10. Chapter 10
…You have two weeks, starting today, to live within these walls for the last time. Together. All four of you.
Whitlock never mentioned additional conditions when he’d given Lindsey the keys and deed to Jason Young’s house, but she should’ve known.
If the last month had taught her anything, it was that Jason always had an ace up his sleeve, and he always seemed to play it when she thought she was finally free.
As if the old man would ever let her go.
The patio door opened. With her back to him, she knew it was Jase by the heavy footfalls of his boots that were reluctant to come too close.
The last time they came up behind her, he’d told her he wanted to take her dress off with his teeth. She gripped the back of the Adirondack chair in front of her and blinked back tears.
“Lindsey.”
His voice was rough, grated. It couldn’t have been easy for him to see his dad in a video or be back in his childhood home.
A home he just lost.
“I didn’t know about the house,” she said quickly. “I got home and when I got a new phone I had a message from Whitlock.”
“New phone?” Jase asked. “Oh, because Helen—”
“Smashed it, yeah.”
Lindsey finally turned to look at him. She really, really shouldn’t have.
The lowering sun lit one of his chiseled cheeks and the stubble that darkened his chin, while the other side of his face was obscured by shadows.
His pale green eyes were trained on her and glistening, but not with the predatory gleam meant to ensnare his conquests.
With sadness. He was the little boy again, the version she’d glimpsed in the way, way back of the Country Squire the night in Lake Havasu City when he admitted he was alone now that his dad was gone.
You don’t have to be, Lindsey wanted to tell him. She gripped the back of the chair harder to keep from running toward him.
It was all for the money. He doesn’t want you. He was just using you.
As long as she didn’t forget what Graham had told her at the storage unit—the truth they’d all kept from her to get rich—she wouldn’t do anything stupid like forgive him or fall for more lies.
“You’re still here,” Jase said.
She nodded, incapable of offering anything else. If she spoke he’d hear the tears she was still trying to blink back.
Jase braved a step closer. “Are you okay?”
Lindsey scoffed, swallowing the lump in her throat with a sip of Dalmore. Screw it, why not show him how much she hurt?
“When has that ever mattered?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. My dad—”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “None of this…none of this should be mine.”
“It’s what he wanted.”
“Why? Clearly, I don’t belong…” …with either of you… “here.”
Another step closer. Soon she’d be able to smell him, which was usually a good thing.
“You don’t have to stay for our sakes.”
“Graham will never let me leave. I’m sure he’d tie me to a chair and stand guard for two weeks instead.”
Jase froze, his eyes wide as if he’d been caught plotting to do exactly that.
“Wait, did he?” Lindsey asked. “Did he actually say that? Asshole.”
“Lindsey, I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you have a choice here,” Jase said.
“Sure,” Lindsey said. “Who just gives someone a house? Why would he do this? Do you want it? You grew up here. You can have it.”
“Linds—”
“I’ll sign it over to you.”
“Lindsey.”
“It should be yours.”
Jase shook his head. “My dad’s done more for me than any father ever should.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Lindsey muttered. “Six million. Three…three million to you.”
Jase nodded.
“You’re staying?” she asked.
“Uh, I think so. If you’ll…allow it.”
He doesn’t want you.
“Of course.” Her tears dried in an instant. “You’ve worked harder than this for your money. What’s another two weeks?”
“Is that what you think?”
It was all for the money. He was just using you.
“It’s what I know. I was there. You worked very hard.”
He nodded, frowning into his glass. “So, you hate me?”
“No, I knew what I was getting myself into with you. Actually, no,” she said. “I thought I did. You weren’t playing fair.”
“I wasn’t playing at all.”
“Jase.”
“You can kick me out. Throw me out on my ass. It’s your house.”
Hope replaced desperation in his pale greens. He wanted her to give him a way out.
“Not a chance,” Lindsey said. “You can keep working for it.”
She swallowed the last of her Dalmore and brushed past him. She was almost to the door when he said the four letter word that kept ruining her life.
“Wait.”
Cruelty must’ve been laced in the DNA of every Young man. None of them could ever just let her go unscathed.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Jase said, “but I’m sorry. It wasn’t about the money.”
He spit the apology out fast, as if absolution was on the other side of what felt like a flimsy confession without an ounce of truth.
The trouble was, Lindsey had been replaying the trip with fresh eyes ever since she learned Jase and Graham would only get their millions if Lindsey finished the drive.
“I’ve been thinking about Austin,” she said. “It should’ve ended there. We wouldn’t be standing here, if…”
If you hadn’t begged me to stay.
“Tell me, honestly, Jase,” she said, and he nodded. “If there wasn’t any money—if there wasn’t an inheritance waiting at the end—and I tried to leave the morning after we fooled around in Austin—”
“We did more than fool around, don’t you think?”
She ignored him. This was not the time to reminisce about the four orgasms he’d worked out of her that night. “Would you have come after me?”
He frowned for probably the tenth time since coming outside. And for the tenth time Lindsey hated herself for finding his anguish even remotely sexy.
“I didn’t want you to get on a bus,” he said.
“But would you have chased me down and convinced me to stay?”
He couldn’t look at her, and she knew she had him.
There was no argument. Without the money, if he had woken up in Austin, sweaty and aching in an empty bed, Jase wouldn’t have chased her through the city streets and begged her to finish the trip.
If anything, the notorious lothario would’ve silently thanked her for the good time and easy exit.
“Two weeks,” Lindsey said quietly. “Then pack your stuff and get out of my life.”