Chapter Twenty-Six
Rhett touched his forehead to mine as we parted, chest heaving. He brought me even closer. My free arm looped around his neck; somehow, his fingers found their way into my hair.
A shuddering breath blew past my lips. “That was…”
“Finally,” Rhett finished.
“Finally?”
He opened his mouth to reply, then shook his head and kissed me again. The sparks gave way to a brush fire. Whatever I had felt when he smiled at me was nothing compared to being swept up in his arms. Rhett Briggs kissed me like he meant to make leaving hurt.
With that thought, I broke away, offering a weak excuse about the water stretching close to our feet.
“I don’t care,” he started to say, tipping my face up to his once more.
Easton barked. Rhett sighed and traced his thumb over my bottom lip.
“If he sees another seagull, we might end up dragged out to sea,” I murmured.
Reluctantly disentangling his hand from my hair and our legs from the leash, we started back for Harbor Street.
The sky had already dimmed to deep purples and blues as I pulled my cardigan close against the ocean breeze.
A few people milled up and down Main Street, but most of the commotion came from Captain’s, which poured an orange glow onto the darkening sidewalk.
Under the flicker of the diner sign, Rhett turned to me with something insistent in his eyes when the door beside us swung open.
“How fortuitous. Hello, you two,” purred the voice of the last person I wanted to see.
“Claire,” Rhett began with a curt nod. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
She tossed glossy locks over her shoulders. “How would you? You seem to have turned off your phone.”
He swallowed, eyes darting from me to Claire. “I’ve been busy.”
“So I see,” she replied, shifting her attention to me with a predatory grin. “My, how the tides have changed since this morning.”
The sour taste of jealousy hit before the warmth of his kiss had even faded. As if knowing I had nothing to say, she didn’t wait for a reply, her steely gaze shooting back to him with raptorial accuracy.
“I came to see about the Founders’ Gala. You still haven’t RSVP’d, silly.” The last word dripped with a calculated amount of familiarity.
Rhett dragged a hand over his face. “I told you, Claire. I’m not going.”
And just like that, the stinging in my chest dulled. A tiny smile creeped onto my mouth as I watched him squint at her.
“Yes but, that was before,” Claire replied without missing a beat. “I only assumed now that your parents are coming…”
The color drained from Rhett’s face. “My parents?”
“Well, you know how they love me. And they seemed quite interested to see what was occupying so much of your time.”
She didn’t even bother with a glance toward me, but I knew what she meant. Cheeks flaming, I hushed Easton as he whined to go home and poked his haunches until he sat.
“I know they’ll be eager to see you,” Claire added.
Rhett sent her an unnatural-looking nod. “We need to get going. Dinner is in the oven.”
“How domestic,” she quipped, one hand on the doorknob. “Do let me know about the gala, darling.” With that, she floated back into Captain’s, the sweetness of her lingering perfume and saccharine words turning my stomach.
“Let’s go, darling,” I muttered flatly to a dazed Rhett.
We were passing by the Morning Bell when he caught up to us, running a hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry,” he started. “I had no idea.”
I didn’t have the energy to keep the frown at bay. “I assume that means you’ll be attending the gala?”
“Georgie, my parents are the biggest developers in San Francisco. They’re my bosses.” He lurched up to speed and let out a strained laugh. “Why are you walking so fast?”
Ripping a stray curl from my face, I whipped toward him at the corner of Main Street. “Yes, for a job I’m not even sure why you have.” He froze, apparently too stunned to speak. Easton and I continued toward Maple Street.
“I don’t understand. You told everyone that it’s fine if they go to the gala.” Rhett’s voice rose a fraction, agitation sharpening each word. I continued silently power walking toward my house, and he added, “You— you can’t just say one thing and mean another, Georgie.”
Bursting through my front gate, I turned on him in the shadows of the garden. “You’re not just anyone, Rhett!”
My voice cracked at the end. I let Easton off his leash to wander around the yard and tried to hide the redness flushed across my cheeks. Chest heaving and knees wobbling, I stumbled over to the porch steps and took a seat.
Rhett quietly sat beside me. “I wasn’t supposed to be here this long.”
“Explain,” I demanded, twisting to face him and scooting my back up against the railing.
“I… I was supposed to come, build the booths, get the company solvent, and go home.” He rested his elbows on his knees, jaw tensed as his eyes swept out over the street.
“My parents allowed me to take the time off since the business was left to me. When I got here, though… I don’t know.
Then Janice asked me for a favor, and I couldn’t refuse. She’s been like a mother to me—”
“A favor?” I repeated. Rhett lifted an eyebrow at me and I waved a hand. “Sorry, continue.”
“And admittedly, Marigold’s was a bit more work than I anticipated. But then I kept running into the shop owner—sometimes literally—” He tossed me a look and I grimaced. “And she proved to be a whole different kind of distraction.”
Then his eyes softened, and I hugged my knees to my chest in an attempt to hide the beetroot color of my face. Rhett called me a distraction. I wasn’t exactly sure if it was good or bad, but it was something.
Silence stretched until I finally said, “So what does that have to do with the gala?”
“I need to make nice with them.” He paused to groan. “If I don’t smooth things over, they can—and will—make sure I never find work again.”
My brows knitted together. “Why would they do that?”
“Power? Control? I don’t know.”
His response hung in the air as I tipped my head back on the railing and stared at the sky. Why would he care what those kinds of people thought? It made me want to take him by the shoulders and shake.
I had no reason to, though. He was determined to go back home and forget his little distraction.
Suddenly, the word soured in my mind and the truth hit like a cold slap: this was just a detour on his road to bigger, shinier things.
Getting the approval of his parents and maintaining the career he hated—that’s what mattered to him.
Not me. Of course not.
“What are you thinking?” Rhett asked.
“Nothing,” I lied.
He sighed and kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. “I hate when you do that.”
“What?”
Something cold shot through me.
“When you don’t say what you mean,” Rhett replied, completely oblivious to the daggers I was shooting his profile. “You’ll smile and nod even when I can tell you’re dying inside.”
“Because you’re so much better?” I snapped back before I could stop myself.
He turned to me, genuine confusion in his eyes. It only made me angrier.
“You can’t even stand up to your parents. Not for anyone—not for you, and not for me.”
For one, blistering second, I wanted to take it all back. To apologize, say that I didn’t mean it, and ask him to come inside and help me with dinner.
Then that pesky word rolled back to the front of my mind: distraction.
“That’s different,” he replied, frowning. “My parents hold my future in their hands.”
I laughed, a hollow sound that made him flinch. “Because you let them, Rhett. And it’s a future you don’t even want—not really.”
His shoulders drew back until he was sitting straight as a rod. “What would you know about what I want?” The words were calm yet acerbic, his eyes cold as he studied me with a level of cynicism I’d never seen before.
“I know that when you talk about architecture, it doesn’t sound like someone who loves it,” I responded quietly, refusing to back down.
“There you go again with that.” He stood, tugging a hand through his hair as he did. “I don’t need to love my career, Georgie.” When he said my name, he sounded weary, like he’d already run out of hot air.
I rose to my feet and joined him on the pavement. A chilly gust swept through the rose bushes and made me tug my cardigan tighter.
“Maybe not, but you shouldn’t hate it.”
“You’re one to talk,” he quipped, tipping his chin to the night sky with a dry laugh.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not blind,” Rhett retorted, looking back at me with fresh drive sparkling in his eyes. “Marigold’s is sucking you dry. You don’t love it, either—and yet you seem to be hellbent on going down with the ship.”
I was momentarily struck by the fact that I’d never told him my plan.
Amidst the festival, the surprise dinner, and the kiss at the beach—it hadn’t even crossed my mind to talk about the pottery shop.
But now that I had the opportunity, I didn’t want to.
He was leaving. What was the point of telling him?
“Okay. Fine,” I mumbled at first, then my head grew steadily clearer. “So go,” I said quietly. “Go to the gala. Make your parents happy. Go back to California with the life you tolerate—and forget I ever existed.”
Finally out in the open, the words weren’t as scary as I expected. I’d gotten twisted up over a guy that I always knew was leaving, and it was no one’s fault but my own. The fear I harbored for years was finally realized. And it was because of me.
“Georgie, please—”
Rhett reached for my hands, and for a few seconds, I allowed myself to relish that firm, calloused warmth. The kind that made me want to lean in and forget all my rationality.
When I loosened my fingers, the air was colder than before.
Simply knowing what it felt like to be underneath one of his wide, goofy smiles, or tucked into his solid arms, was enough to make the world without Rhett feel particularly bleak.
I had to be strong, though. The Georgie I’d be when he left would thank me.
“That’s what you want,” I whispered. I stepped back, ignoring the sting in my eyes.
Rhett didn’t argue, either. He stared at me, lips parted, arm half-extended as if frozen mid-reach. I allowed myself to admire the way moonlight cut shadows across his sharp jaw, and his near-black hair that seemed permanently undone in recent days. All of it was perfect to me.
The silence was more than I could bear.
“Goodbye, Rhett,” I murmured, pavers scraping as I turned on my heel and ran up the porch stairs.
Whistling to Easton, who came running from a nearby bush with his tongue dangling, I fumbled with my key and nearly broke down the door trying to get in.
Tears were already racing down my cheeks when I slipped inside and crumpled against the wood.
Even as a jagged sob tore through my chest, I refused to look out the window.
If Rhett wasn’t going to look back, then neither was I.