Page 77 of A Matter of Fact

Remington narrowed his eyes at Sebastian, who still stood, turned toward the door, facing it like his brother was still there.

“I’m sure you’ve misunderstood,” Remington tried, but Beckett knew better.

“It’s okay,” he rasped.

He knew what people must think when they saw him and Rhys together. They were so different in so many ways, but Beckett could handle everyone thinking the worst of him as long as Rhys knew the truth.

“Go find your brother,” Remington said to Sebastian, tone brokering no argument. “Apologize to him. Set it right. Bring him back. And then you can apologize for whatever the hell you said to Beckett in the kitchen.”

“It’s really fine,” he said.

“Go,” Remington said again. “Beckett and I are going to enjoy the silence while you’re gone.”

Sebastian gave him a petulant expression, but quickly walked it back and slinked out the door, leaving Remington and Beckett alone with four servings of Mediterranean food. Remington shook out his napkin and sat back down, scooting into the table and taking a hearty swallow of his wine.

“So.” Remington smiled. “Tell me about yourself, Beckett. I get the feeling we’re going to be good friends.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

RHYS FACES HIS FEARS

It took every ounce of willpower in Rhys’s body to not put his brother through a wall. But he’d made it nearly four decades without assaulting another person and he refused to let someone as self-centered and childish as his younger brother be the one to push him over the edge.

But honestly, how dare he?

Howverydare Sebastian have the temerity to imply that Beckett was in it for the money? Especially when Rhys had made his own feelings for Beckett so clear. How dare Sebastian act like Rhys had been a miserable cunt for their whole lives, when in fact everything Rhys had ever done, all of those things Sebastian always accused him of, had been to protect no one other than Sebastian himself?

How much had Rhys given up so his brother could have a happy life?

“There you are.”

A voice behind him had him stalling in his tracks. He’d barely made it out of the building, not more than one or two breaths of much needed air before…

“What?” Rhys didn’t turn around, instead bracing his hands on his hips and staring straight ahead. He had to get himself under control. He couldn’t let the argument with Sebastian color what he said next.

“I expected a friendlier greeting, Rhys.”

Shoes clacked against the concrete sidewalk until his father’s figure came into focus in front of him.

“Father,” he forced the word out. “What brings you to Myers Bluff?”

“I believe I was clear in my instruction,” Marcus St. George said, head tilted to the side like he was speaking to a child. Rhys clenched his jaw and flexed his pinky finger, missing the steady hold of Beckett’s hand in his.

“Crystal.”

“Monday has come and gone, Rhys.”

“I’m well aware of the calendar,” he said.

Rhys hoped his face had returned to normal. In the condo, he could feel the heat of his anger at Sebastian in his face, but it was hard to tell now. The night air was cool, but not cold, and he just hoped he could hold it together. He had a plan, but he wasn’t ready to execute it yet. After talking with his new attorney earlier in the week, they’d found a potential loophole that would get him access to the account he’d started while he was involved with Callahan, and there was nothing his father could do about it. But he needed time. He needed a chance.

Rhys prided himself on always being at least two steps ahead of everyone else. If they were smart, he was smarter. That had held true and served him for his entire life. But not once, not in one single fantasy of how this scenario played out, had he pictured his father showing his face in Myers Bluff. The idea of it was preposterous. Rhys was nearly forty, and for his father to come to town and collect him like he was an errant child and not a fully functioning adult was ridiculous.

“And yet.” His father looked up at the condo building. “Here you are.”

“I’m not coming home,” he said, licking his lips and testing the words. He said them; now he had to stick with them. In his heart, it was what he wanted. Rhys wanted Beckett and he wanted to be in Myers Bluff and he wanted what he was owed…what was rightfully his.

“You most certainly are.”