Then they’re all hooting and hollering and slapping my back and nudging my shoulder, calling out stuff about how the World’s Biggest Cynic has finally fallen and the King of Divorce has met the Queen of Hearts and all this other bullshit, and finally the only way I can make them shut up is to yell “Stop!”
They all go silent again—this time joined by the frog and owl, who’ve obviously been scared into muteness.
“Rhys Hott,” says a voice behind me, and even if the voice weren’t as familiar as a recurrent dream, I’d know who it was from the way every cell in my body stirs in response to having her so close.
“You could have told me the truth. I could have handled it.”
30
Rhys
My brothers are pains in my ass, but I’ll give them this: They know when to make themselves scarce. They introduce themselves as they’re melting back toward the house—“Quinn, nice to meet you, sorry I have to go check on the dogs”; “Preston, Rhys’s oldest brother, I need to call the carpeting guy back so he’ll have what he needs in the morning”; “Shane, Rhys’s movie-star brother, and I apologize heartily if you met my ass before my face—this is probably a letdown for you.”
And then they’re gone, and it’s just Eden and me.
“You should have told me what was at stake,” she says. “You should have trusted me. Instead you let me think you stayed all that time because you cared aboutme,” she says. “You let me think you stayed with me all the way to Sioux Falls because you were a good guy. But you did all that shit—cooking dinner and stopping at the quilt show and buying the frog slippers and…all of it!—because you wanted to stay on my good side, so you could talk me into getting back together with Paul, so your sister wouldn’t lose her business.”
She’s talking so fast, and her voice is so tight and tear-laced that it takes me a moment to understand what’s happened. But then I get it. Someone filled her in on the whole big picture with the will.
“Eden,” I start. Because she has it all wrong.
“You could have told me at any time during that whole trip that what you wanted was for me to marry Paul. That youneededme to marry Paul. We could have figured something out. Maybe I could even have?—”
“No,” I say flatly.
“You didn’t let me finish the sentence.”
“That’s because I know what you were going to say, and the answer is no fucking way.”
“We could have done some kind of fake wedding. Something.”
“You still would have had to stand at an altar with that asshole.”
“And maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. If your family’s land and business are at stake?—”
“No,” I say again, and it sounds even harder, more brittle, and she flinches, takes a step back. We’re both breathing hard again, like we’ve run a hundred miles to get to this point, which maybe we have.
“You’re right that I should have told you. And you’re right that it was selfish of me not to tell you. But you’re dead fucking wrong about why I did it. It wasn’t because I wanted to get you and Paul back together. The absolute dead fucking last thing I wanted was for you and Paul to get back together, because?—”
My words have gone rough and gravelly, and it’s not too late to hold them back, it’s not too late to be a good man.
But I’m not a good man.
“—because I wanted you for myself. So, no, you’re not going to marry Paul or fake marry Paul or anything even remotely in that ballpark.”
She stares at me, wide eyed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was at stake and I’m sorry I let you think I was a good guy doing a good thing when I’m actually a selfish bastard and I’m sorry?—”
“Stop,” she says.
“I couldn’t do right by you and Hanna?—”
“Rhys,” she says more sharply. “Shut the fuck up.”
I do.
Somehow, we’ve gotten closer, so close that I can see the gold-and-amber flecks in the green of her eyes, so I can see the small spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. And somehow her hands have wrapped themselves around my forearms, and they’re gripping me tight. Somehow, somehow, my hands are in her hair, twisting in the strands, so I can hold her head perfectly in place, so I can see her gaze settle hungrily on my mouth, so I can watch her lips part just before I claim her.
