Weggers pales.
“How do we even know you’re for real? Maybe you forged the will and this is all your lunatic fantasy of revenge because you’re Fox Hott’s bastard teenage son he never acknowledged.”
Wait,what?Eden and I stare at Weggers in disbelief.
“She made that up out of whole cloth!” he cries, pointing at Nan. “That’s not even remotely true! How dare you malign my parents like that?”
We turn back to Nan.
“Well,” she says. “Itcouldhave happened. It was a hypothetical.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Weggers says, throwing up his arms. “You,” he says to Nan, “need to more carefully consider your words, or someone is going to have you in court for slander. And as for you,” he says to me, “I did exactly what you asked. I took the situation under advisement. And what I have concluded is that there is no way you could possibly have applied yourself to the task before you objectively when you clearly have feelings for the bride. So I’m not remotely inclined to let you off the hook.”
And with that, Wegger sweeps out of the bakery with not even a backward glance of contempt.
“Huh,” Eden says, biting her lip and looking like she’s torn between laughing and crying. “That went well.”
43
Eden
Hanna buries her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” Rhys says. “I should have thought about what would happen if he saw us together?—”
“No,” Hanna says. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. None of this is anyone’s fault, except Granddad’s, and there’s nothing we can do about that.” She addresses the distressed oak planks of Matias’s law office floor. “If you weren’t already dead, I’d…” She shakes her head, turns to Matias. “Okay, so now what?”
“The easiest thing,” Matias says, “if you don’t want to put the land at any risk or to involve yourself in what might be a protracted period of litigation, is to comply with the will.”
“No,” Rhys says.
He’s wearing a linen dress shirt, rolled to the elbows, and he crosses his (beautiful, sculpted) forearms across his (I’ve seen it shirtless; it’s Roman statue–worthy) chest.
“No one is putting Eden under any pressure to be anywhere near Paul Graves.”
I get warm and tingly at both the dark alpha rage in his voice and the protective gesture, but also?
“I can take care of myself,” I remind him.
He closes his eyes. “Fuck,” he says. “I know you can.”
When he opens his eyes, they’re full of something. Heat. A dark intensity I like way more than I want to. “But I don’t fucking want you to have to, okay? I don’t want you anywhere near him and the idea of a wedding.”
More warm tinglies. “Even if I’m happy to do it.”
“No,” he says. “No Paul Graves.”
“Hear me out,” Matias says, holding up a finger. “What if it’s not Paul Graves?”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Hanna says.
Matias turns to Rhys. “What if it’s you?”
Oh.
Ohhh.
It’s not the worst idea ever.
