It would have been great if John had reciprocated. Dandy. But it hadn’t happened and, in the end, that didn’t really change anything at all. Because she’d been MFT long before she’d met John, and she was still MFT now.

Mary took one more deep breath, fixed a smile onto her face and went back out to her party.

CHAPTER TEN

“YOU KNOW, IF you hadn’t refused Dad’s money, you could be doing this disgusting little performance in your own penthouse.”

Maddox leaned lazily against his kitchen island, watching John take a bowl of preheated pasta straight to the dome. Despite the towel John had wrapped around his waist, water was pooling at his feet where it dripped from his bathing suit. He swallowed a huge bite and glugged half a glass of seltzer that Maddox had just made him in his seltzer-maker thingy.

John rolled his eyes at his brother’s words, but he didn’t deny them. When he’d first come back into his life, his father had repeatedly tried to reimburse him for the trust fund he would’ve gotten access to at age eighteen, like Maddox had. But John had refused over and over again. Maybe it was the same stubborn streak that Estrella had, the one that had kept her from marrying Cormac after all these years. But John had felt that taking the money would be too transactional. As if his father were paying to exonerate himself from the guilt of abandoning John and Estrella.

Besides, there was something symbolic about a trust fund. It was something you set up for a kid you acknowledged as your own. Like Maddox. It wasn’t just a blank check from an overstuffed bank account twenty-odd years later. The whole thing offended John.

Still, principles had limits and John’s stubborn streak didn’t stop him from coming over to his brother’s house and swimming in his saltwater pool and eating the food his housekeeper stocked the fridge with.

Finally, John finished his food and grabbed a dish towel to mop up the pool water at his feet. “Thanks, man. I needed that.”

“The food or the swim?” Maddox asked, his arms crossed lazily over his chest, his head lolled to one side.

“Both. All. It’s been a hell of a summer so far.”

“Big caseload?”

“Always. And my clients have had some shit luck with grand juries lately. Everything has been getting indicted. And I mean everything.”

“You’re seeing a lot of court time?”

“No.” John shook his head. “Lots of plea deals and kissing ADA ass to keep these kids out of court.” John sighed, suddenly feeling ten years older than he was. “Sometimes I wonder why I even do this whole Sisyphus thing.”