Page 19 of A Matter of Fact

“What?”

“All the mistering.”

Rhys exhaled loudly, but it wasn’t a denial.

“Are you famous or something?” Beckett asked. “I’ve worked in the industry long enough to know a black card when I see one. And the driver, and the shoes, and the call ahead favors.”

Beckett couldn’t be sure, but he would have sworn Rhys’s face reddened beneath the ambient mood lighting.

“I’m not famous,” Rhys said. “Just unnecessarily rich.”

“Well, we’re in agreement about that.”

“All their pasta is made fresh to order,” Rhys went on, completely ignoring Beckett’s jab. Beckett got the impression it was another thing Rhys was used to. “Do you drink?”

He drank well, owing to his youth, but he had learned moderation over the years.

“Yes.” Beckett tangled his hands together in his lap. There was a decanter of olive oil on the table because of course there was. It was like he had magicked this restaurant together in his brain and Rhys had silently plucked it out and made it real. Beckett realized Rhys probably had enough money to do just that if the situation called for it.

“Would it offend you if I ordered for us?” Rhys asked.

“I don’t think it would,” he admitted.

A waiter came to the table and Rhys ordered in Italian. Beckett didn’t know if he wastryingto show off or if that level of excess just came naturally to him. What he did know was Rhys oozed confidence, and that made Beckett painfully hard.

“You speak Italian,” Beckett commented after the waiter had left them alone again.

“And French,” Rhys said. “Conversational Mandarin.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Oh.” Rhys’s expression sobered. “Plenty, apparently. But I’m sure it’s not news to someone like you that it’s very much news to me.”

“Yeah.” Beckett dared to raise his hands from his lap, fiddling with the delicate napkin on a big white plate in front of him. “You don’t seem like you get caught off-guard that often.”

“No,” Rhys agreed. “But you, Beckett. You very much caught me off-guard.”

“I don’t quite understand that one.”

“What’s not to understand?”

The waiter returned and went through the whole sommelier rigmarole with Rhys, then poured two glasses of wine and vanished into thin air again. God, he was good.

“I mean…” Beckett pulled the wine glass up to his nose and sniffed. He didn’t know much, but he could smell chocolate and tobacco, and when he took a sip, it was the smoothest red he’d ever drank in his life. His thought process trailed off, and he licked the corner of his lower lip, chasing after the flavor.

“I can afford another bottle,” Rhys choked out. “You don’t need to tongue fuck your own mouth at the table.”

“Jesus.” Beckett let out a rough exhale. Something about the word fuck coming out of a mouth like Rhys’s sounded utterly debauched and unholy.

“What’s not to understand?” Rhys asked again, completely unfazed yet again when Beckett felt like he’d been dunked underwater and flipped upside down.

“We’re not quite on the same level.”

“I’m not interested in your bank account.” Rhys raised his glass to his mouth. “I’m interested in you.”

CHAPTERSEVEN

RHYS DOESN’T HAVE REDEEMING QUALITIES