Chapter 4 #2
“Shacking up with her new girlfriend,” Grant added, the whites of his teeth gleaming against his already summer-tanned skin.
Her mother’s eyes lifted. “Oh?”
She’d felt Grant circling as soon as she’d walked in the door. It became clear he hadn’t yet told their parents about their earlier run-in. He was waiting. For what, she didn’t know. Maybe just to see the conversation play out in real time.
“Did Grant not mention that he stopped by The Stone’s Throw today?” Reese asked, gently veering away from the subject of her fake girlfriend.
“You’re staying there?” her father asked, suddenly taking interest in the conversation. “Your mother didn’t mention it.”
Reese nodded. “It’s got great bones. Needs a little updating, but what doesn’t.”
Her father put his evening newspaper down, shifting his focus to Grant. “I’d have to agree with your sister on this one.”
Something passed between them, and Reese desperately wished she knew what it was.
She also wished that, even after thirty-one years, her father’s approval didn’t matter to her so much.
He’d built The Devereux Group from the ground up, starting with a single property in the early nineties. Since then, the group had grown to a portfolio of fifteen mostly coastal hotels that dotted the New England seaboard.
She was proud of what her father had accomplished, for both himself and his family, even if it was hard to reconcile that with the fact that he refused to see her as part of the company’s future.
Reese turned her attention back to her mom. “How did you know I was staying there?”
Sharon continued to look at her cranberry with suspicion. “Steve and Joyce Dyson were driving by and swore they saw you in the parking lot.”
Of course. Of all the wonderful things about Stoneport, living under a microscope wasn’t one of them .
Honestly, it was shocking that her family didn’t yet know she’d purchased the inn. Her parents had never been close with the Thatchers, but still, it must have been common knowledge that the inn had been sold.
“So, Reese,” Grant cut in, dangling his fork from his manicured fingers and letting it fall in lazy circles above his salad plate like it was a scrying stick. “Seems like you’ve been busy.”
She squinted at her brother. Did he know?
No, she decided; he was still mad about what had happened earlier.
Of all the things she’d learned today, Grant’s infidelity had been the least surprising. He wasn’t overly chauvinistic in public, but his access and means had always given him a sense that he could do whatever he wanted.
Clearly, he’d taken that to heart.
Reese batted the loaded question away. “What millennial isn’t?”
He put his fork down before edging his elbows onto the table. Hands clasped in front of him, he made sure that his obscenely expensive watch glinted off the light. “I’m surprised you didn’t call to share the good news that you’d sold your software.”
Maybe because she hadn’t qualified it as good news to her.
Reese flashed a smile. “I figured this was a nice dinner for us to celebrate your upcoming wedding. I didn’t want to steal the spotlight.”
Grant scowled.
Now, that was the most interesting thing that had happened yet tonight.
The tension was put aside as the kitchen staff brought out the main course. Reese had made it a point to learn how to cook in adulthood, given that it was a skill that hadn’t ever been taught in their family.
But god, had she missed the seafood in New England. The scent of pan-seared scallops enveloped her as the plate was put down .
After the day she’d had, she was starving.
Her mom, blessedly, continued the conversation, discussing the latest comings-and-goings of the town, what her charitable organizations were up to, and dropping subtle jabs at any of their long-time neighbors, who’d done something to get in her crosshairs.
The offenses ranged from hiring a new landscaping company that didn’t create the perfect crisscross design in the Miller’s front yard to Mrs. Gordon announcing her own son’s engagement a week after Grant’s.
Reese, halfway through her scallops, put her fork down. “So, Mom, you must be excited that your only son is getting married.”
She wondered if Grant would lunge across the table and strangle her. If his looks were any indication, the odds were about fifty-fifty.
And then her mother, in a move that was so uncharacteristically excited that it left Reese wondering if she’d been possessed, clapped her hands together. “Oh, yes! Brynn is such a sweetheart.”
“I’m excited to meet her,” Reese lied.
“Why? Angling to date her, too?” Grant muttered.
Sharon, who’d almost been ready to finish her first scallop, put her fork back down on her plate. “What was that, Grant?”
Grant cleared his throat, waiting until all eyes were on him. “I was asking whether Reese wanted to date Brynn, too. Considering that she and Sydney are an item, it’s not that unbelievable.”
“Reese and Sydney?” Sharon said the words like she was rolling them around, trying to make sense of them. “ Your Sydney?”
Gross. As if Sydney belonged to anyone, especially someone like Grant.
Grant nodded vehemently, grateful their mother saw his side of things. “She couldn’t keep her own girlfriend, so she had to go and find my leftovers. Really, where did you two even meet? Did you seek her out when Morgan broke up with you? ”
Reese’s lip curled. “You know that her name is Megan. And why do you keep referring to a woman you once professed to love as different versions of uneaten food? You know, I read a very interesting book discussing how masculine language always reduces women to food?—”
Grant cut her off. “Why won’t you answer the question?”
Because she was buying time, deciding how she wanted this conversation to go.
“I didn’t know that you were keeping such in-depth tabs on my comings-and-goings, Grant. Don’t have enough at work to keep you busy? Dad just sit you in an empty office to twiddle your thumbs?”
“Reese.” Her father’s voice was sharp, but she didn’t spare him a glance.
She could see the vein in Grant’s forehead again.
Frustrating him was… euphoric.
She felt alive. More alive than she’d been since she’d lost her company. Lost Megan. Purchased the inn.
Years of discontent were bubbling up to the surface, and her body was alight with the back-and-forth.
“No, Grant, please. Explain to me how you cheating on your ex-girlfriend and immediately getting engaged to your affair partner is somehow my problem?”
“That can’t be true,” Sharon protested.
God, sometimes Reese envied her mom’s obliviousness.
Reese frowned; saying the next words gave her no pleasure. “The Venn diagram between his relationships with Sydney and Brynn is simply a circle. I’m not saying these two crazy kids won’t make it work, but it’s not like they’re starting their life together on the most solid foundation.”
“You don’t know anything about my life,” Grant spat back.
What, was he going to tell her next that she wasn’t the boss of him? It was a rich comment, given how much he thought he knew about both her personal and professional lives .
Reese picked her wineglass up and twirled it absently. “Then what makes you think you have any right to speak on mine?”
She’d walked into this house, so sure that she was going to drop the charade she’d spent the afternoon orchestrating with Sydney, but now, with adrenaline coursing through her veins, it felt like the best idea she’d had in a long time.
“Are you dating her just to get a rise out of me?” Self-involved as always, but hey, a broken clock was right twice a day.
On her best days, she didn’t hate Grant, but she still couldn’t muster up a modicum of respect for him. Especially right now.
“My relationship with Sydney is none of your business.” Stick to the party line, and she’d get through this.
In spite of the chaos surrounding her, as Grant looked ready to blow a gasket, Reese found herself smiling.
Today had been… surprising. Sydney was funny and interesting, and she’d been through a hell of a lot the last year, hopefully only to come out stronger on the other side.
Reese had always believed that karma came around eventually, but she was realizing that people like Grant, who were insulated from the unjustness of the world—not that she wasn’t aware of her own privilege—didn’t suffer consequences unless people imposed them.
Now here she was, dropped into a fortuitous situation, almost divine in its invention while Grant, led by his own assumptions, was stuck in a hell of his own making.
Maybe that was true karma, and who was Reese to stop whatever was coming next?
Grant moved to stand up. “I cannot believe you think that you can?—”
She felt her father’s strong hands pound against the table before she heard them. “That’s enough.”
Silence cut through the dining room.
Reese was ready for the dressing-down of her life until she realized that her father was looking directly at Grant.
“You are lucky that Brynn Fitzpatrick accepted your marriage proposal. And you’re even luckier that Sydney made no waves last year.” He looked at Reese then. “If your sister’s future is with Sydney, it’s irrelevant to you.”
Reese held her breath until her father looked back at Grant, who was sitting down again, visibly seething in his chair.
“Your future is with Brynn. Her family is coming tomorrow for a small get-together, and you will be the fiancé that I know you can be. Anything less will not be tolerated. You are the one who mixed business with pleasure where the Fitzpatrick family is concerned, and now it’s your business to make her the happiest woman on earth.
And you will not do anything to disrupt their investment in The Devereux Group.
” The silence was deafening. “Do I make myself clear?”
Grant cleared his throat before looking down at his empty plate. “Understood.”