slid slowly over your thigh, firm. Possessive. Familiar in a way that made your pulse stutter.
“I missed you more than I thought was possible.”
For a second there was only the low hum of the engine… and the charged quiet between you.
Then the limousine began to move.
New York lights slid across the tinted glass in long streaks of gold and silver.
The city was alive out there - impatient, relentless - but inside the car time seemed to slow.
Harry didn’t speak. He shifted closer instead.
You felt it before you saw it - the warmth of him, the familiar gravity he carried like something inevitable.
His hand found your waist, drawing you gently toward him until your shoulder brushed his chest.
Then he lowered his face into your hair. A slow inhale. Like he had been deprived of oxygen for days.
His nose grazed the side of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. You felt him close his eyes. Your fingers slid instinctively over his wrist, holding him there. The city blurred past unseen. He lifted his head only slightly - just enough for his lips to find yours.
Back to Tuesday morning.
The memory made you smile before you could stop yourself.
Last night.
The limousine.
The way the city had disappeared the second his mouth found yours.
And then his apartment.
Your clothes still lay scattered like evidence - a silent trail from the front door all the way to the bedroom.
Silk, buttons, a heel tipped on its side.
Proof of how little patience either of you had possessed.
It had been intense. Hungry. Almost reckless.
He had made you come in the limo first.
Then again - pressed against the wall the second you’d made it inside.
Twice more in his bed.
And later… when you were already drifting somewhere between sleep and surrender, convinced your body couldn’t possibly give him anything else.
Still - this morning - he had drawn it out of you again.
Once. Then again. And again.
Now your lungs felt too small for the air you were trying to take in. Your pulse was wild beneath your skin. Too fast. Too loud.
Like your heart hadn’t realized night was over yet.
You shifted beneath him, a faint wince catching in your breath - that delicious soreness in your thighs reminding you how relentlessly he had fucked you… more times than you could even remember. You had loved every second of it. God, you always did.
There was something dangerously intoxicating about the way he wanted you - like restraint simply didn’t exist when it came to you.
It wasn’t pain. It was aftermath.
Pleasure that had gone on a little too long. A body that hadn’t quite recovered yet. And this morning… you felt more sensitive than usual.
Harry noticed immediately. “Hey,” he murmured quietly, his thumb brushing along your jaw as he searched your eyes.
“Too much?”
You shook your head, still catching your breath.
“No,” you whispered. “Just… tired.” A small smile tugged at your lips despite yourself. “We barely slept. Someone missed me.”
Harry huffed a quiet laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing as his hand began to move again - slow, soothing strokes along the inside of your leg.
His fingers traced lazy patterns over your skin, grounding, possessive. “I’ve been starving for you for four days,” he added quietly. “You’re lucky I showed restraint.”
You rolled your eyes faintly. You were about to say something else when suddenly - Your stomach twisted.
The world tilted in a sharp, nauseating wave.
You pushed yourself up abruptly.
But the urge hit too fast.
You barely made it out of the bed before you were rushing toward the bathroom.
Harry was already moving. “Hey- baby-”
“Don’t,” you gasped, hand lifting weakly behind you. “Harry don’t come-”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He was right there anyway. Holding your hair back as you bent over the toilet, your body heaving helplessly while he held you together.
The sound felt too loud in the quiet morning.
Too vulnerable.
When it finally stopped, you stayed there a moment, breathing hard. Harry stayed right there. Keeping one steady hand at your back, he helped you straighten and led you toward the sink.
He turned on the water himself, wet a cloth, then pressed it gently into your hand like you might fall apart without something to hold on to.
“Here,” he said softly.
You rinsed your mouth. Splashed cold water on your face.
He was still behind you when you straightened. Still watching. Too closely. “You did the same thing at dinner,” he said after a moment. “You barely touched anything.”
Concern darkened his eyes.
“I’m starting to worry. We should see a doctor. I don’t like you running yourself into the ground like this, baby.”
You frowned slightly. “A doctor? Harry, I’m fine.”
His gaze didn’t soften. “You’ve been nauseous for almost a week,” he said quietly. “That’s not nothing.”
You stepped closer before he could continue, sliding your arms around his waist. Resting your cheek briefly against his chest. “Stress,” you murmured. “It’s just stress. Come on,” you added, voice lighter now. “Let’s take a shower. A hot one. We both need it.” Your fingers tugged at him gently. “After that I’m going to visit my dad.” There was something in your tone. A shade too careful.
Harry noticed but he didn’t push. Instead he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. “Okay,” he said quietly. “But I’m not convinced.”
The winter air outside the private hospital was sharp enough to sting.
From the tinted interior of the limousine parked across the street, Harry watched you and Mikey disappear toward the waiting car.
Your voices faded into the muted rhythm of Manhattan traffic.
You thought he had already gone to the office.
He hadn’t. He had been waiting. He didn’t move as the revolving doors kept turning.
Once. Twice. Then finally slowed. And she appeared.
Scarlet.
Composed as always. Impeccable coat. Controlled steps. A woman who never allowed the world to see her hesitate. She walked directly to the limousine and opened the passenger door without knocking.
Paused. Looked inside.
One perfectly sculpted brow lifted. “Limo?”
Harry almost smiled. The same question. The same tone. Mother and daughter - more alike than either of them would ever admit.
Scarlet slid inside with effortless elegance, closing the door behind her. “Clearly there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for my daughter,” she said dryly. “I can tell she spent the night with you,” Scarlet said with a faint, knowing smile. “She didn’t have to tell me. I know my daughter. I know what she looks like when she’s been with you. You’re good for her.”
“I’m glad you’ve finally noticed,” he replied evenly.
Then Scarlet reached into her leather portfolio and handed him a thin file.
Harry took it. He didn’t open it. Just felt the weight of it resting in his hands.
“This,” she said calmly, “is the hardest thing you will ever do for her.” Her gaze fixed on him now. Sharp. Measuring. “Are you ready?”
Harry lowered his eyes briefly to the file. Then back to her. “I was always going to face him,” he said quietly. “My lawyer is already there. Everything is arranged.”
Scarlet watched him for another long second. “You know the one thing that will make him drop the act… don’t you?”
Harry gave a small nod. “When I’m done,” he continued, voice lower now, steel threaded through it, “this will never be something she has to fear again.”
Scarlet’s expression didn’t soften.
“You know the one thing that will make him drop the act… don’t you?”
Harry gave a small nod. “When I’m done,” he continued, voice lower now, steel threaded through it, “this will never be something she has to fear again.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Because I never want to hear his name connected to my daughter again.”
Harry held her gaze without blinking. “Neither do I.”
Scarlet reached for the handle - then stopped. Turned back toward him. For the first time since they had known each other… there was no calculation in her face. Only a mother. “Thank you, Harry,” she said quietly. Warmly.
He gave the smallest nod.
The door opened. Winter rushed in. And a second later - He was alone with the file.
On his way to a confrontation he had avoided for far too long.
The prison complex sat on the edge of the river like something that had been designed to erase people.
Steel. Concrete. No warmth.
Harry stepped out of the car without looking back.
Security clearance had already been arranged.
His name moved faster than paperwork ever could.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of disinfectant and something older. Staler.
Like regret that had never been aired out.
A correctional officer led him down a narrow corridor lined with reinforced glass and locked doors.
His lawyer was waiting near a secondary checkpoint.
“Family filed for psychiatric reassessment,” the man said quietly as they began walking. “They’re pushing an insanity angle. Claiming instability at the time of the assault.”
Harry didn’t slow. “They want him transferred?”
“Best case scenario for them,” the lawyer replied.
“Secure psychiatric facility instead of long-term incarceration. Sentence could be reviewed. Media narrative softens. But,” he added,
“if he’s legally deemed incompetent - genuinely psychotic - inheritance claims become complicated. Surname claims too. They’d have to sacrifice that angle.”
Harry gave a small nod.
“He’s been isolated,” the officer informed them. “After an incident last week. Possible self-harm attempt. Psychiatric observation ordered.”
Harry’s gaze flicked toward him at last. “I want to see him,” he said.
The officer hesitated - just a fraction - then continued walking. They stopped outside a secure interview room.
“One-way observation glass,” the lawyer murmured. “Audio recording. Standard protocol.”
Through the reinforced panel, Harry could already see him.
Ilan sat at the metal table. Perfectly still. Hands folded. Eyes unfocused. A performance. Something cold and violent settled into Harry’s chest.
Five years. Five years of absence. Five years of not knowing what had really happened.
Images crashed through him now.
You in a hospital bed. Your voice breaking when you finally told him. The baby you had lost. The way you had disappeared from his life like someone had cut the world in half. All of it. Because of the man sitting ten feet away pretending not to exist. Harry had told himself he didn’t need this confrontation.
He had lied.
He picked up the thick file Scarlet had given him and held it for a moment. He needed to be stronger than the instinct clawing up his spine - the one that wanted to reach across that table and end this with his hands. This was something he owed you. Owed her. The file hit the counter with a quiet, final sound. Paper wouldn’t win this. Truth would. He stepped inside. The door shut behind him with a heavy metallic click. He sat down across from Ilan. Watched him. Waited.
Let the silence stretch until it hurt.
Then finally -
“Turn the cameras off.”
A voice crackled through the speaker. “Mr. Castillo, we cannot-”
His lawyer didn’t even glance at the glass.
“My client isn’t asking,” he said calmly. “Do it.”
The red light went dark. The air in the room shifted. Heavier. Charged.
Harry moved around the table and stopped inches from Ilan. “You can stop pretending now,” he said quietly. “It’s just us.”
Silence. Harry’s jaw tightened. “Why her?” Nothing. “What did you want?” He didn’t actually care about the answers.
He just needed Ilan to break character. Needed him to slip. To prove he was still in there - calculating, aware, guilty. For a moment, Ilan remained perfectly still. But his eyes were no longer empty. Harry saw it then - the faint flicker behind the performance. Not madness. Awareness. He turned away slowly, as if the entire encounter had already bored him. “Fine,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Keep pretending you’re insane. It won’t help you. Even like this… you’ll never carry the Castillo name.”
He took one step toward the door. Then another. Metal shrieked violently behind him. The chair scraped across the floor as Ilan shot to his feet.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” he snapped, something feral cracking through his voice. “Everything happened because of that name. Because of you. Blame yourself - not me. All of it is on you and that pathetic legacy you worship.”
Harry stopped. Very slowly, he turned back. The rage was no longer contained. It had already taken over.
“Everything that happened to her…” Ilan continued, almost gently now, savoring every word, “…happened because she chose you.” A crooked smile pulled at his mouth. “I spent years thinking about how to destroy you.”
Harry didn’t move. His hands were already clenched into fists.
A tremor ran through him - sharp, violent - like an electrical current he couldn’t shut off.
Ilan tilted his head, studying him with sick fascination. “And then I realized,” he said softly, “there was no point destroying you directly. The smart way… was to destroy the one thing you loved most.” Silence detonated between them.
Harry’s breathing changed. Shorter. Heavier. Controlled - but barely.
Ilan’s smile widened. “In a way,” he murmured, almost pleased with himself, “I succeeded… didn’t I?”
Something inside Harry finally gave way. One second he was standing still.
The next - the table slammed sideways with a deafening metallic crash as Harry lunged across it.
His fist connected with Ilan’s jaw with a sound that didn’t feel human.
Bone. Impact. Rage. Years of it.
Ilan staggered back into the chair, but Harry didn’t stop. He grabbed the front of his prison shirt and drove another punch into his ribs. Another. And another.
Each hit more precise than the last. Not wild. Not sloppy. Controlled destruction.
“You don’t get to say her name,” Harry growled, voice low and shaking with something lethal. “You don’t get to breathe in the same world she exists in.” Ilan laughed. Actually laughed. Blood already gathering at the corner of his mouth. “You sick bastard!” he rasped. “This is who you really are-”
Harry hit him again. Hard enough that the chair tipped backward. They went down together. Metal legs screeching across the floor. Bodies colliding. Years detonating in seconds.
The observation room exploded into motion. Shouting. Keys. Boots.
The door burst open. “Mr. Castillo-!”
Two officers rushed forward, grabbing Harry’s shoulders. It took all their strength to pull him back. He was still trying to reach Ilan. Still trying to end something that had started five years ago.
Ilan shoved one guard off balance just enough to surge forward.
His fist came out of nowhere. Cracked clean across Harry’s brow.
White light. Sharp pain. Warm blood instantly sliding down into his eye.
Harry blinked the blood out of his vision. The metallic taste filled his mouth.
Hands were on him now - guards dragging him back, boots scraping, voices rising.
He didn’t resist.
Not because he was done.
Because he had already said everything that mattered with his fists.
Ilan was still on the floor, half-propped against the overturned chair, breathing hard. Laughing under his breath like something inside him had finally been satisfied.
Harry’s vision tunneled.
For one terrifying second he saw you instead. White hospital sheets. Your voice shaking. The empty future you had never gotten to hold.
Something brutal twisted through his chest.
They hauled him toward the door.
He let them.
But just before they pulled him out of the room - Harry planted his feet. Turned. Blood running down his brow, into his lashes.
His voice when he spoke was low enough that everyone had to lean in to hear it.
“If you’re still breathing,” he said, calm now - terrifyingly calm, “it’s only because this country has laws. But don’t mistake that for mercy.” Ilan’s smile faltered. Harry wiped the blood from his eye with the back of his hand.
“You don’t get to walk away from what you did,” he went on. “Not with a reduced sentence. Not in a padded room pretending you’re broken.”
His gaze locked onto him like a blade. “I will make sure you rot,” he said.
“You wanted the Castillo name?” Harry added softly. “This is the only thing you’ll ever get from it.” Silence spread through the room like smoke. “Power,” he finished. “And the certainty that I will use every ounce of it against you.”
The guards finally forced him through the door. It slammed shut between them. Harry stood in the corridor for a moment, chest rising and falling, blood still warm on his skin. His lawyer approached carefully. Behind him - chaos exploded.
“I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE CASTILLO!” Ilan’s voice tore down the corridor, raw and unhinged. “DO YOU HEAR ME? I DESERVED IT - NOT YOU!”
Harry didn’t turn.
“I WAS THE ONE WHO WANTED IT!” Ilan kept screaming. “You shouldn’t have been born! None of this would’ve happened if you didn’t exist!” A violent crash followed. Metal against concrete. Shouting. Running footsteps.
Harry slowed. Just slightly.
Behind him, Ilan’s screams twisted into incoherent rage. “I’M THE REAL CASTILLO! I AM! I AM-”
Then a choked sound. A struggle. Orders barked sharply. “Hold him - hold him down!”
Another crash. Something shattering.
Harry closed his eyes for half a second. Not out of pity. Out of calculation.
When he opened them again - he kept walking.
An officer caught up beside him, breathing hard, holding out gauze and antiseptic. “Sir… your eyebrow.”
Harry took the cotton without looking at the man. Pressed it once. Firm. Indifferent.
Blood didn’t matter. Not compared to what he had just heard. Behind them, a doctor’s voice cut through the noise. “Sedate him. Now.”
A muffled protest. Then silence beginning to swallow the chaos.
Harry reached the security gate. His lawyer fell into step beside him.
“He has no chance after this,” the man said quietly. “The psychiatric evaluation will work against him now. Loss of control. Aggression. Behavioral contradiction. It all goes on record.The performance is cracking. That’s what we needed.”
Harry stopped walking. Turned slowly.
“I want to know every move he makes from now on,” he said.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
“Every report. Every visit. Every medical note. If he breathes differently - I want to know.”
The lawyer held his gaze. Understood immediately what that meant.
“If necessary,” Harry continued, quieter now, “you will go there yourself. Daily.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “…Of course, Mr. Castillo.”
Harry wiped the last trace of blood from his skin and handed the gauze back. His expression didn’t change.
“This isn’t just about a lawsuit anymore,” he said. "There’s a man in that room who nearly took my wife from me. Who already took my child.” The words didn’t rise. They landed. Heavy. Final. “Now he gets to spend the rest of his life learning what it feels like to lose everything.”
No one spoke. Not the guards. Not the lawyer.
They simply watched him walk away.
The lobby was still glowing with champagne light and polite laughter. Inside, the New Year’s Eve corporate reception carried on — music low, deals disguised as celebration. Outside, winter had teeth.
You stepped through the revolving doors beside Mikey, the cold air hitting your face like a reality check.
“Finally,” he muttered, tugging his coat tighter. “If I hear one more man say ‘strategic optimism,’ I’m jumping off the balcony.”
You almost laughed. Almost.
Because your stomach twisted again — sudden, sharp.
You stopped mid-step. “Wait.”
Mikey turned immediately. “What?”
You pressed a hand lightly to your abdomen, swallowing hard.
“Just… give me a second.” The nausea rolled through you in a slow, merciless wave. God. Not now. Not tonight.
“You okay?” he asked, suddenly serious.
You nodded quickly. Too quickly.
“Yeah. I just need a minute. You go — I’ll meet you at the car.”
He hesitated.
You gave him a small push toward the curb.
“Go. Midnight is in like two hours and you still need to look tolerable in public.”
He snorted. “Rude. ”
But he went.
The company sedan was parked half a block down, hazard lights blinking patiently.
You stayed under the awning, phone already at your ear.
“Yuliana,” you said as soon as she answered, lowering your voice. “I’m heading to the party now but… I think I’m ready.”
On the other end, she inhaled sharply. “You mean—”
“Yes.” Your heart started to pound. “I need to know.”
A man in a dark suit opened the rear door. “Ms. Queen,” he said respectfully. “Your brother is inside.”
You barely looked at him. Your mind was still in the bathroom.In the morning.In the past.“Okay,” you murmured into the phone, already moving.
Across the street, Mikey leaned against the sedan, scrolling through something on his phone.
He didn’t see you at first.
You slipped into the back seat. The door shut.
Locks clicked. “Yuliana, what did the test say?” you asked.
And then—
You turned your head. The woman sitting beside you was not Mikey. She was older. Elegant in a way that felt… severe. Dark eyes. Studying you like an object she had already decided the value of.
Your breath stalled. “What—”
The car began to move.
“Who are you?” you demanded. “Stop the car. Stop the car right now.”
The driver didn’t react. Didn’t even glance at the mirror. The woman’s lips curved slightly.
“So we finally meet,” she said calmly. Ice spread through your chest. “I said stop the car!”
She tilted her head. “I am Yael,” she said. “Ilan’s mother.”
The city lights streaked across the tinted glass. Your phone slipped in your hand.
On the other end, Yuliana was still speaking. “Ms Queen? Ms Queen what is happening?”
Outside—
Mikey finally looked up. Saw the wrong car pulling away. Saw your silhouette through the dark glass.
“Hey—” His expression changed instantly. “That’s not our car.” He pushed off the hood and started running. Too late. The black sedan turned the corner and vanished into traffic. “Shit.” He yanked open the driver’s door. “Follow that car. NOW.”
The music was soft. Elegant. Expensive in a way that didn’t need to prove itself.
Crystal glasses caught the firelight. Manhattan glittered beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows like it was celebrating a world that did not include this room.
Harry stood near the bar but hadn’t touched his drink. Dana was dabbing concealer over the thin cut at his brow. “There,” she said, leaning back to inspect her work. “Honestly, impressive recovery. Now the real question is — what exactly are you planning to tell Ms. Queen when she sees this?”
Ron snorted into his champagne.
“Oh come on, just say you fought off a pack of hedge fund managers.”
Harry shot him a flat look.
Ron lifted both hands. “Relax. I already got my New Year bonus. I can afford to be brave.”
“You might not want to be unemployed in the new year,” Harry replied coolly.
Ron grinned. “Worth it.”
Harry didn’t smile. He checked the time again. And again. Then finally called you. No answer. He exhaled slowly.
“She’s probably still stuck at the company thing,” Dana said gently. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Everything runs late.”
Harry didn’t respond. He pushed away from the bar and started pacing instead. That restless, controlled energy that meant he was already running scenarios in his head.
The elevator chime sounded. His head snapped up instantly. Hope moved through him before he could stop it. The doors opened.But it wasn’t you.
It was Yuliana.
She stepped out looking flustered, clutching her coat. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said quickly.
That alone felt wrong. Queen Financial was closer than your home. Sienna approached her first with a warm smile.
“Hi. Welcome. You can take your coat off — you’re safe here, I promise.”
Dana joined them. “Oh — hi. You must be Ms. Queen’s maid, right?”
Yuliana nodded quickly. “Yes… yes. I am Yuliana.”
Then she turned toward Harry. “Mr. Castillo…” Her eyes went straight to his brow. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing important,” he said. She didn’t believe him. But she let it go.
Her gaze moved around the room. Searching. “Ms. Queen… she is not here yet? I spoke with her almost an hour ago.” Silence spread slowly. Heavy. Uncomfortable.
Harry was already taking out his phone. “That’s strange,” he muttered. “Traffic wouldn’t delay her this long.”
He dialed. The call didn’t ring. Switched off. His jaw tightened. It had been ringing before. “What did she say the last time you spoke to her? Did she say anything?” he asked.
“She said she was getting into the car,” Yuliana replied. “Then the line suddenly cut. I thought maybe signal problem…”
Harry’s chest went cold. He called again. Nothing. “Call Mikey,” Sienna said quickly.
Harry nodded once. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Then Mikey answered. Breathing hard. “Harry.”
Something was very wrong. “Where are you?” Harry snapped. “Why isn’t she answering her phone?”
“Harry — listen to me!” Mikey’s voice was loud now, ragged with adrenaline. Wind roared somewhere near the receiver. “Something’s wrong. She got into the wrong car. It wasn’t ours — I’m telling you it wasn’t ours!”
Harry straightened instantly. “What do you mean wrong car? Mikey — what the hell are you saying?”
“I don’t kow man!” Mikey shot back. “I was waiting across the street. Then I saw her getting in another car, the door slam and the car just — took off. No plates. Tinted windows. It didn’t even look like a company car. Harry, it’s not stopping. Someone took her! They’re heading out of Manhattan. I’m following them!”
The room froze.
Harry felt the entire world collapse into a single burning point.
“Who took her?” he demanded.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Mikey practically shouted. “I couldn’t see anything. I swear to God I couldn’t see anything. Harry — what do I do? Do I ram them? Do I call the cops? Tell me what to do!”
Harry’s voice dropped — but it was worse now. Controlled. Lethal.
“No. No. You stay on that car. You hear me? Do NOT lose them.”
“I’m trying!” Mikey snapped. “Traffic’s insane — it’s New Year’s Eve, people are everywhere—”
“Mikey. Listen to me,” Harry said, already moving toward the elevator. His voice was low but cutting through the chaos in the room like glass. “Send me your live location. Right now.”
Ron was still frozen for half a second.
“Ron!” Harry snapped, turning his head sharply. “Call the police. Now.”
Ron didn’t argue.He was already pulling his phone out, already dialing.
Harry was back on the call.
“You keep distance,” he said into the phone, every word measured. “You keep eyes on them. That’s it. Don’t play hero. Do you understand me?”
Traffic noise roared faintly from Mikey’s end. A horn. Tires.
A shaky breath.
“…Okay,” Mikey said. “Okay. I got it.”
“Good,” Harry replied. “Stay on them. I’m coming.”
The line went dead. For a moment no one moved. It felt like the air itself had been cut.
Sienna stepped closer carefully. “Hey,” she said softly. “Breathe. We’re going to find her. She’ll be fine.”
Harry wasn’t breathing. Not properly.
His chest rose once — sharply — like his body had forgotten how.
Something old and violent had just been torn open inside him.Something he had spent years locking down behind discipline and strategy.
Across the room, Yuliana looked like she might collapse.
“Poor Ms. Queen…” she whispered, hands trembling. “Why does this always happen to her…”
Harry was already moving.
He grabbed his coat from the back of the chair with sudden, decisive force — the fabric snapping through the air as he shoved his arms into the sleeves.
“Sienna,” he said, voice low but absolute. “You all stay here.”
Ron stepped forward immediately. “I’m coming with you.”
Harry didn’t argue. There was no time.
He was already pulling his phone back out, already walking toward the elevator like the building itself was too slow for him.
Then—
Yuliana rushed after him. Her hand caught his arm. “Mr. Castillo… please,” she said, voice breaking. “Bring her back. Nothing must happen to her. She… she…”
Harry turned. “I will find her. I will bring her back.”
But she was shaking her head now. Desperate. “There is something you must know,” she said. Everyone was staring.
Harry frowned slightly. “Yuliana… what are you talking about? What do I need to know?”
Her breath hitched. Words stuck in her throat. “She… after all the nausea… she finally took the test…” she said, almost gasping for air. Her hand flew to her mouth. Eyes filling. “She is pregnant,” Yuliana whispered. Then louder.
“Ms. Queen is pregnant.”
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hii! i just started watching house last week- and i noticed there isn't many authors that write for house anymore and i was wondering if you could do sick greg house (he's got fever and stuffy nose and whatever's going on inside his head😭😭) so he gets clingy to his wife (reader) and won't let her go to work and demands cuddles (you don't have to write this but THANK YOU!!)
>>>Sick and Clingy<<<
Summery: Gregory House does not get sick. His immune system is superior. His mind is superior. His everything is superior.Except today he has a fever, a sinus headache, and the emotional regulation of a toddler.
Pairing: Gregory House x f!reader
Genre: domestic fluff • hurt/comfort • sick!house • grumpy husband • caretaking • married life • house being dramatic • soft house moments
Gregory was never silent in the morning. He complained about the light. The coffee. The news. The concept of mornings. Existence.
But today?
Nothing.
You step out of the bathroom, towel-drying your hair, and find him still in bed. On his back. Staring at the ceiling like it personally betrayed him.
That’s terrifying.
“Greg?”
A pause.
Then, hoarse and gravel-thick:
“Cancel work.”
You blink. “You’re not my boss.”
“I am your husband,” he says weakly. “Higher authority.”
You walk closer.
His hair is mussed, eyes glassy, cheeks faintly flushed. He looks… soft. Disarmed. Human.
You press your hand to his forehead.
Hot.
“Oh my God,” you breathe. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m dying.”
“You have a cold.”
“It’s meningitis.”
“It’s not meningitis.”
“It could be.”
You lean down and kiss his forehead anyway. He closes his eyes immediately, like you’ve just given him morphine.
“…Don’t go,” he mutters.
You pull back slightly. “I have clinic.”
“Call in sick.”
“I’m not sick.”
“You’re about to be,” he threatens, attempting to pull you down with one arm.
He succeeds.
You land against his chest, and immediately he tightens both arms around you like you’re the last life raft on the Titanic.
“Greg,” you laugh softly. “I have patients.”
“They’ll live.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I’m the genius diagnostician. They’re all dramatic.”
He buries his face in your neck.
And freezes.
“…You’re cold.”
“Yes. That’s how normal body temperature works.”
He groans and presses closer, sliding one leg over yours, trapping you completely.
“You’re staying.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes.”
“Gregory.”
“Wife.”
The way he says it is petulant and affectionate at the same time.
You try to sit up.
He makes an offended noise and clutches tighter.
“Unacceptable.”
“You’re acting like a koala.”
“I’m a very sick koala.”
“You’re a manipulative koala.”
“Same thing.”
He shifts, dragging the blanket up around both of you, cocooning you together. His nose is stuffy, breathing uneven, warm breath against your collarbone.
And then—
He sniffles.
You freeze.
Did Gregory House just—
He sniffs again. Irritated.
“This is humiliating,” he mutters.
“You’re adorable.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m a terrifying medical icon.”
“You’re a congested medical icon.”
He groans and presses his face against your chest to hide.
You feel it then—how warm he is. How tired. His usual sharpness dulled by fever.
“…My head hurts,” he mumbles quietly, almost like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
That’s when your heart caves in.
You thread your fingers into his hair and gently scratch his scalp.
He melts.
Actually melts.
A soft, involuntary exhale leaves him.
“Traitor,” he whispers.
“What?”
“My body. It likes that.”
“Your body likes affection from its wife. Groundbreaking.”
He shifts again, hand sliding under your shirt just to press his palm against your bare waist. Not sexual. Just anchoring.
“Don’t go,” he repeats, softer now. Not commanding.
Asking.
You hesitate.
He opens one eye and looks up at you.
And God, he looks wrecked. Fever-bright eyes. Pink nose. Vulnerable in a way he almost never lets himself be.
“…You’re really not going to let me leave, are you?”
“No.”
“You have a hospital full of competent doctors.”
“They’re idiots.”
“You trained them.”
“Which says more about them.”
You sigh dramatically.
He tightens his grip in response.
“You love me,” he says, muffled against you.
“That’s not a reason.”
“It is.”
“It’s emotional blackmail.”
“It’s effective.”
You try one more time to shift upward.
He immediately whines.
Actually whines.
“…Cold,” he mutters when the air hits him.
“Oh my God.”
“Cruel woman. Abandoning her dying husband.”
“You are not dying.”
He sniffles again.
“…Prove it.”
“How?”
“Stay.”
You look at the clock.
Then at him.
Then at the way his thumb is absentmindedly tracing slow circles against your side like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
“…Fine.”
He stills.
“…Fine?”
“I’ll text in. Half day.”
He goes quiet.
Then slowly tightens his arms around you and presses a fever-warm kiss to your shoulder.
“Marry me again,” he murmurs.
You laugh. “I already did.”
“Do it again.”
“You’re delirious.”
“Probably.”
You feel him relax fully for the first time since you woke up. His breathing steadies. His grip softens but never lets go.
After a few minutes, he mutters, half-asleep:
“…If you get sick too, we can both stay home.”
“Gregory.”
“Worth it.”
You pinch his side gently.
He makes a sleepy protest noise and pulls you even closer.
And as he drifts off, still tangled around you like you might disappear if he loosens his hold, he whispers one last thing—
