Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Hi,” I say the moment the door swings open, forcing my voice into something steady. “I’ve been thinking…”
Phillip just stares at me, his icy blue eyes widening slightly—not with warmth, not even with curiosity, but with something sharper. Surprise, maybe. Or annoyance. He waits, saying nothing, as if silence alone might be enough to make me leave.
“We should have a memorial for Whitney.”
The words hang there, fragile and exposed between us.
He frowns, the expression slow and deliberate, his gaze hardening as it settles fully on me. “Should we?”
I hesitate, thrown by the chill in his tone. Was he always like this—this cold, this closed off? Whitney had been warmth incarnate, light spilling from her in every direction. How had she lived beside someone who seemed to absorb it?
“Why?” he asks when I don’t immediately respond.
For a moment, I can’t find the words. All I can think about is what Maverick told me—the debt, the motorcycle club, the quiet implication of something dangerous coiled beneath Phillip’s polished exterior. It colors everything now, every glance, every word.
“Well… Whitney was well-known here,” I manage finally, choosing each word carefully. “If her mother were able, I’m sure she’d organize something. Maybe something small. On the beach, or—”
“I haven’t told her family.”
The interruption is abrupt, almost surgical.
I blink. “You haven’t?”
He shakes his head once, dismissive. “No point upsetting them when we don’t even know what happened. No body and all that.”
The phrasing lands wrong, cold in a way that makes my stomach tighten.
“They deserve to know,” I say, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “I’m surprised they haven’t heard anything already.”
“Whitney’s mother barely knows her own name after the stroke,” he replies flatly. “And her father…” He exhales, something like disdain flickering across his face. “Her father doesn’t give a shit about anything.”
I go still, absorbing the detachment in his voice.
He sounds nothing like a grieving husband.
Nothing like Bennett, who carries emotion in everything he does—even when he tries to hide it.
Standing here now, I find myself wondering how Whitney endured this for so long, how much of herself she had to soften or reshape just to exist beside him.
I wish, with a sudden sharpness, that I had asked her more directly how she was—really was—beneath the easy smiles and relentless optimism.
Regret sweeps through me, swift and punishing.
“I could do it,” I say, the words coming faster now, almost tripping over each other. “I could host something. Keep it small—my backyard, maybe, or—”
“No.”
He moves to shut the door, decisive, final.
I reach out instinctively, my hand pressing flat against the wood to stop it.
“Please,” I say, my voice quieter now, but steadier. “Whitney was loved. There are people who need—”
I falter.
Who need what?
Closure.
The word catches in my throat, heavy with implication.
“The people she loved need closure,” I finish, softer now.
“Closure?” His laugh is sharp, humorless. “How the fuck are any of us supposed to get closure when the coroner won’t even sign the death certificate?”
The anger in his voice crackles, but it feels misplaced—directed outward, not inward, not at the loss itself.
“Just something small,” I press, lowering my voice, as if gentleness might reach him where logic hasn’t. “A gathering. A celebration of life.”
He goes quiet, his gaze narrowing as he studies me more closely now, as if reassessing something he hadn’t bothered to look at before.
“I still don’t see the point,” he says at last.
I draw in a slow breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out. “Whitney was a sister to me,” I say, my voice breaking despite my efforts to control it. “She would have done anything for me. She did do anything for me. So I just feel like—”
“I don’t care what you feel.”
The interruption is immediate, brutal in its clarity.
“I care about moving on,” he continues, his tone sharpening. “She was my wife. How do you think I’m feeling? Did you even consider that?”
I don’t answer.
There’s nothing I can say that won’t fracture the thin line I’m already walking.
“You haven’t even been here until now,” he adds, his gaze cutting into me. “How good of a friend were you, really?”
The words hit harder than they should.
“I—” My voice falters. “I was—”
He reaches for the door again.
I stop him, my hand finding its place against the wood once more, more firmly this time.
“Please,” I say, forcing calm back into my tone. “I think you might be surprised. Sometimes a gathering like that… it helps. It gives people something to hold onto.”
He looks past me then, his attention snagging on something over my shoulder, his expression shifting in a way I can’t quite read.
When he speaks again, his tone is different—measured, almost calculating.
“I suppose it might be useful,” he says slowly. “If the coroner hears about it. Or the insurance company. It might… look good.”
There it is.
Not grief.
Not remembrance.
Optics.
I keep my face neutral, though something inside me tightens further.
“Could we keep it small?” he continues. “Under twenty people. Ten would be better. And don’t invite her parents—I don’t want to deal with that right now.”
I nod quickly. “Of course. Just her closest friends.”
“And we’ll need photos,” he adds. “Proof it happened.”
Proof.
The word echoes.
“Sure,” I say.
“It needs to be soon,” he goes on. “I’m buried in meetings right now. Calls. Everything.”
“I understand.”
I would agree to anything at this point if it means honoring Whitney—even if the man standing in front of me barely seems to remember who she was.
“Your backyard,” he says, already disengaging. “I don’t want people here.”
“Yes. That’s fine. I’ll put something together in the next few days and let you know.”
“Fine.”
His gaze flicks to mine one last time—brief, unreadable.
Then he shuts the door.
Hard.
The sound reverberates through me, sharp and final.
I stand there for a moment longer than I should, my hand still hovering in the air where the door used to be, before I finally turn and walk back across the yard.
The heat presses in around me, thick and suffocating, but I barely feel it.
All I feel is the shift.
The certainty.
The way my suspicion has hardened into something colder, something sharper.
Phillip is hiding something.
I can feel it now with a clarity that borders on instinct.
And if he thinks a carefully staged memorial is going to convince anyone otherwise—he’s wrong.
Because I’ll be watching him.
Every glance.
Every word.
Every crack in the performance.
And this time—he won’t get away with it.