by M. J. Lowell
I took a deep breath. “Rhys, I know you’re furious with me and you have every right to be. I owe you an apology. And you too, Davies.”
“Not necessary, miss,” said Davies from behind the wheel.
“It is, though – it’s very necessary. It’s just— I thought you were criminals.” I could feel embarrassment staining my cheeks red as I said the words aloud. “Well, I did, and then I didn’t, but then I did again.”
“Naturally,” said Davies, like I was making perfect sense instead of babbling like an idiot. Rhys, in contrast, was apparently too absorbed in contemplating the Brooklyn storefronts speeding by to comment. I turned to him, but he continued gazing stolidly out the window.
“That first night, when I came to the Bowery, I really had overheard those two men plotting to kill you. But I wasn’t in the bar. I was across the street when I heard them, watching your windows. I’d already been following you for a week. I’d seen calls to you on my father’s phone bill, from right before he died. It was the only lead I had – you were the only lead I had. And I had to find out what really happened to him.”
Rhys was completely quiet, completely still.
I went on. “Later, when I thought you weren’t involved, I was going to tell you the truth about how it all started. But I was afraid. Afraid you’d turn me away if you knew. If you found out it was all an act, that I was just me. Not sophisticated. Not experienced. And I didn’t want to lose you.” I paused, but there was still no reaction from Rhys. “Not that it matters anymore,” I added, more to myself than to him.
It was as if those words lit a fuse. He whipped around to face me, his eyes blazing as he threw them back at me. “‘Not that it matters?’ It doesn’t matter that you’ve lied to me at every opportunity?”
His bitterness took my breath away, but it also sparked my own bright flame of anger. “And you’ve been completely honest with me, Rhys Stewart?”
Davies inhaled sharply but didn’t say anything. Rhys glared at him and then turned the glare on me. “What are you getting at?”
“What happened between us, what I felt with you, was real. And everything else I did, I did for my dad. I thought I was doing the right thing by lying, that it was the only way to get to the truth. That lying was the right choice. Just like the choice you made when your father died.”
“I don’t know which gossip rag you’ve been reading, but I’m warning you to let it go,” said Rhys. His voice was low, threatening.
More than ever, I was stepping into uncharted territory, but I no longer had anything left to lose. I leaned forward. “Davies, you were convicted of perjury, weren’t you, because of the alibi you gave Rhys for his father’s death?”
Davies looked uncomfortable in the rear view mirror. “Those were confusing times, miss.”
“But you didn’t lie. Rhys was with you. He was delivering your Christmas gift, exactly like you said. He couldn’t have killed his father. He took the blame, though, to protect someone else.”
“Might be something in what you say,” Davies answered noncommittally. Rhys flashed him a furious look.
So I was right after all, I thought, astonished. Flushing slightly, I turned back to Rhys. “You didn’t dose your father with sleeping pills and push him down the stairs. Joff did, didn’t he? But you took the blame because he was older and would have been tried as an adult and sent to prison for life. You were only thirteen. You went to Bridewell and learned to make pastry.”
“Bakes like an angel,” supplied Davies as Rhys simmered beside me. “Bridewell was the best thing that ever happened to the lad, if I do say so myself—”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Rhys spat out, but Davies continued on, speaking directly to him now.
“It’s true, sir. Bridewell gave you the childhood you never had, along with the tools to make something of yourself. You already had the drive – all of us at the gym knew that – but you needed structure, rules like they had at Bridewell. That’s where you first worked with computers, too. Taking the blame for Joff changed your life for the better, sir. You couldn’t know he’d resent you for that, could you?”
Rhys didn’t answer, and only the tense set of his jaw showed he’d heard what Davies had said about Bridewell, and about Joff. I flashed back to the inscription I’d seen in the blue-and-white room in the Hamptons house. Never forget who made you what you are, little brother. Had there been an edge to those words, a sharpness I couldn’t understand?
Outside the car windows, a regular day was taking its course, people living their lives, shopping, laughing. Inside it was as if we were on another planet, in another universe entirely. I could hear Rhys’s shallow breathing, sense his struggle to get himself under control.
When he finally spoke, I could almost feel the pain and anger in his voice. But there was something else there, too, something surprising. Hope.
“How did you know I didn’t kill my father?” His voice was almost a whisper.
I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “It’s not who you are,” I answered simply. “You try to protect people, to save them, not hurt them.” The way he’d learned to box to protect his family from his father. The way he’d tried to save Joff. And the way he’d rescued me from the shame Sawyer had inflicted.
“She’s right about that, sir,” said Davies. “That’s exactly what my therapist says.”
“Your therapist is a bloody con artist,” muttered Rhys, but he didn’t deny what I’d said, didn’t disagree with any of it.
Another silence settled over us, but it lacked the earlier tension. Instead it had the sudden fresh stillness that followed a summer storm, the world briefly wiped clean.
Davies signaled for a turn, and I realized we were only a few blocks from my apartment. I wanted to kiss Rhys then, to tell him I loved him. But I knew I never could. If there had ever been a time for that, it was past. I’d ruined it. He belonged to someone else. All I could do was wish him the best.
I faced Rhys and offered him my hand. “Thank you. For everything.”
He only stared at it again. “Why do you keep doing that? Do you really expect me to shake your hand?”
“I’m just trying to make sure things aren’t awkward,” I explained. “I know you’re in love with someone else.”
Davies cleared his throat. “As I was telling you, sir. About last night?”
Rhys nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. I might as well admit it,” he said, as much to himself as to Davies.
The words were like a punch to the stomach. Even now, after everything, some buried part of me had still been clutching to the idea that it wasn’t really over. I forced myself to smile more brightly. “I hope you’re very happy together. I’m sure she knows how lucky she is.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m the lucky one,” Rhys said.
Another knock-out punch. “She’s very beautiful,” I managed to say.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, pride in his voice. “To me she’s— captivating. Peerless. I’ve never known anyone like her. I wanted her from the moment I set eyes on her. No. ‘Want’ isn’t right. What I felt for her was so much more than that. It was something I couldn’t even understand, not for a long time, because it was so unlike anything I’d ever felt before.”
I didn’t want to be hearing this, couldn’t bear it. “How nice.”
“I found myself not just forgetting my rules but abandoning them entirely.” He shook his head in disbelief at his own actions. “When I was with her, I felt— different. Like I could be better. The best version of myself. But I was also afraid that still wouldn’t be good enough. That I’d cause her pain, too, fail her the way I failed….” he let the sentence trail off. “It actually frightened me, the intensity of what I felt. So I tried to forget her.”
“Oh?” I said, fighting to keep the smile pasted to my face.
“But it was impossible. No matter what I did, how I tried to distract myself, she was the only one I wanted. Everywhere I we
nt, I was looking for her. Wishing she was by my side.”
I couldn’t take any more. It had been bad enough hearing it from Marina – listening to Rhys tell the story of their shared destiny was torture. I grabbed onto the seat in front of me. “I can walk from here, Davies. Can you pull over?”
“Keep driving,” Rhys ordered.
“No, really—” I was desperate now. “I could use the fresh air. And the exercise.”
“But I’m not done,” said Rhys. “I haven’t had the chance to talk about her with anyone yet. I’d hardly admitted my feelings even to myself until quite recently.”
“Stop, please,” I cried. I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re not getting out of this car,” Rhys said firmly.
“Why do you care what I do?” I said wildly. “I wish you and Marina all the happiness in the world, but—”
“Marina?” said Rhys. “Who said anything about Marina?”
“But in the tower room. She told me— and your clothes were there—”
“My clothes,” Rhys repeated. And then, under his breath, “That bitch.” His eyes locked on mine. “Marina stole the clothes you saw. She was looking for something. Something she didn’t find. Marina doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, as though shaking her away. “I care what you do, because left to your own devices you’re liable to get yourself killed or arrested and I can’t let that happen because I can’t live without you.”
“What was she looking for—” I started to say before the full impact of his words hit me. “Can— can you repeat that last part?”
Rhys raised a single eyebrow. “You mean the part about how left to your own devices you’re sure to wind up dead or in jail?”
I‘d stopped breathing. “Not that part. The part that came after.”
Rhys furrowed his brow, as if trying to remember. “Did I say something after that?”
I stared at him, speechless, until his eyes met mine.
“Rhys,” I said. “If you don’t—”
His laughter filled the car, the same boyish laughter I’d heard that long-ago day at Ludovisi. “I said I can’t live without you.”
“You— you can’t?”
“You make me crazy. You’ve managed to throw my perfectly ordered life into complete disarray.” He reached an arm around me and pulled me toward him. “You challenge me and surprise me. You see things in me I thought I’d walled up forever. Things I never wanted anyone to see. And instead of hating it, I love it.”
I stared up into those cobalt eyes, stunned. “You do?”
He clasped my hand in his and brought it to his chest. I could feel his heart racing beneath my palm. “I’m in love with you, Lucy Tuesday Flannigan Granite. I love you.”
And then he brought his mouth to mine. And kissed me.
The End