A gruff sound rumbled in my chest when she tossed my words back in my face. “No. You’re right. It isn’t exactly my style.”
Her voice was a soft surrender. “I’m doubtin’ that I’m much your style at all.”
My eyes roved over that tight, sweet body. Lush curves and full hips and perfect tits. If I had a style—a style or a type or a goddamned heart—she’d be it.
I was pretty sure she saw it written on me, a black emblem that pronounced my shame.
The uptick at the corner of one of those lips was nothing but a somber goodbye. “Thank you for the dance.”
Then she slipped into the driver’s seat, started her car, and left me standing there in the middle of the road watching as she drove away, again fighting that foreign feeling that tugged at my chest.
There were few people in my life who ever evoked any emotion in my mangled, twisted heart. Those who had gotten in through the brittle cracks.
People who I would fight for.
Die for.
Kill for.
Jace and his family and my best friend Mack.
They were only there because they were the only reason I was still living in the first place. Because they’d proven time and again that they could be trusted.
That they would do the same for me.
The rest of the world?
They could go fuck themselves.
Lies fell from people’s tongues so much more often than the truth. Betrayals cast far more often than loyalties.
I wasn’t pretending to be any different.
My gaze moved back to the vacant space where she had just been.
I didn’t know why it felt like she was different. Why it mattered. I’d only met her. Sure as hell didn’t know her.
Shouldn’t, either. Chase it. That feeling. It was nothing but a fool’s game.
A tumble over the edge of oblivion.
A freefall into ruin.
But there was something about her that whispered and soothed and sang.
Or maybe what I was really hearing was her soul screaming for help.
I roughed a frustrated hand over my face to break up the clusterfuck of stupidity that was trying to climb into my mind and started to head back for the party. Then I tripped over my own damned feet when I caught sight of the two objects that were on the ground up close to the curb where they had been concealed by her car.
Left unnoticed when we’d collected the rest of her things.
It was a small wallet and a piece of jewelry.
Stooping down, I picked up the wallet, and then moved to grab the metal that glinted in the hazy glow. I rolled it around my fingers. It was a silver bracelet, cheap and banged to shit. Dangling from it were three stones that as far as I could tell were fake.
I frowned, straightening as I held the two offending objects.
At war with what to do, not sure how to handle this bullshit raging inside me.
I should toss them. Or maybe turn them in at the front desk.
Just a regular ol’ Good Samaritan, right?
Or I could dig into the wallet like I was itching to do and discover who she was. Return them myself. Maybe in return, I’d get a reward.
Thing was, I got the crazed sense that if I took a step that direction, I’d regret it. Could feel myself getting sucked into the girl’s business that wasn’t mine. Needing to know what had dimmed the intensity of those sea-tinged eyes. The magnetized vortex I could feel swirling around her.
Dragging in everything in her path, swallowed where it would be emptied in her depths.
A fist gripped my heart as my mind was struck with the memory of the voice I wished I could erase. Purge and pummel and eradicate. A voice that shouldn’t fucking matter, the soft lull of the song she had sang.
Forever and ever.
Hatred tumbled through my consciousness, all mixed up with a howling whirlwind of grief. Memories forever fresh and raw and grating. It didn’t matter how much time had passed.
One day . . . one day I’d outrun them.
One day, I’d get so far that her ghost wouldn’t be able to touch me.
And still, there she was, prodding at my conscience to do something right.
“Shit,” I grumbled, unable to do anything but stuff the wallet and bracelet into my pocket. Then, like a fool, I reached down and wiggled the girl’s shoe free from where it was wedged.
Holding it, my gaze was pulled down the vacant road where she’d just sped off.
Motherfucking Cinderella.
Four
Grace
I pulled into the short driveway in front of the tiny house and killed the engine. It cast my world into silence. Into darkness.
Shimmers of despair flashed at the outside of my eyes.
Worry.
Dread.
Fear.
How in the world was I supposed to beat Reed when it felt as if the world was against me? Or really, it was the world that stood at his side. Blinded by the façade that he wore. Reed the ruler of his own world. The empire that he and his family had built.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been blinded by it, too. But that was a long, long time ago, and it was already far too late by the time I’d realized it. Before I’d unknowingly allowed myself to become a prisoner to it.
Blowing out a sigh, I flipped down the sunshade. The glaring light burst to life around the tiny mirror, and I cringed when I saw my reflection. Blood smeared on my face, streaked by my tears with an added slick of mascara for good measure.
Eyes haunted and wild at the same damned time.
I was a mess.
Most unsettling was what that stranger had whipped up in the middle of me.
I was still feeling a little shell-shocked at the reaction he’d evoked, at the fact he’d managed to pry that feeling out of me at all.
Pushing open the door, I stumbled out into the vacant, chilly night. The modest neighborhood was sleeping, porchlights glowing and the windows blackened along the narrow street.
It was as if I were a refugee in the middle of it. A stranger who’d sought asylum. The hope and the peace where I might be reinvigorated, infused with the hope and courage that I was going to need to win this battle.
It made it difficult when everyone kept telling me it was a losing fight.
Here, the houses looked as if they’d been stamped out by the same mold and deposited in a perfect row on each side. People might actually get confused which one was theirs if it weren’t for the different colors they’d been painted, the additions and renovations made through the years.
Standing on the concrete driveway in front of the single-car garage, I wiggled off my remaining shoe, gaze dropping to the beige suede pump.
The beautiful stranger infiltrated my mind.
His rough, rugged care.
That polished, sophisticated seduction.
He made me feel things I couldn’t feel. Made me contemplate things I couldn’t contemplate. Made me want to dip my fingers into that feeling that washed over me.
That hot, hot energy that had blasted and seared and crashed against us like waves slamming against a break wall down at the marina.
Attraction.
So fierce and instant I’d known it could lead to nowhere good. I had a path I had to take. One that couldn’t be diverted. Detours down a road with a scenic view included.
Leaving him standing there was the only choice I could make. It wasn’t as if I could just hand over my number.
A guy like him wouldn’t understand, and even if he did, the last thing I needed to do was add another complication to this catastrophe.
The last thing I could afford was a fling concealed by the darkness of night.
My heart couldn’t take it, and I wasn’t close to being that reckless.
I trudged up the sidewalk, trying to remain as quiet as possible as I slipped my key into the lock. I turned it quietly, wincing at the sound of the metal giving as it was unlatched.
Old hinges creaked as I pushed open the door. Silence echoed back.
Carefully latching it shut behind me, I turned the lock before I tiptoed through the foyer and toward the hall, only to freeze when I got to the arch at the living room.
A gush of regret got free of my lungs when I saw the small lamp glowing from the coffee table.
Gramma pushed to her feet when she saw me, and I swore, I could hear all of her joints groaning as she did, my rock wringing her hands together in the worry she’d clearly been swimming in since I’d walked out the door earlier. “Well? Tell me how it went.”