The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)(73)

“Totally promise.”

He sounded sincere. Rhiannon sagged against him and rested her head against his shoulder. “I should have checked to see who it was before I opened the door.” Hadn’t she had the rules of how to be wary drummed into her from the time she was a young girl?

“Don’t blame yourself. He shouldn’t have come to your room.”

“I don’t want to sleep here. Not under the same roof as him. I can’t.”

He brushed a kiss over her head. Either she’d imagined his disinterest earlier in the day, or it was simply gone now, because his response was filled with warmth. “You don’t have to. Grab your sweatshirt and put on your shoes and take anything else you’ll need for the night.”





Chapter Twenty-Three


SAMSON WANTED to run along the beach again, but this time, it wasn’t grief and loneliness guiding him.

It was barely banked rage.

You can’t hit Peter.

He’d wanted to, even before he’d learned of the full extent of Peter’s villainy. The second he’d seen the fear in Rhi’s eyes and put together a rough understanding of why she’d sent him that cryptic text, he’d been ready to smash something.

Samson’s fists clenched.

His threat had only been a mild exaggeration. He may not be in the shape he’d been in during his pro-athlete days, but he could put enough power behind his blow to lay a man out cold.

Samson consciously shortened his stride when he noticed Rhi was trotting to keep up with him. He’d told her to grab her shoes, but she’d yanked them off the second they’d hit the soft sand.

It was silent this time of night, the townspeople snug in the glowing warmth of their houses. The full moon cast a silvery curtain over everything, turning the ocean and the large rock formation in the distance into a magical landscape.

Rhi tilted her head toward the ocean. The moonlight caressed her cheeks and forehead, a natural highlight for her luminous dark brown skin. The vibrating tension that had shaken her body in her room had eased as soon as they’d hit the beach and started walking.

She wasn’t herself, though. Normally, her dynamic personality gave her the illusion of being so much bigger. Tonight, with her shoulders hunched and her heart-shaped face pinched, he was conscious of how physically small and fragile she actually was compared to him. Compared to Peter.

He breathed in deep, the familiar salty air and the cool sand between his toes calming him down a little as well. He couldn’t go back to the numbness that had protected him earlier, not while Rhi needed him, but red-hot fury wasn’t productive either. “Can I hold your hand?”

The look she shot him was startled, but after a beat, she held out her hand, and he took it. “You’re a hand holder?” Even her voice was smaller than usual.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess so. Is that a problem?” He’d never been with a woman long enough to determine if he was a hand holder.

Her cold fingers clenched around his. “No.”

Another slice of his mad slipped away. He’d concentrate on making sure she had a safe place to sleep tonight, the night before her big pitch.

Ah jeez. No wonder she’d asked who else was pitching. “Did you know Peter would be here?”

She sighed, the sound carrying on the breeze. “I had a hunch. That night I rushed to your apartment, I had heard a rumor he was cozying up to William.”

His mother had liked to say, if you waited long enough, everything made sense. “Ah.” He didn’t like keeping his aunt in the dark on this, and there was no way he’d let Belle do business with Peter, despite what Rhi had said about her being the only target of his cruel behavior. But he’d figure that out tomorrow. He didn’t want to upset Rhi any more tonight.

“Where are we going anyway?”

He nodded at the weathered blue home as it came into view. “My place.” He’d been relieved That Night, when she’d proposed going to her rental. He wouldn’t have felt comfortable bringing someone into the home he shared with his uncle. When his uncle was alive, that is. Now it was nothing but an empty house.

They walked up the steep stairs leading to the back porch from the beach. The spare key was under a green frog-shaped planter, as it had been his entire life.

He slipped inside the back door and entered the security code. He should change it at some point, he supposed. It was his mother’s birthday still. “Come on in.”

He flipped on the lights in the living room and the kitchen while she placed her small bag on the couch. The place wasn’t musty at all, so he suspected that Aunt Belle had directed someone to come over regularly and air it out. “This is, uh, it.”

“It’s nice. Not what I expected. I thought you would have grown up in a huge house like Belle’s.”

Samson looked around, trying to see the home through Rhi’s eyes. Though sitting on prime real estate, the place was relatively cozy, one giant room split into a kitchen, dining area, and living room. The furniture was large and of good quality, to accommodate his large-framed family, but decidedly dated. Except for his and his uncle’s bedrooms, no one had redecorated in here since his mom had passed. “My parents were pretty frugal.”

“A beautiful place to grow up.”

He softened. Sometimes he avoided thinking about his parents entirely, because his father’s behavior after the Switch had been so painful, but he should probably work on that. They’d had so many good times together. His childhood here had been idyllic. “It was.” He rested his hands on the back of the floral couch. “The place was closed up for a long time. Since my uncle died, and before, too, since my mom died.”