But some old entailment on the property gave the lighthouse keeper first refusal and a generous discount. Flynn’s dad had still been in debt until the day he died. After the funeral, before the dirt had even settled, Teddy Saint John tried to buy it again, and Flynn had told him where to stick his offer. Ceremony might need the Saint Johns’ money and the posh bastards who came to the Granshire to get wed, fed, and off their head on expensive island whiskey, but no one liked them.
Besides, Flynn had been pissed at the world then—more pissed—and it was satisfying to have someone to aim that at.
He turned off the road and onto the rutted dirt track that led up to the lighthouse. The Land Rover jolted and juddered up the hill to the roughly flattened square of dirt and paving stones he used as a drive. There was another car already parked there, a sleek gray sports car covered in a fresh layer of dust and dirt, and at the top of the stairs to the lighthouse, Flynn could see a bright ember glowing against the dark. The firefly flicker of it rose and fell as he parked and got out of the car.
“I told you,” Flynn said as he climbed up the mossy concrete steps. “I’m not interested in renting my place out.”
Nate Moffatt exhaled a cloud of pale smoke into the air. He was sitting cross-legged on the old black painted bench next to the door. It wasn’t his space, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Like a cat, he assumed that he improved whatever area he was in.
Flynn disagreed with him on principle. He was too pretty to agree with. It would just encourage him.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Nate said. He took another drag on the cigarette and flicked the butt away from him. It arched toward the cliff edge in a trail of short-lived sparks, and Nate crooked the corner of his mouth in a wry smile. “I wanted to ask a favor.”
“A favor?” Flynn hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and raised his eyebrows curiously. “A favor is what has Saint John’s errand boy hanging out up here at this time of night?”
The “errand boy” crack curdled the smile at the edges, but it hung on.
“Well, I did try and catch you earlier. But you’re a hard man to pin down,” Nate said. “And yeah, just a favor.”
“Well, I don’t wanna do that either.” That killed the smile. Flynn ignored the flick of disappointment he felt and nudged Nate out of the way with his shoulder as he stepped past him. Unlike his car, he locked the heavy black door of the lighthouse. It took an old-fashioned, long-shafted key that rattled in the wrought-iron mechanism, and the hinges resisted opening for a second.
Long enough for Nate to slip in, “It willreallypiss off Max.”
The hook caught. Flynn braced his hand on the door, his tanned, scarred fingers against the dark wood, and huffed out his irritation. He glanced sidelong at Nate, who had his crooked smile back and added the expectant quirk of a dark, manicured eyebrow to it.
Goddammit. He could resist anything but pettiness and pretty men. Now there they both were in one well-dressed package.
Flynn put his shoulder into it and shoved the door. It swung back until the iron-shod corner of it caught in the sandy rut a century of use had ground into the floor. Flynn jerked his thumb inside.
“I’m not promising anything,” he growled.
“Wouldn’t ask you to.”
Nate ducked past him into the lighthouse and did a half turn on his heel as he checked out the rough plaster curves of the walls and the bare-bones spiral staircase that dominated the room. He looked interested, maybe approving, and Flynn bit his tongue on the unfamiliar urge to explain why he’d done something.
For a second, Flynn wondered if he’d made a mistake. He knew the type of man Nate was. He’d met them before. Nate would ask for an inch, take a mile, and make you feel like he’d done you a favor. Except he was already in, and Flynn might as well listen. He could always toss him out on his ear later if he felt like it.
“The favor?” he said.
Nate ran his fingers up the squared-off rod of metal that served as the banister. “I like this,” he said. “Very utilitarian.”
“I thought that was bad?”
“Depends on the context. This context? It works.”
Nate gave the stairs a last, absent rub, and Flynn forced down his dick’s urge to make something of that and turned back around. Nate flashed him a grin that was all practiced charm. “I’ll have a coffee, if you’re having one.”
“I’m not.”
“Tea?”
“Favor.”
There was a pause. Nate took a deep breath and bounced nervously on the balls of his feet. He gestured with his hands as he talked, each sentence punctuated with a jabbed finger or spread palm. “I do want to rent something. Not the lighthouse, though.” He brought his palms together and made his index fingers into a gun that pointed at Flynn’s chest. “I want to rent you.”
Flynn’s dick was all in, but his common sense thought it was time to chuck him out. Flynn compromised with “Fuck off.”
He shed his jacket, hung it up on the back of the door, and went into the galley kitchen he’d squeezed into the old tool shed during renovation. It was tiled black and white because that had been cheaper at B&Q, and it was spotlessly clean because he didn’t use it that much.
