“Any lawyer of mine should be. She ought to know that there might be some compromising photos of me in Peter’s hands. He didn’t use them, because he knew I had all this, but he might go nuclear now.”
“Girl, my nudes could wallpaper my house. We’ll take care of you.”
Rhiannon’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”
Lakshmi brought the phone closer to her face. “You know we all believe in you, right? My living room is full of heart eyes right now.”
Rhiannon licked her lips and tasted salt. “I see that. Thank you. Can you let Katrina know I’m okay?”
“Of course. She was actually watching virtually in the living room through my computer, though, so she saw you. Are you sure you want to go to your brother’s right now? You could come home.”
She yearned to go back to California. But no. She couldn’t flake on Gabe’s engagement party, not when her family had undoubtedly seen this piece. “How many times has my mom called you?”
“Not important.”
“Yeah, I have to go to my brother’s.” Funny how she couldn’t bring herself to call the town she’d grown up in home. Her family, though, that was a home. “Only for the party. Get me out of there by late tomorrow evening.”
“Hang on.” The screen went blank, Lakshmi was silent for a moment, and then she was back and spit out some gate info. “Go there. Private jet. I’ll charter another one to be waiting for you tomorrow. You want me to intercept your calls and texts for now?”
“Yes. Actually . . .” she hesitated. She’d never said the following words before, in her life. “I’m going to turn my phone off for the next twenty-four hours. If there are any emergencies . . .”
“There won’t be. We can handle it. I’ll call Sonya and tell her when to pick you up from the airport. Turn your phone off and keep it off.”
“I will. Hey. Was that Tina I saw in your living room?”
Lakshmi gave a sheepish shrug. “What can I say? Don’t worry, we’re only friends for now.”
Rhiannon smiled, even as a wave of sadness went through her. Samson. God. She’d avoided thinking about him since she’d left Annabelle’s house. Had he seen the show? Had he texted or called her?
Would he, after she’d accused him of something he hadn’t done? I guess Swype was looking to buy another company, and the owner of that company called me.
It was highly probable Annabelle hadn’t found out about Peter from Samson, but from her own due diligence. Meanwhile, she’d flipped out on Samson.
“Rhiannon? You have to get to your gate.”
“Right. Goodbye.” She hung up and looked down at her phone. It only stayed silent for a second before it buzzed with another text.
She almost braved her in-box, to see what, if anything, Samson had sent, but she simply couldn’t do it. She pressed the button on the side and powered it off.
She tugged her sleeves down and grabbed her bags. Since she still felt exposed, she pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and kept her gaze down as she made her way through the airport.
Her phone, a useless piece of glass and metal now, was blessedly, finally, silent.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
HER LITTLE brother had always been a soft soul, but from the second he’d picked her up from the airport Gabe was extra gentle with her. Rhiannon knew he must have seen the show, or at least the clip of her interview, but he danced around discussing it, instead chatting inanely about the engagement party.
She’d rather talk about the show. She’d rather talk about literally anything else.
“Anyway then the cloths were more an off-white than an eggshell, so I said—”
“If you explain the difference between various shades of not-white to me now, I will tuck and roll out of this moving car,” she said, without opening her eyes.
He clicked his tongue. “Fair enough, fair enough.”
She rolled her head to look at him. He was her adopted brother, so they didn’t look alike—Gabe was white passing, big and strong and bearded, like a lumberjack. He was also tattooed all over, a side effect of his profession as a tattoo artist.
He was marrying an heiress, so he had cleaned up a bit for the engagement party tomorrow. His beard was neatly trimmed, his hair a little shorter than shoulder length. But he was still her little brother. “You saw the show.”
Gabe kept his gaze determinedly on the road. “Let’s wait to get home to discuss it.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, though Rhiannon looked around in surprise when he pulled up in front of a tidy little house. “We’re not staying at the Chandlers’?” Gabe’s fiancée, Eve, lived in her family mansion, and Gabe had moved in there a while ago, leaving his own home vacant.
“No. I thought it would be more comfortable for us to stay here.”
And they’d have privacy. Always thinking of people’s feelings and whatnot, her brother. She got out of the car and followed him to the door.
They’d barely cleared the threshold of the living room before Rhiannon was swallowed up in a giant hug. She wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her back, burying her face in her neck and inhaling the scent of apples.
She started to cry when her brother also put his arms around them. She was embraced from every side, and the sensation was so beautiful, she couldn’t contain herself. They weren’t delicate, tiny tears, because nothing about her was delicate or tiny, but deep and racking sobs.
Her mother let her carry on for a few minutes before pulling back and wiping at Rhiannon’s cheeks. She was also weeping, Rhiannon noted, through her own haze of tears. “There, there,” Sonya whispered. “You’re with family now. No one’s going to hurt you or point a camera at you here.”
This was true. No one would come here to Rockville to shove a mic in her face. “I’m thirsty.”
Gabe ushered her to the couch. “I’ll make some tea. Sit down.”
Sonya perched on the coffee table in front of Rhiannon and seized her hands, chafing them between her own. Rhiannon wasn’t cold, but it felt so good to be touched and held in any way, she didn’t complain. “I’m glad he’s calmed down,” Sonya whispered. She tipped her head at the wall.
Rhiannon raised her eyebrows at the fist-sized hole in the drywall. “Gabe did that?”
“He got so angry when we watched the interview. I’ve never seen him like that. Don’t say anything.”
Sweet, peaceful Gabe?
Rhiannon took in her brother’s scratched-up knuckles when he came back to the living room. Yeah. He’d punched the wall. For her?
Gabe handed a glass of whiskey to their mother and gave her a mug. Rhiannon dunked the tea bag into the mug and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Sonya demanded. “I knew that Peter was bad news. From the moment I met him, I knew he wasn’t any good. Something weaselly in his face.”
Rhiannon had thought Sonya loved Peter. He was wealthy and traditional and had also criticized Rhiannon’s taste in clothes. “I’m sorry for the inevitable blowback this is going to cause for you guys.”
Gabe rested his mug on his knee. “If there’s any blowback, it’s going to be on you, Rhi. We’re way more worried about you.”