26. Wentworth
TWENTY-SIX
Wentworth
2019
I WAKE UP TO A SLEW OF TEXT MESSAGES—MOST OF THEM sent before sunrise. One from Kait— we don’t have to go to dinner if you don’t want to. I understand that you only asked me because Ryan was watching .
That’s not why I asked her to have dinner with me. I suppose I could lie to myself and her and say that it is. That I was putting on a show for Ryan and whoever the hell else happened to be watching last night—but that’s not why I did it. I asked her to have dinner with me because I’m stupid.
And obsessed.
Been stupid over and obsessed with Kaitlyn Barrett since the moment I saw her and it turns out that no matter what she did or how long it’s been, nothing’s changed.
That Kait’s giving me the opportunity to back out makes me angrier than it should—like she knows I’m still not over the way she ended things and I won’t be able to handle sitting across a dinner table from her for a few hours. Or maybe what pisses me off so bad is the fact that she might be right.
Digging around in my bed, I find the sketch I fell asleep working on. Seeing what I drew, my dick goes hard in an instant. So hard my ears start to ring and my vision goes a little blurry. Resisting the urge to jerk off and regretting the fact that I took Kait to her apartment last night instead of bringing her home with me, because if she were here, I’d be fucking her right now, I take a picture of the sketch pad in my hand and send it to her. As soon as it’s sent, I type out a text.
Me: See you Monday, Sunshine.
Backing out of that text thread, I dive into another—this one sent almost directly after Kait’s.
Con: Meet me at Benny’s
I guess he really was watching us on the center’s security feed last night. Checking the time stamp, I see that he sent the text about an hour ago.
Me: Just woke up. Still there?
He answers almost immediately.
Con: Yup.
Yeah—he was definitely watching.
Me: Alright. OMW
Sighing, I sit up, moving to the side of the bed before I check the rest of my text messages.
Silver: Can you come over for some uncle time? Jane wants to go dress shopping for Conner and Henley’s wedding.
Jane, Silver’s best friend and my surrogate little sister, is dating Logan, a bartender at Gilroy’s and one of Con’s groomsmen. I think he’s the one partnered up with Kait… a sudden memory of standing at the altar, watching her walk toward me in a lacy white dress wraps its cold, bony fingers around my gut and squeezes so hard my stomach cramps.
Me: Sure. I’ll be there around noon—good?
Silver: Perfect. Thank you!
After reading her answer, I send another on impulse.
Me: I need a reservation for two, Monday night. Do you have room?
Silver’s the only one of us who went into the Fiorella family business. She works the front of the house for our father’s Boston restaurant and is part owner of their New York location. Even on a Monday, and being the owner’s son, scoring a table at Davino’s on short notice would be a miracle.
Silver: I’ll make room.
Silver: Tess?
It’s a fair assumption. Tess is the only woman I’ve been with since coming home from California.
Montana.
You mean coming home from Montana.
Me: It hasn’t been Tess for years now. She’s with someone else and so am I.
I tell myself that I’m lying to Silver about seeing someone because Kait and I agreed to play pretend until after the wedding but the truth is that I want it to be true. Wish it were. That the last six years of my life had played out differently. That I’d come back to find her waiting for me like she promised, instead of finding a stack of signed divorce papers.
Silver: Do I know her?
Me: No. See you at noon.
Backing out of the text thread without waiting for a reply, I pull up the last text message.
Damien: I need to talk to Kaity.
We haven’t spoken since the day I married Kait. The last thing he ever said to me was, take care of her. He was still angry with me for taking her with me. Still angry with me for the impossible situation that my running away with and marrying his boss’s daughter put him in. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. No matter what happened after that day—how losing Kait made me feel or how angry finding her again has made me, I don’t regret taking her away from her father and that sick fuck he was trying to force her to marry. I don’t regret marrying her.
The only thing I regret is loving her.
Mainly because she never loved me back.
Me: About?
Damien: Family business
That means he’s playing errand boy for Kait’s father.
When Tom Barrett finally caught up to us in Helena, he’d been too late. We were already married but that didn’t stop him from trying to drag her home anyway.
After what you’ve done to me and this family, marrying someone suitable and giving me a grandson is the least you can do.
Family business.
When I read Damien’s text, the back of my neck goes tight. I feel my jaw clench—and just like that, I’m playing human shield for her again. Protecting Kait from her shitty father.
Me: Since she’s my wife, I guess that counts me in, doesn’t it?
Kait hasn’t been my wife for a very long time but if he’s reaching out to me, looking for her, my brother obviously doesn’t know that and I’m not going to be the one to tell him.
Damien: It’s important, Went. You think I’d be asking if it wasn’t?
Shit.
My first thought is of Kait’s little sister, Abbey. That something must’ve happened to her or maybe to Kait’s mother. That’s the only reason Damien would reach out. The only people on that ranch besides my brother that gave a shit about her.
Me: Then you better tell me what the fuck is going on because you’re not getting to her until you do.
I watch a trio of dots dance in the text thread, heart in my throat because something is wrong and it’ll be up to me to tell Kait. I’ll have to be the one to hurt her. The prospect isn’t nearly as appealing as I thought it would be.
Damien: It’s her father. He’s dying. Kaity needs to come home.