“I lo—”
Rhys ended the call before it was too late and slid the phone onto the chair beneath his thigh just as the door to the office swung open. He looked up, schooling his features and giving his father a look that he hoped conveyed every ounce of animosity that existed in his body.
“What are you doing?” his father asked, coming around and sitting in one of the brown leather chairs that faced the massive desk.
“Plotting ways to throw you off the roof,” he answered.
“Have you found one?”
“Not yet, but I’m patient.”
His father laughed. “You’re anything but.”
Rhys smiled. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Father.”
He would find a way to take his father down, and he would destroy the whole family name if given the chance. He would raze St. George’s University to the ground and happily watch the buildings crumble into dust.
“Enough of this banter.” His father pulled a cigar case out of his pocket and set to getting one lit. He puffed and the cloying smoke filled the room. Rhys frowned, clearing his throat.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke in here.”
“It’s my house.”
“For now,” he said.
“Is that so, Rhys? Are you coming back around to the idea of inheriting all of this when I finally give up and die?”
“I’ve earned it.” Rhys arched a threatening brow. “Have I not?”
His father leveled a judgmental look across the room at him, lip curled in borderline disgust while he puffed on that disgusting cigar. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Rhys bit back the caustic response that sat on the tip of his tongue and stabbed his finger against the space bar on his computer. The screen came to life, bright and glaring, and he directed his attention to his neglected e-mail inbox. He sighed, clicking on one of the first messages that remained unread.
“Jeremiah reached out this morning,” Rhys said, scanning through the email from the family’s financial planner. “He said he’s been trying to get in touch with you.”
Rhys hoped Jeremiah wasn’t trying to get in touch about the fact Rhys had tried to access an account that he apparently wasn’t the sole owner of, but he didn’t think Jeremiah was stupid enough to cc Rhys on the email if that was the case.
“I know he is.”
“Are you going to call him?” Rhys clicked through to the next email.
“Eventually.”
“Are you trying to run our finances into the ground before you kick the bucket so I don’t even have anything left to inherit?” he snapped, shoving his mouse away and leaning back in his chair. The leather creaked and his phone sat like a boulder beneath his thigh. What he wouldn’t give to be able to touch Beckett right then. To smell him, to taste him. As soon as he got back home, he was going to spread his legs until his thighs trembled from use. Rhys rubbed the bridge of his nose, willing his brain back to the matters at hand.
“You don’t have to worry about what I do,” his father said.
“Then why am I here?” Rhys angled his head. “I can work from Myers Bluff. I can do the same things I’ve been doing, and if I’m there, I’m not here to make sure you don’t obliterate my inheritance with your incompetence.”
As it stood, Rhys didn’t even care for his inheritance. He was only interested in one singular bank account that had an ungodly number of zeroes attached to it. Free access to that money was his ticket out of Mallardsville and out of the family. Which…the thought of that soured him in an unexpected way. He of course wanted to leave his father’s legacy behind. He didn’t want any part of the things the family name had come to stand for, but he’d sacrificed so much. Rhys had given up so many things and manipulated so many people all in the name of family or status or money. And for what? Even worse…at what cost?
He was keenly aware that he played the role of villain in many people’s stories, but for the first time, he wondered if he was ever the hero in his own.
“You’re here because I want you to be,” his father answered, smug look on his face.
“Right.” Rhys cleared his throat. “Of course.”
He spent the next two hours clearing through his emails with his father watching over him closely. He made himself aware of all the things his father neglected and put off, replying back to Jeremiah that Rhys would take the meeting himself if his father didn’t get back to him before the end of the day. They broke for lunch, dining at opposite ends of the massive dining room table in complete silence. The only sounds Rhys heard through the entire meal were the clinking of silverware, the sound of chewing, and the heavy cadence of his own heart.
