Chapter 11
eleven
ISABELLE
A hot, liquid feeling built in my chest, and I pushed it down as far as I could as I drove away from The Clutch.
It was guilt, and want, and shame and… delicious, needy desire, all at once.
That had been, hands down, the wildest thing I’d ever done.
I’d stopped being Isabelle Lancaster for one blisteringly hot moment, and become someone else.
Someone wild and spontaneous. Someone free.
I parked and sat in the dim parking lot outside my dorm building, letting my mind go over every detail of the night while the engine cooled.
A flicker of the streetlight in my rearview mirror caught my attention.
A dark figure sat at the edge of the lot, just beyond the streetlight’s reach.
I let my eyes adjust until I recognized the figure’s shape.
A lone person sitting on a motorcycle. The headlight was turned off, but in the silence, now that I was paying attention, I could hear the low growl of the engine.
Cole? Had he followed me? A pleasant heat snuck through me at the idea.
Did he want to go home together? I squirmed at the thought.
It was flattering as hell, hot beyond words.
Before I could lose myself in the fantasy of being irresistible to a man like him, the figure moved, and then it was like a bucket of ice water tipped over my head.
It wasn’t Cole. His leather vest, what bikers called a cut, was different.
And this guy wasn’t half as broad as Cole.
He held himself differently. This was someone else.
Fear struck me, followed quickly by condemnation.
What the hell was I doing? I’d stumbled naively into a dangerous world, nearly gotten shot earlier this month, and was now moony-eyed and crushing on the MC Pres.
A man who had real enemies. Ones with guns.
I had the survival instincts of a lemming.
It felt hard to breathe as I watched whoever was sitting behind my car in the darkness. But they didn’t move. Not toward me, and not away from me. They just sat there idly and watched.
I contemplated stepping out of my car and running to my dorm building.
Would I be fast enough to outrun whoever was out there?
That was when the engine cut, as if hearing my thoughts.
The silence was deafening. The rider didn’t get off his bike.
Didn’t even move. I still couldn’t make out a face, not with how the shadows kept him safely hidden.
A chill ran down my spine, and I knew it was time for me to make my move.
I didn’t wait. I flung my door open and quickly walked across the parking lot.
Who would bother following me to my dorm?
Since it wasn’t Cole, was it one of his men?
Was he having someone watch over me? If so, I didn’t want it getting back to him that I’d panicked and run like an idiot.
And so, I walked. Every single step across the lot.
Was this pride to the point of idiocy? Sure, but I could only work with what I had, and that was stubbornness and pride to a fault.
I had my key card in my hand before I reached the door, and I swiped it twice before it beeped to let me in.
As soon as I was in, I shut the door fast and leaned against the wall.
My breath came in short gasps. My head told me to run to my dorm and lock the door behind me, but the reckless part of myself told me to stay and watch.
Maybe I had given the reckless side of myself too much freedom tonight.
Nobody had followed me. I watched through the glass doors and let my eyes adjust to the new lighting. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the spot where the bike had been, but it was empty. The biker was gone.
The gravity of what I’d done tonight slowly started to sink through the haze of lust in my head. Oh, God. My face beating with blood, I headed to my room.
I was only home ten minutes when my phone rang, my mother’s shaky voice on the other end.
“Are you coming home for brunch this weekend?”
I checked the time. It was after midnight. My mom was usually fast asleep in an Ambien haze by now. The only time she wasn’t was when she’d had a fight with my dad.
“Mom? Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I-I just had to check, I— the brunch, I just, need to plan for it,” she trailed off, sounding lost and upset. She sniffed, and I knew she was stifling sobs. I hated calls like these, and at the same time, I needed to know she’d call me when she felt so hopeless. She had no one else.
“You know, I was just thinking of coming over. It feels lonely over here and I’d love to see what Rosie has left in the fridge.”
My mother sniffled. “You shouldn’t eat so late, your face will swell.”
I sighed. God, she didn’t make being kind to her easy. “I’ll survive. I’ll see you soon, ok? Wait for me.”
After checking outside from the safety of the building vestibule that my mystery biker hadn’t returned, I made a run for my car.
It was so quiet and normal in the lot, I began to think I’d imagined the entire night.
From The Clutch to the drive home and the mysterious figure in the lot.
The only evidence I had that it was real was that my mouth still tasted like Cole.
It should be gross, right? But it wasn’t.
I let out a sigh and closed my eyes. The last thing I needed was to develop a crush on the guy I was pretty sure was running the entire operation that I was trying to expose. That would be spectacularly stupid. What about my story? What about saving Rosie’s son?
Half an hour later, I pulled up at my parents’ and typed in the code for the gate. The house was all lit up despite the hour. My father kept it that way. It was more impressive, according to him. Projecting the image of success at all times was of paramount importance.
A heavy weight settled across my shoulders as I entered the house. Rosie, my parents’ housekeeper, immediately hurried over.
“It’s so late, Miss Isabelle!”
“Yeah, exactly. Why are you still up? Go home,” I implored.
“Your mother is still up,” Rosie explained.
I nodded and shed my coat, hanging it in the walk-in coat closet by the door.
“I’ll be with her. Go home and get some rest.”
Rosie smiled gratefully at me and then hurried away.
I started through the lower level of the house.
As I neared the study, glass crunched under my feet.
I never took my shoes off inside, unless I was at a friend’s house, and even then, it took reminding.
I’d grown up knowing that you could never be sure when there’d be broken glass underfoot.
I glanced into the drawing room as I went past, hearing strains of opera drifting out, along with female laughter. Ah, so my father was working late with his newest assistant, and that was why my mother was upstairs crying into her pillow and calling me.
With a sigh, I started up the stairs. I couldn’t imagine growing up in a house where the parents’ problems were private and dealt with out of sight. I couldn’t imagine my mother being a shoulder to lean on and confide in, instead of the other way around.
“Mom?” I called when I reached her bedroom. My parents had slept separately for as long as I could remember.
“Isabelle?” my mother called back, tears staining her tone.
Clothes were dumped around the floor, and a designer suitcase was open on the bed, half packed.
It was my mother’s routine. Get fed up with my father shoving his cheating in her face, threaten to leave, cry and rant and drink too much, start to pack and then…
nothing. She never actually left. The process of packing a tiny fraction of her wardrobe into a suitcase and imagining living out of it always seemed to snap her out of her anger, no matter how many times I’d pushed her to actually go.
She was sitting on the floor on the other side of the bed, leaning her head back, her designer silk dress puddled around her. Her hair was turning white, piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Despite the mascara tracks on her cheeks, she was still so beautiful.
My heart hurt to see her like this. I sank down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. She melted into my side.
“What happened?” I asked, though I knew. It was always the same. Nothing ever changed.
She just shook her head and started to cry again. I hugged her tightly.
“It’s ok. Everything is going to be ok,” I murmured to her, my chest feeling hollow. My heart felt scraped out from the inside.
“Promise?” she murmured, her voice meek and soft, like a kid’s.
I just nodded. I didn’t want to lie to her, after all.