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He shoved that thought aside—even now it burned like acid.
Not that it was the baby’s fault. The pretty little thing looked just like her mother.
Since the split, he and Beth had made their peace, but it had made him leery of relationships.
If Bethany could cheat how was he supposed to trust anyone?
Other than Grant, all they’d had was each other, and even that hadn’t been enough to stop her. Trying to unlove someone who he used to love so deeply had been almost impossible. It was like deleting a downloaded file without being able to uninstall it. There were still bits of the program floating around in his mind’s hard drive, and sometimes he stumbled across them when he least expect to.
The hardest part had been finding out the person he’d loved so intensely hadn’t felt the way he’d thought she had. Obviously, she’d moved on long before the affair. That had just been the nail in the coffin.
The garish flashes of city color tapered to the greens and browns of the suburbs, then to more rural homes. When he’d first moved all the way out here, he’d often driven right past the side road entrance, but now he turned automatically. It was the first place that had felt like home in a long time.
As he pulled up to the driveway, he hit the button on the remote and waited as the metal gate rolled out of the way.
One step down from needing a security guard. Pretty schmancy for a guy who’d lost everything a few years ago and had to figure out how to get his shit together all on his own.
Grant’s bike was in front of the house. Weird.
“Hey, asshole! What are you doing in my house!” he called as he dropped his keys onto the marble-topped entryway table.
He made his way to the kitchen, assuming Grant was raiding his fridge again, but he wasn’t in there. The new kitchen cabinets had only been installed the day before, and he’d been so busy at the club and with Juliet that he hadn’t had a chance to check them out.
Tile and countertop samples were laid out on the battered kitchen table, but he wasn’t in the mood to make those decisions tonight. He stepped over various power tools and untidy cords, barely giving them a second look.
The house had been messy even before the renos had started. Living in his former mess had been training for living in this bigger one. Frankly, he was so used to the perpetual clutter and commotion of contractors that sometimes he forgot about them until things—like cabinets—disappeared or reappeared.
He didn’t really remember choosing the cupboards they’d installed, but they were good. They looked like money, most likely because they’d been expensive. Jude, his contractor for the house reno, was also expensive, but he knew his shit. He’d asked him to do Catacombs, too, but he and his wives were expecting their fourth kid, so he couldn’t take on extra hours.
Wives. Two. He couldn’t imagine having one, let alone two, along with a growing passel of rugrats. The guy owned a big old house out in Cobalt Harbor, too, so it was a bitch of a commute. Good thing he got paid well.
“You went to check on the girl?” Grant asked, strolling into the room and heading, predictably, for the pantry.
“She’s fine. I rushed her last night, but she’ll get over it.”
“And people call me the asshole brother,” Grant muttered, his voice echoing weirdly in the pantry. He came out opening a bag of potato chips.
“Yeah, I fucked that up. Oh well.”
“I asked Arabella where you’d disappeared to last night, but she wouldn’t say. I bet you brought the girl to the attic.”
“So what if I did?”
Grant whistled low. “She must have gotten her hooks into you hard if you brought her up there already. Must have scared her shitless. Isn’t she vanilla?”
“She wasn’t scared,” William growled.
Grant chuckled. “Usually, you’re so chill.” He stuffed his mouth full of chips, and Will was grateful for the pause in his brother’s mockery.
“I doubt it’ll happen again.”
“That bad, huh? She seemed a little too classy for you anyway.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty uptight.”
“She comes from money.”
“She must.”
