Chapter 9 #3
Emmy's hand found the hem of her polo and smoothed it flat. Her chin was up. Her eyes were bright and hard—the brightness that meant the next thing out of her mouth would be perfectly composed and absolutely devastating.
But she didn't have an answer. Because the answer to every question was no.
"You like him," Grant said quietly. "And it's blinding you."
Color climbed her neck, her cheeks.
"I don't need you to rescue me." Her voice was steady. Too steady—the steadiness of someone holding very still so they don't shake. "And I don't need you to analyze my feelings. I'm not West's baby sister anymore. I'm not yours to protect."
Grant's jaw worked.
I'm asking if that's the only thing stopping you.
The words were right there. In his mouth. Ready.
He swallowed them.
"Go back to your team," Emmy said. "I'll handle my own mess."
She walked away before he could decide if letting her was the brave choice or the cowardly one.
The parking lot was emptying. The rest of the guys were still inside, probably working the open bar one more time before the shuttle back.
Late afternoon light slanted honey-gold across the asphalt. The air had cooled, carrying the ghost of cigar smoke from the clubhouse patio. Grant was walking toward the team SUV when he heard the voices.
Low. Tense. Coming from behind a row of Range Rovers.
Tyce's voice first—that smooth, practiced tone, except now there was an edge underneath. A crack in the veneer. And then a woman's voice, clipped and furious.
The woman from Emmy's office. Sabine. They'd been introduced once at the gala, briefly, and she'd looked at him like he was taking up space she had better plans for.
Grant paused. The smart thing to do was keep walking. This wasn't his business. Whatever was happening between Tyce Duke and the senior matchmaker from Emmy's office, it had nothing to do with him.
But instinct—or that protective streak he couldn't seem to turn off — made him stop.
"—can't do this here. We agreed—" Tyce's voice, low and urgent.
"You agreed." Sabine's voice cracked on the word. "I never—"
Silence, then footsteps.
Grant stepped behind the SUV, feeling ridiculous. Like a teenager eavesdropping on something he had no business hearing.
Sabine walked past first, heels clicking a sharp rhythm on the pavement. Her face was composed—the same cool mask she'd worn at the gala—but her hands were shaking. Fingers white-knuckled around her car keys.
Tyce followed a minute later, adjusting his collar. His expression reset as he walked—irritation smoothing into ease, tension dropping from his shoulders like a coat he'd decided not to wear.
A mask sliding into place.
He spotted Grant.
"Knight!" The smile was immediate. Seamless. "Good tournament. That putt on the back nine was brutal, man."
"Thanks." Grant straightened. "Tough day."
"They always are." Tyce clapped him on the shoulder—too familiar, too friendly. "See you around."
He walked toward a silver Porsche without looking back.
Grant stood there, watching him go.
He didn't know what he'd just witnessed.
But he'd been around Emmy long enough to recognize the patterns—the mask sliding into place, that tell-tale tremor in the hands that told a different story from the composed face.
Sabine's attachment to Tyce wasn't professional.
And Tyce's irritation wasn't about being overheard. It was about being known.
He didn't have Emmy's vocabulary for it. But he knew it wasn't nothing.
The shuttle dropped them back at the stadium. Grant found his car in the player lot.
He sat there for a long moment before starting the engine.
I'm not West's baby sister. I'm not yours to protect.
She was right. She wasn't. Hadn't been for years.
Grant started the car. Pulled out of the lot.
The highway unspooled ahead of him, familiar enough that he could drive on autopilot.
He thought about the gala. Her voice defending him to a room full of people who'd written him off as a body that threw a ball.
The jacket around her shoulders, still warm from his skin.
Pizza at eleven PM, her wearing his hoodie like it was hers, comfortable in his space in a way no one else had ever been. The terrace, when he'd almost—
And then Tyce's arm around her. Tyce laughing at her. Tyce steering her away like he owned her.
His throat went tight.
Concern, he told himself. She's Emmy. You've known her since you were twelve.
The skyline of Boston emerged through his windshield, familiar towers catching the last of the sunset.
Orange and gold and pink, the whole city lit up like something worth keeping.
Grant had lived here for ten years. Built a career here, a life here.
He knew every highway, every shortcut, every route home.
He pulled into his parking garage and sat there, engine off, in the dark.
Tomorrow he had practice. Film review. A hundred things that required his full attention, his complete focus, the part of his brain that was currently occupied by blonde hair and champagne explosions and the look on her face when she'd said I don't need your protection.
Tonight he had the echo of her voice and the memory of Sabine's shaking hands and something he couldn't name sitting heavy in his chest, right where concern used to be.