by Rin Daniels
Then again, not like Kat had actually lost one.
“Thanks, I’ll pass it on,” she said, grimacing.
“All right, pumpkin. See you for dinner.”
They said their goodbyes, and Nadine thumbed off the screen. The crystal-studded case bounced gently on the cushion as she tossed the phone to the side and sighed deeply.
Kat rubbed her shoulders. “Did I hear there’s another amazing dinner?”
“With a doctor,” she groaned. “Or maybe with his PR firm brother.”
“God.” Her friend couldn’t quite get the laugh out of her voice. “That’s so creepy.”
Yeah, kind of. Nadine dropped her face into her upraised knees. “They’re just trying to make sure I’m taken care of.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Kat’s weight perched on the back of the sofa. Springs creaked. “But what does Nadine Sherwood want?”
Good question.
“The only thing I want,” she said miserably, “is for my parents to accept ‘mechanic’ as a nice, stable profession.”
“What’re the odds?”
“Slim to never.”
Kat’s fingers slipped to either side of her head, tiling Nadine’s face back up. Her dark green eyes were as serious as Nadine had ever seen. “What will make you happy, Nadine?”
Easy. Lucas.
Seeing his dreams come true.
Watching him walk with confidence among the people who’d never given him a chance.
She could give him that chance.
She clasped her hands over Kat’s, trapping them against cheeks. “I’m going to buy that ticket.”
Her friend’s smile reached all the way to her eyes. “Atta girl.”
And if a twinge if guilt pinched her over it, she ignored it. Life was hard. Even her life. Maybe Lucas didn’t want her help, maybe he had all that pride, but she didn’t have to throw money at him. She could help him in other ways.
All he needed was a chance. A single opportunity to showcase how amazing he really was.
She could make sure he got that.
And once potential investors accepted him, once classic car collectors started hiring him, her parents would have no choice but to see him as the successful businessman he really was.
Then she could date him openly.
Nadine’s jaw shifted to the side. “All I have to do now,” she said with grim determination, “is survive dinner.”
Her friend laughed. “Text me a picture.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“TEN-THOUSAND.”
JOHNNY leaned back in his chair, the rungs so far off the floor that only the feet he’d kicked up on the front desk kept him from falling over. He stared at Lucas across the desk, his dark eyes inscrutable. His business face. “For what?”
Lucas clasped his hands, aware that his knuckles had whitened but unable to relax. Tension zinged up his forearms. Through his spine. He hated this, hated the sick feeling cramping in his gut.
But he wasn’t some kid off the street.
This was business. “I want to borrow ten grand,” he said flatly. “Start-up costs.”
Johnny absently patted his chest—a sign he was looking for his cigarettes. His T-shirt didn’t have a pocket for them. It was a stalling tactic, one that let him stare at a prospective sucker like Lucas and see how long before said sucker flinched.
Lucas returned his partner’s stare with level calm.
Calm he didn’t even remotely feel.
Johnny’s nostrils flared. Irritation. “Why?”
“I told you, start—”
“No,” his partner said, shaking his head. Finding no cigarettes, he returned to lounging dangerously far back in his chair. He tucked one foot against the front desk’s ledge, wedging the tread of his boot into place. “I mean, why are you borrowing from here?”
“Banks won’t loan to scum like me.” Lucas crossed his forearms, resting his weight on the surface. His grin bit. “You know that.” It didn’t matter that his back was to the door, the place was usually dead. They usually only showed up when they had appointments to keep.
Dumb freaking luck Nadine had wandered in when she did.
Johnny lifted a slow, black eyebrow. “You’re smart, kid. You’ve got, what is it, potential.”
His laugh crackled with the tension he’d struggled to put a lid on. “Jesus, Johnny, lay off the mob movies.”
The other man grinned unrepentantly. “You know what I mean. Seriously, what’s actually worse than hitting up a loan shark?”
Nadine Sherwood.
Watching excitement fill her eyes, light her smile to a thousand watts, while she hatched up harebrained schemes to give him money—to turn him into a success—bit deep enough that he still didn’t know which part of him bled. His pride?
Or his worth?
Damn. He was self-aware enough to know that she’d knocked him hard, but not touchy-feely enough to get how to fix it. All he knew was that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—handle her version of pity again.
He fucking refused to deal with Sherwood money.
Johnny watched him with his usual cool scrutiny. His grin edged up at the corner. “Hell, Lucas. You look like she kicked you in the teeth.”
His teeth bared. “She didn’t.”
Except she did.
And she didn’t even mean to.
Johnny sighed, his smile fading as he laced his hands behind his head. “You know I can’t loan to you.”
“Come on.” Lucas straightened, gripping the edge of the counter. “It’s only ten thousand, you know I’m—”
“Good for it?”
Crap.
Johnny’s faint smile only sharpened his sarcastic finish to a line they’d heard hundreds of times. “Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t. Doesn’t matter. You know what Pops would say.”
Lucas looked away. “Never loan to family.”
His partner’s eyebrows rose and lowered in acknowledgement. “You know better, man.”
Yeah, he knew better.
But he also knew that he’d never get out without capital he didn’t have.
“Shit,” Lucas hissed, pushing away from the desk. He rolled his shoulders.
Johnny watched him pace, rocking back and forth on his chair in silence for a while.
Lucas didn’t care. The small front room wasn’t large enough to accommodate more than a few steps at a time, but that didn’t stop him from wearing out a groove down the middle.
If he was being honest, ten grand wasn’t enough to cover everything. It’d be a start, a step in the right direction, but the interest—even if they had a family rate—would kill his business before it even really got started. He didn’t even have a business plan. What the hell was he doing?
“Dude.” Johnny’s chair creaked. “This isn’t like you. What’s going on?”
He didn’t even know. “It’s nothing.”
“Come on, bro. Don’t be like that.”
Lucas stopped in front of the desk, hooked his fingers on the side closest to Johnny and fixed his partner and friend with a hard stare. “You know I want out.”
“Yup.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Yet,” Johnny added, raising an eyebrow. “Close a few more accounts, save some more money, then pay your hush cut and go get a real job.”
Lucas’s teeth clenched. “It’s not that easy, man.”
His friend’s laugh scraped off the last of Lucas’s calm. “Who said easy? That sounds like hard damn work.”
He palmed his face. “It’s just…” No. That wasn’t right. He lowered his hand again and sent Johnny what he hoped was a look of earnest truth. And not panicked mania. “There’s a vintage show coming up. If I could show off the Cobra, I could start networking with the rich old bastards who need restoration help.”
Creak. Johnny’s leg bent, easing the chair rungs to the floor again. He held up a hand, like he was a kid in a school room, and said flatly, “This isn’t the first show in Sul
la Valley, dude. It won’t be the last, either.”
“So?”
“So, why this one?”
Lucas flinched. Bullseye.
Johnny shook his head in slow, sad realization. “It’s your princess, isn’t it? She’s put some get-rich-quick scheme in your head, and you’re dumb enough to come crawling to me for money.”
Lucas hissed. “I am not crawling.”
“But you aren’t denying she’s at fault, huh?” He clicked his tongue, bracing his foot against the desk again. The chair groaned in alarming protest as the front two feet came off the floor. “When did you turn into such a sap?”
He didn’t even know. But it sucked.
Eyes narrowing, Lucas flattened a hand on the desk between them. “I’m trying to get out of this dead-end job before I lose what’s left my will to live.”
Johnny wasn’t so sensitive that he’d care about what Lucas called it. He flashed his even white teeth in a challenging grin. “So use your head. The one with your brain in it,” he added, grin fading into an obvious smirk. “Forget your princess for a second and work with what you’ve got.”
Lucas’s fist came down on the desk. “What?” he snapped. “What do I have, Johnny? A juvenile record, a house worth less than it costs to move, and a job that’s killing my soul.”
“All jobs are soul-killers,” he replied, unruffled. Creak. “That’s what jobs do. Everybody hates their life, Lucas. That’s why we exist.”
It wasn’t philanthropy. It was greed plain, and simple, and once upon a time, it didn’t matter to Lucas. Wallace & Roane loaned out money to the kind of people who had always treated him like trash. Things were different when it was time to collect.
But it mattered now.
And it sucked that it did.
“Quit your bitching, bro.” Johnny snapped his fingers between them. “You know what you need to do. Don’t let some chick push you into something else, you know?”
He wanted to yell. He wanted to reach over the desk and drag Johnny up by the collar of his T-shirt.
Punching his friend in the face wouldn’t solve anything, but his fingers twitched to do it.
Because Johnny was right.
“Shit,” Lucas bit off again, gaze flicking away from the smug calm in his partner’s face. “I hate you.”
“I know you say it from a place of love,” Johnny replied lightly.
Lucas leaned across the desk, but he didn’t grab for Johnny’s shirt. Instead, he shoved his partner’s foot off the counter. Johnny’s eyes widened, self-satisfaction replaced with startled clarity, and didn’t even get the curse off before the whole chair—him in it—tipped backwards.
The floor shook with the force of the impact.
“Asshole,” Johnny groaned.
Lucas made for the exit before his friend could get back to his feet. Letting himself out, he shut the door on Johnny’s variant collection of creative curses and strode for the elevator.
Don’t let some chick push you.
He was doing just that. All that crap about showing the elite crowd what kind of man he was nothing more than her pipe dream.
He’d be damned if he inhaled that smoke with her.
He had to be realistic. He couldn’t afford a ticket to the show, he didn’t have business cards prepped, he didn’t have anything. The occasional side job he took on came from word of mouth, not from any advertising.
He wasn’t ready, and Johnny knew it.
First, Lucas needed the money to buy himself out of the family business.
Then he’d deal with making himself into something, and wherever that took him, he’d go.
Even if—his chest hurt, and he rubbed a hand over the aching spot—it took him away from Sulla Valley. And Nadine.
* * *
Dinner was a disaster.
First, Dr. Kenneth “Call me Kenny” van Moist had the clammiest handshake she’d ever experienced. Whatever his name actually was, Nadine forgot it in favor of the moniker he’d never lose. Not as long as he kept doing things like stroking his corpse-like fingers over hers when he passed the bread basket.
So much creeper.
Second, when her mom gaily suggested that she see Dr. van Moist off at the end of the night, Nadine had to suffer through the most awkward goodbye of her entire dating life.
Which wasn’t all that long, all things considered.
That night, she texted Kat the gory details.
Kat texted back a snarky comment and a bonus. Ticket acquired!
Awesome. Three days to spare, and she’d had to pay extra for the rush, but Nadine considered it the best money she’d ever spent.
She went to bed eager to wake up. She wanted to get some ribbon and dress up the ticket all nicely before she took it over to his house.
It was a gift. Just a gift.
Like lovers give each other all the time.
And she’d apologize. Because she couldn’t always be the one hanging around for a text or a call or an apology.
This was her bad, too.
Relieved that dinner was over—and she’d dodged another matrimonial bullet—Nadine went to sleep.
Her first inclination that something had gone very, very amiss hit her in the face when she strolled into the kitchen. Her chirpy, “Good morning!” fell into an atmosphere of silence so thick, it practically smoldered. Both her parents stood by the breakfast bar. Not sat, but stood.
A sheaf of papers fanned out on the bar between them.
Her heart sank in pre-emptive panic. “What’s going on?” she asked, smile fading.
Her mother’s expression was usually more serious, but this time, her dad won that contest. Germaine’s features settled into thunderous edges, his lips a flat line under his mustache. “Sit down, Nadine.”
“Germaine,” her mother murmured.
“Sit,” her father repeated, so curtly that even Mary winced and fell silent.
Nadine sat, hooking the heel of her gladiator sandal into the tall stool rung. She set her phone on the counter beside her. It shot dozens of reflected sparkles across the granite counter top. “Okay.” Her brain whirled a thousand miles a minute. What was the problem?
Had something gone wrong in their jobs?
Their health?
She searched their faces, but her mom wouldn’t meet her eyes and her dad looked too angry to read any deeper.
This wasn’t nerves or hesitation because of bad news.
This was something else.
Nadine held her breath.
She didn’t have to hold it long. Her father’s hard blue stare pinned on her smartphone. “Show me your phone.”
“What?” Nadine’s fingers folded over it. “Why?”
“Do as your father says,” her mother ordered.
Nadine scowled. “No way. That’s a violation of my privacy.”
“We are your parents,” her mom replied, her slim shoulders rigid under her navy blazer. She tapped the counter with a stern finger. “Show your father your phone, or we’re taking it away.”
“You can’t.” Nadine snatched the crystal-studded phone off the counter, held it to her chest. “All my numbers are in here. My whole life is in here!”
“A life that includes Lucas Bourdin?”
Her father’s terse question didn’t mean he’d actually asked.
They knew. Nadine froze, her heart lobbed up into her throat as she stared wide-eyed at him. The crystals bit into her fingers.
Sometimes, she wished she was as smart as Kat, as fast on the uptake, as deft with a lie.
Her strangled silence said it all.
Mary groaned, turning away to rub at her eyes.
Her father’s expression went tighter. Sterner.
The skin around his eyes flinched.
Disappointment.
“I thought so,” he said quietly. The volume didn’t have to be loud for her to know when she was in trouble. Of them both, her father’s quiet tone was worse than her mother’s sharp reprimand.
Nadine’s spine straightened. “What’s the big deal?”
“The deal,” her father said slowly, “is that we had a deal. You promised us you wouldn’t see him after he moved away.”
“It’s not like I see him every day,” she shot back, fingers cramped around the phone. Her mother inhaled sharply, but Nadine slid off the stool, bracing her fist against it. “So what?”
“Trust, Nadine.” Germaine shoved the pile of papers closer to her. “You went behind our backs after we expressly told you not to.”
What the heck was this?
Nadine’s gaze fell on the papers, skimmed over the header—from the mobile provider—and over the data listed. Number after number. Text after text. Kat’s. A few other friends from her scene.
And each instance of Lucas’s had been highlighted in fluorescent yellow.
Her hand shook as she rifled through the pages. Some were almost all highlighted.
Each day.
Each instance.
Always to. Never from.
Her temples ached with the urge to burst into tears. She firmed her jaw, looked back up at her parents. “Wow,” she said, laughing weakly. “I see what you mean about trust.”
Her mother turned on her. “Don’t you dare throw this back on us,” she said, voice trembling with anger. “We have had this conversation before, Nadine. You know how we feel about that boy.”
“Man.”
Her father’s brow furrowed. “Nadine—”
“He’s a man,” she said over him, jerking her hand back from the papers like they burned her fingertips. “An adult.” She tucked her phone behind her, clasping both hands around it so hard, she knew it’d hurt later. But she didn’t dare let go. “That promise was stupid,” she told them. “He was just a kid, who cares what he did? We’ve all done stupid stuff, right?”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed, green slits of barely repressed accusation. “Like what?”
Nadine snorted. “Like I’d say anything now,” she shot back, unable to come up with anything on the fly. Her thoughts jumbled together, fear and fury and a hurt that cut to the bone. “I’m just saying that he’s grown up. Daddy,” she said, turning pleading eyes on him. “He’s a good guy, he works hard. Give him a chance.”
