Page 71 of The Beat Match

She closed her eyes and smiled.

Wes tapped her shoulder and held up his phone, the lightness in his eyes eclipsed with dark.

She pulled off her earphones. “What’s up?”

“It’s my father. I’ll just be a minute.”

He was out the door before she could find out why Victor S. Aldrich was calling Wes at one a.m. She tried to ignore her trickle of worry and focus on the music. She played with mixing in snippets of another song, raising the volume and adjusting the bass, but her attention kept snagging on the closed door.

Concerned about Wes, and not trusting his father as far as she could throw him—which wasn’t very far—she removed her headphones and searched for Wes. He wasn’t in the kitchen. Or the bedroom. She almost went upstairs when a muffled voice came from the bathroom. She tiptoed closer.

“No.” Wes’s voice was quiet but angry. More silence, then, “You don’t get to control this. I will not leave her.”

Her? As in Annie? Was his father suggesting they split up?

“This is my life. My choice. And I choose…no. No. How else do you need me to say it? This is not your concern, and I won’t…what did you say? You can’t do that. You have no right.”

His hushed tone had morphed from adamant to furious, landing on panicked. Unable to stand there a second longer, she pushed the door open.

Wes looked at her, his blue eyes vacant, like he was lost.

Her inner pit bull snarled. “Get off the phone with him. Tell him you’ll call back in the morning, or I’m driving over to his mansion and spray painting penises all over the expensive stone.”

Wes didn’t laugh. He pressed the phone closer to his ear, listened for a moment, then laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. “I guess I know where I stand, then.”

He hung up and scrubbed his eyes. “He heard we were out to dinner.”

“And he’d rather burn your inheritance than have me as a daughter-in-law, right?”

Wes didn’t balk at the marriage joke. He leaned into the sink counter. “He has backward views on the type of person I should date, but he’ll get over it. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve heard him talk crap about me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“The night the Bromleys told me they were getting out of the fostering gig, when you brought me to your house, I was a mess over moving. There was a foster kid there I loved, Clementine Abernathy? I promised her we’d stay together, then a week later June told us she was pregnant.”

“I remember that foster home, but you never mentioned Clementine.”

“There was lots I didn’t mention back then.”

His brow wrinkled. “Where did Clementine end up?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed through her discomfort. Annie wished she’d kept in touch with Clementine, made sure the sweet girl had ended up on her feet, but survival mode hadn’t allowed for pen pals and phone friends. “It was hard for me to talk about. I was scared and sad and stubborn and didn’t know what to do. I went to the kitchen that night, too stressed to sleep, and overheard you and your father arguing. I heard what he said about me and my family.”

Wes cringed. “You heard that?”

“At least I know where I stand with him. I’m trash to that man.”

“I could kill him for that.” Wes straightened to his full domineering height, but reached over tenderly and tilted up her chin. “You’re the opposite of trash. You’re creative and smart and are stronger than anyone I know.”

She appreciated his compliments, but they weren’t talking about what mattered. “There was more to that call than him talking shit about me. He threatened you with something.”

He released her chin, a slight snarl curling his lip. “It’s my problem. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Again with his secrets. “I’m getting tired of you telling me what is and isn’t my concern. You need to stop protecting me, or doing whatever it is you’re doing. And while you’re at it, tell me why the idea of me walking two steps down the street on my own has you in a paranoid tizzy.”

He glared at her. She glared harder.