With a heavy sigh, he flopped back on the bed and scrubbed both hands over his face. This was all too much to contemplate without coffee. As if conjured by the mere thought, the scent of it made his nose twitch. Praying he wasn’t hallucinating due to sleep deprivation, Reed rolled out of bed, tugged on some pajama pants and a t-shirt, and shuffled into the living room. He stopped at the edge of the kitchen, momentarily speechless with relief.
She was at the table, feet propped on a chair, with a tiny laptop resting on her bare knees as her fingers flew over the keys. Her hair was a sexy, tumbled mess. He’d done that, and at the sight of it, he wanted to do it all over again. Especially as she wore only his shirt, the sleeves rolled several times to free her hands. He liked seeing her in his space, liked that she’d made herself at home. Seeing her here, like this, it was so easy to imagine her as part of his home.
As if sensing his gaze on her, she looked up. No sexy bedroom eyes here. She looked bright and alert and suspiciously like she may have already downed half a pot of the coffee still on the burner. “Morning.”
Reed grunted and shuffled toward the coffee. There would be no coherent speech until the first hit of caffeine. He filled his favorite mug and watched as the heat made the Bat Signal appear on the side. With another jaw-cracking yawn, he joined her at the table, taking in pages of handwritten notes spread over the surface.
“How long have you been up?” he rasped.
“A while,” she admitted.
He angled his head, squinting at one of the sheets, but without his reading glasses, it was hopeless. “What is all this?”
“A business plan."
“You’re working on a business plan at the ass crack of dawn? After we were up half the night?” Reed looked at her in suspicion. “You’re a morning person.”
Cecily’s lips twitched at the accusation. “My inner body clock does tend to have me up before the sun. But I was too nervous to sleep.”
Reed frowned. “Nervous? Are you uncomfortable here?” She didn’t look it. But maybe it was the sleepover portion of things that was the problem.
“Not about staying with you. I needed to do some serious thinking, and I couldn’t do that all snuggled up with you.”
Bracing himself for a serious conversation, Reed drained half his coffee. “Okay.”
She set the laptop aside. “When you presented this plan last night, I wanted to jump at it. I don’t want to walk away from you, from this.”
Her fingers tangled with his on the table, and Reed wished he’d downed all the coffee for fortification. He knew last night had been too fast, too easy. Now that the haze of lust and that initial reaction was past, she was second guessing everything.
“But I can’t be reckless about this. I made a very serious mistake once, and it came back to bite both me and my family in the ass. I can’t afford to do that again. If I’m going to do this, it has to be a considered decision, one where I’ve gone through all the details, worked out all the practicalities myself, rather than trusting someone else to do it for me.”
Well that stung. Something must’ve shown on his face because Cecily slipped out of her chair and came around to sit in his lap.
“This has nothing to do with not trusting you. Or Norah, for that matter. It has to do with not trusting myself. I need to be able to justify this to my family, to know that what I’m doing isn’t just about what I selfishly want. When they ask me about the logistics, the start up capital, the expected return on investment, I need to have an answer.”
Reed softened, sliding his hand around her nape. “They really did a number on you by cutting you out of your non-profit.”
“I screwed up.”
“You got taken advantage of by someone you cared about,” he corrected. “How long are you going to punish yourself for it? How long are they?”
She stiffened. “I’m not—”
“I think you are. I think you’ve spent the last however many years since the asshole questioning every decision you’ve made, replaying the whole thing, wondering what signs you missed or how you could’ve been so blind. And I get that. I get that you got burned and badly. I’m a businessman, so I also understand the need to prove viability of concept, of projecting profits and losses, and crossing all your ‘t’s and dotting all your ‘i’s. That’s just smart. Take what Norah and I put together for you and refine it. Make it fit you and your vision. But do it to make it yours, not because you feel like you have to get permission from someone else.”
Cecily sighed and pressed her brow to his. “I have to prove that they can trust me again.”
“Why? You’re an adult. Out on your own. Earning your own way.”
“Because until I do, they’ll keep trying to rescue me. Using connections or influence to find me a place that’s worthy of a Davenport because they think they know better. I have to prove they can trust me to run my own life so they’ll let me do it.”
Reed wondered what it would take to prove to Cecily that she could trust herself. But that was more than he was capable of thinking about on half a cup of coffee, so he wrapped his arms tighter. “Okay then. So what’s the verdict?”
Her gaze shifted to the papers scattered across the table. “Well, I’m still working on some details, and I need to get some quotes on a few things, but…I think this could really work.”
“Good.”
He wanted to ask if she was confident enough in that to take the leap, but he wouldn’t force this decision. He’d already gotten further in the last twenty-four hours than he’d expected to get in a month. Putting pressure on her for more wouldn’t end well. Instead, he changed the subject. “Are you done working on this for a bit?”