Chapter 22
twenty-two
The house had been that peaceful early morning silence when I tiptoed through it this morning, but now the low sounds of Justin and Kelcey chatting filled the air as I opened the heavy wood door.
I was tempted to just gun it straight up the stairs and leave Rhys to explain that we were leaving, but that wasn’t fair to him.
When they looked at us curiously, I took a deep breath.
“I have to go,” I said, keeping my voice flat to mask the tremor in my chest. I couldn’t do this here. I couldn’t break down in front of Kelcey, and I couldn’t explain the messy, jagged disaster of my family dynamic to a room full of people. “It’s a family emergency. I need to get home soon.”
“You’re leaving?” Kelcey asked, her voice instantly sharpening as she stood up from the barstool where she’d been drinking coffee. She stared directly at Rhys, ignoring me entirely. “But we had plans today. I thought you weren’t going back until tonight.”
“Ainsley needs to get back as soon as possible,” Rhys said. He put a hand to my lower back and started guiding me toward the stairs.
“Can’t she just take an Uber to the train station?” Kelcey demanded, her voice rising an octave, thick with disbelief as she stepped out into the hallway to block our path. “Rhys, this was supposed to be our group weekend! You promised you’d stay for the whole trip.”
Justin shifted uncomfortably on the couch, sitting up. “Uh, babe, it’s fine if—“
“No, it’s not fine!” Kelcey snapped, her fake-sweet facade completely disintegrating as she rounded on Rhys. “You’ve been distancing yourself from everyone for weeks, and now you’re ditching your own family’s trip because she snapped her fingers? You’re being completely unreasonable!”
I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. I opened my mouth to tell her to back off, but before I could utter a syllable, Rhys stepped in front of me.
He didn’t just step in front of me to walk past her—he physically positioned his body between us, shielding me from Kelcey’s glare. His shoulder brushed mine, solid and unwavering.
“Kelcey, step aside,” Rhys said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a scary weight that made the room go instantly silent.
“No! I won’t!” Kelcey cried, her cheeks flushing red as she held her ground, her eyes darting furiously between Rhys and the hand he had resting on my wrist. “You’re throwing away the rest of the weekend for her?
You haven’t even been dating that long! What about your commitments to your friends?
What about Justin?” She reached out and gripped his fingers, her voice quieting a fraction like they were suddenly somehow the only two people in this whole cabin. “What about us?”
“There is no us,” Rhys spat, his eyes narrowing as he yanked his fingers out of her grip. “And this has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with how you’re acting!
” Kelcey blurted out, her voice echoing in the high-ceilinged foyer.
She was throwing all her cards on the table, completely unbothered by the fact that her current boyfriend was sitting right behind her.
“You’re acting like she’s the only thing that matters!
You used to care about this group. You used to care about me! ”
“Kelcey, drop it,” Justin warned from the living room, his voice tight with embarrassment. “Seriously.”
“No, Justin! He’s doing this on purpose!
” Kelcey insisted, turning her venom back on Rhys.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?
You’ve been putting on this massive show ever since you brought her here.
You’re throwing it in my face, and now you’re pulling this dramatic exit just to ruin the weekend for everyone else!
She’s probably making up some stupid excuse just to pull you away! ”
A sharp, angry breath hitched in my throat, but Rhys cut in before I could speak, taking a deliberate step forward that forced Kelcey back against the entryway console.
“Watch your mouth,” Rhys growled, his voice dropping an octave, rich with lethal threat. “Ainsley’s family is going through a crisis. She doesn’t owe you an explanation, she doesn’t owe you her time, and I am not asking for your permission to take care of my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend?” Kelcey scoffed, a desperate, bitter edge entering her laugh. “Please, Rhys. You started seeing her five minutes after we broke up! Do you really expect me to believe you’re suddenly madly in love and playing the knight in shining armor? You’re doing this to spite me!”
“Spite you?” Rhys let out a harsh, humorless laugh that echoed off the high walls. “Kelcey, you flatter yourself. I don’t give a single damn about spiting you. I haven’t thought about you in months.”
Kelcey gasped as if he’d physically struck her, her face turning pale before flushing red again. “That is such a lie! We were together for two years! You don’t just erase that! You were supposed to be my friend, at least!”
“You made your choice, Kelcey,” Rhys said coldly. “You wanted Justin, you got Justin. But you don’t get to keep a leash on me too.”
Rhys reached behind him and grabbed my hand, giving it one solid squeeze. He tried to sidestep Kelcey, but she blocked his path again.
“I’m not trying to keep a leash on you!” Tears welled in Kelcey’s eyes as she gestured wildly between them, as if she had any right to be upset by Rhys’s actions after cheating on him.
“I’m trying to keep this family together!
Justin and I are serious, Rhys. One day I’m going to be your sister-in-law.
We are going to be at the same holidays, the same dinners, the same events for the rest of our lives.
You’re going to have to like me. You have to be in my life! ”
The silence that followed was suffocating. Rhys stared down at Kelcey with an expression of pure ice. There was no pain in his eyes, no lingering regret, no hidden longing, and zero trace of the hesitation I’d spent weeks terrifying myself over. There was only absolute, uncompromising disgust.
“I can’t control whether you’re in Justin’s life,” Rhys said, his voice eerily calm, each word laced with absolute finality. “And if he’s foolish enough to keep you around, that’s his problem. But you will never be a part of mine. You are nothing to me, Kelcey. Now move. Out. Of. The. Way.”
Kelcey shrank back, her lower lip trembling, completely stunned into silence. She looked around the room as if waiting for someone to defend her, but no one moved. Slowly, humiliatingly, she shuffled to the side, pressing herself flat against the wall.
Rhys didn’t give her another glance. He didn’t look back to see if she was crying, he didn’t look at Justin, and he didn’t check to see if he’d won some twisted mind game. He simply didn’t care.
Instead, he turned around completely, his eyes softening the very second they landed on me. His eyes roved over my face like he was checking to see if I was okay. I gave a subtle dip of my chin and he gave one back before he turned and pulled me softly toward the open front door.
“Come on, Ainsley,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing over my pulse point, soothing the violent beat there. “Let me get you home.”
He led me out into the bright morning sunlight, taking my heavy bag from my hand and tossing it into the trunk of his car along with his own.
He opened the passenger door for me, guiding me inside with a hand hovering protectively at my waist, making sure I was safe and settled before shutting the door with a firm, solid thud.
As he walked around to the driver’s side, I sat back against the leather seat, staring out the windshield in utter disbelief.
This wasn’t an act. He hadn’t said those things to impress Kelcey or to make her jealous.
He hadn’t even looked at her while he tore her down.
He had shut her down completely, brutally, and without a second thought—not for show, but simply because she was standing between me and where I needed to be.
Rhys got into the driver’s seat, pulled the door shut, and turned the key. The engine roared to life. He reached across the center console, taking my cold hand in his warm, steady grip, resting our joined hands on his thigh as he shifted into reverse.
“We’ll be there in two hours,” he murmured, glancing over at me with absolute devotion in his eyes. “I’ve got you.”
And despite the storm waiting for me at home, I believed him.