Under the Lights

“It’s a fair decision,” I agreed, but I wondered if it was really what would make him happy. Sometimes the revenge we seek doesn’t meet our expectations. It only hurts us.

“Marry me—move in with me,” Gunner said in that insane tone again he’d used when he had asked me to run away.

“Marry you? Gunner we are seventeen. We can’t marry.” He needed to go to bed. He was getting delirious.

“I’m a multimillionaire. We can do whatever the fuck I want.”

This wasn’t what he really wanted. Right now he wanted to act out and hurt his family because all they’d done was hurt him. I wasn’t going to help him with his plotting. I loved him. It was real. Not a toy or a game.

Standing up, I knew I had to leave. He needed to go home and get some sleep, and I was about to act like a complete girl and cry. He was using my love as a tool like he was using his money. I didn’t want to be a weapon to hurt anyone. That wasn’t what love was about.

“Loving someone doesn’t mean allowing them to use you for their benefit. It just means they have a place in your heart. A place that they earned. I’m going to leave now before you hurt me any more with words you don’t mean. Good night, Gunner.”

He didn’t run after me. He let me go.

I ran toward the house as the tears welled up in my eyes. Loving Gunner Lawton would never be easy. I wasn’t sure he could love me in return. Didn’t matter. I loved him. I just couldn’t bend to his demands. I didn’t owe him anything. He needed to learn that it wasn’t all about that.

With my mind on Gunner’s words and tears blurring my vision, I didn’t see Nonna standing on the front porch until it was too late.

Please Do, Father Dear

CHAPTER 44

GUNNER

Rhett’s bedroom was next to mine. When we had been kids, we’d liked it. But this morning, when I had gotten practically no sleep, I hated it. Him slamming drawers and blaring music was to piss me off. He was acting like I’d done this. How did he figure this shit was my fault?

When something hit the wall between our rooms, I threw my covers back and jumped out of bed. The asshole wanted me awake. Well he had me awake. Storming out of my room, I headed for his and didn’t bother to knock before opening his door and slamming something myself.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I roared.

Rhett was still in his pajama pants, and a basketball was in is hands. Apparently he’d been tossing that at the wall. Real mature, dickhead.

“What? Can’t I move around in my own room now? Or are there rules I don’t know about to keep the king of the castle happy?”

“GOD! Would you listen to yourself? You sound like a ten-year-old with a jealousy issue. I did nothing to you, Rhett. Our mother and your grandfather slept together. I wasn’t alive, but that created me. No way was that my fucking fault. So get a grip and stop acting like a cocksucker.”

Rhett glared at me. I wasn’t sure he’d ever looked at me with so much venom before. Not even when we were younger and actually fought about things. There was pure hatred in his eyes. Even knowing this wasn’t anything I could control, he blamed me.

“Then don’t accept it. Give it to Dad where it belongs. He’s the oldest son. Not you. The inheritance should be his. The OLDEST son’s.” My chest hurt. Once he’d been someone I could rely on to keep me safe. To be on my side. That was all gone now. The greed had taken over.

So that was it. He was the oldest, and he’d been expecting it all. He never planned on us splitting it. Rhett was planning on the entire Lawton inheritance. Probably had been all his life.

“You were expecting all of it, weren’t you?”

He laughed. “Of course. Dad had been promising it to me since I was little. He told me I was the real heir. His heir and that I deserved it. He loved me. He wanted me to have it all. This . . . bullshit about the bastard son getting it isn’t fair. I’ll take you to court. That will won’t stand.”

How had I missed this? Rhett’s selfishness. I was so blinded by how much I looked up to him. But truth was, he was just like his father. He wanted everything, and he didn’t care who got hurt along the way. I looked at him. Really looked at him for the first time. I didn’t see the older brother who I trusted. I saw a younger version of the man who I had once called Father. When had this happened? When had he turned?

“When did you become like him?”

Rhett looked as if he didn’t understand my question. He was so focused on the Lawton fortune he couldn’t see anything else. It was as if I was losing him. Like the brother I had known was no more.

“Who? Dad? I’ve always been like Dad. Which is why I deserve what is his. What is rightfully his.”

He was proud of it. Proud to be like that man. That made no sense to me. Why would anyone want that?

“You weren’t like this before,” I argued, trying to see if any part of the brother I grew up loving was still there.

He rolled his eyes and tossed the ball against the wall and let it fall. “Whatever, Gunner. Just be the bastard that you are and make us take this shit to court. We will. We aren’t letting the bastard son win. It’s not right. That’s not how it’s done. You know that. You know what’s right.”

He was spouting off things he’d heard his father say. Things he believed. They hadn’t told him the truth. His father was protecting that secret, but I knew it now. Mother had made sure to give me what I needed to win. I didn’t want the money to beat them.