Chapter Six #2
Anticipation buzzed under his skin. His footsteps echoed as he entered the grandiose foyer.
The ceiling soared. Ambient lighting greeted him like a warm hug.
Danger didn’t lurk here in the shadows. Threats didn’t hang in the fresh air spiced with the hint of cinnamon.
Yet Jules had walked into a coordinated attack.
Why the hell had he let her walk in alone?
Rhys made his way through the stately living room, which opened onto an outdoor pavilion, then veered toward the offices, where the library anchored the business wing of the expansive property.
A man’s voice, loud and tinged with anger, pulled Rhys farther down a familiar hallway.
They were meeting in the library. They’d chosen her favorite meeting space instead of a formal conference room.
The assholes had probably made themselves comfortable, waiting for her to come home.
Rhys wondered when they would have called it a night.
They would’ve tried the next day again. Maybe they’d hop on a plane to St. Barts.
The lawyers wouldn’t care. They would be paid regardless. What would Mason’s motive be?
Rhys didn’t know how, but he’d bet his life on Jules’s money.
He pulled up short. A woman he recognized was pressed against the wall, eavesdropping. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She jumped when she saw Rhys, then apologized as she turned red. He pressed his finger to his lips. Understanding he meant to listen also, she nodded, remaining silent.
Mason Marlow ranted, and Rhys understood why the woman’s eyes were brimming with tears.
Another voice cut into Mason’s bluster, but Jules’s ex quickly reestablished that he had more hot air to blow.
Other calmer voices tried to cut in, but none were Jules, and none made a difference.
“She’s in there, right?” Rhys asked.
The woman at his side nodded.
“Call Sloane. Give her a recap, and tell her to get her ass down here.”
The woman nodded and hurried away, the thick carpet muffling her retreating steps.
Rhys took her spot and listened to every ugly, accusatory word. Mason spouted demands of contracts and requirements, about more money than Rhys could ever imagine in his bank account, and about public perception. Notably, he didn’t mention a thing about knocking up his fiancée’s bridesmaid.
The asshole focused on his loss to the Lowry family connection. He was a grifter through and through. A grifter and a cheater. Rhys couldn’t listen to him anymore and pushed off the wall.
“Are you done?” Jules asked crisply and coolly. “Because I have things to do.”
Rhys faltered. His lips quirked at the sudden mental image of her examining her nails, zoned out and bored with Mason’s tantrum, knives sharp and waiting for the perfect moment to make her offensive maneuver.
“More important than this?” Mason sputtered.
“Mase, what do you want from me? You messed up. I’m not following through with anything except the honeymoon. And I’m taking that with Abigail.”
“Are you kidding me—”
“Get ahold of yourself, Mason.”
“ No .”
“Well, that’s a personal problem,” she said.
“But legally? This is cut-and-dried. If you’d listen to any of the lawyers you brought in here, you’d know that.
They’re telling you to shut up because you’re wrong.
” She paused, and Rhys imagined she casually ambled across the library to stand over Mason.
“I don’t know the legal terms, the loopholes, but everything is null and void.
You can spin this however you want to but not with me. And all of you…”
Rhys guessed she’d turned to the lawyers.
“Can explain to him the many ways he’s wrong. Billable to him. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s good faith. Everything was negotiated with that. Olivia’s baby bump and your tongue being down her throat negates whatever bull you’re spewing.”
Rhys should have known better. Jules could take care of herself. He didn’t understand her cryptic references earlier to being alone, nor did he get why she wasn’t upset about the cheating, but that wasn’t his place to figure out.
He left Jules to school her ex and located the woman who had been eavesdropping. She was leaning on her elbows, typing on her phone when he walked in.
“Hey,” he said.
She jumped as though she’d been caught. Somehow, he doubted she was selling stories to the media, more like giving someone on Team Jules the truth about Mason.
“Did you call Sloane?” he asked.
She nodded and held up her cell phone. “And her agent.”
Margot Conway was a shark who could eat the best of lawyers alive for lunch without breaking a sweat. “Good move. You left before Jules shut down Mason. It was glorious.”
Her hesitant eyes brightened. “Really?”
Rhys nodded.
She set down her phone, nodding as though she’d believed that would happen but was terrified it might not. “Would you like a coffee while you wait?”
He definitely didn’t need coffee. He’d be back here in the morning before he knew it, but should he wait? He’d planned to slip out as quietly as he’d slipped in. “Has she been doing okay? Before this?” he asked, knowing it was none of his business.
“The wedding was a lot of work.”
“I bet.”
“The movie’s doing so well. She’s happy with that, but…” She tilted her head from side to side. “She needs a break.”
“She’ll be at St. Barts by tomorrow.”
The woman shook her head. “Not a vacation. A break . Someplace quiet. To catch her breath.”
The sister-moon could be quiet, but that was a temporary two weeks. He wondered about her stalker. That headache had been quiet for the past few weeks. Maybe they’d moved on. That was doubtful but always a possibility.
“Coffee?” she asked again.
He shook his head. “I have to run.”
He retraced the path from the kitchen then went out of his way to pass the library again—where Mason was no longer ranting—to the warm night and the waiting Escalade. He pulled himself in and shut the door. The engine and air conditioning hummed. Both the driver and Wes looked up from their phones.
“She’s okay?” Wes asked.
The driver raised his eyebrows. “She didn’t need backup?”
Rhys tugged at his collar. He hated these suits, especially during summer. They were hot and restricted his movements. He shrugged. “She has it handled. I wouldn’t mess with Jules Lowry.”
Wes made a noise from the back seat, then muttered, “Bet you would.”
Rhys turned, narrowing his eyes. “What’s that?”
Wes cleared his throat and pointed to it with a smirk. “Scratchy throat.”
The driver wouldn’t have heard Wes, but Rhys had loud and clear. There were lines Rhys didn’t cross. He knew exactly which one Wes was pointing at. “Watch yourself.”
Wes feigned innocent just as he had the times he’d suggested over the years that Jules watched Rhys the way that Rhys would never admit to watching her.
“What’s the plan?” the driver asked.
“Head back to the hotel—”
“To get a good night’s sleep before the honeymoon,” Wes added, chuckling.
“Then back here at oh four hundred.” Whatever thoughts Rhys had ever had about Jules didn’t matter. His only job was to keep her safe, and that was what he’d always done. Anyone who didn’t admit she was a beautiful woman was a liar.
Anything else would be unethical, inappropriate, and impossible.