“Did my father send you? Or was it Sinclair?” I ask as I open the door to a tired-looking Uncle Mal on the other side.
“Neither. But they are concerned about you.”
“I could have had company.” I grunt.
He looks past me into the hotel room and raises a brow.
“I got a headache and decided to be alone,” I lie, following his gaze to the untouched bed and single glass of whiskey sitting next to a half-empty bottle on the table.
“If I were wallowing in guilt over losing someone, I’d go to the place where I can remind myself of who I once was too,” Mal murmurs, stepping past me and into the room.
He walks over to the whiskey bottle and lifts it.
“Go ahead,” I invite, pointing at a clean glass. “It’ll stop me from drinking the whole damn thing.”
“Thanks.” He sighs, pouring a generous amount into the glass.
“Dad told you Tate left, then?”
He slides one hand into his pant pockets and takes a slow drink with the other.
“He did. She’s the woman you were talking about at the cemetery? When you said you’d met someone?”
“Yeah.” I refill my glass then walk over to join him wherehe’s standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the city.
“I see.” He doesn’t need to say anything else. He knows why Tate had to leave. The whole family knows.
Beauforts stick together.
“I’m sorry, Sull,” he says after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Me too.”
“So, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Expecting company?”
He tips his head toward the room behind us—the one with the giant bed. The cabinet beside it is stocked with condoms, lube, and everything else I need for my stays at The Lanceford. It’s why I had none that first time with Tate. I don’t share the home Molly and I live in with anyone. Sex happens here. And here only.
Until Tate, of course. And I didn’t want to wear condoms with her. I wanted every damn inch of her as close to me as I could get it.
It was reckless. So fucking risky. She could have gotten pregnant; then where would we be?
I look at the room through new eyes. No wonder Sinclair hates hearing about this place. I bring women here to fuck, nothing more.
Because I don’t do feelings. I don’t do love.
I mean, I didn’t.
I shake my head, turning back to the window. “I don’t want to be that version of myself anymore. Molly deserves better than a father who has women approach him in front of her and he has to wrack his brains to recall if he’s had sex with them or not. She’s going to grow up into an incredible, smart, and funny young woman. I can’t jeopardize her belief in how she should be treated as a woman by being the prime example of the type of man she should avoid at all costs because hetreats her as nothing more than an object for his own sexual gratification.”
“Very eloquent words after half a bottle of whiskey,” Uncle Mal remarks.
I snort, taking another drink. “Yeah. Sin would be fucking proud of me if she weren’t already disgusted.”
“She’s your sister. She’ll always be savage when she doesn’t agree with you. It’s because she loves you that she cares so much.”
