Love exists, and it’s crueler than lust.
I knew if I loved someone, I wouldn’t lie to them. I also knew the idea of telling Nash I was Durga appealed to me as much as contracting a painful strand of crabs.
“What happened to your old Honda?” I asked, sliding into Nash’s sleek black convertible. It smelled of new car mixed with him. I shoved my bag in my foot area and waited for an answer.
“Retired.”
He didn’t elaborate.
I clutched onto my seat when he sped off, thankful he’d left the hardtop on.
Nash Prescott looked like every mom’s worst nightmare—and mine for different reasons—in his black jeans and olive-colored Henley, sleeves pulled up mid-forearm. My fingers itched to trace his tattoo.
I dug them into the leather. “I need to make two stops before we get to the country club.”
“This isn’t a field trip, Tiger.”
He rapped the steering wheel with a finger, driving with one hand on it and the other wrapped around my headrest. I couldn’t reconcile him with my Ben, but I sometimes saw glimpses of it. Last night, but definitely not today.
Determination inked his body with tight muscles and a set jaw. “You want the stops, I get two more truths.”
“Fine,” I grit out, knowing I’d regret this, but I couldn’t go to Eastridge without visiting Betty.
I also needed to change out of my sonder tee and into the dress Virginia hated, in the unlikely event that my belongings hadn’t been tossed by the new Winthrop Estate owner. The idea of sitting in a car with Ben had my lips loose, begging to confess.
I busied myself with studying Nash’s car, running my fingers along the leather, inhaling its scent. I toyed with the latch to the glove compartment.
“Don’t touch that.”
Too late.
It flung open.
The latch bounced against my knees. A bag fell onto my lap. I nearly dropped it, but I caught it last minute. The phone I’d broken sat inside. A crack extended across the screen. Tiny flecks of glass peppered the inside of the baggie.
A joke sat at the tip of my tongue, but at the sight of him, I swallowed it. Genuine concern etched his features. I carefully slid the Ziploc bag back into the glove compartment and closed it with a soft click.
Silence stretched the next ten miles.
I spent it wondering what had him so on edge. The type of energy he used to radiate when he fought often.
Relief swept through me at Nash’s voice. “The phone has the last pictures I took of Dad on it.”
And I had broken it.
Guilt stabbed at my stomach, that no longer felt empty, which only added to the guilt.
“Sorry.” It felt inadequate. I wanted to give him more words, better words. My vocabulary evaded me. Sand slipping through my fingers.
“I bought the new screen, but I showed up at the repair place, and the guy looked as incompetent as fucking Chantilly.”
I traced the leather seat with the tip of my finger. “What’s your beef with Chantilly?”
“The corporate masquerade party last year—”
“Ida Marie told me about it.”
He slid his eyes to me. “Did she also tell you she grabbed my dick through my pants, pretending to be drunk?”
“Why is she still working for you?”
“Her uncle sits on my board, and unlike his niece, he’s both competent and a genuinely good guy.” The entire board was. I would not have Prescott Hotels be Winthrop Textiles 2.0. “I buried it. If he found out, he’d probably be mortified and resign, and we’re about to close Singapore. Finding a good replacement takes too long.”
Chantilly had given me a speech on nepotism, yet she was related to a board member. “I knew her salary couldn’t pay for a Birkin.”
“Her family’s loaded, but also the type to make her work her way through life.” He merged onto the left lane without signaling, then the shoulder to bypass traffic. “It was probably a Christmas gift.”
The wind rattled the car at this speed. I pushed back in my seat, the car’s shakes turning me into a human vibrator. We whipped past another town in silence, breakneck speeds we should have gotten pulled over for.
“I can fix it,” I offered, voice low. “I’ve broken my screen before, and I didn’t have the money for a new one, so I learned. I even made a few bucks on the side doing it for some college students. I can fix it. Do you trust me?”
He didn’t say anything. We continued to drive until the cars on the road thinned. Each mile tapered my hope.
“You can fix it,” he finally said.
“Okay.”
I spelled meraki on my thigh with my pointer finger, content in his company. Nash drove five miles in silence. We reached a long stretch of highway, empty given the holiday. Another five miles further, he pulled over onto the shoulder.
I peered at the gas level, wondering if being stranded constituted as a valid excuse to miss Virginia’s brunch and golf time. “Are we out of gas?”
“Nope.” He removed the keys from the ignition and leveled me with his full attention. “I’m asking my three questions in the middle of nowhere, so you can’t evade them. If you want to get to Eastridge, you’ll answer them. If you don’t, we can turn back now.”
“But—”
“Question #1—how do you know Brandon Vu?”
What. The. Fuck.
“How do you know Brandon Vu?” I countered, completely blindsided.
Did Brandon and Nash know each other? Was the S.E.C. angling to go after my dad through Nash? Loyalty surged within me, lighting up my veins. Uncontrollable embers flickered.
You’re supposed to hate your Dad, Em.
“Answer the question.” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “That’s the deal.”
“He showed up at the masquerade. I had no clue who he was. Then, he showed up at the tent city and gave me his card.” I hesitated, praying Nash wouldn’t draw the wrong conclusions. “I remembered him from the day the F.B.I. and S.E.C. raided my house. We stood in front of the cottage. He asked me who lived in there and made me say your names.”
“And?”
I swiped hair out of my face to give my hands something to do. “And I did, but I also told him you guys had nothing to do with my dad’s business. Now, he keeps showing up… I think he wants to use me to get to Dad. I’m not sure.”
“So, he’s stalking you?”
“Is he stalking me?” I tipped a shoulder up. “He’s an agent. Can it be considered stalking if it’s legal?”
“It’s fucking stalking.” His neck corded, lips pulled back, but he moved on. “Question #2—did you know about the embezzlement?”
My head jerked back like whiplash. “No. Absolutely not.” My hand flew to my chest, fingers clutching my shirt. “I don’t know if I would have gone to the authorities if I’d known, but I would have told Betty and Hank. They put everything into the company. I didn’t know.” I chanced a glance at him, taking in his expression. Oh, Nash. “Is that why you’ve been mad at me this whole time? You thought I betrayed your family?”
That meant he thought I was responsible for Hank’s death.
A river of pity rushed through me. I flushed it from my system, knowing Nash would hate it if he knew it’d ever been there.
“I’m asking the questions. That’s the deal.” His restless tapping filled the car. “Question #3—where is Gideon Winthrop?”
I pinched the skin on my thigh, hoping to wake up from this nightmare. Each question was worse than the last and definitely not worth a trip to Eastridge to see Virginia. Trust fund access or not. “Nash…”
“It’s an easy question, Emery.”
“Not for me.”
I hated my dad, but I also loved him. It was the kind of love you gave fiercely. No stipulations. Pure. Wondrous. Permanent. I was pissed at him—so fucking pissed—but he was still my dad, no matter how much or how little I talked to him.
“Chill. I’m not going to hurt him.”
My eyes widened. “I didn’t even mention anything about hurting him. Were you planning on hurting him?”
I remembered the bruised knuckles he’d come home with. Dad was in his late forties. He wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight against Nash.
“Do you trust me?”
“Honestly? Not to keep your hands off Dad, but everything else? Yes.”
He muttered a curse and swiped a palm down his face. “The deal is—”
“I know what the deal is.” I needed to buy time. “Give me today.”
“For?”
“I’ll tell you. I promise. Just give me time.”
Maybe I could warn Dad first, which required talking to him. I realized, as my heart sped at the idea, how much I missed my dad.
I sank into my seat, grateful when Nash pulled back onto the road.
“Why didn’t you go to my dad’s funeral?”
“Is this one of your questions?”
“Consider it complimentary for dealing with your ass.”
I owed him as much, especially since I wasn’t sure if I’d ever give up Dad’s location. “Reed asked me not to.”
Nash sliced me with his attention, stopping in the middle of the road this time. “He told you not to go?”
“Yes and no.”
“I know you buried Hank in his hometown, but Reed grew up in Eastridge. He wanted something done there. We obviously couldn’t divide the casket, but he asked me to bury an urn full of Hank’s favorite things in the center of the tree maze. While you guys were burying Hank, I buried the urn. It’s right in front of the Hera statue.”
“What did you bury?”
“His Panthers jersey. The pad of sticky notes he always used to press everywhere.” A smile ghosted my lips. “His favorite sunglasses, the ones he kept ‘losing’ while wearing. The book he’d read to me and Reed when we were younger. The prom king crown you didn’t want, but your dad found hilarious and mounted on the wall.”
“That’s where that went.”
“Are you mad I took it?”
He made me wait a few minutes for his answer. “No.”
BETTY’S NEW HOUSE straddled the border between the middle class and filthy rich neighborhoods in Eastridge. I assumed Nash had paid for the home, and it suited her. So much so that every time I looked at it in the pictures Reed sent me, little fissures opened inside my heart at the idea of how happy Betty and Hank would have been there.
We pulled up sometime around eight in the morning, which was the equivalent of noon for Betty Prescott. The scent of breakfast lingered in the driveway. Nash cut the engine, popped open the door, and tilted his nose up.
I swung my door before he could, because as much of an ass as he was, his Southern mother had raised him to open doors for women. “How pissed do you think Virginia would be if I pigged out on Betty’s breakfast instead of the country club brunch?”
“Like a bear witnessing her cub getting kidnapped, only infinite rage and no maternal instinct.”
I grinned. “We should do it.”
Nash let us in with his key, my shoulders brushing his arm near the doorway. The smile on my face died at the sight of Basil and Reed sitting at Betty’s island. They didn’t look happy to see us. Even Betty didn’t look happy to see us.
“Fuck,” Nash muttered beside me.
I recovered quickly, leaping at Reed for a hug. “Reed!”
He returned it with an awkward one-armed pat. “Why are you here with Nash?”
“I needed a ride to Eastridge.”
“Looks like more than a ride, Em.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.”
I distanced myself from him, flicking my attention to a wide-eyed Betty behind me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
This went from zero to a hundred fast, which told me Reed had already been in a mood. I gathered the situation as quickly as I could. Basil looked like herself, but didn’t act like herself. No scowl. No eye daggers thrown at me. Disconcerting.
Betty clutched her thin silver bracelet, an anniversary gift from Hank. Also a clue they were discussing something bound to break her heart. The last time Reed looked like this, he’d been cuffed in my living room.
He edged closer to me, which made Nash shift behind me. I held a hand out to my side, stopping them both.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded, “before hounding me with accusations you cannot take back.”
If this was his reaction at the sight of me and Nash, how would he react upon learning we’d had sex?
On. His. Bed.
“Ask yourself this,” Reed began, ignoring me, “do you want to be with someone willing to let his brother go to jail?” He jerked a finger at Nash. “Better yet, ask him how he got his millions or billions or what-fucking-ever.”
“Reed…” I didn’t know what to say to that, except I knew I’d hate the answer.
Nash positioned himself next to me. Reed narrowed his eyes at us. We looked like a unified front.
“You told Emery she couldn’t go to Dad’s funeral?” Nash’s voice pitched low.
Betty gasped and clutched onto the kitchen rag on the counter. “Reed!”
“You made her stay in Eastridge and bury an urn by herself?” Nash stood nose-to-nose with Reed. “And when Ma asked where Emery was, you didn’t tell her the truth? And you’re pissed at us for lying?”
I expected an argument.
I expected some yelling.
I expected Betty to cry.
I did not expect Reed to swing his fist at Nash.
Reed’s knuckles connected with Nash’s face. It barely budged.
“Close your fist if you intend on doing real damage, little brother.” Nash stepped forward into Reed’s fist the second time, allowing Reed free reign on his face.
Punch. Uppercut. Another punch.
“Stop!” Betty shouted.
Basil cocked her head and observed the situation, elbow resting on the island counter.
Meanwhile, I slithered between them, knowing it was a bad idea but doing it anyway. Nash’s eyes cut to mine at the same time Reed’s body fell forward, pushing me onto the hardwood.
Nash split his attention to me, lingering on my wrist cradled in my palm. He sprung into action, twisting Reed into a headlock. He bumped his knee against Reed’s, forcing him to kneel.
“Don’t fight it.” Voice low, his arm tightened around Reed’s neck. “Tap out, and I’ll let go. Don’t make Ma watch this.”
“Emery!” Betty rushed to me, hands flying over my face, but I couldn’t look away from Reed and Nash.
I imagined this was what watching an asteroid hit Earth would be like. Fascinating, destructive, and oddly beautiful.
It made sense how Nash had won so many fights. Boardrooms and offices were child’s play. This was his element.
He wasn’t a cruel prince. He wasn’t a twisted warrior either. He was both, and it turned him into a man who would rather break than bend.
“Are you okay?” Betty brushed hair out of my eyes.
“I’m fine.” I thrust myself off the floor, enchanted by the enigma of Nash Prescott.
“Enough!” Betty grabbed a hot pink fly swatter and swung the thin plastic near her sons as if she wielded a knife. “Stop it! I will not have you stain my floors with your sweat and blood. I will not have you ruin my holiday. And I will not have my sons fighting in my kitchen like poorly trained dogs battling over scraps.”
Nash released Reed, who coughed a few dozen times. He beat at his chest, forcing more air out it.
“It’s my fault, Reed.” Betty set the swatter down and helped Reed to his feet. “Okay? I was the one who wanted to keep Dad’s illness from you. I was the one who told Nash to let you take the fall. It was me. Be mad at me.”
“Ma—”
“Let me finish. It was selfish, okay?” She cupped Reed’s cheek. “Nash shouldn’t have done that to the Cartwright boy, but when he tried to tell the cops it was him, I begged him not to. We needed him.”
“You needed the five hundred bucks he sent you and Dad each month,” Reed spit out. “I almost went to jail over five hundred dollars.”
“No, baby, I needed my family together.” Betty’s fists seized his collar. “You were a minor. He was an adult. I thought there was no way they’d actually arrest you, so I made a choice. I know now it was a wrong one…”
My lips parted. The wall caught my weight. Leaning against it, I sliced my gaze to Nash.
I remembered that night.
Broken nose, rib, and leg.
Separated collar bone.
Dislocated shoulder.
The scar on Able’s forehead I liked to smirk at.
Nash tried to tell the cops it was him, but I always thought he’d been covering for his brother.
“That was you?” I whispered to him.
Nash nodded. Once.
Tension coiled his neck. The fight mode hadn’t fled. Two clenched fists hung at his side. Blood trickled down his temple. A gash opened above his eye, which I figured would become swollen and black by tomorrow.
This warrior, with the cuts and bruises and scars across his chest, had fought for me.
“Why?” My murmur went unnoticed by Reed and Betty.
Nash, however, never looked away from me. “He hurt you.”
It never got that far, I wanted to argue, but I knew it was the same thing to Nash.
“Why did you let Reed hit you?”
“He needed it.”
Can you be any more selfless?
It might have been a flaw at this point.
Nash had a brash tongue, a lack of filter, and the uncanny ability to pinpoint the exact thing to say to throw someone off balance. He pushed people away, never allowed anyone to see beneath his skin, and had no problems hermiting himself for eternity.
He also gave so much of himself, the only thing he kept was his kiss, and I’d taken that from him, too. Sacrifices littered his past and would probably stain his future. And it was a very Nash thing to hurt someone to heal them.
People measure love by how much someone receives, but I measure it by how much someone gives. No one in the history of the universe has ever or will ever have more love than Nash Prescott.
My villain.
My knight.
My prince.
My Ben.
I had to tell him.
“I’M FINE, MA. Don’t worry about it.” Nash tossed the blood-stained rag into the trash, pressed a kiss to Betty’s forehead, and drew her in for a hug.
“You sure, baby?”
“Right.” Reed leaned against Basil, who slid a palm into his back pocket. “Coddle him some more, Ma. Good going.”
They ignored him.
Reed swore, grabbed his phone and keys, and swung an arm around Basil’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for ruining our breakfast, Ma. Basil and I have to get going. We’ll be back later, but I don’t think we’ll make it to Pastor Ken’s sermon.”
Betty turned to him. “It’s okay, baby. The walls of a hospital have heard more sincere prayers than Eastridge’s church. We can stop by the children’s unit later and donate some teddy bears.”
“Sounds good, Ma.”
Reed locked eyes with Nash before kissing Betty’s cheek. I followed him to the door, surprised when Basil tipped a shoulder up at me, as if to say, boys, what can you do?
I slid my hands into my pockets after Basil left for the restroom. “Are you mad at me?”
Fury lined Reed’s face for a second. He released a sigh and gathered me into a hug. “No, but I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I don’t.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I offered him a lazy grin and rested my forehead against his shoulder.
I hadn’t had an opportunity to mourn the idea of me and Reed, to dig a grave, and label it friendship. In reality, I should have years ago when I’d slept with Nash. But standing in Reed’s arms, I realized why I never had to.
My heart didn’t caper inside its cage.
My body didn’t experience an earthquake.
I wanted to understand him, but I didn’t yearn for it.
I felt loved, but not in love.
He was just… Reed Prescott.
My best friend.
That’s all.
Only ever my best friend.
