Page 72 of Rhodes

"He would have kept harassing you. That guy has a reputation."

"That's not the point."

Rhodes stands with his arms loose at his sides, but nothing else about him is loose. "I know you can handle yourself. I do. Does that mean no one can ever help you, Tallulah? Jesus Christ."

"Walking up and standing next to me would have been more than sufficient." I press my palm flat against my hip, like I can tamp down my anger through my hipbone. "You made a scene."

"He's the one who⁠—"

"I know what he did. I'm not defending him."

He goes still and looks to the side, huffs for a second, and then turns back to me.

"The result," he says carefully, "is that his hands are off you."

"His hands were already off me. I did that part."

"I'm not sorry I stepped in. I probably could've done it without making half the terrace stare, but that guy⁠—"

"That's all I'm saying. You could've done that better."

"Yeah. Got it."

"I don't need you fighting my battles."

"But if a man hears you say no and decides it doesn't apply to him, I'm going to have a hard time staying in my chair."

I've got the next thing ready, but I don't use it, because I would rather be a little annoyed than be the woman having a public argument about being defended at somebody else's wedding.

"Trust me to handle it next time."

That gets a nod and a smile that's almost a laugh, and it's finished. We head back toward the table together. Nobody says a word when we sit down, which means every single person noticed and has collectively decided to mind their own business.

For once, I’m grateful for the Stone family code of silence.

Cain reaches across Greer for the bread. “Anybody want more pasta?”

Dinner unwinds slowly, the way big family dinners always do. Grandbank goes first, kissing the top of Sisue's sleeping head before Greer carries her off toward their villa. The cousins peel away after him in twos and threes, their voices drifting down the stone paths until the night swallows them.

Reeves and Charli linger over the last of the wine until Charli hooks a hand around his arm and pulls him up. Libba yawns so hard her eyes water, which tells me she's dead, and heads back to our villa without me.

Eventually, even Cain and Greer disappear.

The lights in the fig tree stay on, but somebody blows out the candles along the table. Without thirty people talking over one another, I can hear the sea again below the terrace and the soft clink of Rhodes stacking glasses at the other end.

I should be dead, since I'm going on twenty-four hours of no sleep with the anticipation and the flight. But oddly I'm wide awake.

I pick up two plates and carry them to the sideboard.

"You know they're paying people to do this," Rhodes says.

"So I've heard."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I don't know. I figured I'd help."

His mouth moves at one corner.