Page 20 of A Matter of Fact

“Sure,” Beckett said, mouth pulling into a frown. “Butwhy?”

Rhys didn’t have a full answer, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sebastian saying he’d had no choice but to fall in love with Remington. The idea was stuck in his head and had grown into something unmanageable, and Rhys had decided that he hated it. He had as much control over his life as he could manage to wring from his father, and he wasn’t going to leave anything he could touch to chance. If Rhys wanted something, he would take it. That’s what he’d always done. It was what always worked, and he wasn’t going to stop. Happiness should not be an exception to a tried and tested rule.

“You’re attractive,” Rhys answered, letting his stare linger on the loose, curly hair that was almost long enough to tuck behind Beckett’s ear.

“Sure, but what else?”

Rhys didn’t have an answer. He saw Beckett, he wanted Beckett, and now they were at an Italian restaurant drinking a five hundred dollar bottle of Cabernet at noon on a Saturday, and that was that.

Beckett smirked and took the smallest drink of his wine. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“You don’t know anything aboutme,” Rhys countered, feeling smug. He arched an eyebrow. “I could be a serial killer.”

“I know more about you than you think.”

Beckett matched Rhys’s arrogant expression and it was like Rhys’s world shifted on its axis. Just barely.

“Try me,” he said.

Beckett took a larger swallow of his wine and rolled his eyes, like he was about to offer Rhys a proper education. “Your name is Rhys St. George. You make well over half a million dollars a year. You have a brother named Sebastian who loves you, but doesn’t always like you. Do you want me to keep going?”

Rhys swallowed. “Where did you come up with all that?”

“Last weekend at brunch. Part of waiting tables is being observant. I just observed.”

“What else do you think you know?”

“I don’t think you’re as tough as you think you are.”

That one hurt, but Rhys played it off. He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee, leveling a bemused expression across the table. “What on earth makes you think I’m weak?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I can handle plenty.”

“I didn't say you couldn’t.” Beckett smirked again, like he’d been proven right. “Just not as much as you want everyone else to believe. It would kill you if people found out you had any weaknesses.”

“I don’t have any weaknesses.”

“Alright.” Beckett clearly didn’t believe him.

“That’s more than I would have guessed you’d picked up on,” he conceded, still feeling uncomfortable, like he would slide out of his chair and the restaurant was mere breaths away from tumbling into the ocean.

“It’s more than you know about me,” Beckett mused. “And you hate that.”

“Guilty as charged.”

It was a small admission, an inch he was willing to give.

The waiter brought them a loaf of bread and left without another word. Rhys watched Beckett’s attention move from him to the bread, to his wine, and around the table before returning back to Rhys’s face.

“What?” Rhys asked. “You look like you want to say something.”

“I always assumed fancy places like this didn’t want you to fill up on bread,” Beckett said. He drummed his fingers against the base of his wine glass, a nervous habit.

“Of course they do,” Rhys countered. “Because their entrees are bite sized.”

“And probably cost my whole rent.”