is more of a state of mind for this gig. What it really means is—is loners, I guess,” she said.
“I’m not a loner.” No, I’m a block of fucking wood.
“I mean people who are in Sydney with no one to spend Christmas with.”
Silence.
And then she cocked her head to one side, examining him. “Not a loner?”
“No.” Granite. Not wood, granite.
“’Cause you always seemed to like to be alone. Even when you were with the others you were...well, alone.”
How to explain that it wasn’t that he liked to be alone, he just was alone.
Impossible.
Because then he’d have to talk about the grief. He’d have to admit that he’d lost more than a sister when Cassandra died twelve years ago—he’d lost part of himself. And he didn’t want anyone else to know that, because they’d want him to find it again, and it was too late to look for it because that wasn’t him anymore.
Yep, impossible.
And so he raised his glass to take a sip of whiskey and said nothing.
“Or maybe it was that you just did your own thing,” she mused. “You never let yourself be pressured into any of Matt’s crazier schemes, at least not until n—” She stopped abruptly, but Teague finished the sentence in his head: not until now.
Slowly, deliberately, he put his glass on the table. “Am I—are we—in one of Matt’s schemes?” he asked. “Is that why I’m here?”
She put down her mug, licked her bottom lip. “You know why you’re here, Teague. At least, you know part of it.”
He reached into his shirt pocket for the small velvet he’d shoved in there before disembarking from the plane. The bag he’d scrupulously not looked into the whole damn flight. He held it out to her.
She watched him, not her hands, as she took the bag and unzipped it. It wasn’t until her eyes dropped that he let himself look down to see what was so important it had to come with him rather than be sent via a courier.
A ring.
His vision narrowed to the glitter of the platinum band in the sunlight, the cool glow of the emerald center stone, the intense sparkle of surrounding diamonds. But the telling thing was that she’d slipped it onto the third finger of her left hand.
“It’s prettier than I remembered,” she said.
White-hot rage coursed through him at those words. Prettier than she remembered? How the fuck could she not remember it exactly? God, what had Matt done to him? Why lay the burden of this history on him now, when it was too damn late? He didn’t want it. Didn’t want to know. But it was there. No going back.
Matt had once proposed to Frankie.
Matt had once been in love with Frankie.
Matt had waited until he and Teague were alone and pressed for time before co-opting Teague into returning the ring to Frankie—which had to mean Romy knew nothing about it.
Teague picked up his glass again, raised it to his mouth and knocked back a gulp of whiskey as the enormity of what it meant almost overwhelmed him. The enormity of what he’d lost.
Romy, he’d lost Romy. No, worse than that—he’d given her away. He’d pleaded Matt’s case for him when Romy had been prepared to move on from Matt, because Matt had never loved anyone except her and Matt was torturing himself over her. A once-in-a-lifetime love shouldn’t be denied—that was how Teague had consoled himself. And now...
Oh, God! God! Now to discover Romy wasn’t Matt’s once-in-a-lifetime love? To learn Matt had loved another woman enough to propose to her?
He shot to his feet, knowing he was about to lose his shit.
“Where are you going?” Frankie asked, startled.
Hell—I’m going to hell. “Thanks for the whiskey.”
She stayed sitting, giving him a quizzical look. “Why are you brooding at me?”
“I’m not brooding.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I don’t brood. Rafael broods.”
“Rafael only ever brooded in Veronica’s direction. You brood all over the place, you always did. It’s just that you’re an iceberg, so it’s hidden beneath the surface. It’s irresistible, you know. Makes women wonder what lies beneath.”
That threw him, so much that it took him a moment to relocate his voice. “I don’t brood,” he said again—it seemed to be the best he could come up with.
She leaned back in her chair. “Okay, you don’t brood, and you’re not irresistible. Happy?”
“Yes. No. I don’t—” He stopped abruptly, telling his feet to move. Frustrating as hell when they wouldn’t.
She sighed gustily. “Taking a wild guess here, but did Matt not explain any of the background to the ring?”
“He doesn’t have to explain it to me, only to—” He cut himself off again, bit his lip to stop her name from coming out of his mouth.
Her eyes narrowed. “Not to you, but to...Romy?” She sighed. “Romy. Of course. I see.”
And because the thought of her “seeing” enraged him when he’d been hiding it for so long, the words “You see what?” snapped out of him like a whip. He was almost vibrating with the need to tell her she was wrong.
“Things you don’t see, Teague. Things you could never see, things you seem to be unready to see even now, things you might never see even if someone waves them in front of your face before beating you over the head with them.” She stood then, too, as though spoiling for a fight. “But you know what? Good for Romy. Lucky Romy, to have two men so devoted to her, so in love with her for so damn long their brains turn to mush!”
“I didn’t say I’m in love with her,” he said, way too loud.
She snorted. “Oh, please, don’t even. That year I spent in DC there were plenty of women who wanted a piece of you, but they all knew they were wasting their time. The only one who didn’t know how you felt about Romy was Romy—and that was willful ignorance, because if she’d let herself see it she’d have had to let you go.”
“She did let me go. She’s married. They’re married! They have Rose now.”
“And Romy made you Rose’s godfather—which means, bozo, she’s not letting you go.” She rubbed the heels of her hands over her forehead and made a sound redolent of both frustration and disgust. “And why should she when you won’t let yourself go?”
“There’s
