by Alisha Rai
She found Annabelle in her office, seated at her desk, scribbling something. The older woman looked up when Rhiannon entered and gestured for her to close the door.
Her beautiful Willy Wonka.
Rhiannon’s butt had barely hit the chair when Annabelle shoved a folded piece of paper across the desk. “That’s my counteroffer,” she said crisply.
This was a little unexpected, but not wholly so. Rhiannon had anticipated some negotiation. So long as she wasn’t the one angrily grabbing her bags and exiting the mansion right now like Peter undoubtedly was, she was fine with some friendly wrestling over dollars and cents.
Rhiannon opened the paper and choked at the number written there. “This is a much higher counter.”
Annabelle folded her hands on the desk. “It’s what Peter offered.”
That son of a bitch. He’d been willing to overpay for this company, just to make sure Rhiannon got shut out? Because that’s what this amount was. A vast overpayment.
She folded the paper. “I’ll have to check with my partner.” This was much higher than what she and Katrina had agreed their final number would be.
“I’ll give you a week.” Annabelle’s smile wasn’t so friendly now. She might not be her older sister, but there was a businesswoman underneath all those eccentricities. A shark of a businesswoman. “There’s also some terms in Peter’s proposal that I liked that weren’t in yours. I’ll send you a list tomorrow, but those would also be included in the counter.”
Annabelle’s tone was stern and dismissive, something Rhi never heard before from her. “We can consider some additional terms, but again, I have to speak to my partner.”
“Perfectly acceptable.” Annabelle stood. “Well, that’s that, I suppose. Congratulations, Rhiannon. I look forward to hopefully doing business with you.”
Rhiannon rose to exit the office, but a tiny itch between her shoulder blades stopped her from leaving. “Was there any part of my proposal that you liked more than Peter’s?”
“Oh yes.” Annabelle peered at her over her glasses. “I liked the words you spoke from your heart.”
“But the actual proposal?”
“Well, Peter offered more money. And 100 percent employee retention.”
Rhiannon wasn’t sure she could guarantee employee retention, especially if everyone at Matchmaker was as snotty to her as William was. She definitely couldn’t imagine retaining and working with William. “That is an extravagant promise,” she said cautiously.
“Oh, I know. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“If you don’t mind me asking then . . . why didn’t you take Peter’s offer? If it was so good it could hardly be true?”
“Personality and heart matter in all aspects of life, business included.”
A suspicion bloomed. “I didn’t think you disliked Peter.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.” Annabelle’s smile was fake. “Are we done? I’m sure you have to get on the road.”
Rhiannon hesitated. Her stomach was a mess of knots. “Annabelle . . . this isn’t because of what William said about me being involved with Samson, is it? Because I would hate to think that influenced your decision making.”
Annabelle reared back. “Of course not. I don’t make business decisions based on who my nephew likes.”
That sounded genuine. “Okay.”
Annabelle shrugged. “I didn’t care for some of the things I heard about Peter’s past, that’s all.”
Instead of easing it, the sinking sensation in Rhiannon’s stomach intensified. Why are you looking a gift horse in the mouth? She’s willing to bargain with you, not Peter. Still, she persisted. “Do those things in his past have to do with me?”
Rhiannon knew she was on the right track when Annabelle looked away. “Of course not.”
Bingo. Rhiannon swallowed the lump in her throat. It tasted like bitterness and defeat. “Thank you for your counter. But I have to regretfully decline.”
She made it to the door before Annabelle found her voice. “You’re refusing the company? Why?”
Rhiannon shook her head, unable to fully explain. How could she tell Annabelle that the sale would feel forever tainted and handed to her out of pity and default? How could she verbalize this complex ball of emotions? “I don’t believe I need a reason. Thank you for your time and your consideration.” She left the room before Annabelle could speak further.
She was thankfully already packed. Instead of summoning the housekeeper or butler, she grabbed her bag herself from her room. She hadn’t cried in forever, but as she jogged back downstairs, her sinuses grew dangerously clogged. All she could pray was that she didn’t run into Annabelle or Samson.
The strap of her duffel caught on the door handle of the library as she passed it, and she tugged it free. She froze, gaze on the floor, when Samson called her name from down the hall.
The anger she’d expected, but not the hurt. She deliberately ignored him and continued walking to the front door.
“Rhi? What happened? Rhi!”
God, her name on his lips. It hurt to hear it. It made her angry to hurt when she heard it. Peter had tainted her full name, and now Samson had tainted her nickname? Would she have any name left?
“Rhi!” He grabbed her arm and she shoved him away so violently she dropped her bag.
“Don’t touch me,” she said coldly and got madder at the hurt in his face. He had no right to be hurt. She was the one who had dared to hope and had that hope smashed to smithereens.
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay,” he soothed. “I won’t touch you. What’s wrong? Did Annabelle refuse your offer?”
Ugh, like he could take care of things, if Annabelle had refused her. He couldn’t take care of anything for her. “No, she refused Peter. She countered me.”
He appeared mystified. “But that’s great news?”
“She refused Peter,” she repeated, enunciating each world carefully, in case the fool didn’t get it. “Because you told her what I told you about me and Peter, didn’t you? After I said not to say anything?”
“No. I didn’t. She—”
“She said she learned something about Peter she didn’t like, and I could tell the thing she learned was about me. How did she know anything about me and Peter? You were the only other one here who knew.” Her voice was getting dangerously loud. Too loud, too much, too emotional.
He held out his hand in that beseeching universal gesture for calm down, little lady. She almost swatted him away. “I didn’t—”
“What? You didn’t intend to tell her anything?”
“Let me explain. Belle was leaning toward Peter. He had the stronger bid. I—”
“I wanted this company on my own merits. Buying Matchmaker would have proved . . .” Something. She wasn’t sure what. “I didn’t want to cheat.”
“You didn’t cheat. I didn’t tell her, but for God’s sakes, Rhi, even if I had, what he did to you, it’s the truth. Telling someone the truth is not cheating. Him getting away with hurting you? Him getting rewarded in spite of it? That’s cheating.”
The blood roaring in her ears made it impossible to process what he was saying. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”
His face turned gray. He took a step closer. “You were right to trust me.”
“No. I wasn’t. You forgot about me once before. You disregarded my feelings here entirely. Even after—” She broke off, because what did they have together? The start of something maybe, but not even that now. “It was my decision to tell someone about this. Not yours. Mine.”
“Let’s talk. We can go to my house.”
“No.” Rhi shook her head so hard her hair whipped her in her face, her vehemence fueled by how badly she wanted to do exactly what he said. “I have to go. I . . . I have to go. Goodbye, Samson.”
He didn’t try to stop her from leaving, and for that she was grateful. She might have stayed and heard him out if he’d uttered one more plea, and she couldn’t do that right now.
Did you learn your lesson now? This is why you don’t hear people out. This is why you don’t give second chances.
She pulled her hood up so it covered her hair, but she was naked. Exposed. Someone, a colleague who wasn’t Katrina or her assistant, knew the truth of what Peter had done to her. It might only be a snippet of the truth, only the tip of the harassment iceberg, but it was enough that her fight-or-flight reflex had been well and truly triggered. She needed to be alone.
Thank God her scheduled ride was already in the driveway. Rhi got into the luxury sedan without waiting for the driver to open her door. She acknowledged his greeting and placed her duffel next to her. As they pulled away from the big house, she didn’t look behind her to see if Samson had come out on the steps to watch her leave. She did, however, yank out her phone and delete him from her contacts. Her thumb hovered over blocking him, but she couldn’t go that far. Deletion you could do on a whim. Blocking was the ultimate goodbye.
She kept her gaze on her lap, head bowed, so the driver wouldn’t see her tears if he looked behind him. She pulled her sleeves down and hugged herself tighter. In a few hours, she’d be home and Katrina would hug her for real.
She just had to hold on. She was good at that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SAMSON ROLLED to his back, his head cushioned by Rhi’s lap. She smiled down at him, the sunlight reflecting off her glowing skin, and ran her fingers through his hair. He hummed with pleasure at the massage.
“Samson?” Someone shook his shoulder, hard, and rudely jerked him out of his perfect dream.
He recoiled when he opened his eyes to find his aunt’s face mere inches from his own. “Aunt Belle? Why are you here?”
She dangled his childhood home’s spare key in front of him. “Dear, we have to talk about you leaving that key under the planter. The world isn’t as safe as it used to be, you know.”
He glanced around in confusion. “Why are you in my bedroom, though?”
Aunt Belle perched on the side of his bed. She wore overalls splattered with paint, with a ribbed tank top underneath. A pink strip of cloth was wrapped around her head, a jaunty bow tied on top. “It’s the middle of the day. I came over to see if you needed help.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. Samson had told his aunt he was packing up his parent’s home. It was slow-going. “I must have been tired.”
“You’ve been tired a lot this past week.”
He sat up and tucked the blanket around himself better, though he was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. “How’s everything going with William?”
“Fine.” Aunt Belle waved the topic aside. She’d grown more confident in dealing with her CEO since the house party. So confident, William had announced his intention to step down. Aunt Belle didn’t seem fazed by that decision, so Samson wasn’t either.
“Did you want to talk about the campaign then?” They’d aired his last Matchmaker date with the young woman Aunt Belle had picked out for him. After edits, the meetup had looked even better.
“Oh, I think we should press pause on the campaign. You had a miserable date, you had lessons, you had a great date. That narrative arc is simple, and complete.”
He still had one contracted shoot with Rhi, but he supposed that was over. “Cool.” Cool, cool, cool, cool. His job was done. Now he had endless days ahead of him.
Belle interrupted his melodramatic thoughts. “What’s going on, Samson? They told me you pulled out of the interview with Helena. That was a nice opportunity for exposure.”
He rested against his headboard. “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it.”
He hadn’t been able to stand the thought of sitting across from Rhi, separated by Helena and miles of distrust. He’d done it once before with her angry at him and that had been bad enough. He couldn’t do it now, with her livid at him, thinking he’d betrayed her.
And he couldn’t do it when he also felt a little angry with her. For turning on him, on them, so easily.
“That’s fine. We do only the things we’re capable of doing.” Aunt Belle’s tone was very gentle. “You’ve been so depressed lately, Samson. It hurts me to see it. I thought it might help you, coming over here, but I don’t think it has.”
“I haven’t really gotten far.” He’d only sorted his uncle’s records this week. He knew he had to make a decision about the place soon, but piling a heavy task on top of his current glum existence wasn’t an exciting prospect. It would wait, right? He could give himself a pass on this.
He’d only finalized his statement about Uncle Joe and sent it to CRA yesterday. Thinking of Rhi was painful, but she’d eased a lot of his apprehension about what might come after the statement was released, at least.
“This is about Rhiannon, isn’t it?”
He clasped his hands on top of the comforter and considered saying no. What was the point? Annabelle would see right through it. “Yes.”
“What happened with her?”
The words spilled out of him, like he’d been waiting for a confidante. “She thought I told you something I didn’t.”
“About her and Peter?”
He couldn’t nod to confirm it, even though Rhi was already gone.
Aunt Belle pursed her lips. “I didn’t need you to tell me anything. I told you, I found other women who Peter hurt. The one who called me back, she’d worked at Swype around the same time as Rhiannon. She said there were rumors swirling that he was treating Rhiannon poorly.”
Samson wondered if Rhi knew there had been people at Swype who’d known Peter was the bad guy in their feud. Probably not. “Well, I knew about it and she made me promise not to tell you. I guess when she turned down your offer she came up with this scenario where I spilled the beans and refused to even give me the chance to set the record straight. Straight-up assumed I had betrayed her.”
“Her questionnaire did indicate a lot of trust issues,” Aunt Belle admitted.
“She has those in spades.” He cracked his knuckles in agitation. Samson understood when he’d exacerbated those issues, when he’d stood her up. He hadn’t done anything this time, though, damn it.
“Do you know what your test results indicate?”
“What?”
“Patience,” Aunt Belle said.
Samson looked down at his comforter. “I don’t feel patient. I’m mad at her for believing the worst about me. It was unfair. I’d never hurt her like that.” Not true. He had ghosted her, after all.
Okay, he hadn’t hurt her since they’d gotten back together, though, had he?
“Your anger is valid. Keep in mind, though, her response may seem unfair and irrational to you, but based on the very little I know, Peter traumatized her. This may all make sense within the framework of her experience.”
He exhaled, the air coming from the soles of his feet. Her words made sense, and his anger was already wavering. “I understand that. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter how I feel, at the end of the day. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.” There was the real issue. Bleh. He hated how plaintive his words and tone were.
“Have you tried contacting her?”
“I talked to her when she left the house.” When she’d run. Like a bat out of hell.
“I meant after.”
“No. Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not going to shove myself at her when she doesn’t want me. How does that make me any better than Peter?”
Aunt Belle snorted. “There’s a very real difference between Peter harassing her for not sleeping with him and you texting her a nice, sweet explanation to try to open the channels of communication again.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Aunt Belle considered him for a long moment. “Do you know what I’ve observed about you, Samson?”
“I’m scared to ask.”
“You love so deeply. You take care of everyone.” She cocked her head. “But you haven’t cultivated a long-term
relationship with anyone since, say, college or your early twenties. Why not?”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? You have your friends, but those are relationships you forged a long time ago, under very specific conditions.”
Was she right? He tried to come up with the name of one person who could prove her wrong, but couldn’t. “Rhi and me, our thing was meant to be temporary. Casual. That was what she wanted.”
“Was it what you wanted?”
“It’s all I can have.”
“Why? Why can’t you have a long-term, romantic relationship with someone? Do you prefer to sample the buffet, so to speak?”
His face burned. “No.” He’d never been a player. Hell, he’d been celibate for almost half a decade before he’d hooked up with Rhi.
“Then why?”
He squirmed, but he couldn’t get away from Aunt Belle’s probing gaze. “Because I don’t want to.”
“Interesting. Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?” she persisted.
“Because they’ll leave me!” The words fell between them with the weight of a thousand broken hearts.
“Ahhhh.” Aunt Belle drew out the word. “There it is. You don’t expect love to last, do you? Everyone leaves you, eventually. And you’ve come to accept that they’ll all leave you, so you let them go before they get too close. Or, in this case, because she’s already close, you’re letting her go when you could fight for her.”
He laughed, but it sounded desperate. “That’s some psychoanalysis.”
His aunt lifted a shoulder. “I haven’t gotten this far with this many marriages under my belt without having a keen knowledge of human nature, darling. I am right.”
Was she?
Samson thought about how he’d tried to find Rhiannon back when he’d stood her up at the beach house, when she’d been Claire. Had he tried hard enough? Had he exhausted every resource? He’d craved Rhiannon enough to chase her down and talk to her and sleep with her, but hadn’t he freaked out a little with every vulnerability he’d revealed?
Annabelle swung her leg off the side of the bed. “Do you remember, last summer, when you took Joe to the brewery on the water?”
