Page 101 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man

“Done. But I need to see you get rid of it myself.”

I watched as he deleted the video.

I pointed to his phone. “Go into your deleted files and remove it from there, too.”

He sighed but did as I asked.

I reached into my wallet, took out a crisp fifty, and handed it to him.

Heath smiled. “Nice doing business with you.”

“I sure as heck hope you can put that ballsiness of yours to good use someday.”

Devyn walked into the living room. “What did my brother do now?”

“Nothing.” I slipped my wallet back into my pocket. “He’s good.”

She flashed him a skeptical look before announcing, “Dinner’s ready.”

“Thanks, Dev.”

I walked into the kitchen to find Owen at the table feeding their baby boy, named Devon after Devyn—same pronunciation, different spelling.

Owen looked up from the small jar of sweet potatoes he was feeding Devon. “So, how was your weekend in the Hamptons?”

I’d told Holden I was going to the Hamptons and never clarified the change in plans. He must have told Owen. I shook my head as I took a seat next to him. “I didn’t end up going.”

His eyes widened. “You chickened out?”

“Not exactly.”

I filled him in on the Ryan’s House project resuming, canceling on Lacey, and finished up with my intense encounter with Alex in Seneca Falls.

Owen scraped the bottom of the glass jar with a spoon. “So, you told her you’re seeing someone else?”

“Yep. I kind of had to when she saw the name pop up on my phone.”

“That’s not true. You could’ve lied.”

“What’s lying going to achieve at this point? It’s not like Alex and I have a chance. There was no reason to hide anything.”

“So that’s good that she found out, right? Don’t you think it will help you both move on?”

“Well, Alex isn’t currently seeing anyone, so not sure how much this is going to help her. It certainly didn’t help me move on when I thought she was seeing someone else. It just made everything harder to swallow.”

“How did you leave things with her?”

“She looked hurt after I admitted I was seeing Lacey. She went quiet after that, and I let her be. There wasn’t anything I could do to make the situation easier. If I’d told her my feelings for Lacey were nothing compared to how I still felt about her?” I shook my head. “I can’t be around her without wanting to reach out and touch her, either.” I rubbed my temples. “It’s so damn hard.”

“You never saw each other besides at the house?”

“Well, just for a minute at the bar that one night. We worked at the house during the days and went back to our respective hotel rooms.” I looked away. “She was hurt. And it was hard to see that. But if she’s not going to change her mind about us, maybe it is better if she thinks things are more serious with Lacey than they are.”

“Speaking of that, what is the deal with Lacey?”

“Well, I agreed to go to the Hamptons with her when I thought Alex had moved on, because I was forcing myself to do the same. Now I’m not sure what the deal is, but Lacey and I are gonna see each other tomorrow night.”

“So you’re not really ready to go there with her.”

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