Page 72 of The Arrogant One

Once I put the tumbler down, I picked up my phone and tapped the notification, which took me to their app. At the top was the headline,Beck Weston, Horned or Hungry?Beneath was a photo of Beck at a table in a dark corner of Horned, where he was dining with another man whose back was to the camera. The angle of the photo told me a patron or an employee of Horned had taken the shot.

I briefly skimmed the article that explained Beck, one of the owners and investors in The Weston Group, was seen at Horned with his brother, Hart. The question was then raised if they were there to enjoy a meal or, given the amount of food they’d ordered for a party of two, had come to see if it was a business they wanted to acquire for their brand.

Underneath the last paragraph of the article were several more photos of Beck. Ones of him as he was leaving his table, showing a better angle of his face. I didn’t know why I was flipping through them—I knew what he looked like, as Bryn’sobsession had started years ago—but something made me swipe past the first two shots of Beck, immediately stopping on the third. In this one, Beck was out of angle, and the focus was on his brother, Hart, a few paces behind with his head pointed down, hiding most of his face.

I knew all about The Weston Group, the family of five siblings who owned hundreds of restaurants around the world—two different lines of cuisine and dance clubs. But I only knew what Beck and Walker looked like; the others were more of a mystery, working behind the scenes of their business.

I was curious about Hart, and since there were more photos, I continued to flip, finding myself completely frozen on the sixth picture.

The one where his head was no longer pointed down.

The one where he was finally looking up.

The one where he was staring right at the camera.

What the fuck?

I spread the picture between my fingers, zooming in, enlarging the pixels to make sure what I was seeing was real.

“Oh my God,” fell out of my mouth.

“He’s the hottest thing alive—am I right?”

“No. Not that.”

The broadness in Hart’s shoulders. His stance. Posture. The way the first two buttons of his shirt were undone—how they were always undone whenever he wore button-downs.

The darkness of his gelled hair.

His scruffy cheeks.

Those piercing green eyes.

It was …

Lockhart.

Lockhart Wright.

Not Hart.

And not Hart Weston.

But … was it?

I didn’t understand.

I …

I scrolled back up, rereading bits of the article until I found what I was looking for.

Hart. That was the name that had been published—I was seeing that with my own eyes.

But why were they calling him that?

When his name was Lockhart?

Hart Weston, Hart Weston, I repeated in my head.