The Anti-Hero (The Goode Brothers, #1)(25)

My heart starts to pound a little faster. I lean forward. Here I just wanted a nice breakfast date in hopes that she and I could start over and I could right my wrongs. But she’s manipulated this entire meeting for what…a revenge scheme?

“I’m not interested in outing him if that’s what you’re implying. I’ve thought about it, and I think it would do more damage to my—”

“No,” she says, cutting me off again. “I can’t out him. I can’t out any of them. It would cost the workers at the club too much. It’s not their fault.”

“True,” I reply with hesitation. My curiosity has me laser-focused on every word Sage is saying. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I already know that whatever it is she’s suggesting, I won’t comply with. I’m not interested in revenge or making my father’s downfall my goal in life now, but I am dying to know what she has in mind.

She looks down at her fingers as she chews on her lip, and I wait for her to continue. When her eyes cast upward, they are renewed with purpose.

“You can’t control how he’ll react or what he’ll do. Same with Brett. All we can control is what we do.”

My brow furrows as I stare at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Your family has a good reputation, right?” she asks, and something about Sage mentioning my family makes me slightly uncomfortable. Swallowing that discomfort, I nod.

“Yes.”

“That’s what gives Brett all his power.”

My forehead creases even more as I lean in. “I don’t follow.”

She sits back in her chair as she tries to recompose her argument. “If everyone knew how slimy the Goode boys are, no one would be surprised to hear that Truett himself owns a sex club. And if no one would be surprised, then Brett has nothing to hold over your dad’s head. And if Brett has nothing to hold over his head, he never gets the deed back, and it’s out of his hands forever.”

A heavy breath passes my lips as I stare at her. At that moment, the waitress delivers our plates to the table, but neither of us moves to eat. The space between us lingers in silence as her words hang in the air.

I replay them, briefly wondering if Sage is entirely out of her mind or a manipulative genius.

When a few moments have passed, and I’m still mulling over what I think is a major reach in conclusions, I grab the bottle of ketchup from the tray by the wall.

As I pass it to her, I mumble, “Did you just call the Goode boys…slimy?”

At that moment, I can’t help but compare this meal with the last one I shared with a woman, the day Lucy came to dinner. It’s wildly unfair how there’s something here where there really shouldn’t be.

“Hypothetically,” she replies, taking the bottle and immediately dousing her eggs with the sugary red mess.

“My brothers are not slimy,” I reply as I cover my waffles in syrup.

“It sort of doesn’t matter. If only one of the Goode boys is in the public eye…”

“And that would be me?” I say, finishing her sentence.

With a mouthful of biscuit, she nods. “Mm-hmm.”

“You want me to…be publicly slimy in order to tarnish my family’s reputation, therefore exposing my father for the snake he is and…I got lost at the end there.”





Her shoulders slump in disappointment. “Okay, it’s a reach. I know.”

When I chuckle, lifting my coffee cup to my lips, I watch for a hint of a smile on her face. As she glances back up at me, I catch a tiny flinch in the corner of her mouth.

“What should I do first?” I ask, teasing her. “Rob a bank?

Mug a nun? Sell drugs on the corner? It’s a valiant concept, but I don’t think any of those things are going to hit your boyfriend where it hurts.”

“Ex,” she corrects me. “And you’re right. None of those things would.”

When she takes another bite of her breakfast, I get the lingering suspicion that she has some idea of what would hit her boyfriend where it hurts.

I don’t say a word as she chews and swallows, chasing it down with her coffee. “I’m waiting,” I say with a smirk.

“For?” she teases back.

“What would work. You have an idea, don’t you?”

My eyes get caught on the delicate movement of her fingers again, especially as she sweeps her pink waves out of her face and places her chin in her hand, resting her elbow on the table.

“Oh, that’s where I come in.”

I fight a smile again, watching the way her full lips pout theatrically.

“Go on,” I reply, sitting back and crossing my arms, doing my best to keep my expression stern and serious.

“Well…what would upset your family’s squeaky-clean reputation more than me?”

A scoff bursts through my lips.

“What on earth do you plan on doing to my family?”

“Dating you, of course.”

I’m reaching for my coffee cup, my arm frozen in midair.

Dating?

A lot of thoughts start to swirl through my mind at this moment. The first one is me questioning if Sage is using this elaborate plan as a strategy to get me into bed—again.

Although I guess there wasn’t really a bed involved at all the first time. But that’s where things feel muddled and wrong, so I breeze past that thought and directly into the next.