Page 83 of Where She Belongs

That was the part that didn’t fit. Not the woman. The nothing.

He had one sentence to say and every reason on earth to say it. She had asked him out loud, in front of her aunt and her friends and a man she despised, and Tate Dennison looked her in the face and kept his mouth shut.

Keeping it shut had cost him. She hadn’t worked out what.

A knock at the door drew her focus and she sighed as she tossed her blanket to the side and opened the door. Then she sighed again and leaned against the doorjamb. “What do you want, Alex?”

He bristled. “Is that any way to talk to the man who wants nothing but the best for you?”

She arched a brow. “I beg your pardon?”

Alexander’s jaw flexed and he glanced past her into the house as if to check there wasn’t any chance of being overheard. Then he lowered his voice. “I care about you, Rylee. I always have. And it’s important for me to point out to you that what you’re doing here is only going to make you miserable.”

Rylee looked at him with clear disdain and he got her message. He straightened and folded his arms defensively.

“I know you might not see it, but this whole thing you’re doing? Moving out into the middle of nowhere? It’s not healthy. You don’t belong here.”

She winced against her will. That was exactly how she’d felt when she first got here, but she quickly reminded herself that Alexander’s opinion meant nothing. “Well, you’re free to think anything you like, but my decisions are none of your business.”

Alexander smiled, and for once it looked real. He actually looked relieved.

Rylee rolled her eyes and pointed between the two of them. “This isn’t going to happen.”

“Oh, come on, Rylee. You’re tired or something. You’re not thinking straight,” he insisted. “We make sense, Rylee. Same world. Same people. We’re meant to be together.” His eyes shifted to a spot behind her and that was when Rylee sensed someone behind her.

Roxy was no doubt eavesdropping. She probably had a whole bunch to say about that little performance. But Rylee wasn’t going to let either one of them get into her head. If there was any chance of Rylee finding the kind of love her father had described, Tate was the only one she could even imagine having that place in her life.

Before she could answer Alexander, Roxy stepped closer. “Unfortunately, Mr. King, Rylee doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Rylee whirled around to glower at her aunt. “I told you, I’m leaving. I’ll stick around until the end of summer, but I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I think I know you better than you realize, dear.” Roxy smiled sweetly. “And I might not know that boy very well, but even I could see he’s only got eyes for you.”

Alexander blustered at Rylee’s back. “That cowboy?”

Rylee ignored him, folding her arms. “Tate did nothing to fight for me. He just… walked away.”

“That’s because he’s guilty,” Alexander insisted. “Your niece deserves better.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. King.”

There was something new in Roxy’s voice. Rylee had heard her aunt charm a ballroom and freeze a waiter with equal ease, but this was a tone she didn’t recognize. Pleasant on top, granite underneath was new for Roxy.

“I beg your pardon?” Alexander said.

“You should beg my pardon.” Roxy stepped fully onto the porch, and from her handbag she drew a folded sheaf of papers. “I told my niece you came from good breeding. I vouched for you, Mr. King. I do not enjoy being made a fool of. I won’t stand for more of it. So after that circus you just staged in this yard, I made some calls. I know your mother’s people, and I know your accountant’s people, which turns out to be considerably more useful.”

Alexander had gone very still. “I don’t know what you think⁠—”

“Sweetheart. Don’t.” Roxy unfolded the papers with the air of a woman opening a menu she already knew by heart. “King Holdings is leveraged past its eyebrows. The Manhattan property carries two liens. Your father has been quietly shopping the Hamptons house since March, and unless a very large amount of money marries into that family soon, you will be filing for bankruptcy protection by spring.” She looked up at him over the top of the pages. “Rylee, darling, remind me what I told you your inheritance would come to, once everything settles?”

Rylee couldn’t speak. The porch had gone airless.

“That’s slander,” Alexander managed, but his face had drained to the color of old paste.

“It’s arithmetic,” Roxy said. “Slander would require it to be false, and we both know it isn’t, because you have known it longer than anyone. That is why a man who never crossed a bridge out of Manhattan in his life has spent his whole summer in Montana, chasing a girl who told him no the first week.” She refolded the papers, unhurried. “All of this would be far too easy to fact-check, Mr. King. One call.”

“You—” Alexander’s jaw worked. “You can’t⁠—”