Chapter 24
I deserved a fucking Oscar for this shit.
All those times I’d wondered how Luke could be rich and down-to-earth were blown to smithereens with this new question. How the fuck was he sane, given who raised him?
Elizabeth and James Dorset were criminal level when it came to being snobs.
I didn’t know a word bad enough that would adequately describe all they were.
Racists, classists, bigots, prejudiced, closed-minded and small-minded, elitists and fascists.
Their arrogance was at such a level my patience was tested, and I had five younger siblings.
Every word out of their mouths had been tinged with one overtone of asshole or another.
I had excused myself to a bathroom to calm down but couldn’t take the time to do so because leaving their presence left Luke alone with them. Maybe he had tougher skin than mine, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him spending one more second with them.
I couldn’t even splash water on my face because of the stupid makeup, so I just stared at the sink, counted to ten, and then stormed right back out.
Pretty. I’d thought this house pretty when we first arrived. Now the gilded walls and polished marbled floors were rank with—ugly. Fuck these people. They were flat out ugly. I hated sharing the term Southerner with them. They disgusted me.
“Darling, I’m not sure what this dalliance is, but get it out of your system quickly.” Mrs. Dorset’s voice carried from a room ahead of me in the hall. I slowed my steps, not bothering to tiptoe. She wasn’t speaking softly and probably didn’t care if I could hear them or not.
“This isn’t a dalliance, Mother,” Luke said.
“Son, you don’t marry women like that,” his daddy said.
“Maybe you both have forgotten I’m thirty-four. While I appreciate your concern and advice, I can make my own decisions.”
Luke said that way nicer than I would’ve.
During the terminally long torture session—aka dinner, which I’d had the pleasure of sitting too near his parents for—his daddy had asked about my net worth and that of my parents, my portfolio, and my five-year plan.
His momma asked how many men were in my family, if I had any hereditary diseases, and my stance on women working after they got married.
What the actual fuck? Color me surprised when she hadn’t demanded a physical exam to test my fertility right there at the obnoxiously long table.
These people were ridiculous, and not in a fun way.
“Indeed, Luke,” his daddy replied. “You’re in your thirties. Start acting like it. You need to let your mother find the right wife for you and stop with this, this, whatever that woman is to you.”
“Both of you should get used to the idea.” The clip of shoes got louder but stopped. “I’ve made my choice.”
Me? His choice was me?
Luke stepped into the hallway and snapped his head around to face me. I didn’t hide the fact that I’d been there and heard all of it. He didn’t seem to mind. Luke held out his hand, I took it, and we turned for the front door.
We hadn’t even made it to midnight, and I really didn’t fucking care.
Marcus waited with our coats in that creepy butler way of knowing what was needed before it happened.
“It was very nice to meet you,” I said to him, accepting my coat with a smile and trying like crazy not to let Luke’s parents make me forget my manners. The shitty attitude of his employers wasn’t his doing.
Luke’s pace increased once we were outside, and his burst of energy was infectious. He handed me into the Range Rover, then jogged around to the driver’s side. I slid out of my coat and tossed it to the back seat while I waited for him.
He didn’t take a breath and didn’t drop his shoulders into place until we were on the other side of his parents’ gate.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, as if maybe he thought I was about to yell at him too.
“Are you?” I countered.
Luke sighed slowly. “Yes. Yes, I’m used to them. Tonight, they were in rare form, though, worse than normal.”
“Because of me.”
“Possibly.”
“It wasn’t a question.” I kicked off my heels, suddenly hating that I was dressed as Ashley. I needed to be all me, to be authentic, and scrub my soul of their contamination. I pulled my feet into the seat with me and hugged my legs.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
I turned to stare at him as he faced forward. The glow of the instrument panel highlighted how wildly his jaw muscles ticked and how he tightened and flexed his hands on the steering wheel.
“What do you need, Luke?” I’d give it to him.
If he needed space, as much as I hated the thought, I’d leave him alone.
His parents just told him I was gutter trash under his shoe and to step on me but leave me in the street.
I couldn’t imagine what was in his mind, but if he needed a moment to sort through that, then I would understand.
Well, I’d do my best to understand.
“I need you to tell me where you want to go,” he gritted out.
“Your place.”
He darted a glance at me, then nodded with his face forward again. He didn’t say if that was what he wanted or needed when I hoped he would, but it was what I needed. I needed to be alone with him. I needed to wash away the last few hours with something that was only him and only me.
I rested my chin on my knees and didn’t say a word as he turned north. The shadowy forest lining the road faded as city life grew thicker around us.
Cressmann loomed ahead, and we kept straight for the heart of it.
I didn’t know where we were. I didn’t know this part of the city beyond the recognizable skyline.
The streets Luke took us along were much quieter, but the tall buildings were still in view.
Warehouses and businesses lined the roadway, but with one turn, it changed into something more residential.
He pulled into a below-ground parking structure. The low ceiling and rows of cars made it uncomfortably cramped compared to the night sky it replaced. When he stopped at a numbered space and turned the engine off, he didn’t move to get out.
“I might not be great company tonight.”
I dropped my feet and reluctantly reached for my heels. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”
He’d said I could make him laugh or smile when in the worst of moods. This might be a true test of that.
He didn’t, though, not even a twitch of his lips. He nodded as if he were too tired to do anything but give in.
Right. Challenge, it would be.
When he still didn’t move, I opened my door. “Come on. At least show me your toilet. I’ve had to piss for an hour.”
He didn’t laugh or smile.
I grabbed my bag, and he reached for our coats. The parking level wasn’t as cold as the night had been, but my thin shirt allowed the chill to dampen my desperate mood further.
Luke walked to an elevator. I followed. I wasn’t liking this attitude of his at all. Once inside the car, I thought about closing the distance, getting cozy under his shoulder, but he did that stranger thing where you stare at the changing numbers on the screen to not make eye contact.
Well, okay, then.
The elevator stopped on his floor, and we walked into a wide hallway with three doors. Artwork hung on a wall. Two doors had homey wreaths hanging off them. The one Luke stopped in front of did not.
I was about to see where he slept and ate, another piece to his life revealed. So far, it seemed like a nice apartment building, but a little impersonal.
Luke unlocked the door and held it open for me. The interior was dark. My heels clipped on a wooden floor. A dim light from somewhere ahead cast shadows.
“This way,” Luke said as he brushed past me, the door self-closing behind him.
I followed him deeper into his home. He didn’t turn on any lights as we went, then flipped the switch in a hallway with stairs leading up.
“Bathroom,” he said simply as he opened the door beside us.
I thanked him and rushed inside. There was only a sink and a toilet. Though I wanted a shower, I actually did need to pee. I took care of it quickly and washed my hands. When I came out, Luke had turned on a lamp in the living room and stood next to a wet bar.
“Drink?” he asked, back toward me.
“I’m nineteen.”
He slammed his glass down. “Fuck.”
I could kill his parents right now. But they weren’t here. I slipped my shoes off and padded to him. Luke rested both hands on the marble in front of him and had his head bowed between his shoulders. I pressed my palms to his back and smoothed them higher until I could knead his tight neck muscles.
“Luke.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“About what?”
“Tonight. My family. The inquisition.” He sighed. “I dunno. The food, the cold, every pothole I drove over. I just … Fuck. Why do I feel like everything is my fucking fault?”
I wished for an answer, for any answer to make him forgive himself. In this moment, one of the rare times in my life, words eluded me. Instead, I rubbed his arms and lay against his slanted back.
“Mind if I shower?” I whispered. “This makeup is getting old.”
“Yeah.” Luke straightened, and I had to relinquish my position. He didn’t ask me to follow him, but I did.
Up the stairs, there were two bedrooms. He led me to the larger one, then to the bathroom within.
“Use whatever you want,” he said as he flipped the light on. The harsh contrast made us wince. Then he blinked and turned away. “I’ll be downstairs,” he muttered on his way out, disappearing around the corner.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
His bathroom was about the size of my dorm room.
The shower stall was all glass next to a deep soaking tub I’d try if I didn’t need to get rid of Ashley as quickly as possible.
I stripped, grimacing at the clothes, even the panties, that represented a facade I never wanted to be associated with again.