Can't Help Loving You

by Nika Rhone

  “Thank you for the ride,” Lillian said, breaking the silence filled only by the soft Spanish music coming from the radio. “You went out of your way for me, and I wasn’t very nice about it. So, thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Oh, if only!

  Biting her lip, Lillian stared out the side window, willing away the blush she could feel hitting her cheeks. Her saving grace was that she didn’t have the lily-white complexion her friend Amelia had, which showed every little hint of color whenever she got embarrassed. Thanks to her father’s French Cajun gene pool, Lillian at least had a little natural camouflage in the skin tone department.

  Hoping to distract them both, Lillian said, “You did a really nice job restoring this.” She stroked her hand over the dashboard. It was so devoid of all of the instruments and add-ons that filled modern cars it almost looked unfinished. But at the same time, there was something about the simplicity of the clean lines that appealed to her.

  “Thanks. It took a lot of hours hunting online for parts and even longer piecing them all together, but I’m happy with the way it came out.” Pride was evident in his words.

  “I’m surprised you risk driving it around. Aren’t you worried about it getting damaged, or stolen?”

  “I didn’t restore it so I could park it in a garage somewhere and admire it. It’s just a truck. It’s meant to be used.”

  “That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t care if something happened to it, though. My little Cooper is just a car, and it bugs the heck out of me that someone…” Her words trailed off as she was struck by a thought.

  “That someone what?”

  “How did you know I needed a ride?”

  “Uh…what?”

  “How did you know I needed a ride?” she repeated, turning in her seat to face him. The better to see his sneaky, lying face as he visibly scrambled for an answer to what should have been a very simple question.

  “You…must have mentioned it when you were turning me down for dinner.”

  “Yeah, no. It never came up.”

  “Well, you mentioned yesterday that you were having car trouble, and I didn’t see it parked outside the gallery today, so I assumed—”

  “Strike two.” She felt her temper rise as her worst suspicions were confirmed. “Care to try again?”

  Rafe flinched at the caustic bite in her tone. He shot her a quick look before focusing on making the turn into the garage entrance under their building. He leaned out of the window and punched in his code, waited for the gate to lift, and started driving inside before he finally answered.

  “Your brother told me about your car.”

  The small sense of satisfaction that he’d told the truth was far outweighed by the crushing feeling of betrayal as the entire afternoon was suddenly rescripted in her mind. Rafe hadn’t wandered by the gallery and been drawn inside by the painting. Hadn’t asked her to dinner because he’d succumbed to the desire to take her on a date. Hell, he hadn’t even “just happened to be in the area” so he could give her a ride.

  Staged and planned, every last bit of it.

  Peter was so dead when she got her hands on him.

  “He only said something because he was worried about you.”

  “Right,” Lillian said with a bitter laugh. “What did he do, run downstairs and knock on your door the minute he left my place this morning to ask you to babysit me?” She’d meant to be sarcastic, but the silence from the other side of the truck was telling. “Oh my God, he did, didn’t he?”

  “He just asked me to keep an eye on you for a few days.”

  “It’s the same thing!” Fumbling with her seatbelt, Lillian wrenched the door open and all but fell out of the truck in her haste to get away. Good thing she was already too humiliated to be embarrassed by her clumsy retreat.

  “It is not the…dammit, Lillian, will you stop?”

  Stalking around the back of the truck, she saw from the corner of her eye Rafe’s door popping open. She picked up her pace, her heels clicking in time to her fury against the concrete floor. “Leave me alone, Rafe. I mean it.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I can’t. Not while you’re all bent up about this.”

  She didn’t reply, because really, didn’t she have a right to be pissed about having her life managed for her? Peter had broken through the protective netting that had ringed them since birth and forged his own way. Why couldn’t he let her do the same?

  And Rafe. She felt that jab of hurt in her chest all over again. How could he treat her like this? Act all interested and gallant and into her, when it was all about doing her brother a favor?

  Bastard.

  Determined footsteps coming up behind her, Lillian put on another burst of speed and made it to the elevator first. Stepping inside, she jammed her keycard into the slot and stabbed the “close door” button.

  “You never asked why I told him I’d do it,” were the last words she heard as the elevator doors slid shut. They pinged around in her head as her finger hovered over the fourth floor button without pressing it. Why had Rafe agreed to play babysitter? Did it really matter? The fact was, he’d lied to her. Okay, maybe he hadn’t lied outright, but a lie of omission was still a lie. Wasn’t it? She had the moral high ground here. Nothing Rafe could say would change that.

  Could it?

  With a sigh of defeat, Lillian’s finger dropped down to the “open door” button and gave it one, long push. The silver doors parted. Rafe stood in front of them, hands tucked into his back pockets, face tipped toward the ceiling as though he’d been asking for divine intervention. His head snapped back down and his eyes locked onto hers. There was surprise in those crystalline depths, and a little bit of wariness.

  Smart man.

  “Okay,” she said, “why did you say yes to my brother’s stupid request?” The fact she was keeping the button depressed to keep the doors open rather than letting him into the elevator was a clear statement that if she didn’t like the answer, the doors were shutting again with him still on the outside.

  Rafe shrugged. “Because he told me he wanted to keep his sister safe. And I knew how I’d feel if someone was messing with one of my sisters.” The look in his eyes said that someone would be a very sorry person indeed once Rafe got his hands on him.

  The righteous anger that had been building started to leak away.

  “Fine.” With a huff, she moved to the side, allowing him onto the elevator.

  “I told him you’d be pissed.”

  “Yeah, well, you were right.” Pressing the buttons for the third and fourth floors, she leaned against the elevator’s railing, arms crossed as she stared at the opposite wall, refusing to look at Rafe and be suckered in by “the look” again. He was too good at it, and she needed to stay angry. If she didn’t, she would almost certainly start crying.

  And she’d had quite enough humiliation for one day, thanks very much.

  “Can I ask a question?”

  Lillian considered refusing, but ultimately said, “Sure, knock yourself out.”

  “Why are you so dead set against allowing yourself to be protected?”

  “Because everyone is blowing the whole thing way out of proportion. Someone keyed my car and damaged my tires. Big whoop. That doesn’t warrant a SWAT team following me around twenty-four-seven.”

  “It’s a lot more serious than that, and you know it.”

  She did. But if she admitted to it, that meant she was being bratty and unreasonable, and she wasn’t prepared to lose this battle just yet. The very thought of having someone getting close to her, into her space, watching her…

  She shuddered. Nope. Couldn’t do it. Never again.

  Not that she was prepared to explain the why of it to Rafe, now or ever. Instead, she said, “I’m so sick of people thinking I can’t take care of myself. I’m not an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not.” There was a ding as the elevator doors slid open. Rafe stepped up to them, putting a hand on one side to keep it f
rom sliding shut again as he looked at Lillian, trying to catch her eye. “Which is why you know it’s foolish to play with your safety when you have the means at hand to ensure it.”

  It wasn’t until he stepped out into the hallway that Lillian finally allowed herself to look at him. Their eyes met.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Take the security detail.” The doors closed on the command like a very firm period.

  Lillian’s head thunked back against the wall. Dammit. Part of her knew he was one-hundred-percent right. The rest of her was still squirming away from the very thought like it was a cockroach trying to crawl up her leg. She had a feeling she was going to have to reconcile those two very opposing gut reactions sooner rather than later, if the way everyone in her life was ganging up on her was any indication.

  The need to choose arrived much sooner than anticipated. When she opened her door, the one person she hoped she might sway to her way of thinking in all of this was sitting on her sofa, sipping a glass of wine as she leafed through a magazine. She looked up and smiled.

  Lillian’s heart dropped. She recognized that particular smile, and knew that her one potential ally had gone over to the other side.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Chapter Six

  “I was expecting Dad to come with you to do the guilt thing.” Lillian slid her oversized purse over the back of one of the stools along the kitchen island before going to give her mother a kiss on the cheek. The familiar floral scent of L’Eau Bleue was always a reminder of love and safety. It made her want to curl up on the cushion beside her mother and put her head on her shoulder like she’d done as a child.

  Instead, she poured herself a glass of the wine her mother had already started and collapsed into the chair opposite the couch, kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief.

  “I don’t know how you wear those,” her mother commented, looking at the ridiculously high heels.

  Lillian shrugged. “You get used to them.” That didn’t mean her feet still didn’t start whimpering by the end of the day.

  “The things women will do for beauty.” Her mother shook her head before taking another sip of wine.

  In truth, Lillian’s vast collection of high heels had a more practical purpose. They allowed her to hold a conversation with someone without talking to their bellybutton. Her short stature wasn’t so much a problem in her personal life. However, she’d found that when talking to potential customers at the gallery, the extra few inches her heels provided gave a much-needed boost to her confidence as well as her height. But she didn’t correct her mother’s assumption. She wouldn’t understand anyway. At a statuesque five-foot-nine, Patricia Beaumont had never needed a stepstool to see out her own front door.

  Then again, the front door of the Beaumont mansion didn’t exactly have a peephole. It had a camera system and a team of live security personnel who were on duty inside the house and outside on the grounds, night and day. A fact that until last year had made Lillian feel safe and well cared for. Now, just the thought of all of those eyes watching her every move, all the time, made her skin crawl.

  Taking a large slug of wine, Lillian popped to her feet. “I’m going to get out of this dress before I spill something on it. Be right back.” Scooping up her heels in one hand, she cradled the glass in the other and escaped down the hallway to her bedroom, where she shed the silk wrap dress and traded it for a pair of comfy sweats and a cotton top. After pulling on thick socks to ward off the chill from the hardwood floors, she downed the final swallow of wine left in her glass, took a deep breath to brace for the battle to come, and reluctantly abandoned the sanctuary of the bedroom.

  Her mother was still on the couch. Waiting. Lillian looked at the bottle of wine with deep longing as she retook her seat, but resisted the urge to pour herself more. Her head was already a little swimmy from the glass she’d sucked down. On an empty stomach, and on top of the three glasses she’d imbibed at Thea’s the night before, her tolerance to alcohol was at an all-time low.

  She waited, knowing her mother wouldn’t take long to get right to it.

  “I want you to move back home.”

  And there it was. Not even bothering to warm up, her mother had gone right to the big guns. Damn.

  “Mom, I appreciate your concern, but don’t you think you’re overreacting a little bit?” The fact that her words echoed Thea’s from the night before wasn’t lost on Lillian.

  “It’s not overreacting to want to keep you safe.”

  “I’m perfectly safe right where I am. Dad made sure of it.” Lillian couldn’t tell from her mother’s guarded expression whether or not she grasped that Lillian was aware of the open secret as to the identity of her landlord. It had ticked her off at the time knowing her father had gone behind her back after he made such a point of “allowing” her the freedom to choose where she wanted to live. But in the end, she’d accepted that as long as he didn’t actively try to involve his security people in her day-to-day life, she could live with his other meddling. Especially since she wasn’t the only one who benefited from the security upgrades to the building. Knowing her neighbors were safer, too, seemed like a fair tradeoff for her father’s underhanded sneakiness.

  Most of the time.

  At the moment, it was feeling more like a huge mistake. She’d given her parents a key to the apartment for emergencies, but she hadn’t given them the code for the alarm system. The fact her mother had been able to turn it off when she’d let herself in meant Lillian’s much-valued privacy was more of an illusion than she thought.

  “At least come back home while the police investigate. A few days at most. It wouldn’t be that bad, would it?”

  Yes. Yes, it would. As much as she might want to agree to calm her mother’s worries, she couldn’t. And not just for the reasons her mother thought. “There’s no reason to upheave everyone’s lives, even for a few days.”

  Her mother’s lips pinched in displeasure. “You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you?”

  “Sorry, but no.”

  With a sigh, Patricia nodded. “All right, then. We’ll do it your way.”

  Surprised and a little suspicious of how easy her mother had given up, Lillian asked, “We will?”

  “Yes.” Leaning forward, she poured a small amount of wine into her glass, and then into Lillian’s empty one. “I’ll move in tomorrow.”

  “You’ll…wait, what? Whoa!” Lillian shot to the edge of her seat, throwing both hands up like a cop trying to stop traffic. “What do you mean, you’ll move in?”

  Taking a small sip, her mother relaxed back into the plush couch. “You don’t want to move back home, and I know you won’t agree to having a security detail move in with you…”

  “God, no.” Lillian shuddered.

  Her mother nodded. “So, me moving in is the only logical compromise.”

  “Compromise? How is that a compromise?” In what universe was that a compromise?

  “Sweetheart, I know you don’t think this incident with your car is anything to worry about. But I have to tell you, I couldn’t sleep at all last night when I found out about it, knowing you were here in this apartment all alone. If you won’t move back to the estate, I won’t be able to rest easy without knowing you’re safe at night.”

  “Then I’ll call you every night when I get home from work, and again before I go to bed,” Lillian said, feeling the rise of panic at her mother’s implacable expression. “And first thing in the morning. Lunchtime too, if it would make you feel better.”

  “The only thing that would make me feel better would be knowing you’re not alone.” Patricia shook her head. “There’s nothing else for me to do but to move in until they get this taken care of.”

  “You can’t!”

  About to take a sip of her wine, her mother blinked at her in surprise. “Why not?”

  “Because…because you know how much you hate to sleep apart from Dad. That’s why you always go with him when he has t
o travel for business.”

  “I go with him to make sure that he eats and sleeps while he’s gone. You know how hyper-focused on business your father can get.”

  “I thought that was what Lyle was for.”

  “Do you honestly see Lyle telling your father to put his files away and go to bed?”

  Picturing the slightly built, balding man who had been Rupert Beaumont’s right hand for as long as Lillian could remember, she had to admit that she couldn’t. She also didn’t want to think about how, exactly, her mother convinced her business-minded husband to abandon work for the bedroom. Lillian shuddered inside.

  There were some things about your parents better left unknown.

  “Well, then, what about…the charity ball?” Lillian asked, remembering the huge, crazy, Mardi Gras-themed event her mother was spearheading to help raise money for the local literacy fund. “You have to be hip-deep in the final preparations for that. I wouldn’t want your project to suffer because you were twiddling your thumbs over here just to keep me company.”

  The line between her eyebrows puckering, Patricia tapped her wedding ring against her glass, a sure sign she was agitated. A small shaft of guilt ran through Lillian, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough to overtake the sheer panic the thought of having her mother for a roommate caused.

  “You may be right,” her mother mused. “With all the final details to be taken care of, it would be wrong of me to not give it my full attention.”

  Relieved, Lillian smiled. “There, you see?”

  “So, I suppose I’ll have to turn the reins over to someone who can.”

  “What? No. Mom, this event has been your baby. You can’t give it up!”

  “Sweetheart, you are my baby. The ball is just one event in dozens that the foundation puts on. You tell me which should take precedence.” Patricia sat back, her posture stating that her mind had been made up.