“And don’t”—Thane’s voice was a quiet boom around the room—“you dare talk to Regan like that again.”
“Stacey.” Dad moved around me to Mom’s side. “Calm down. Okay? They’re both adults and you’re saying things to our daughter you’re going to regret. How you’re feeling is not about this, and you know it.”
“Of course it is. Regan has proven once again she is not an adult. But you”—she turned on Thane as he rounded the table—“how could you do this? Take advantage of my daughter? A grown man, a father!”
“She’s twenty-five.” Robyn joined the argument. “Seth is right—they are both adults. You’re acting like she’s sixteen and underage. This is none of our business, and frankly, you’re blowing it completely out of proportion. But what’s new, Mom?”
“You knew!” Mom accused. “You knew and you let this go on? You allowed this to happen to your sister?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t start that rubbish under my roof,” Lachlan warned her. “It is not Robyn’s responsibility to police Regan’s behavior. Regan is a grown woman whether you want to accept that.” He turned to Thane. “But you … what the hell were you thinking?”
Thane narrowed his eyes, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Just what Robyn said—that I’m a grown man, and she’s a grown woman, and it’s nobody’s business but ours.”
“I’m not talking about that.” Lachlan shoved away from the table, his brow furrowed with concern. “I’m talking about the secrecy. The sneaking around. Why not be up-front about it? Did you think we would judge you?”
Mom huffed at my back, and it took everything within me not to pour the nearby jug of ice water over her head just to cool off her psychotic ass.
“No.” Thane gave a sharp swipe of his head. “But what was the point? Eilidh finding us was a mistake. It’s not permanent between us. Regan will be leaving in six weeks.”
I physically stumbled away from his words. He had his back to me, facing Lachlan, so he didn’t see my reaction. But my dad put his hand on my shoulder, and he gave me a comforting squeeze. Devastation crashed over me.
I was always just temporary to him.
He would never change his mind.
“Exactly!” Mom pushed past us, and Thane turned to her, scowling like she was a bug he wanted to squash. “She’s just drifting from one place to the next, not caring whose heart she breaks, and those kids’ hearts are clearly going to be broken.” She looked at me. “You’ve insinuated yourself into their lives far beyond that of a nanny, and it is wrong, Regan. It might be the worst thing you’ve ever done, young lady.”
Ignoring her hurtful words, I moved toward Thane. “You don’t believe that.”
His gaze roiled with a million emotions, but he didn’t respond.
“You know I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” I exhaled a shaky breath, desperation taking control. “I don’t want anyone else but you.”
Thane’s lips parted as his eyes searched mine.
“And I’m sure you believe that, but he shouldn’t,” Mom interrupted. “Your word is not reliable. Just ask Robyn.”
My temper snapped. Whirling on my mother, I shrieked, “For Christ’s sake, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up!”
She blanched in shock.
“Amen to that,” Brodan muttered under his breath from his spot at the table.
“I can’t believe you spoke to me like that,” Mom whispered, tears in her eyes.
“As opposed to the way you speak to her?” Thane sneered.
“All right, everyone just calm down,” Dad said, pulling Mom into his side and rubbing her shoulder. “We’re all hyped up and saying shit we don’t mean.”
Mom pulled from his hold and came to me, clutching my hands. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry for the way I said it, but we both know there’s truth in what I said. You’ll fill this poor man’s head with ideas and then grow bored and move on.” She squeezed me closer. “You’re so young emotionally, and that’s okay. That’s who you are. You just … you just need to come home and grow up a little.”
I yanked my hands out of her grip. For the first time in my life, my mom’s behavior truly disgusted me. “You don’t know me. You have never known me. You project your idea of who I am onto me just as you projected your idea of Robbie onto her. All you care about is not being left behind, and you manipulate things to keep me where you want me—by your side. Well, I’m not who you say I am, and I never have been.”
“Regan—”
I pushed past her and grabbed a hold of Thane’s arms. He was stiff and unyielding beneath my touch, but I held on. “Please don’t listen to her. You know me. And if I thought for one second, you could love me back the way I love you … I would never leave you.”
It was not how I wanted to confess my feelings to him. But my drama-queen mother had forced us into this situation. And I needed to know I wouldn’t lose Thane because of it.
However, as he continued to stare blankly at me, I realized it was too late.
Releasing my grip, I whispered, “You don’t believe me.”
Something snapped in Thane’s expression, and he took a firm hold of my wrist and led me to Lachlan’s memorabilia room. When he closed us inside, I opened my mouth to apologize about my mom, but Thane’s pitying look stopped me.
My stomach flipped unpleasantly. I already knew what was coming, and it felt like my chest was about to cave in.
“You’re only twenty-five, Regan. Why the hell would you want to settle down in a wee place like this with a man whose adventure days involve taking his kids to a local safari every summer? You might think you want this now because the sex is good, but you’d wake up in a year or two years’ time and realize what a giant mistake it was. You’ll feel stuck. You might even stay for the kids and grow to resent me for it. I won’t do that to you. I won’t do that to me.”
“That’s not true.”
“No? Well, if that doesn’t happen, there’s the fact that when I’m sixty, you’ll still only be forty-seven, and I might not look so good to you then.”
Anger boiled in my blood. “That’s not how love works, Thane. You’ll always be handsome to me, even when I’m eighty and you’re ninety-three, you’ll be the most handsome man I’ve ever seen because it’s you, and I don’t just see the Adair good looks when I look at you. I see you.”
He scowled at me in silence.
My heart broke. “You don’t trust me to know my own feelings?”
“I’ve been there before. My experience means I see things you can’t.”
“Been there before?” I shook my head, not understanding—
And then it hit me.
Fran.
Cheating.
“I’m not her.” I glared at him, outraged by the suggestion. “I wouldn’t need to get my kicks somewhere else because of something as pathetic as FOMO.” I didn’t care if I was disparaging Eilidh and Lewis’s mom. She’d betrayed Thane because of her fear of missing out, and that he would compare me to her made me lose my mind. “You’re it for me. You are what thrills me. You excite me in a way no man ever has.”