The Reed Security Relationship Manual: A Reed Security Romance - Giulia Lagomarsino (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

He stood there stunned. “That wasn’t the point. I swear, Storm was giving me shit about how I wasn’t man enough to talk to you about your cooking—“

“Oh, so you thought it would be a good idea to storm into the house with all your friends and tell me my cooking sucked?”

“Baby, you almost killed me. I literally almost choked to death on your food,” he said, pointing back toward the kitchen.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re alive. You didn’t almost die. You had…issues with chewing.”

I picked up Kitty in one arm and Marcelo in the other, storming toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To stay with Susan in the bunker. Since my cooking is so terrible, I must need a few more cooking lessons. You can find us there.”

I went to shove past him, but he stood in front of me. Kitty growled low in her throat, her half ear twitching as she prepared to swipe out at him. He stared down the cat, trying to decide on the best move.

“Now, let’s be rational here. You don’t really want to leave me.”

“Oh, did you think it was rational to come in here and tell your wife that her cooking sucked?”

His eyes went wide and he shook his head slightly. “Molly…”

“I don’t really want to stay,” I countered. “Not with someone that would be so mean to me. You really hurt me. I thought we were past all that.”

“Look…I fucked up. I’ll admit that—“

“Oh, how magnanimous of you,” I said, rolling my eyes as I pushed past him. “You know, maybe you should think about what you want more, Storm’s approval or your wife’s.”

With that, I turned and walked out the door, leaving him standing in the doorway to our house. Getting in my car, I drove the short distance to the Reed Security bunker and carried Marcello inside. Kitty followed me everywhere, so all I had to do was set him down on the ground. Luckily, there were still clothes in the bunker from the last time we were down there, so I shouldn’t have to worry about any of that. And there should be diapers and wipes down there also. If there was one positive thing I could say about the guys, they were always prepared for everything.

I pressed my hand to the scanner of the bunker door, then punched in the code and went through the eye scan. Seriously, it was such a pain in the ass to get down here. The door opened and air hissed out as the door opened and the pressure released.

What I wasn’t expecting was to see practically every other woman from Reed Security in the bunker. I stood there in shock, staring at them all, and they all looked pissed.

Maggie turned to me, walking over with a smile as she took Marcello from me. “Hey, little guy. What are you guys doing here?”

“Tony said my cooking sucked in front of half the guys.”

She nodded, like that was completely understandable. “Well, we’re all boycotting the men. They’re all being assholes.”

“Everyone is?”

She looked around the room, counting heads. “Yep, I think we’re just missing Kate. Oh, and Cara, since she’s ready to pop.”

“Do you think Kate will come?”

“Well, that depends on if Knight lets her out of his sight.”

“But the question is, how do we keep them from coming down here and ruining our solitude?”

Maggie grinned. “Oh, well, that’s one of the perks of being the owner’s wife. See, Sebastian put in all these protocols for the women, you know, in case we ever get attacked again and need to keep out the enemy.”

“Didn’t the protections already cover us for that?”

“Oh, they bumped up security again. Now, we can lock ourselves in here, and they can’t get in.”

“But why would they need that?” I asked in confusion.

“You know, in case one of them was taken and were forced to use their hand print or their eye for the scanner.”

I swallowed hard. “You mean, like if someone cut off their hand or cut out their eyeball?”

“Look, I’m not saying I would do it, but…well, I’m not denying that I wouldn’t get made enough to think about it.”

She turned and walked off with Marcello. Shaking my head, I walked over to the most reasonable person in the room.

“Hey, Reese. What are you down here for?”

“Craig came home bragging the other day about how he successfully talked down a woman that wanted to assassinate her husband by telling her about how he kidnapped me, tricked me into marrying him, and sold my house.”

“I thought you were past that?”

“Well, I was, until he started using it as an example for others. I mean, I’ve forgiven him for all that, and I understand how much he loves me, but do you know how embarrassing it is that he thinks he’s the shining example for all other males to follow? No, he needs to be knocked down a peg or two.”

I glanced around the room, wondering if they all felt this way. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, Maggie has access to all of the manual, along with Rocco’s rulebook. We’re going to create our own rules, and when the guys hand over their rulebook, we’ll happily hand over one of our own.”

“That…actually seems pretty logical.”

She grinned in a way that I had never seen before. She was no longer the nice kindergarten teacher with the quirky husband. She was a woman hell bent on setting her man straight and making sure he didn’t fuck up again. It was kind of kickass.

I thought about what happened tonight and decided I had a few rules of my own I’d like to add.

“So, word on the street is that you and Tony are about to bring another taco into the world.”

I sighed. “Yeah, not quite yet. I just found out.”

“That’s great news!”

“Well, it would be, but tonight he showed up at the house with some of the guys, and he yelled at me and told me how terrible