by Alisha Rai
A little sliver of hope peeked through her gloom. The truth was, she had given someone a second chance, fairly recently: Samson. He was so much nicer than she was. Surely he’d take her call, at least? “You think there’s hope?”
“Only one way to find out. Text him. Call him. Hell, your phone is off. He may have already contacted you.”
“I’m scared.”
“Trust is scary. I learned that, for sure, with Eve. But when it’s right, Rhi? When the stars align, and you have a partner you can be vulnerable with? There’s no such thing as weakness or strength or power battles. There’s just a person who loves you. And it’s amazing.” He shrugged. “You could use a ride from the airport when you get back, I’m sure. Perfect excuse to call him.”
She fiddled with the corner of her book. This was so much to think about, when she was already overloaded, but her brother made sense.
More importantly, she wanted him to make sense, because she wanted to call Samson, wanted to talk to him enough that she’d risk him sending her to voice mail. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do that.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“It’s been there all along, sis. You should listen to me more.”
She grinned, happy for the sliver of humor. “Got any more wisdom for me?”
“Call Mom more.”
“I’m going to.” She grimaced. “I love her. I hate feeling guilty and wrong and she makes me feel guilty and wrong a lot.”
“She makes me feel guilty too.” Gabe lowered his voice. “But that’s how she is, and it comes from a huge place of love. Ignore the guilt and try to focus on the love.”
“I’ll try. Be more saintlike like you.”
“There you go. Also, tell Eve what a saint I am.” Gabe got to his feet and dusted off his jeans. “You want to stay longer?”
The question was casual, and Rhiannon knew her brother wouldn’t judge her either way. She thought of her staff, who were probably working around the clock today to help her and protect her business. This was her family, but so were they. “I’ll stick to my plan and fly back tonight, after the party.”
“You sure you’re up for the party?”
No. But she didn’t want to bail on her brother’s moment of happiness. “Yup.”
“Whatever you want.” Gabe walked back to his ax.
“What would you have done to Peter anyway? If you’d known, at the time.”
Gabe cast her a measuring look, then leaned over and picked up the ax. With a heave, he flung it. It spun in the air before it thwacked right into the trunk of a tree.
“Daaaaamn.” She cocked her head. “When did you learn how to do that?”
He winked at her. “When you were off making your first million, I suppose.”
RHI FOUND HERSELF tensing up as they neared the Chandler mansion. She was here for her brother, and she was eager to celebrate his impending nuptials, but this town had been nosy as fuck when she hadn’t gone on national television and alleged sexual harassment by a rich and famous man. What would the reaction be to her tonight?
Gabe seemed to have sensed her nervousness, because he’d kept up a running commentary on all the familiar and kind people she’d be seeing tonight. It was all Livvy’s baby is so big now and Jackson’s opening a new restaurant, and she appreciated the sentiment, but it would have been kind of nice to brood in silence.
“. . . you know Jia, right, Rhiannon? She’s actually thinking of moving to L.A. soon. Maybe you can have a talk with her tonight.”
Rhiannon murmured something noncommittal when he glanced in the rearview mirror, and she tugged at her leather jacket. She’d donned her nicest jeans and a T-shirt under the moto jacket.
It was a sign of how worried her mother was for her that she hadn’t said a single word criticizing her outfit choice.
Rhiannon walked into the mansion behind Gabe and her mom and almost turned around and walked back out. So. Many. People.
It wasn’t all bad. She greeted Gabe’s fiancée, and Eve hugged her extra tight. She embraced the Kane siblings, the grown-up children of her mother’s old employer, and for a moment, felt surrounded by familiarity and understanding.
They couldn’t stay with her forever, though. The rest of the party was a sea of curious faces. She met Gabe’s gaze. He glanced at their mother, who was busy talking to another guest, gave Rhiannon a discreet, understanding nod, and she was off.
She snagged a bottle of wine from the open bar before sneaking out a back door. The air was cool and calm on her face, cooler than she was used to back home.
Rhiannon kicked her flats off, picked them up, and made her way away from the house. Not into the dark forest, but toward the charming little white gazebo, surrounded by flowers peeking their heads out of the ground. This estate bordered the one she’d grown up on, and she knew it like the back of her hand.
Relief ran through her when she plopped down on the wooden bench and took a swig of her wine. This was better. For her and for Gabe and Eve, who deserved to be the focus of their own engagement party. She stretched out on the bench and placed her wine on the plank floor. Then she closed her eyes. Normally, she’d be all up in her phone, but it was locked in the back of Gabe’s trunk, turned off.
So she listened to the birds chirping and insects rubbing their little insect legs together and the party happening in the mansion close to her. They were all peaceful sounds, now that she wasn’t required to socialize.
Wait a minute. No phone. No demands. The sounds of nature. Was this . . . a vacation?
Yes. Yes it was. She was going to claim it as one and she was going to toss it at her mother and Katrina the next time they nagged at her about taking time off. There was no greater sign of a vacation than not having a phone.
In a few hours, she’d have to plug back in. She’d see how many messages she had. She’d see if one of those messages was from Samson.
What if there’s nothing?
Then . . . she’d contact him.
Peace spread through her, to the soundtrack of nature. She’d call him or text him, and she’d do it because she liked him and wanted to spend time with him, and she was so tired of shutting things down out of fear. Gabe was right. Trust was good and necessary.
“Um, hi. Sorry to bother you. Are you busy?”
“Yes. I’m on vacation,” she said, but opened her eyes. A familiar-looking woman in her midtwenties stood in the opening of the gazebo. She wore a pretty, long emerald-green skirt and a black blouse. A blue-and-green hijab covered her hair, tied in elaborate folds and tucks. Rhiannon rose up on her elbows, placing the girl the second she stepped inside the gazebo and the moonlight lit her face. “Are you Noor Ahmed’s sister?”
“Noor’s one of my older sisters, yes.”
Noor had been one of the few people in her school who had been relentlessly kind to her. Rhiannon waved at the other bench. “You can join me, then. Have a seat. Is your sister here?”
“No, she’s working. My other sisters are here, though.”
That’s right. There were five Ahmed sisters, each more brilliant than the next. The middle one was married to a Kane, which, in the convoluted mess of relationships that made up her brother’s life, made this girl kind of an in-law? “I’ll say hi to them later.”
The woman perched on the other bench and regarded Rhiannon with barely contained curiosity. “You’re Rhiannon Hunter. I’m Jia. We’ve met a few times.”
Yeah, they had, at various family events, though Jia was much younger than her, the baby of the Ahmed family. Rhiannon searched her memory. “You’re one of the twins. The beauty influencer.”
Jia’s pink lips curved. Her makeup was flawlessly applied, her skin airbrushed levels of smooth. Lakshmi would adore her on sight. “That’s one of my titles, yes.”
“What are you doing out here?” Rhiannon took a sip of wine and offered the bottle to Jia, but the younger woman declined.
“I saw you come out. I wanted to thank
you.”
“Thank me for what?” she asked warily.
“For what you did on the show last night.”
Rhiannon blinked. “There’s no need to thank me for that.”
“There is.” Jia hesitated, glanced at the house, and then spoke in a rush. “It’s not easy to speak up. There was a professor, my first year of med school, who was always making excuses to stand right next to us. He’d touch our arms, our shoulders. He would say inappropriate things, invite us to meet with him privately. I complained, other women complained, and we were told to stop being so sensitive. When he started getting a little too close to my sister, I finally told my father—he teaches at the school—and he got the guy taken off faculty.”
“Good.”
Jia’s smile was faint. “That wasn’t a universal sentiment. There were people who were so angry with me and my dad, but I’m glad I did it.” She pleated her skirt between her fingers. “Not everyone has a father who can step in and help them. Not many people have a national platform, like you do.” She rose to her feet in a rustle of fabric. “I know you’re going to take flak for what you did and it’s not going to be easy for you and no one would have blamed you for staying silent. So thank you. That’s all I wanted to say. We all need to keep an eye out for each other when we have the ability to do so, I think.”
She turned to leave, and Rhiannon sat up, finding her voice. “Jia.”
“Yes?” She looked over her shoulder and Rhiannon was struck by how young and soft the girl appeared.
“You’re moving to L.A. soon, right? That’s what I heard?”
A light brightened Jia’s brown eyes and she faced her. “Oh, yes. I mean, if I can get my parents to come around. I dropped out of med school, but getting them on board with my moving across the country . . .” She grimaced. “We don’t have any family out there.”
You made your industry better for the young men who came after you.
Jia wasn’t exactly in her industry, but that didn’t matter. Rhiannon made an executive decision. “Would they be more on board if they knew you had a safe place to live lined up?” Katrina would adore this woman, Rhiannon was sure of that. And in case Katrina didn’t want another roommate, Rhiannon would house Jia in her own loft.
“With you?” Jia’s eyes grew so big, Rhiannon feared they might pop off her cute face. “Oh my God, yes! I mean. I have to check. But yes!”
“Cool.” Rhiannon fished in her pocket and then remembered she didn’t have a phone. “Do you have your phone? I’ll give you my number. We can connect later and figure things out.”
“Yes.” Jia punched Rhiannon’s number in her phone. “I’ll send you a text.”
Rhiannon thought about the ten million texts she probably already had waiting for her response and took a drink out of her wine bottle. “Do me a favor and send me the text in a week?”
Jia nodded. “Yes. Got it. Will do. Gosh, I can’t believe I came out here to thank you for taking that Peter guy down and now we’ll be seeing each other in California—”
An odd choice of words. Rhiannon stopped her. “I haven’t taken anyone down.”
“Yeah, you did,” Jia said slowly. “He quit. Didn’t you hear?”
Her heart lurched. Rhiannon placed the bottle of wine on the bench with a clink. “No. I’m on vacation. I don’t have a phone. What happened?”
“It broke like an hour ago.”
“Gimme your phone.” She made a beckoning motion and Jia stuck her hand in her pocket again.
The girl had well-hidden pockets on her skirt. Rhiannon liked her more and more.
Jia unlocked her phone, scrolled through, and handed it to her. Rhi absorbed the backlit screen like a junkie inhaling a fix. There it was, in black and white.
She didn’t know what expression was on her face, but Jia drifted closer and sat next to her on the bench, placing her hand on Rhiannon’s shoulder. “More people came forward after you. Peter stepped down as CEO at Swype.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
SAMSON ZIPPED up his suitcase and glanced around the otherwise empty bedroom of his borrowed high-rise apartment.
“Too bad you have to leave here,” Dean remarked. He lounged in the doorway. It was odd to see him without Miley, but since they’d last had lunch, it seemed Dean really was making more of a conscious effort to not have his life be completely consumed by his child. Miley was home with Josie’s mother.
“Campaign’s over and so’s my gig. I don’t want Matchmaker to spend more money than I brought in.”
“I’m glad you’re staying in L.A., though. It’ll be nice to see you more.”
“I’m glad too.” Over the last twenty-four hours, he’d made a couple of big decisions. The Cayucos home could wait. He’d found a nice place to lease, a few blocks away. It wasn’t as ritzy, but it had a parking space and an in-unit washer/dryer, so what more could he really ask for? “Aunt Belle will be here in town as well for the next few months, what with William stepping down. She’s going to fight you to pamper Miley.”
“Miley could always use more aunts. She going to try her hand at actively running the whole enchilada?”
“No. She’s got an interim head right now. At some point she’ll sell, but she wants to find the right person.” Rhiannon had been the right person, but she wasn’t interested.
He glanced at his phone, sitting silent on the nightstand. He would not check it for the tenth time in the last hour to make sure it was functioning and on. It would ring, Rhiannon calling or texting him back, or it wouldn’t. He’d been trying to contact her for a full day now, since Helena’s show had aired.
His heart ached for her, and he wanted nothing more than to hug her. Yes, people would be supportive, but others wouldn’t. If she’d let him, he’d use his own big body to block the hate as much as he could, but no one would be able to shield her from all of it.
That if was a pretty big if. Whatever anger he’d felt toward her had well and truly dissolved, and he’d tried to make it clear he held no hard feelings in the messages he’d sent her, but who knew where her head was.
Dean sat on the bed. “I got a new gig lined up.”
“No kidding.” Samson placed the suitcase on the floor, against the wall. “What is it?”
“I’m, uh, working with Trevor.”
Samson jerked around. “What?”
“It’s a good organization.”
“Is that why you’re here? Am I your first assignment?”
Dean followed Samson out to the living room. “I like to see your smiling face, too, but sort of.”
“Did you and Aunt Belle talk about this?”
“We talked, but I decided to come to you on my own. Look, I want to show you something. Can I?” He gestured to the table.
Samson gave him an annoyed look, but he sat. Dean set up the tablet he’d brought with him in front of Samson. The screen was open to a paused video. “This was from last season. Watch.” He pressed play.
Samson crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t follow football much anymore, but he recognized the kid the journalist was interviewing. Al Anoa’i, a rising star who’d been drafted by the Bisons a couple years ago.
The player was sticky with sweat, his long curly hair clinging to his face. The reporter gestured to Al’s arm. “I noticed you had something written there today during the game, what’s that?”
“Oh, yeah.” He turned his arm to face the camera. “It says LIMA. We all know about Big Joe being sick, and I wanted to show my solidarity with him and his family today.”
The reporter nodded. “Big Joe, of course, a beloved former Bisons player. Why today?”
“It’s the anniversary of the Charm walking off the field.”
At that, Samson flinched, flummoxed. Dean squeezed his shoulder. “Keep watching.”
Al continued. “Like, it was always powerful for me, as a kid, to see other Samoans in this sport that I loved, other guys who looked like me, but when Samson Lima took a stand and stra
ight-up quit because his teammate wasn’t getting the right care? I mean, that was some formative stuff. I’ll remember that until I die.”
The reporter spoke into his mic. “Does it worry you now, playing this game? Knowing as much as we do about head injuries?”
The twentysomething-year-old screwed up his face, the sun reflecting off his sweaty brown skin. “I mean, kind of? But I love it. And I think that’s okay, you can love something and know there are problems with it. Times have changed since Samson walked off that field, and I hope the league continues to work with researchers to make our game safer so we can do what we love.”
Dean hit pause. Samson looked at his friend. “Why’d you show me this?”
“To show you what you’ve done, and to give you an idea of what you could do. Like, don’t google yourself regularly, but you might want to do it once every five years or so, enough to know that kids consider you a hero.”
Samson ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t intend to be—”
“See, that’s the funny thing. Sometimes you don’t intend to do something, and you do it, and no one gives a fuck what you intended because you’ve done the thing.”
There’s no intent in ghosting.
“You wouldn’t let them put me back in the game, because I was your brother, and I needed your help,” Dean murmured. “Right?”
Samson nodded. Dean tapped the tablet. “You have more brothers out there, Samson. Whether you like it or not, you’re their hero. So you can sit there and talk about how you didn’t ask to be a hero, or you can simply go be the thing we all know you are.”
You made your industry better for the young men who came after you, and the older men who came before you, and you did it just by living your life.
Joe didn’t want anyone else to go through what his brother and nephew did.
Samson swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Not everyone likes me.”
“No one’s universally liked. Beyoncé isn’t universally liked. Has that stopped her? No. Be like Beyoncé.”
