baby — seven (Patreon)

Author's note: We are officially back, baby! enjoy!!

The comfort in the townhouse was completely shattered. The music playing softly from the speakers felt absurd against the sheer volume of her father’s fury radiating from the phone speaker.

"They're saying he's forty-five years old, Y/N! What the fuck is going on?!"

Y/N’s chest tightened so fast she couldn't breathe. The pizza turned to ash in her mouth. She stared at the phone in her hand like it was a live grenade. She had expected a lecture about not answering her texts, maybe a scolding about staying out late on a weeknight.

She hadn't expected the entire United Kingdom to know her business.

"Dad, I—" Y/N stammered, her voice shaking. "Dad, listen to me, it's not what they're saying. The papers lie, you know that—"

"They have a photograph of him kissing you!" her mother shrieked in the background, having apparently wrestled the phone back. "Y/N, I am having palpitations! Your Auntie Carol is acting like you've been sold to a cartel! A billionaire, Y/N? A Sugar Baby?!"

"I wasn't—we were just at a gallery!" Y/N tried desperately, tears of pure panic prickling the corners of her eyes.

"I am driving to London," her father announced, his voice dropping into a deadly serious register that made her stomach plummet. "I am getting in the car right now, I am driving down the M1, and I am dragging you out of wherever he has you locked up in. Give me the address, Y/N."

"Dad, no! Please, don't do that, I'm safe, I'm—"

Harry shifted.

The relaxed, boyish man eating pepperoni on the rug vanished in a fraction of a second. His spine straightened. His jaw locked so tightly a muscle feathered in his cheek. The CEO of Vanguard Holdings was awake.

He didn't snatch the phone. He knew better. Instead, he closed the distance between them, sliding closer on the silk rug until his chest was pressed against her shoulder.

He reached out and wrapped his large, warm hand around her wrist, grounding her shaking fingers.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against her ear, and spoke in a whisper so low, so calm, it cut straight through her panic.

"De-escalate," Harry murmured, his breath ghosting over her skin. "Do not let him drive tonight. He's angry, and it's raining. Tell him you are safe."

Y/N took a ragged breath, squeezing her eyes shut, drawing strength from the heavy weight of his hand on hers.

"Dad," she said, forcing her voice to steady. "Dad, stop. You are not driving to London this late in the rain. I am perfectly safe."

"Safe? You're with a man twice your age who buys women for sport, according to this article!"

Harry flinched. It was a microscopic movement, a slight tightening of his grip on her wrist, but Y/N felt it. The words hit him exactly where his deepest insecurities lived.

"The article is garbage, Dad," Y/N snapped, a protective anger suddenly overriding her fear. "He isn't like that. He hasn't bought me."

"Tell them to come tomorrow," Harry whispered in her ear, his tone shifting into pure logistics. "Tell them I will send a car for them at 8 AM. We will do this face to face."

Y/N swallowed hard. "Listen to me. Tomorrow morning, a car is going to come to the house. It's going to pick you and Mum up, and it's going to bring you to London. We will sit down, and I will explain everything."

"You think I'm getting in a car paid for by that—"

"Dad, please!" Y/N begged, her voice cracking. "Please. For me. Don't drive tonight. Come tomorrow morning. You can yell at me all you want then, but please just wait."

A heavy, static-filled silence hung on the line. She could hear her father breathing heavily, wrestling with his protective instincts.

"Fine," her father finally growled. "But you better have a damn good explanation, Y/N. Because right now, it looks like you've thrown your life away."

The line went dead.

Y/N lowered the phone slowly. Her hands were trembling so badly it slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the glass coffee table next to the pizza boxes.

She stared blindly ahead at the London skyline. The bubble had popped. The beautiful, insulated world they had fought so hard to build over the last few hours was entirely shattered.

Harry moved immediately. He pulled her flush against his chest, wrapping both arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

"Breathe," he commanded softly, holding her tight as a sob finally broke from her throat. "I've got you. You're okay."

"They hate you," she cried into his white dress shirt, her fingers clutching the fabric. "They think I'm a... they think..."

"I know what they think," Harry said, his voice terrifyingly calm, though his heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her cheek. "It doesn't matter. I will handle it."

He kissed the top of her head, lingering there for a long moment, before pulling back just enough to look at her. His green eyes were dark, calculating, and completely devoid of fear.

"Go to the bathroom. Wash your face. Put one of my t-shirts on," he instructed gently, though it was undeniably an order.

"What are you going to do?" Y/N asked, wiping her eyes.

Harry stood up from the floor. He picked up his phone from the table, his thumb already swiping across the screen to unlock it.

"I'm going to wake up my Head of Legal," Harry said, the ice creeping back into his voice. "And then I am going to figure out exactly how much it's going to cost to bury the person who wrote that article for the Daily Mail."

The climb up the floating oak staircase felt endless. Y/N gripped the banister, her legs shaking under the heavy weight of the green silk.

Behind her, down in the living room, Harry was already moving, his mind shifting gears. But up here, in the quiet of the second floor, the echoes of her father's furious voice still rattled in her skull.

A twenty-two-year-old plaything.

She walked into the master bathroom and braced her hands against the cool marble of the sink. She looked in the mirror. François's immaculate makeup. The glowy skin and the sharp brow stared back at her. But underneath the expensive facade, she just looked terrified.

She turned on the tap and splashed freezing water over her face, then makeup remover, scrubbing away the cosmetics, scrubbing away the "statement" she was supposed to be making.

How was she going to explain this to her parents? They were grounded, working-class people. To them, billionaires weren't boyfriends. They were predators. They didn't know the Harry who made terrible carbonara on a Tuesday. They didn't know the man who had bought her a vintage typewriter. They didn't know the Harry who had stood in front of a Lord tonight and threatened to bankrupt him just for disrespecting her.

All her parents saw was the transaction. The money. The twenty-three-year age gap. And looking at the tabloid headlines, Y/N couldn't entirely blame them.

She walked out of the bathroom and into the stark, shadowed bedroom. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp at the back of her neck. The silk slipped over her shoulders and pooling onto the floor in a bright, expensive puddle. She stepped out of it, leaving the gala behind.

She opened Harry's dresser and pulled out a soft, worn grey t-shirt. She pulled it over her head. It engulfed her, smelling intensely of cedarwood and him. It felt like a shield.

She climbed into the massive bed, pulling the crisp white duvet up to her chin, and curled onto her side, staring at the door.

Ten minutes later, the handle turned.

Harry walked in.

The disheveled, romantic man from the car ride was completely gone. The CEO had taken over. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, exposing the dark ink of his tattoos and the tense, corded muscles of his forearms. He looked dangerous. He looked ready for war.

But the moment his green eyes found her huddled under the covers, the sharp angles of his face softened.

He walked over to the side of the bed and sat down on the edge, the mattress dipping under his weight. He didn't say anything at first. He just reached out, his large, warm hand cupping the side of her face, his thumb gently wiping away a drop of water she had missed on her cheek.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking in the quiet room. "I didn't mean to drag your name into a tabloid."

"Don't," Harry said, his voice a low, firm rumble. "Do not apologize for this, Y/N. The only people who should be sorry right now are the ones who printed that garbage. And I promise you, by tomorrow morning, they will be."

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers.

"Your parents are coming tomorrow," he murmured, his breath ghosting over her skin. "And I am going to sit across from your father, and I am going to tell him exactly what you mean to me. I'm not going to hide behind my lawyers or my bank account. I'm going to prove to him that you are exactly where you belong."

Y/N let out a shaky breath, her hands coming up to grip his thick wrists. "He's stubborn, Harry. He's going to yell."

"Let him yell," Harry said, pulling back just enough to look her in the eye. A dark, determined fire burned in his gaze. "I've handled worse men than your father before breakfast. I'm not going anywhere."

He leaned down and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her lips. It was a promise.

"Try to sleep," he instructed softly, brushing the hair back from her forehead. "I'll be downstairs. I have some calls to make."

He stood up, tucking the duvet securely around her shoulders. He walked to the door, his posture rigid once again.

"Harry?" she called out softly.

He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

"Give them hell."

A slow, dangerous smirk spread across Harry's face. "Count on it."

He stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him, plunging the room into darkness as he descended the stairs to burn the Daily Mail to the ground.

The click of the master bedroom door shutting was a physical switch.

Harry stood at the top of the floating oak stairs for a fraction of a second. He let the steady, reassuring warmth he had just offered Y/N evaporate, pulling the cold, armored shell over his shoulders.

He walked down the stairs, his bare feet silent against the wood. He bypassed the living room and headed straight for the back of the townhouse, pushing open the heavy double doors to his study.

It was a room designed for intimidation.

Even in the pitch black, it smelled of unyielding, aged leather, cedarwood, and the faint, peaty tang of single malt scotch. Harry didn’t turn on the overhead lights. He walked to the massive, custom-built desk that dominated the center of the room and flicked on a single brass desk lamp.

The amber glow cut through the shadows, illuminating the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with first editions and the sleek, brutalist lines of his multi-monitor trading setup. The rest of the cavernous room remained draped in darkness.

Harry stood behind the desk. He didn't sit. He poured himself three fingers of Macallan 25 from the crystal decanter, didn't bother with ice, and swallowed it in one slow, burning gulp.

He set the glass down with a sharp clack. He reached for his phone.

It was 2:14 AM.

He dialed a number he knew by heart. It rang twice.

"Styles," a sharp, awake voice answered.

"David," Harry said, his voice dropping into a lethal, clipped register that commanded billions of dollars. "Wake Marcus up. Get to the house. Now."

"Sir, it’s two in the morning," his Head of Legal noted, though there was no hesitation, only a rapid rustling of sheets. "Is there a breach with the Singapore deal?"

"There is a breach with the Daily Mail," Harry snapped, his eyes locked on the dark rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling window. "They have published unauthorized photographs and defamatory claims regarding my private life. I want a strategy, and I want it executed before the London Stock Exchange opens."

There was a brief pause on the line as David processed the directive.

"We are on our way," David said.

"Twenty minutes," Harry ordered. "Use the side entrance. Do not ring the bell. She is sleeping."

He hung up.

For the next twenty minutes, Harry stood in the dark. He looked like an apex predator pacing a very expensive, very dark cage.

At 2:32 AM, the heavy doors to the study opened.

David, a ruthless fifty-year-old corporate lawyer in a hastily thrown-on trench coat, stepped into the room. Right behind him was Marcus, Vanguard’s slick, perpetually stressed Head of Public Relations, clutching a sleek tablet.

They stepped into the study and stopped.

The atmosphere in the room was suffocating. Harry was standing behind the mahogany desk, swallowed by the shadows. The amber light caught the sharp angle of his jaw and the cold, dead green of his eyes. He radiated an absolute, terrifying authority. He didn't look like a man dealing with a PR hiccup; he looked like a man preparing to burn a city to the ground.

"Close the doors," Harry commanded softly.

David pulled the heavy oak doors shut, sealing them in.

"Sir," Marcus started, his voice a little breathless as he stepped forward into the ring of light. "I’ve pulled the digital circulation numbers. The article went live an hour ago. It’s already trending across three platforms. The headline is—"

"I know what the headline is," Harry interrupted, his voice a low, vibrating growl.

He reached out and snatched the tablet from Marcus’s hand. He laid it flat on the mahogany desk, the screen glowing aggressively in the dark room.

*VANGUARD CEO’S 22-YEAR-OLD PLAYTHING.*Billionaire Harry Styles spotted locking lips with mystery brunette outside Serpentine Gala.

Harry stared at the high-definition photograph of his own hands gripping Y/N's waist. He felt a violent surge of protectiveness claw at his chest, but he forced it down, locking it behind the ice.

"Here is what is going to happen," Harry said, looking up at his two highest-paid fixers. He didn't offer them a seat. He didn't offer them a drink.

"David. I want a cease-and-desist on the desk of their editor-in-chief by 6:00 AM. I want you to threaten them with a defamation lawsuit so massive it makes their legal department bleed. They are implying she is a prostitute. Find the libel."

"Harry, they didn't use the word prostitute," David cautioned gently, stepping into his role as counsel. "They used 'Sugar Baby' and 'Plaything.' It's tabloid vernacular. Proving financial damages for libel on a gossip piece—"

"I don't care if you have to invent a law, David," Harry hissed, leaning forward, planting his large hands flat on the desk. The sheer force of his presence made the older lawyer take a half-step back. "I pay you three million pounds a year to find the leverage. Find it. I want that article retracted, and I want a public apology issued to her."

David swallowed hard and nodded. "Understood. I'll wake the litigation team."

Harry turned his lethal gaze to Marcus.

"Marcus. I want the name of the photographer who sold this. I want to know who processed the payment at the paper. And then I want you to buy the exclusive rights to every other photograph taken on that driveway tonight and bury them in a vault."

"I'm already tracking the freelancer, sir," Marcus said quickly, tapping on his phone. "But we have a secondary issue. The board."

Harry’s eyes narrowed. "What about them?"

"Lord Henderson," Marcus said carefully. "Word is already circling that there was an... altercation... inside the gallery before the photos were taken. The board won't like the optics of you threatening a Lord over a girl they think is a temporary distraction. It implies instability. We need to issue a statement distancing Vanguard from this."

Harry went perfectly, terrifyingly still.

The silence in the dark study stretched so tight it felt like it might snap and take someone's head off.

"A temporary distraction," Harry repeated softly.

He slowly stood to his full height. He walked around the edge of the mahogany desk, stepping directly into Marcus's personal space. Marcus froze, suddenly very aware that the man in front of him wasn't just a CEO; he was a man who grew up with nothing and fought his way to the top.

"You will draft a statement, Marcus," Harry said, his voice dropping to a whisper that echoed in the cavernous room. "But it will not distance me. You will confirm the relationship. You will state that Y/N is my partner. And you will make it abundantly clear that anyone who disrespects her, disrespects me, and by extension, Vanguard Holdings."

Marcus blanched. "Sir, the shareholders—"

"If the shareholders have a problem with the woman I intend to spend my life with, they can sell their stock," Harry stated, the finality in his voice absolute.

He turned his back on them, walking over to the window, looking out at the dark city he owned a sizable piece of.

"She just graduated uni, Marcus. She lives in Hackney. Tomorrow, the press is going to figure out her name. They are going to swarm her flat. I want a private security detail dispatched to her address immediately. Two cars. Four men. No one gets near her roommates, no one knocks on her door."

Harry looked at his reflection in the glass, his jaw set in stone.

"Make the calls," Harry ordered his men. "I want a wall built around her before the sun comes up. Dismissed."

At 8:45 AM, the heavy brass knocker on the front door echoed through the silent townhouse.

Y/N was sitting at the kitchen island, nursing a cup of black coffee she couldn’t stomach. She was wearing her own jeans and a simple sweater, having discarded the gala dress and Harry's t-shirt. Her stomach was tied in agonizing knots.

Harry was standing by the stove. He had been up all night. He was wearing dark trousers and a navy cashmere sweater. An outfit chosen deliberately to look respectful but not overly corporate. He looked tired, but the lethal energy from the night before was still vibrating beneath the surface.

"They're here," Y/N breathed, her hands shaking around the mug.

"I've got it," Harry said calmly.

He walked down the cavernous, black-and-white marble hallway and pulled the heavy door open.

Standing on the front step were Y/N’s parents. They looked exhausted, soaked from the London drizzle, and completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Kensington neighborhood. But the moment Y/N’s father locked eyes with Harry, the intimidation vanished, replaced entirely by working-class, protective fury.

"Mr. Y/L/N," Harry said, his voice polite and steady. "Mrs. Y/L/N. Please, come in out of the rain."

Her father didn't step inside immediately. He looked at Harry. A man only a few years younger than himself, standing in a house that cost more than their entire hometown and his jaw locked.

"Where is she?" her father demanded.

"Dad!" Y/N called out, rushing down the hallway.

"Y/N!" Her mother pushed past Harry, wrapping her arms around her daughter in a crushing hug. "Oh, thank God. Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Do you have your things packed?"

"Mum, I'm fine," Y/N promised, hugging her back tightly. "I'm not packing anything because I am not going anywhere"

Her father stepped over the threshold, his wet boots squeaking on the immaculate marble. He ignored the grandeur of the house completely. He marched straight up to Harry.

"I don't care how much money you have," her father growled, his finger jabbing into Harry's chest. "You don't buy my daughter. You don't put her in the papers like some... some cheap piece of tail. We are taking her home."

Harry didn't flinch. He didn't look down at the finger jabbing his cashmere sweater. He held her father's furious gaze with absolute, unyielding calm.

"I understand your anger," Harry said, his voice low. "But you are not taking her anywhere until we sit down and talk. As I promised on the phone."

"I have nothing to say to a man who uses girls half his age for sport," her father spat.

"Dad, stop it!" Y/N stepped between them, her heart hammering. "You don't know him. You don't know anything about us. Please, just come into the living room."

It took ten minutes to get them to sit down. The massive, minimalist living room only seemed to make her parents more uncomfortable. They sat uncomfortably on the edge of the white sofa. Harry sat in the armchair opposite them, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He didn't offer them tea or coffee. He knew they wouldn't take it.

"The article is a lie," Harry started, addressing her father directly. "The tabloids thrive on taking a photograph out of context and attaching the most scandalous narrative possible. I have already initiated legal action against the Daily Mail. By noon, the article will be retracted, and a public apology will be issued."

"An apology doesn't fix her reputation," her mother said, her voice shaking. "They called her a Sugar Baby. They said you're paying for her."

Harry went perfectly still.

Y/N felt the blood drain from her face. Technically, the papers were right about the origin of their relationship. The £15,000 allowance. The tuition. If Harry admitted to the contract now, her parents would drag her out of the house by her hair.

"I am a wealthy man, Mrs. Y/L/N," Harry said smoothly, not breaking eye contact. "And when you are in my tax bracket, the press assumes every relationship is transactional. It is a cynical, ugly world. But it is not the truth of our relationship."

"Then what is the truth?" her father demanded. "You're forty-five. She's twenty-two. What do you possibly have in common with a university student?"

"A great deal, actually," Harry replied. The cold CEO mask completely melted away, leaving something fiercely sincere in its place. "She is brilliant. When I am dealing with numbers and corporate sharks all day, she is the one who grounds me. She challenges me. We debate modern literature over breakfast. She doesn't care about the bank, or the cars, or this house. She cares about me."

Her parents stared at him, momentarily stunned by the raw honesty in his voice.

"It started..." Harry paused, looking at Y/N for a split second, silently asking for her trust. "It started unconventionally. I admit that. I am a man who likes control. I tried to keep her at arm's length. I tried to treat her like a temporary fixture in my life because I was terrified of what she made me feel."

Y/N’s breath hitched. He had never admitted that out loud. Not even to her.

"But I failed," Harry continued, his voice dropping to a rough whisper, his green eyes locked onto her father's. "I failed completely. Because your daughter is the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Her father swallowed hard, some of the fight draining out of his posture. "She's just a girl. She hasn't even started her life yet. You've already lived half of yours. If you get bored of her..."

"I will never get bored of her," Harry stated, the absolute finality in his tone echoing in the quiet room. "I’ve cancelled business trips just to sit in this room and watch her type on a typewriter. I fired a member of my own board this morning because they suggested I distance myself from her to protect my stock price."

Her mother gasped softly. "You did what?"

"I am not hiding her," Harry said, leaning back in his chair. "I am not ashamed of her. And I am not going to let her go. I love her."

The words dropped like an oath in the quiet room.

Y/N stopped breathing. Her heart slammed against her ribs. I love her. He hadn't just implied it. He had said it. Out loud. To her father.

Harry finally looked away from her parents and looked at Y/N. The vulnerability in his eyes was staggering. He was handing her the weapon that could destroy him, entirely trusting her not to use it.

"I know I am not the man you pictured for your daughter," Harry said quietly, turning back to her father. "I know the age gap is a shock. But I can promise you this: I will protect her. I will support her. And I will spend the rest of my life making sure she never wants for anything. Not just financially, but emotionally. She is my other half."

Silence stretched over the living room.

Her father looked at Harry. He looked at the heavy, exhausted lines around the billionaire's eyes. He looked at the way Harry's hands were clenched tightly together, bracing for a rejection he clearly feared.

Then, her father looked at Y/N.

"Is this what you want, Y/N?" her father asked, his voice finally losing its hard edge. "Truly?"

Y/N looked at Harry. She thought about the contract that was currently gathering dust in a drawer. She thought about the terrifying, ruthless man who had just laid his soul bare in front of two strangers just to keep her.

"Yes, Dad," she said, her voice strong and clear. "He's the only thing I want."

Her father let out a long, heavy sigh. He rubbed a hand over his face, looking suddenly very tired.

"Alright," her father muttered, leaning back into the sofa. "Alright. But if you ever make her cry, Styles... I don't care how many lawyers you have. I'll take a cricket bat to your knees."

A slow, genuine smile broke across Harry's face, his dimple popping.

"I would expect nothing less, sir."

The tension in the living room hadn't vanished entirely, but Arthur's cricket bat threat had punctured the heavy, suffocating pressure.

Harry, looking lighter than he had all morning, ushered them into the massive kitchen. He didn't summon a chef; instead, he rolled his sleeves up, pulled a carton of eggs from the fridge, and started cooking. Her parents sat at the marble island, watching in stunned silence as he expertly flipped an omelet while pouring them coffee.

Y/N sat between her parents, her hands wrapped around a mug, finally feeling the adrenaline crash.

"I know this is a lot," Y/N said softly, looking at her mother. "But I’m not throwing my life away, Mum. I promise. Actually... I got a job."

Her mother’s eyes widened with immediate, genuine pride. "Oh, Y/N! A real publishing job?"

"Yes," Y/N beamed. "Editorial assistant. I start next month."

The moment of celebration was cut short by a soft chime from the private elevator. Y/N's phone buzzed simultaneously with a text from JOSH.

Y/N? Some guys in suits were here. They said they're with Styles? They were packing your room.

Y/N froze, her heart skipping. "Harry?"

The elevator doors slid open. Two of Harry’s security detail stepped out, but they weren't alone. They were carrying, battered cardboard boxes from her Hackney flat. Behind them, a third man carried the black garbage bag of her clothes and, most importantly, her mint-green typewriter.

"What is this?" Arthur demanded, standing up as the men began to neatly stack the boxes in the hallway. "Is that her stuff?"

Harry set the coffee pot down and turned to face them, his expression calm but absolute.

"I took the liberty of sending a team to Hackney an hour ago," Harry said, his voice steady as he looked Arthur in the eye. "The paparazzi found the address. There was already a crowd forming on the front steps. I couldn't risk Y/N—or her roommate—being trapped there."

"You just... took her things?" her mother whispered, looking at the boxes.

"I had my team pack," Harry explained. He stepped closer to the island, his gaze shifting to Y/N. "I didn't want you going back there, Y/N. Not with the press waiting. It isn't safe for you to be that far away”.

The implication hung heavy in the room: she wasn't just visiting anymore. He had effectively moved her in without a single suitcase being packed by her own hands.

"You're very efficient, Styles," Arthur noted, his voice low. He looked at the boxes, then back at Harry. He saw the way Harry’s hand was resting on the counter, ready to reach for Y/N if she showed even a hint of discomfort.

"In my world, Arthur, speed is the only way to ensure safety," Harry replied.

Harry walked over to the stack of boxes. He reached down and picked up the mint-green typewriter, carrying it over and placing it carefully on the marble island in front of Y/N.

"Josh is fine. The team made sure he got out of the house safely" Harry told her, his thumb brushing the top of the machine. "He’s safe. And your things are here."

Y/N looked at the typewriter—the gift he had given her before graduating. She looked at her parents, who were seeing, for the first time, the sheer scale of Harry's protective reach. He hadn't asked for permission because, in his mind, her safety wasn't up for debate.

Arthur let out a long, heavy sigh. He looked at the expensive marble, the security team, and then at the rumpled, protective billionaire who had personally cooked him breakfast.

"You don't do anything halfway, do you?" Arthur asked.

"Never," Harry said firmly.

Arthur leaned back, the last of his aggressive posture fading. He looked at the way Harry's arm moved instinctively to shield Y/N as the security team finished the delivery.

"Alright," Arthur muttered. "You've got her. For now. But I expect to hear from her every single day."

Harry offered a sharp, respectful nod. "You have my word."

Arthur looked at the coffee Harry had poured him. "Right then. Pass the salt, Harry."