Page 35 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

RHYS

“ Y ou’d better have that dress on by the time I get there.” I hurried down the front steps of my office tower in downtown Nashville. Vanny was on the other end of the call, getting ready for her reunion, which started in T-minus two hours.

Originally, I was supposed to pick her up in my Porsche and drive her to the venue, but I’d just gotten a call from the hospital.

Things with my mother had taken another turn and she’d somehow managed to get a drink while in recovery.

Leave it to my mother, the Houdini of alcoholics, to find a way to get her fix.

“I’ll find a way to make it up to you. And I won’t be late. I’ll get there. I swear.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll see if I can get a ride with Kim so I don’t have to show up alone. And the dress is already on.”

“I’m a lucky son of a bitch.”

“I think you and I have very different definitions of lucky .” Ever since the golf course the day before yesterday, things between Vanny and I had been a little tense.

We hadn’t spoken about her being on the radio.

Or about my mother being in the hospital.

She’d tried to bring it up a handful of times but it wasn’t something I knew how to talk about.

I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. I wanted to bury it.

But that was easier said than done. Especially when your mother couldn’t be left unattended for even a minute.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

“See you soon.” Vanny hung up first.

The drive to the hospital was quick. I parked, paid for my spot, and made my way to the north tower where my mother’s room was. She was supposed to be released tomorrow morning and picked up by the rehabilitation center, but if she wasn’t stable, things were going to get messy.

Potentially violent.

When I hit her floor, I immediately spotted the four nurses gathered outside her room. There were two security guards standing with them.

“Fuck.” I picked up my pace.

The nurses saw me coming. One of them stepped aside and told the others to move, too.

The security guards looked me up and down before letting me enter, and I found myself in a room littered with food.

Pudding was streaked across the floor. There was a spilled small carton of milk near the bathroom door.

The bedding was covered in mustard and sandwich toppings.

Gigi was sitting in a chair by the window with her forehead resting in her hand. My mother in all her glory was sitting on her bed, shouting profanities at a man in the corner who, up until this very second, I hadn’t realized was my father.

“Dad?” I blinked.

All three of them looked at me. Gigi’s hand fell from her forehead. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The hospital called to tell me my damage deposit on the private room was officially non-refundable.” I looked around at the torn and stained curtains and noticed that the bathroom floor was soaking wet.

Mom had done her damndest to make sure everyone knew how pissed she was at the prospect of rehab.

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Mom. But this is how it has to be.

We’ve tried everything else. And this time is bad. Really bad.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her,” my father growled from the safety of his corner.

I glared at him and felt that oh-so-familiar rage come alive inside me. “Shut up. Why the hell would she listen to you? Where have you been? And why are you here now? Trying to redeem yourself before you meet your maker?”

He brooded in the corner.

“Nothing to say to that, Dad? You should know it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than showing up to the hospital this one time in the last six years to make up for the shit you’ve put this family through.”

Gigi got to her feet. “Rhys. Enough. This doesn’t help anyone.”

“Listen to your grandmother,” my father said.

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Gigi marched over to me and poked me in the chest. “I thought I told you this wasn’t your problem. Don’t you have somewhere to be tonight?”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing.” Gigi poked me again. “There is a beautiful young woman waiting for you. You need to go. We can handle this.”

I glanced at my mother in the bed. Her hands were balled into fists. Her hair was plastered to her head. Fury was burning in her eyes, along with fear and shame and guilt. I sighed. “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

Gigi put her hand to my cheek. “You’re not leaving her. Your mother wants what’s best for you. Don’t you?” She looked over her shoulder at her daughter.

My mother nodded. Her bottom lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Jasper.”

“I’m sorry too,” I said softly.

My father stepped out of the corner of the room. “So am I.”

Everyone looked at him.

He wrung his hands. “Jasper is right. I have a lot to atone for. And unfortunately, not enough time to do it. And I fear a simple apology won’t cut it either.” His eyes settled on me. “Can we talk later?”

Gigi looked desperately between us. She wanted me to bury my resentment and anger. Maybe this was the way to do it, by starting a conversation. Maybe I could come to understand my father a little more.

“Sure,” I said. “Mom?”

Her chest rose and fell with labored breaths. She’d put up such a fight that she’d exhausted herself.

I looked her in her eyes. “I know this hurts. And I know you’re mad at us. And I know you think we’re trying to make this harder on you. But we’re not. And when you come out the other side, you’ll see that. Trust us. Trust me . Please. This will all get better. And I’ll always be in your corner.”

Her chin dimpled and tears streamed down her face.

“But right now, I have to go,” I said. I knew it didn’t look good. The follow through wasn’t there. But Gigi was right. There was a girl waiting for me that I had made promises to. I would not let her down.

So I left them to sort it out on their own for the first time in ages.

And it felt liberating.

I was twenty minutes from the reunion venue when I pulled into a parking lot in a somewhat rundown part of the city. It was a small strip mall and night had just fallen. The sky was still slightly lit up to the west and the stars were beginning to appear in the east.

I parked the Porsche along the side of the mall to avoid it getting dinged by other drivers opening their car doors into it. It had happened one too many times for my liking, especially in a place like this.

I walked back around to the front of the mall, where I popped into a florist shop that would be closing in the next five minutes.

I spent four of those minutes deliberating over which bouquet of flowers to buy for Vanny.

I didn’t even know if she was a flower kind of girl.

All I knew is I wanted to make this night special somehow, and all the time I would have used to plan something had been stolen by my impromptu visit to the hospital.

It was still weighing on my mind. Leaving them behind felt wrong and right, all at the same time. It was conflicting yet empowering to wash my hands of it all and choose something for once that brought me happiness and fulfillment.

Vanny.

If all went well tonight, I’d be able to really call her mine when it was all said and done.

No more fake rings and fake dating. It could be real.

There was something between us and there was nothing she could say to change my mind.

No matter how many games she tried to play and how much she tried to pretend this was all a charade, I knew better.

This thing was real.

It had been since that first night after the club, eating pizza with her.

I’d known it then that there was something special about the girl.

And it wasn’t her affinity for Mountain Dew that drew me in.

Or her curves. Or the way she pursed her lips when she was thinking hard or scrunched her nose when she didn’t like something.

It was deeper and so much stronger than what I’d felt for Trish.

For the first time in my life, I knew what love felt like.

And it was fucking terrifying.

I picked the fullest bouquet of flowers the shop had to offer. They were dusted in fine shimmering powder that made them look magical and I concluded they were the perfect gift on a night like this.

A night where everything was going to change for us.

I paid stepped out into the night to head back to my car. I fished my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the doors. The lights flashed.

And then someone knocked the keys out of my hand.

“What the fuck—”

A fist slammed into my jaw. I hit the pavement before the flowers, which were promptly crumpled under a pair of mud-stained brown boots.

“Nice ride, bitch,” the owner of the boots spat.

I pressed my fingers to my jaw and the corner of my mouth where my lip had been split by the blow. I hadn’t been punched in a good couple of years. The surprise of it left me disoriented. The pain left me furious. I braced myself with my hands on the pavement and pushed up to my hands and knees.

Someone pressed a boot to my side and pushed me back down.

“Stay down, tough guy.”

I peered up at the men towering over me. There were three. At least I was pretty sure there were three. My vision was a bit blurry and unreliable after the blow to the jaw. I shook my head to clear the lingering dizziness.

“Give us your wallet.”

Fuckers. You picked the wrong night to mess with me.

I’d been jumped before. I could handle three goons looking for targets outside a shitty strip mall. No fucking problem. In fact, I was almost grateful for it. Their faces would make perfect punching bags for me to unleash all my pent-up frustration on.

“Your wallet, bitch!” one of them yelled.

I held up my hands and spat blood on the pavement.

“Hang on.” I patted down my pockets. My wallet was in my front pocket.

It wasn’t visible. So I pretended it wasn’t there.

I put on a good show of looking for it though, the patting of my pockets growing more frantic as I checked them three times over. “Shit. I think I left it in the store.”

One of them snickered. “Guess we’ll just take the car then.”

“On your feet, jackass.” Another took my arm and hauled me to my feet.

That was his mistake. He got too close.

I drove my fist into his gut. He grunted and doubled over, presenting the back of his neck, and I drove my elbow down into it, sending him sprawling on the pavement.

The two men left standing were big dumb ox type looking goons.

Both had flat noses that had obviously been broken before.

One had cauliflower ears. A fighter for sure.

The other was taller and lean, a lightweight, but a tough-looking guy nonetheless.

When he smiled, he showed off two missing front teeth.

I raised my fists to shield my face. “Come and get it, fuckers.”