“Anyone.”
“Or Max?”
Teddy gave him a cold, untroubled look and a slice of a smile.
“Why not?” he asked. “They’ve always been close, and I think of Nathan as another son.”
That jab caught Flynn on a raw spot he didn’t know he had—not that he intended to let Teddy see that. “Get out,” Flynn said.
“What is it they say? Back at you.” Teddy paused at the door and looked back. “Oh, and while I’m here, consider your invitation to this weekend’s wedding rescinded. Nate might think he wants you there, but you aren’t welcome on my property or at my events.”
“Never thought I was.”
Teddy let himself out. Until he heard the car start, Flynn stood with his fists clenched so tightly he could feel the ache in his bones. It was a relief. If the old man had taken a fall on the steps, Flynn couldn’t swear he’d have gone out to help him.
The envelope lay on the table, expensively cream against the boot-scuffed wood. It made Flynn feel exposed, as though it were a sex toy that needed hiding away in a cupboard before anyone came around. Not that anyone would.
He shook himself, craned his neck from one side to the other to loosen the cramped muscles, and walked over to pick it up. It was heavy and textured, self-evidently expensive enough that Flynn felt a twitch of guilt for the damp marks his fingertips left on it. The last envelope had been the same. Thicker, though. Back then Teddy used cash.
When he flipped it over, the flap was unsealed. Flynn folded it back and slid the contents out. On the shiny rectangle of paper, Teddy’s careful calligraphy inked out the wordsfifty thousand pounds.
It was an offer that should focus the mind, but Flynn couldn’t get over the distracting question, “What wedding invitation?” Apparently Nate didn’t want him there either.
“HO-LEE CRAP,”Jessie squawked. She turned the check over and stared at the back. Maybe she expected a “just kiddin” stamp to appear. “Is this real?”
“Looks like it,” Flynn said. He plucked the check out of her fingers and frowned at it. “That’s exactly how much Teddy St. John wants me to leave the island.”
“Not like everyone approves of me dating their daughters, but nobody’s ever offered me that much to go away.” Jessie perched on the arm of the sofa, bare feet braced against the cushion. Her hands dangled over her bare, scuffed-up knees. “Gives some credence to the rumors about him and Nate’s mum, eh?”
“Not really.”
Flynn folded the slip of paper and stuck it back in the heavy wedding-invitation envelope. He rubbed the rich weave of the paper absently with his thumb.
“So?” Jessie pursed her lips and raised sun-bleached eyebrows. “What are you going to do?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Flynn wasn’t even sure where to put the envelope. It felt irresponsible to just put it in the kitchen drawer with the rest of his mail.
“I guess I have a month to think about it,” he said.
“Really?”
“What would you do?”
Jessie snorted and shoved a hand through her hair. Her fingers caught in the thick, salt-coarsened mass. “I’d have that cash in my hot little hand already,” she said. “I’d have booked Katy Perry to do my farewell gig. I’d have ordered a cruise liner to take me over to the mainland. Tell me how to alienate Teddy St. John so badly he’d pay to get me to leave, and I’ll do it twice.”
“It wouldn’t piss you off that he thought he could buy you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe,” she said. “But the money would soothe me.”
Flynn snorted. He wasn’t even sure why he’d decided that Jessie was the person to talk to about it, other than the fact that she’d turned up at the right time to drop off the books he’d asked her to get. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to. Thing was, she was twenty-six years old. Of course she thought taking the money was a good idea. God knew, in his twenties, Flynn thought the same thing.
“He’ll think he’s won.”
“So?” Jessie spread her hands expressively. “I mean, come on. It would be different if you had a life here or if he were buying his way into your partner’s bed. Then I could see why you’d hesitate, but all he wants you to do is move. I mean, why not? You always said you weren’t here long-term.”
Her peace said, Jessie leaned over and grabbed her coffee from the table. Steam rose between her steepled fingers as she lifted it to take a careful sip.
She had time. It wasn’t as though Flynn had a good answer.
