Page 24 of The Last Goodbye

“We’ll see about that, Bass Bennett.” Her teeth caught on her bottom lip, and she smiled, and for a second I just looked at her.

She was here to make a deal.

Nothing more.

I needed to remember that.

The thought hit just as I noticed the time again.

“Where are you staying?” I asked before I could overthink it.

Her brows lifted slightly. “Why?”

“Because it’s after one o’clock in the morning,” I said flatly. “And I don’t love the idea of you wandering around alone in the dark at this hour. I mean, I’ve already been attacked this evening.”

She laughed.

I kept my tone even, like it meant nothing. “I’ll walk you home.”

And for once, Briar didn’t argue.

six

​. . .​

Briar

I adjusted my laptop as my father’s face came into view. My stomach dipped, since the man always made me nervous.

He had a gift for showing zero emotion in meetings. His resting dick face was the best I’d ever seen.

His face was hard, eyes serious, and shoulders stiff—as if he was ready for battle at all times.

My relationship with my dad was complicated, starting out with the fact that I hadn’t met him until the end of my sophomore year of college. My mother told me that he’d lied to her about not being a married man, and she’d ended things with him after she’d found out the truth. Shortly after, she learned that she was pregnant with me. She reached out to him, thinking she owed him the truth about him being a father, but he didn’t want anything to do with either of us.

She’d despised the man.

I should hate him too, right?

I did for many years. But after my mother passed away my freshman year in college, I’d felt extremely alone. My mom didn’t have any siblings, and she’d also been raised by a single mother, Granny Sinclair. We’d always been close—it was the three of us against the world from the day I was born.

I lost my mom first, and six months later, Granny passed away in her sleep.

The doctors had given her three months to live after she’d also been diagnosed with cancer, but I was convinced she’d died of a broken heart after losing her daughter.

And I was left alone with a broken heart after losing the two most important people in my life and being forced to carry on all on my own.

It was a brutal time for me. I leaned on my roommate and close friend, Savannah, who decided that the only gift worth giving her grieving bestie was the gift of genetics.

So, the following Christmas, I went home with her to spend the holidays with her family, who gifted me the 23andMe genetic test.

I’d never even been curious about my father. I’d always imagined he was some sort of deadbeat playboy who’d left my mom high and dry when he ran home to his wife. She’d never shared much about him, other than the fact that he’d been married and abandoned her.

Abandoned us.

I found my half brother, Denton Winchester, through the genetic test, and I reached out to him. We met for coffee, and, long story short, he brought me home to meet my family.

My brother was actually nothing like our father, at least not from my perspective. Yes, he had shrewd business skills, and I’d seen him close deals that seemed impossible. But outside of work, he was warm and funny and genuine.