I let him drag me up against his chest.I’m too damned cold and miserable to resist.I’ve missed him.More than I want to admit.More than I think he’d like to know.Rhys doesn’t like me much.I think I’m an obligation to him, someone he pities.
To me, he’s the standard by which I’ve measured every man since I was eighteen and met him for the first time.None ever competed.None ever compared.They weren’t handsome enough or strong enough, or brave enough.They didn’t scowl enough or growl enough.Their eyes weren’t the right shade of forest green.
They didn’t make me ache.
Rhys does.He has for three long years.He doesn’t know it, but I’ve been in love with him since I first set eyes on him.The only time we ever met before my dad died, he took one look at me and seemed to hate me on sight.It wasn’t like that for me.I took one look at him and felt like I was staring at the sun.He blazed so brightly that he blinded me, leaving behind a permanent, lasting image of himself.
I came alive that day in ways I never was before.For the first time, I understood the desire I’d only ever experienced through song.I’d sung about the piercing ache so many times, but I never truly understood it until then.How deep it went, how much it changed you.How completely it eclipsedeverything.
And then my dad introduced him, and I realized he was unattainable, something forever out of my reach.To him, I would never be anything but his best friend’s annoying kid, someone he didn’t even want to converse with, let alone see as a woman.
Even if hehadseen me that way, he was off-limits.My dad would have lost his mind.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” I sob, clinging to him with both hands.“I d-d-didn’t h-have anyw-where else to g-g-go.”
“Shh, songbird,” he whispers, lifting me into his arms.“It’s okay.I’ve got you.”
I burrow into him, desperate to believe him, if only for a moment.Desperate to believe, if only for a moment, that he’s mine and I’m not wholly and utterly alone in this world.
* * *
“Talk to me, Raven,” Rhys says.I’m on his lap, a thick quilt wrapped around me.A fire roars in the fireplace, piping heat into the living room.His place is beautiful.The entire back wall is glass, looking out over the water.The storm still blows fiercely outside.Waves batter the shore like the rain hammering the metal roof.It’s oddly soothing.His furniture is rustic and comfortable.Warm.
I stopped shivering half an hour ago.I stopped crying not long after that.He hasn’t pushed, though.He’s been patiently waiting me out.It’s odd.I don’t think he’s an exceptionally patient person at all.My dad always said he was an impatient, bossy bastard.But he’s patient with me.At least he was at my dad’s funeral and has been again today.
It’s not what I expected.
“Marnie cut me off,” I whisper woodenly.
“What the fuck?”he growls.
“She said my dad coddled me too much.”Maybe she’s right.I’m almost twenty-two, and I have no job and no home of my own.I have what’s in the bank from when my mom died, but that’s not much.Unlike my dad, my mom wasn’t rich.She lived her life one day at a time.Her life wasn’t glamorous, but she loved every minute of it.
She and my dad got along surprisingly well.I was a surprise baby, the product of a summer fling.She was a lounge singer.He was a twenty-year-old with big dreams.They hit it off immediately.When I showed up nine months later, he was already making a name for himself.He and my mom agreed that she’d keep custody of me, and he’d be allowed to see me whenever he wanted.He was always a part of my life.Their brief affair fizzled quickly, but they were always friends.They were always family.For years, it was just the three of us.
At least until my dad met Marnie when I was sixteen.
I don’t think she liked that my dad spent so much time with me and my mom.Once they got together, I started spending more time at his place in the city instead of him spending time at ours.Even after moving to Seattle, he kept an apartment in NYC for his weekends with me.Marnie preferred it that way.
I thought it was because she didn’t like my mom.Maybe it was me she never liked.
“She said what?”Rhys says, his voice so quiet it’s deadly.
“She said he coddled me,” I repeat.“So she canceled my credit cards.She, um, she thinks I need to figure out how to be an adult and stop depending on his money.”My cheeks heat with embarrassment.The last thing I want is for this man to think I’m a spoiled little rich girl.“I have no problem with finding a job and making my own way.But I have an internship and classes, and I volunteer.Had.I won’t be graduating now.”
“What the fuck?”
“She canceled my tuition for next year.”
“The hell she did,” he growls, plucking me up from his lap and depositing me on the sofa beside him.He rises to his feet like a pissed-off lion, all grace and deadly intent, his face carved from granite.“She has no say in your education, songbird.”
“She does when my dad left her everything,” I whisper.
He blinks at me, opens his mouth, and then blinks again.“Who told you that?”
“I guess I just assumed he left it to her.”
“Brant didn’t discuss his will with you?”
