Reese Ryan was born in El Paso, Texas to two 16 year olds. Paloma Herrera and Richard Little didn't know what to do with the baby, nor did either of the really want it. Both of the teens were still living at home, so their parents got together and decided to figure things out for them. Paloma and Reese would live with her parents and the Little's would pay child support until Richard had a job and could support himself as well as a child. Paloma and Richard broke up a few months after the birth of the baby and four years later Richard was killed in a drunk driving accident. Although she lived in a trailer park with her grandparent's family, she never needed for anything as her father's family was wealthy and loved the little girl even if they were barely in her life.

Reese and her grandmother were best friends. They did everything together since Reese could begin doing anything. While Paloma was out and about, continuing her life as a teenager and young adult, Ines was raising her granddaughter as though she were her own. She began to take dance lessons at three, which helped the young girl make friends, and aspired to be a prima ballerina. Much like most people with big dreams, Reese was informed when she was 10 that she was going to be too tall to become a ballerina. She slowly began searching for a new dream, although it wasn't easy, stuck in the trailer park where dreams go to die.

While Reese was beginning to study hard to get out, something almost unexpected of her at the age of 11, Paloma was working 2 jobs to pay for her daughter's education in a private school (and party money) when she met Peter Ryan. He was working late nights at the Texas office and Paloma was cleaning his office building at night. They began talking and only 2 months later, they were engaged and making plans to move. Peter had two kids already with two different woman and Paloma had her own, so they decided to bring the family together and become something along the lines of the Brady Bunch. Peter lived in New York City, so Paloma packed herself and her daughter up and moved them across the country to start a new life with the Ryans.

Although she wanted to dislike them, something about Peter put her at ease and only a few months after the move, he sat them down and offered to adopt Reese officially. Both agreed and although she missed her grandmother desperately, they became a real family. Kind of. Reese spent two years at a private school in New York, but was sent to a Boarding school in Boston for High School where her step siblings was also attending. When she first started at the school, she was quiet and very introverted, but soon came out of her shell and by her senior year, she was on the cheerleading and dance teams, French and Spanish clubs and graduated second in her class.

Reese always liked the feel of Massachusetts, so she chose schools in the area when applying for college and ended up choosing Northeastern, mainly because it was her adopted father's alma mater, majoring in architecture. In the middle of her freshman year, Paloma divorced her husband of 7 years and moved on to someone richer and older. This scared Reese, as out of the family she had created after the wedding, her mother was the person she liked the least. Pete was a good man, and he kept paying for Reese's schooling and treated her like she was his own. He did take on that responsibility when he adopted her, but it never felt like it was out of obligation to the girl.

Upon graduation, she went right into a new program at the Boston Architectural College where she dove into the Master of Interior Architecture program. With her background and courses already taken at NE, the three year program became two and she graduated with a Masters in IA, ready to take on interior design. It felt a lot like dance to Reese, creating something beautiful was always what she wanted.

She began interning at medium sized company for a few months, but soon found a job as an assistant to an up and coming entrepreneur, Hanna Klein, who put Miranda Priestly to shame. Reese tends to be a pushover, but knows that if she can stick out and do a good job, her boss will come through with the promotion and raise she promised would come after a year of working for her. Probably.