by Meghan March
“Now is not a good time, McKinley.”
“It’s never a good time to deal with her, but someone has to do it.”
“Fuck. Fine. But I’m stealing one of your employees to sit on the VIP floor. Whitney’s a flight risk, and I’m not letting that happen.”
“Do whatever you need to do, just get to the damn lobby and handle her.”
I hang up with my sister and jog down the hall to the bar. After I relieve the bartender of his duties and give him explicit instructions, I head for the elevator.
When I reach the lobby, a crowd has gathered in the atrium area where my mother is spouting off about the Gable whores to anyone who will listen.
She has officially lost her goddamned mind. My mother, the queen of never air your dirty laundry, is enraged enough to forget every single thing she’s ever drilled into me.
I rush toward her and bump into Jackie Gable. She grabs my arm.
“You need to take care of her. I tried to get her to go quietly, but . . . it just went downhill from there.”
“I’ll take care of it. I’m so sorry you had to hear this.”
I march up to my mother and wrap my hand around her upper arm. “You’re leaving.”
“You chose that whore!”
I pull my mother to the nearest employee-only door and drag her through it. As soon as it closes, she screeches at me.
“Don’t you dare drag me around like that! You’re my son, and you’ll respect me. That whore is ruining you!”
I pull out my phone to call her driver. “Pull around to the rear employee entrance. My mother will meet you there. You’ll return her to the estate, and you won’t take her anywhere else for the rest of the night. Understood?”
When I have the affirmative answer I need, I hang up and point toward the rear of the resort. “If you’ll follow me, Mother, it’s time for you to leave.”
The animosity in my mother’s glare could peel the paint off walls, but she marches ahead of me, still going off.
“If you think for one second she won’t drag you down with her, you’re wrong. You’ll drag the whole family into the filth surrounding her, and we’ll never be clean again. The legacy will be destroyed. All future generations will be tainted.”
“You’re being melodramatic, Mother. Now tell me—”
“I’ll tell you nothing! I won’t allow you to do this to us.”
“Unfortunately for you, you don’t get a say. If you would just let go of your hatred of the Gable family for two seconds, you would realize how ridiculous you’re acting.”
“That Gable whore murdered my husband. I will never forget what happened that night.”
Part of me wants to shoot back that he might never have been her legal husband, but I keep that to myself.
When we approach the employee entrance, I try to reason with my mother one more time. “No one will ever forget what happened that night. You can still grieve for your loss. For our loss. But you don’t have to place the blame on Whitney. She wasn’t there. She had nothing to do with it.”
My mother whips around to look at me, anger stamped on her features. “If you think for one moment that Gable women aren’t the downfall of Riscoff men, then you haven’t been paying attention. All I tried to do was protect you from her. From them. All she wanted was your money, and as soon as she knew you weren’t going to get a penny of inheritance from your grandfather, she turned to the arms of another man faster than you could blink. What do you think about that?”
So that’s what she told Whitney all those years ago. That I would lose everything if I chose her.
“When did you tell her that?”
“After your father’s funeral.”
I think back to what happened ten years ago, the events that are burned in my brain. As soon as I piece together the timeline in my head, I know my mother is wrong. Dead wrong.
I start laughing.
“Jesus Christ. Now it all makes sense.” I shake my head. “You didn’t drive her away, Mother. I did that all by myself.”
47
Lincoln
The past
Plink. The window stayed dark.
I found another small rock and launched it at the window of the upstairs bedroom I knew Whitney was sleeping in. I’d bribed the next-door neighbor’s kid who Jackie babysits some nights to get the information. Was I proud of it? No. But I’d do it again.
Tink. The pebble connected, but still no light.
I threw another, and finally, a dim glow lit up the room.
Come on, Blue. I gotta see you. Talk to you. Hold you.
I tossed another pebble, and it clicked on the window just before the sash slid up. Whitney stuck her head out, her dark hair a cloud around her face.
“Whitney.” When I said her name, she looked down at me.
“Lincoln? What are you doing here?”
“Bad impression of Romeo?”
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you. Please.”
She stared down at me for a few moments before she closed the window and the light went out.
Fuck. Seriously? She’s just going to shut me down like that?
All this time I’d been telling myself that it was Ricky and Asa and Karma keeping me away from Whitney, but maybe I was wrong.
Maybe she didn’t want to see me at all.
Maybe she couldn’t get over what happened.
Maybe this was all for nothing . . .
I watched her window for another sign of life, but it didn’t come. Frustrated, I jammed my hand into my hair.
“Come on, Blue . . . just give me a chance,” I whispered.
“That’s what I’m doing, but we have to get out of here.”
Whitney’s voice came from beside me, scaring the living shit out of me.
“Jesus Christ. I didn’t—”
“Where’d you park? We gotta get out of here before someone sees.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed her hand, and together we jogged down the street to where I parked my truck a block away so no one would see it.
Just having her hand in mine felt so good, I didn’t want to let it go. I kept a tight grip on her until I opened the passenger door and helped her in. She was in tiny white pajama shorts, a tank top, no bra, and flip-flops.
God does exist.
As soon as I shut her door, I hustled around to my side and jumped in.
“Where can we go that’s safe?” she asked. “The cabin?”
When she looked at me, all I wanted to do was drag her across the center console and hold her in my arms.
Not yet.
“Yeah. That’ll work.” As I turned the key, I thought of what happened last time I was there, and how Commodore made me hide out until the black eyes faded, which was yesterday.
I pulled away from the curb and reached out to find Whitney’s hand. She grasped mine and kept a tight grip as we drove through town.
We both held our breath as we crossed the bridge where our parents had died. The guardrail had been replaced, and aside from the marks on the pavement, you’d never know it had happened.
“I’m so sorry about your dad.” She spoke so quietly that I barely heard her say it as we cleared the other side of the bridge. “Really sorry. I can’t believe . . .” Her voice broke.
“I know. It’s not your fault. None of it. I’m so fucking sorry about your parents. I’m sorry about every single fucking bit of it. That I didn’t listen to you about Ricky. That we fought. For what my mother said at the hospital. All of it.” I looked over at Whitney in the passenger seat, and the street lights illuminated her stricken face every few seconds. “Please don’t cry, Blue. Please.”
“It still doesn’t feel real, does it? I mean . . . if I try to forget the funeral, sometimes I can almost convince myself that I just haven’t seen my parents in a couple weeks, and they’ll walk through the door anytime. It doesn’t feel like they’re gone forever. Like I’ll never get to see the
m again.”
I couldn’t stop the tears tracking down her face, but I did feel every bit of the anguish in her tone and understood exactly what she meant. “I get it. It’s like my dad is on an overseas business trip and is ignoring the fact he has a family.”
“Why does it have to be real? Why do so many bad things have to happen? And why—”
I didn’t know what other question she was going to ask, but she cut herself off.
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to think about it tonight. I don’t really want to think about any of it. That’s all I do, is think about it. I’m so tired of feeling broken.”
I squeezed her hand harder as we turned down the gravel drive that led to the cabin, and I parked. “Let me help put you back together, Blue. That’s all I want.”
I helped her out of the truck and kept her pressed tightly to my side as we entered the cabin. As soon as the door closed, I wrapped my arms around her and held her against my chest. I rested my chin on her head, and together we stood there in silence.
“I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”
Her body shook, and I rocked her from side to side until she finally looked up at me. “I didn’t know how much I needed that until right now.”
I threaded my fingers into her hair and cradled the back of her head. “I’ll help you any way I can, Blue. All you have to do is tell me what you need.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck.
“You. I need you.”
48
Whitney
I’d been drowning in grief for what seemed like a million years, sleepwalking through every minute of every day, but as soon as Lincoln wrapped his arms around me, it was like I snapped awake.
“I don’t want to talk about what happened,” I told him. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to drown anymore.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go until you tell me to.”
I never want him to let me go.
I pulled Lincoln’s head down to mine and took control of the kiss. Power flooded my veins, and I finally felt like I had control over something in my life. It was a heady illusion, but I was going to take every bit of it I could get.
“Blue—” He said my nickname against my lips, but I wasn’t stopping.
“Just kiss me.”
“Whatever you want. Tonight’s all about you.”
He bent his knees, slid an arm under my legs, and picked me up. I gripped the muscles of his shoulders and they flexed and hardened.
Just the simple act of having my hands on him reminded me that I was alive. I hadn’t felt alive since they told me my parents were gone.
No. Not thinking about that.
Lincoln laid me on the bed, and I snagged the hem of his shirt before he could step away.
“Off. Take it off.”
He didn’t question me, just whipped the shirt over his head.
“I don’t want sweet or soft. I want . . .” My words trailed off because I didn’t know how to express what I needed. “I want to feel alive.”
A wave of emotion flashed across Lincoln’s face, but it was gone before I could identify it.
“I know. I need that too.”
I sat up and reached for the button on his jeans, flipping it free and letting them fall. When he was standing naked before me, the sight was enough to block any coherent thought from my brain other than this feels right.
He stepped forward, and I reached for him as he slipped my straps off my shoulders. “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”
“Hurry.” I shimmied out of my shorts and tossed my tank over my head.
Thoughts of how it was the last time we were here and how it ended start to invade my brain, and I had to block them out. I bolted up to my knees and threw myself at him, my chest against his, my hands tangling in the ends of his hair.
It was like flipping a switch on Lincoln. His hands clutched my shoulders and then one dropped to my ass. I bucked my hips against him, trapping his cock between us.
“God, Blue.”
“Stop talking to God and take me.”
I dropped to my butt and spread my legs wide, pulling him between them.
“We need—”
“I don’t care right now. I just need to feel this and forget everything else.”
Lincoln’s expression hardened as if he was fighting a battle with himself, and clearly, I lost. He didn’t push inside me, bare, the way I expected. No, he dropped to his knees and his mouth found my center. His tongue swept my lips apart, lashing me over and over as he teased my clit. My hips lifted, and he used one hand to hold me down as the other circled a finger around my entrance.
“You want me here.” He pushed in to the first knuckle before pulling free.
“Yes.”
His fingers slid inside, but it wasn’t his fingers I wanted. But the pleasure assaulted my senses, and I let it build. Blood pounded in my ears, drowning out my own moans as he added another finger. His lips latched onto my clit and he sucked, tripping me over the edge to orgasm. My inner muscles clamped down on his fingers as I came.
“Fuck, Blue. Fuck.”
He pulled free and seconds later, I was full again, but this time his cock stretched me wide as he pounded into me.
“Yes. Yes. Like that.”
He went harder and faster, and I lost track of everything except for how he lit my body up. The orgasm hit me harder than ever before, and everything inside me, including all the pieces that were already broken, shattered into dust as I screamed.
“I love you!”
There was no way he could miss the words. Lincoln stilled, and I felt his cock pump into me.
“Shit. I was going to pull out. I meant to, but it—”
“It’s okay. I’m on the pill. We’re fine.”
I hoped he was too worried about that to bring up what I’d said. Why did I say it? Because I wanted to feel something other than sorrow and loss?
“Blue—”
“Can you get me a washcloth? I need to clean up.”
Lincoln nodded slowly and pulled out. His gaze lingered on me before he walked to the bathroom, and I heard running water. When he reappeared a minute later, he held out a towel and I took it from him.
“You know I would take care of you if it wasn’t fine.”
My head jerked up at his words. “What?”
Lincoln looked down at me, his expression soft. “I want to take care of you, regardless. You don’t have to live in your aunt’s house, sharing a room with your cousin. I can get you your own place. Then we won’t have to keep coming here.” He waved an arm toward the bed. “We’d have privacy. Away from everyone. No one could interrupt us.”
“What are you saying?” I blinked again, and then twice more as I stared at him.
“I want to take care of you, Whitney. Let me.”
For a few precious minutes, I’d gotten to shut the world out, but now everything came roaring back.
“You want to take care of me? Like . . . pay for me to have a place to live?” I was so shocked by what he was saying, I had to make sure that I wasn’t misunderstanding.
“Yeah. And your bills. Get you a car. You could go to school, if you want. I’ll make sure your tuition is covered too.”
A greasy feeling pooled in my stomach, and I snatched up the sheet and pulled it over me.
“Tuition?” I felt like a parrot, repeating everything he said.
“Yeah. Spending money, whatever you need.”
I blinked a few more times, waiting for him to start laughing and tell me it was a joke, but he didn’t.
I clutched the sheet to my chest. “You want to give me an allowance?”
Some of Lincoln’s earnest expression faded away. “Not like an allowance, but . . . I just don’t want you to have to worry about money.”
I shook my head, my mouth hanging open. “And we’ll keep seeing each other. You paying all my bills .
. .”
“Well, yeah.” Lincoln looked confused.
“So you want me to be your side piece tucked up in some house in town. A convenient spot for you to stop and get your rocks off before you go home to the estate and whichever socialite your mom picks out for you?” I jumped off the bed and snagged my clothes from the floor.
“Whitney, you’re making it sound—”
“Like you want me to be your whore? Because that’s exactly what it sounds like to me!” I yanked the tank over my head and tugged on my shorts.
Lincoln jammed his hands into his hair. “Not like that. I just want you to have everything you need and not have to work or worry about money.”
I coughed and laughed at the same time. “And what would you tell your mom when she found out and had another heart attack?”
“She doesn’t have to know—”
My laughter came harsher and louder. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Like father, like son. Not fucking happening.”
I marched toward the door to the bedroom as he struggled to get his jeans on. Not a fucking chance, Lincoln Riscoff. I won’t be your whore.
This time, as I walked through the living room, I was smart enough to snag the keys from the table where Lincoln had left them.
“Whitney, wait! That’s not—”
“No. I’m done waiting for you to man up, Lincoln. I’m done with all of this.” I slammed the door on my way out. “You can’t buy me!”
I hoped he liked walking home this time.
49
Lincoln
Present day
My mother had laid the seeds of doubt in Whitney’s mind, and I’d played right into them the night I finally got to see her. I was young and stupid then, and all I knew was that I’d never felt like that about anyone before Whitney Gable.
I didn’t realize I’d never feel that way about anyone else, but I won’t be making the same mistake again.
As soon as my mother is in the back of an SUV and on her way to the estate, I return to the front desk to make myself a key card for Whitney’s room. She and I are going to talk tonight whether she wants to or not.
