Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
DANI
Who is she ? A lingerie model dragged out of a club at three in the morning? A raver? Because this is no ordinary fangirl. The hard lines of a professional partier pushing mid-thirties are etched deep across her forehead and pulling at the sides of her mouth. Pieces of what looks like confetti sparkle in her purple pixie cut, and barely containing the best boobs money can buy are a collection of see-through crochet panels that comprise her dress.
The tension running through me makes me feel like my heart will explode. I can tell from Rhys’s stricken expression that he knows her.
He shoves Sawyer off his chest and staggers to his feet.“What are you doing here?” he asks in a low, spooked voice.
“Oh, babe,” she coos, fiddling with an earring laden with so many diamonds, it probably weighs more than her. “We talked about me visiting.”
She blows a pink bubble until it pops, then sucks the exhausted wad back into her mouth with a snap and makes a kissy face at him.
My soul turns to ash.
Babe?
“No.” Rhys stretches out the word like he’s speaking to a child who never listens. “I kicked you out of my house, remember?”
“This should be interesting,” Sawyer mutters, rising from the floor and wiping dust from his prep-school attire.
The statuesque plaything shoots Sawyer a flirtatious look. “Hi. I’m Myla.” She eyes me up and down, doing whatever math she’s capable of. “Are you his girlfriend?”
“Dani is with me.” Rhys sidles closer to me but stops in his tracks to meet the challenge in my eyes— the one that silently screams , What is going on? Somewhere, in a hopeful part of my brain, I wanted Myla to be one of the millions who fawns over Rhys from afar. Who could only dream of touching his golden skin, like I had.
But they’ve slept together.
A woman always knows.
I clamp my trembling lips together as Myla’s blinding psycho smile dips into a frown.
“But babe,” she pouts. “I just…”
“Stop calling me that!” Rhys shouts. “You need to leave. Now! This is crazy. You are crazy. I told you the other day to stop harassing me.”
I feel sickness crawl up my throat. I can see him in my mind’s eye—lost in the moment of last night, heavy-lidded eyes, his strokes deliciously deep.
“I can feel your pearls,” he whispered. “So, so fine.”
And I feel the traces of him everywhere: forgotten muscles tight and screaming, the ache in my core. I trusted Rhys with my body and soul, and now this?
“Why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll go for breakfast?” Sawyer beckons me to join him, not quite reveling in Rhys’s embarrassment, but close. “Let these two love birds sort things out.”
“Fuck off!” Rhys snaps. “We are not together. Not in any way. Take Myla for breakfast. Bond over your shared love of money.”
Myla plants her skinny ass on the sturdy silver suitcase worth a few beans and crosses both arms. Her upturned tiger’s eyes, the prettiest part about her, blaze with defiance. “I’m not leaving.”
I hate her irrationally. Because whatever expensive duty-free perfume she douses herself with makes my eyes water from ten feet away. Because she’s a bone-thin supermodel type and, judging from her accent and Euro-trash outfit, she’s jetted across the Atlantic for this rendezvous. And because she is loaded enough to travel on a whim and track down Rhys, I hate her for that too.
But mostly I hate her because she is exactly who I expected him to like.
Sawyer snatches his sunglasses off the floor and slides them on. “Do you really want to be part of this circus?” he asks me, his tone implying I’d be a fool to say yes. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
“She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you,” Rhys grumbles.
Sawyer’s icy stare levels on his brother. “You sound pretty sure about that.”
The knots in my stomach have nothing to do with hunger. My mind is blowing up with questions.
So many questions.
And I’m not sure I want the answers.
“Why don’t we talk later?” I ask in an unsteady voice.
Rhys spins around to face me. He wears a haunted expression like he’s fighting a war I cannot understand.“Ten minutes,” he pleads. “Give me ten minutes, okay?”
Perched on her suitcase, Myla investigates her trendy black-and-white-striped manicure. Nails sharp as talons. “We’ll need more than ten minutes, babe.”
“Shut up!” Rhys bellows, stress radiating off him in waves.
“Jesus,” Sawyer mutters, giving Myla a wide berth as he heads toward the door. “Good luck, bro. Sounds like you’ll need it.”
He finds my eyes across the room and silently says take your time . Before I pick the wrong emotion to focus on and regret saying something irreversible, a burly bow-legged man bumps into Sawyer as he’s about to leave.
We all lapse into a confused silence, staring at him as his watery eyes scan the stage he’s walked onto. They land on the smashed lamp and upended side table. Then they narrow in on me in a robe, porn star Myla, and Rhys half-naked, blood oozing from a cut on his chest. I can tell he’s trying to make sense of Sawyer, who, to a stranger’s eyes, is the collegiate pimp to our motley crew of degenerates.
Suddenly, the man’s puzzled expression becomes as clear as his mission.
Those winery folks , I can hear him tell his wife later as they dig into fried pork cutlets and Caesar salad from a bag. Bunch of sex-crazed lunatics.
Because dangling between two of his stumpy fingers is a crinkled Shoppers Drug Mart bag, and he's holding the offending item far away from his JESUS SAVES t-shirt as if it's a skunk about to spray.
“Who ordered the condoms?”
“Is it because he’s famous?” Sawyer breaks the silence that’s hung like smoke since we peeled out of the winery.
I glance at him, hunched over the steering wheel, eyes on the road. Too chicken shit to look me in the eye while serving up judgment.
“Things happen between people for reasons other than fame.” I’m annoyed he reduced me to nothing but a star fucker. I'm also annoyed because it hurts like hell to be blindsided, and I have no one to blame but myself. My emotions are mine to deal with.
“The other day you couldn’t stop raving about how much you liked working with Evelyn,” he says.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Sawyer cuts me a sideways glance. “You strike me as intelligent, but have you thought any of this through? Rhys has no plans to live in Canada. You know that much, right?”
“How do you know?” I parrot back, his smug tone and underhanded comment that essentially questions my intelligence impressively irritating. “From what I’ve seen, all you two do is squabble and tear each other down.”
“No offense, Dani,” he says, “but one week does not make you an authority on Rhys.”He shifts in his seat, readying himself to share more Sawyer gospel. “Has he told you anything about our family? Or did you soak up his sunshine and daffodils routine, no questions asked?”
I shut my eyes to steady the roller coaster of conflicting emotions, trying to avoid becoming hopelessly entangled in whatever this mess is. “Is this where you tell me what I should know?”
Sawyer shakes his head as if I’m just not getting it. “What you just witnessed is the real Rhys,” he replies. “He’s a head case. Always has been. He cannot hold a relationship together to save his life. And he ends up with dumb dingbats because they are who he thinks he’s worth.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Sawyer sighs. “I didn’t mean you.”
“Are you sure about that?” I ask, heavy on the sarcasm.
“What I do know is that he’s not moving back here,” he asserts. “Not even for you. Trust me on that one.”
Our ambivalent gazes collide over the console.
Not even for you.
His simple emphatic statement sends a shot of ice up my spine. It's as if Sawyer knows how this will end. Like he’s witnessed this particular car crash a hundred times.
No, I tell myself. It does not end like this.
I stare glumly out the window at another brilliant, scorching day. Sawyer’s prior comment stings because maybe— possibly— I did get caught up in the fame angle. That’s the problem with celebrities: they shine their light on you, and you instantly feel like the best version of yourself. But the light Rhys turns so brightly on me shines on everyone. He doesn’t have a shit ton of followers for nothing.
“Where should I go?” Sawyer asks.
We’re at the T junction of Highway 3. Weekend traffic crawls in either direction. A wild idea bubbles up out of nowhere—what if I booked it to Vancouver with Sawyer and never returned? Just remember last night and ignore the fact that Myla tarnished what was supposed to be one of the best days of my life.
Oh, the temptation.
“Take a right,” I tell him. “There’s a Smitty’s on Main Street if you don’t mind slumming it at a pancake joint.”
After a tight silence, Sawyer says, “I’m not the enemy, Dani. If anything, I’m trying to spare you a broken heart.”
“That you want to piece back together?”
He shoots me a wounded look. Shit. His fumbling attempt to soften the blow of my sorry fate comes from a good place. I think. But all my nerves are frayed from the fiasco we left behind.
Not to mention, an entire box of condoms has gone to waste.
Sawyer puffs out a breath that says— whatever. “If you want me to say sorry for thinking you’re hot, it’s not happening.”
I sink back into the plush leather seat and keep my mouth zippered. The world was like this: you apologize to Sawyer; Sawyer doesn’t apologize to you.
Small wonder he’s single.
But then, slowly, my compassionate lens kicks in. Everyone struggles. Who knows what Sawyer has had to bear? And what are my fantasies of Rhys based on? Social media, the great truth seeker? The fact is, he and Myla were an item for at least one night. If he’s attracted to the likes of her, I had him pegged all wrong.
I flip down the sun visor to shade myself from the relentless brightness. If anything, I’ll endure breakfast with Sawyer as a tactical play. Pry as much information out of him as I can. Color in the lines of what Rhys has told me.
And decide what to do from there.
Maybe Rhys creating trouble in my heart flames out like Sawyer predicts.
Maybe we were doomed from the start—thrown together by virtue of forced proximity and not cosmic destiny, which, admittedly, sounds a thousand times more romantic.
Time suddenly feels elastic, like months have passed instead of days. My throat is raw, eyes strangely unseeing. Yes, Rhys Trenton was responsible for the sparkle of diamonds between my legs and a head full of woozy stars. And when the velvet warmth of his tongue dipped into my mouth, I forgot everything.
But maybe what I need to forget is him.
Every small town has its version of a Smitty’s. A basic breakfast joint where a haze of grease hangs thick in the air, and the menus are sticky from jam and syrup fingers. Our waitress, Flo, all hips, jolly laugh and hair dye by L’Oréal, brings two coffees and takes our orders. She hustles back to the kitchen, and Sawyer wets a napkin in his glass of water to wipe his fingers clean.
I bet he jumps in the shower seconds after orgasm.
“So,” I start. “What was your fight about?”
Sawyer shrugs—more weary than indifferent. “What is any fight about? Two people who remember things differently.”
I say nothing and hold space for him to fill it. I understood the gist of their argument, but I want him to spell it out.
Sawyer rips open and empties a sugar packet into his mug, stirring furiously with his spoon. “Our father had a hard time with Rhys,” he finally says. “I toed the company line. Our middle brother, JC, was the musical prodigy. Rhys was wild and unmotivated. They clashed over everything. And one day, he had enough.” He pauses to take a sip of coffee and makes a face. I guess coffee snobbery is the one thing the brothers have in common. “Dad gave Rhys an ultimatum—work in the company or live on the streets.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s harsh.”
“Welcome to Peter Trenton.”
“What was the problem Rhys wanted you to fix?” I prod. It feels like Sawyer is skimming over the real crux of the matter.
For a long minute, he watches lobster-red tourists shuffle up and down the sidewalk. His eyes remain on the window when he speaks. “JC was off on tour, and I was his only chance to sway Dad's decision. Our father listened to me. Once in a while,” he adds cryptically.
“But you didn't say anything.”
Sawyer slides his eyes back to mine. It looks like he’s aged a decade in five minutes. “Rhys needed to fight his own battles. Forge respect without hiding behind me. How was I to know he’d hop on a flight three days later and never come home?”
I taste my coffee, grimace, and set the mug back down. Even by my standards, it’s rough. “That incident started it all, from what I gather.”
Sawyer says nothing for a few seconds. Then, “Dad called Rhys an untalented waste of space who needed to get whipped into shape. Do I understand why Rhys left? Yes. And I admire him for having the courage. To not rot away doing a job he hated.” Sawyer’s hand trembles ever so slightly as he picks up his fork to polish it with the napkin. He looks miserable with his tight, sad smile. “Our mother has never forgiven me, for what it's worth.”
So much for biology. You can love something and still ruin a life. Assuming Peter loved Rhys.
“And your father felt no responsibility or remorse?” I ask.
A muscle works around Sawyer's mouth. “Dad was a special breed.”
“Was?” My heart does this funny flip-flop. “Isn't he alive?"
“Technically, yes,” Sawyer corrects. “He had a stroke a few months ago. The right side of his face became paralyzed, so I took over the company, the day-to-day. That was basically death for him.”
If you’ve followed Rhys as long as I have, you know he touches on many topics. His IQ never goes to waste. But there is one glaring issue he strategically avoids.
“Rhys never talks about your family.”
Sawyer takes another pull of coffee. In the dirty light, he looks like a softer version of himself. Less like a warden in San Quentin.
“If you never talk about it, it doesn't exist, right?” he says with a mirthless laugh. “You can gloss over your demons and repackage yourself as Mr. Fucking Perfect Icon.”
His tone suggests—not so subtly—that he is jealous of Rhys, that his brother found his way on his own terms despite the odds. Maybe the sacrifices Sawyer has made relate to his own dreams.
“Does Rhys plan to visit your dad while he's here?”
Sawyer’s azure eyes bore a hole into mine. “You tell me. I carved out the weekends in his contract so he could get his ass to Vancouver. So far, not a priority. Typical of our prodigal brother.” He leans across the table and has the nerve to ask, “Is that the kind of guy you want to hitch your wagon to?”
I can read it in his expression: A screwed-up slacker like Rhys will drive you to tears sooner rather than later.
My phone vibrates in my purse, and I hold my breath, scanning the two messages from Rhys.
RT: Where r u?
RT: Can we talk this out? Please.
I feel Sawyer’s eyes on me like he knows who’s texting, and his innate bossiness will prevent me from replying. I should reply. I know that death spiral feeling when texts go unanswered. A different part of my brain wants to take over, but I refuse to let it.
I’m not ready yet, although Rhys is right. We do need to talk it out. Because where is his safe space without family? How much Blue Mountain coffee can he drink to mask the pain? And if he’s kept this hidden for so long, it has to fester like a lesion on his soul.