Unworthy (The Worthy Series Book 1)
Page 3
“What do you mean?” he asked, examining the white ceramic creamer in his hands.
“You’re not yourself today. You’re present, but your mind is a million miles off.”
Ian straightened and turned to her with his mouth open, ready to give some BS excuse about work and Art Basel craziness.
“Don’t tell me it’s work.” She held up a palm. “You’ve been doing this job for years, and it’s rote at this point.”
It never was rote or on autopilot, but she continued before he could tell her. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s Cat.”
He felt his mouth drop open. “How…”
“I’m your mother, Ian. You think I missed how you two were around each other in high school? Or that she’s been conspicuously absent for the last few years? She and Danny were like my other kids, but they both disappeared. What really happened?”
Ian placed the creamer down on the white marble countertop with a clink. His first instinct was to shield his mother from the truth. Only, he’d spent the last few nights since seeing Cat lying awake in bed, reliving their one sexual encounter and how he’d failed her.
It had been good seeing her again. Too good, and though he’d tried to suppress his renewed desire for her, eventually, he gave up on sleep until he’d taken matters into hand. How long was he going to live needing and wanting Cat and denying what he wanted? His mom looked at him with a curious but gentle look of understanding on her face.
Ian remembered when he was little how he told her everything, and then sometime around when his body changed and his voice deepened, he’d stopped telling her everything and only confessed the bare requirements. Why? Because men were supposed to be their own island?
Bullshit.
He’d been living with his secret too long, and seeing Cat again had put him over the tipping point. Only his business partner, Drew, knew that he’d slept with Danny Ross’s little sister a million years ago. He’d tried to be casual about the whole thing, but Drew had guessed Ian had really liked her.
He looked at his mom, who reciprocated with a small uncertain smile, not sure whether she’d overstepped her bounds with a grown son.
“Yeah, it’s Cat on my mind. I’ve always had a thing for her.”
Mom frowned. “Then why…” She stopped, shook her head and dismissed whatever she’d been about to say. “I never encouraged the relationship when you were in high school. She was too young, and then her parents died. The timing wasn’t right. But now… What’s stopping you?”
“Danny,” he said. “And…me.”
“Ah,” his mom said. “He selfishly doesn’t want his best friend going after his little sister in case it doesn’t work out, right?”
“I wish it were that simple, Mom.” He leaned a hip against the marble counter and watched his athletic mom hop up to sit on the island counter. “What Kyle said about Danny is true. He’s an addict.”
His mom blinked at him for a second. “You mean drugs?”
He nodded.
She pursed her lips and looked sad. “That’s terrible for Cat, but maybe the best thing is if you’re there for them. Has he been to rehab?”
“Not sure.”
His mom looked at him sharply. “Why aren’t you sure? You were best friends.”
His brunch bagel did an uncomfortable spin down his digestive tract. He really, really didn’t want to tell his mom anything about him and Cat at her birthday party. “Not so much anymore. Remember, after college I was starting the business with Drew, and Danny…he was doing other stuff.”
“And you lost touch?” His mom sighed. “This sounds awful and selfish but part of me is grateful you distanced yourself. What if you’d made the same choices as Danny? Where would we be now?” She looked at him sharply. “You didn’t make the same choices, right? You’re not doing drugs?”
He found a wry smile. “You’d know, Mom. It’s hard to hide the kind of addict Danny is.” The truth was he hadn’t distanced himself because of Danny’s drug problem. He’d removed himself from the Rosses because he’d slept with Cat, couldn’t be for her who she wanted him to be, and ran. Not for the first time, a stab of guilt hit him. Had Danny lost his way because he’d lost his friend? Cat hadn’t said it out loud on Thursday, but she clearly held Ian accountable for some things.
“What are we going to do for Cat? We need to help her help Danny,” Mom asked, obviously taking on the mother bear role.
“I’m not sure she’ll accept any help. She’s pretty independent.”
“She’ll listen to me,” his mother said, fully confident that she could take on mothering Cat as she used to. “Call her and invite her for Thanksgiving. Once she’s back in the fold, we’ll get Danny out of trouble.” She hopped off the counter, patted his cheek, and bent to load some plates into the dishwasher.
Ian sidestepped her, stared at her back, torn between laughter and frustration. His mom was a force of nature. She’d given orders to invite Cat, and now he was stuck. If he didn’t invite Cat or lied about it, Mom would find Cat herself and then he’d get caught in the lie.
“Ian,” his mom said, looking up suddenly from the dishwasher. “Stop overthinking this. What do you want?”
Easy answer. Cat.
Cat dragged herself out of bed where she’d been trying to look for additional jobs. Unfortunately, her neighbor had changed his wi-fi password so she was reduced to squinting at her tiny, cracked pay-as-you go cell phone. She’d tried to ignore the persistent knocking on her door, but she couldn’t because it was too distracting.
She peeked through the peephole and groaned out loud. It was Ian Lawrence. How had he found her?
“Cat, I can hear you. Open the door.”
“No. Go away, or I’m calling the cops.” A shiver of excitement rolled up under her skin. He’d actually tracked her down.
“Really? Come on, Cat. I promise I’ll just be a second.”
“I mean it, Ian. We’re not friends anymore. Let’s stay out of each other’s lives.”
“Cabbage Patch, don’t shut me out.”
She yanked open the door to glare up at him. “Don’t you dare call me Cabbage Patch.” That was Danny’s nickname for her. Everyone thought it was because of her diminutive height, but she knew it was because she’d still slept with her cousin’s hand-me-down Cabbage Patch doll every night.
“Got you to open the door, didn’t I?” Ian didn’t wait for her to slam the wood in his face, and pushed his way into the apartment.
She refused to look at him as he took the five-second tour of the place with his gaze. Sofa that doubled as a bed, coffee table made up of Winn Dixie crates, and a tiny kitchenette against one wall. He turned to her slowly, and she braced herself for a barrage of questions. The last time he’d visited her home, she’d been living on one of Miami’s gated island communities in a house that looked like a movie set.
Ian surprised her when he strolled over to her bed/couch and took a seat. He shifted slightly and pulled a pink scrap of material from under his butt. Her cheeks burned as she snatched her bra from his hand and tossed it to her side, roughly in the direction of her bathroom and closet. Without pausing to see if the bra had hit her target, she leaned down and stuck a finger at his face.
“What are you doing here? I don’t want you here.” She’d never had company over before. For one, she was always working. Who had time to throw dinner parties? Two, her rent-a-shit-hole wasn’t exactly designed for entertaining.
“Never would’ve guessed,” he said, acting all relaxed as if he had a right to be sitting on her bed. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the spot next to him as if it were his apartment.
And sit on an unmade bed next to him? Not likely. “I’ll stand. Anything you want to say to me won’t take long.”
“Unfortunately, you’re wrong,” he said softly. “I have years of things to say to you.”
She folded her arms across her chest. He took her stony silence as permission to speak.
She continued to stare stonily at him, as he said what she’d always thought.
“I shouldn’t have run. I was a coward. I should’ve known a lot of shit about what was happening to you, but I didn’t, and it sucks because Danny was my best friend and you were like my little sister.”
“It wasn’t your job,” she said softly, choosing to ignore his comment about being his little sister. When he’d taken her virginity, there’d been nothing familial about it.
He met her gaze and shook his head. “It wasn’t my job, but as a friend, it was my moral responsibility and I failed.”
Shit, he was going to make her cry, and she was a terrible crier. She couldn’t cry like a normal person, instead she tended to hold everything in until once in a blue moon, she’d completely lose it in a hysterical ugly fit of sobs and hiccups and a snotty nose. She was reminded of the night Ian had been the unlucky one to have to deliver the news of her parents’ death and she’d vomited all over him and his car. Nice. Good times.
“You were practically a teenager,” she managed to respond over the lump in her throat. Her words belied her true feelings on the matter. She’d been devastated when Ian had slept with her and then ghosted out of her life. “My expectations were the silly fantasies of a stupid girl. What did I think? That you were going to graduate college and marry me?”
His gaze bored a hole into her soul. “You had that right. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
She held up a hand before he apologized and admitted his regret for their one-time sexual interlude. “I wanted you. I touched you.”
“You were a virgin,” he protested. “I knew you had a crush on me and I took advantage.”
Ouch, but a girl had to have some pride, so she returned, “I might’ve been a virgin, but I wasn’t so innocent that I missed how much you stared at me whenever you came over.”
“’Cause you were always in a bikini or coming out of the shower.”
She smiled smugly. “Like I said, I wasn’t that innocent.”
He shook his head at her and their eyes met in something resembling an accord and reminiscent of their former friendship.
Ian pulled them back to present day first. “I was twenty-two and knew better. You scared me with how much I wanted what you were offering, but I knew I was too young to accept.”
“Why are you here now, Ian?” she asked. “Are you regretting the past? Have you decided we’re both old enough now? It’s too late. I’m not that silly teenager crushing on her brother’s best friend.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I’m here to help.”
She blinked.
“I’ve been a shitty friend. You’re right that I’ve ignored Danny’s drug use for too long, and now I still ignore it cause it’s easier.”
“I wish ignoring it would make it go away,” she said. “But he’s my brother, and he’s my business. You can go back to your successful life on the beach, partying it up, and never worry about me again, but, again, I would appreciate if you turned Danny away from your parties.”
“Not good enough. I want to do more.” He settled back onto the couch/bed and stared at an unfocused point behind her. “When did it start? How soon after your parents died?”
She knew he was asking about Danny’s drug use.
“He’d already been smoking a lot of pot during high school.” She hoped her raised brow got her point across, which was that Ian absolutely knew, because he’d been Danny’s favorite buddy with whom to get high. In fact, she’d been able to get past his defenses and take advantage of the fact that they’d both been smoking weed at her eighteenth birthday party.
At least he didn’t pretend ignorance. “What about the harder stuff? The more expensive stuff?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know exactly, but like I said, he sold the house a few months after I turned eighteen. And then we had to move.”
“Where did you go?”
“An apartment,” she said. “Aunt Ros came with us at first, and then she got fed up with Danny and left.”
“She left you? Alone with a drug addict brother?”
“Honestly, we didn’t even know how bad things were until he sold the house. And even then, he acted as if we needed to move on from living in our parents’ home. He said he wanted a fresh start for us both. I didn’t understand it was all about the money until later. He was super careful never to come home high or tripping.”
“Still, she shouldn’t have left.”
She nodded and tried not to dreg up the panic from the past remembering the night. Aunt Ros had packed up, cursed at them in a glorious mash of Cuban Spanish and Miami English, and left. “I wasn’t exactly the easiest of teenagers. I was pissed about my parents and let her know every second that she was a poor substitute for my mother.” She kicked at a hole in the carpet with her bare toe. “I never thought she’d leave. I would’ve been better behaved if I’d thought she’d leave me.”
He held up a hand. “Fuck that. You were a kid. She was your only living relative besides your brother, who was basically a kid, too.”
Exactly what she’d always thought, but it didn’t make her regrets and what-ifs any easier.
“Cat. I’m sorry this happened to you. I thought you were fine.” His lips curved downward. “Well, not fine, but at least financially fine.”
“As you can see, you were wrong. Danny spent every penny our parents had left us on drugs. He didn’t make mortgage payments for months. And as my legal guardian, he managed to drain my bank accounts. I was left with my clothes.”
“Holy shit, Cat. I kind of want to kill your brother right now.” He ran a hand through his dark hair.
“Join the club.” Except Danny was still her brother and she loved him no matter how badly he’d screwed up.
“Please believe me, if I had known what was going on, I would’ve helped. I never would’ve let this happen to you.”
Suddenly she was irrationally annoyed at his pronouncement as if he were Santa Claus swooping in to save the day. He’d been the same age as Danny and as irresponsible. Besides, he was acting as if she were dying of cancer or something truly terrible. She leaned forward. “Let this happen to me? Let what happen to me? Poverty? Because there are worse things than being poor. I have a good life,” she said, barring a horrible landlord and overdue bills.
He gave a dubious look around the apartment. “Uh, huh. But I still want to help. You didn’t want my money, but what if I just give you enough to make your rent?” He started to reach into his pocket for what she assumed would be his wallet. Sure enough, he pulled out a roll of cash. Enough to pay her rent but less than he’d offered her earlier.
“I won’t take it.” Unfortunately, her fingers had betrayed her by reaching slightly for the money.
“Cat, take it. You need it.”
“And then what? You disappear out of my life and I never pay you back?”
He stood. “If that’s what you want.”
“I’m not a charity case. I’ll figure it out somehow.”
He met and held her gaze for a minute, and then he stuck the wad of cash back in the pocket of his faded jeans that looked way too good on him. Cat hated to admit it, but as much as Ian annoyed her right now, her old schoolgirl crush rushed back. The second Ian had walked into her tiny apartment, her heart had pounded, and seeing him in her bed had her imagining how he’d look in it naked.
“Tell you what,” he said. “If you won’t take my money, reconsider taking a job from me. I have a little say about who gets hired, and I think you’d be good in the job. So you should have it,” he said.
“What kind of job?” she asked, but darn it was tempting. Knowing that her job at Mo’s was
in jeopardy made her need for the money that much more desperate. “Would I have to see you a lot?” Shit, that wasn’t what she’d meant to ask, but it had fallen off her tongue, as if seeing Ian was her biggest concern.
He shrugged his wide shoulders, and the short sleeves of his T-shirt pulled up, revealing taut biceps. “Yeah, does that bother you?”
“Of course not,” she said, doing her best to hide how he affected her. “What exactly would I be doing? Is it a glorified call girl job? You’re a pimp, right?” She let a small smile slip out so he could see she was messing with him.
“It’s a hostess job. You will have to flirt with people and smile when they flirt with you.”
“I can do that. Every waitress worth her salt can.” A tiny bean of hope planted and unfurled in her body.
“You’ll be responsible for being at the club hours before it will be packed with bodies. VIPs pay big money to reserve a private booth for the night. It’ll be up to you to know who gets a booth and who gets the boot.”
“Okay…”
“Most booths are reserved in advance, but you always have to be ready to accommodate the celebrities who wander in from time to time.”
Again, she nodded.
“This is Miami,” he said, “and there’s a hierarchy of fame. You’ll have to walk a balance beam of knowing whose star is shining brighter that day. They get the VIP treatment. Or you have to be ready to toss an asshole with money but no fame even if he’d paid the big bucks to be there.”
“Will you have muscle?” she asked, referring to the ubiquitous gorilla-men patrolling clubs to make sure nothing got out of hand.
“Of course. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
She raised a brow and gave the room a pointed sweep.
He had the grace to flush slightly. “Cat, I was wrong for staying out of your life. I should’ve been in it helping you, especially since I’ve seen how messed up Danny is. If your own brother can screw you like this, of course you’re right to doubt me.”
She stood and paced a few feet from the bed, which brought her into her kitchen where the sink housed a dirty bowl of canned ravioli she’d gotten at the sale shelf at Publix. “Danny hid his addiction well.” She turned back to face him. “You think I don’t blame myself every day, too? I was his sister. I lived with him. You were off at college and only saw him at breaks. How were you supposed to know how addicted he was if I didn’t know?”