Sexy Stranger

by Kendall Ryan

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  Shielding my eyes from the sun, I took a deep breath, forcing from my throat the words I didn’t want to say out loud. “First of all, he never asked me to stay.”

  “Fucking dipshit,” Duke said under his breath. “You know he bribed Wayne, don’t you? You could’ve gotten out of here yesterday.”

  That was news to me, but it felt like too little, too late. “Doesn’t matter. We had fun, and now it’s over.”

  Luke knew how I felt. I’d put my heart out there the night of my party, asked him to tell me to stay. He wouldn’t, and now it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Luke

  After handing Wayne his money, I watched as Duke said one last good-bye to Charlotte and then climbed into his truck. Wayne went back inside, and then it was just Charlotte and me.

  “The end of the road,” I murmured, and she nodded.

  I didn’t know what to say, and it seemed she didn’t either. I folded her into my arms one last time, trying not to notice how perfectly she fit there. There were no tears, no long drawn-out good-bye, and no promises to keep in touch. She had stormed into my life, but it seemed she was leaving without the same flair.

  I thought about kissing her good-bye, but in the end, I couldn’t. I simply helped her into her car, shut the door, then watched as she drove off into the distance, my fists clenched at my sides and my stomach tight with despair.

  But as that fancy foreign car disappeared over the horizon, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was taking my heart along with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Charlotte

  I cried all the way through the rest of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. For three days, I drove toward LA, thinking over the past week in Shady Grove and trying to convince myself not to turn back.

  I wanted to run into Luke’s house and demand that he realize I wasn’t the same as Sarah, that things would be different with me if he’d only give it a chance. But then, whenever I was leaving one highway motel or another, I would realize that my actions—no matter how grand—would do nothing to change his mind.

  He was a traditionalist, down to the stereotype of being stuck in his ways, and if I thought I was going to be the one to change him? Well, I had another thing coming.

  No, Luke Wilder and everything he stood for was in the rearview now—just like New York and Prescott and all the rest of my past.

  Suddenly, this move didn’t feel like starting over or starting fresh anymore. It simply felt like . . . settling. As if every mile I got closer to LA, I was getting a little farther from what I actually wanted.

  I was excited to see Valentina, of course, but even when I finally pulled up to my friend’s house, it was with a growing sense of doom and despair.

  After hauling my suitcase from the backseat, I trudged up the little stoop outside Valentina’s chic bungalow and rang the doorbell. In an instant, my friend was there, all tanned willowy limbs and long dark curls, embracing me in a hug that seemed to go on forever.

  Which, of course, only made the tears I thought I’d managed to leave behind in Arizona spring back up and rear their ugly heads.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Valentina cooed as she ushered me inside.

  I sniffled before following her, swiping away my tears with the back of my hand. “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”

  “You are many things, but stupid is not one of them.” She gestured to her bright white couch and I took a seat carefully, wiping away another errant tear. “What’s going on?”

  I let the whole story spill out—or, at least, the parts of it she didn’t already know. I was a little ashamed that I shared more than I probably should have. About the hot sex and the burning attraction between Luke and me. About what we’d said to each other in our intimate moments. About how he’d held me all night before I left, and the way he hadn’t even kissed me good-bye.

  About how he refused to ask me to stay.

  Through it all, Valentina sat in rapt attention, nibbling at her long, perfectly manicured fingernails and nodding in all the right places. When I finally finished, she sat back and let out a wistful little sigh.

  “Well, that sounds like it was all long overdue.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Think about the guys you’ve been with,” she said with a shrug. “You needed someone outside your comfort zone. You needed to have a little brush with real love.”

  “But Prescott—”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are you really going to sit here and tell me—me, your best friend since kindergarten—that you were in love with Prescott?”

  “I was going to marry him,” I shot back.

  “Which, I’ll remind you, had nothing to do with love. Your parents just wanted to see that you didn’t squander that tidy little inheritance of yours. He was well bred, just like you. For God’s sake, that relationship was more like two animals mating in captivity than actually—”

  I made a little choking noise and Valentina stopped short.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Well, I never actually . . . Prescott and I didn’t . . .”

  Valentina let out a disgusted snort. “You were going to marry a guy you’d never slept with? What is this, the eighteen hundreds?”

  I closed my eyes. “Marrying him just seemed like the practical thing to do. We got along well and traveled in the same circles.”

  “God, that is the most depressing reason for getting married I’ve ever heard. I’m so glad you weren’t going to write your own vows. You probably would have cited the tax codes that made marriage such a great decision.” She rolled her eyes again, tsk-tsking at me. “Come on, we both know the real reason you were going to marry him, and it wasn’t because he was practical and respectable.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Are you really going to make me say it out loud?” Valentina said, and I stared at her blankly.

  As far as I knew, I’d gotten engaged to Prescott because he’d asked me, and because it made a certain kind of sense on paper. Anything other than that would have been news to me.

  “You don’t think you were just so desperate to please Mommy and Daddy that you were ready to commit yourself to their all-star team pick for your husband?”

  I scoffed. “I don’t know what you—”

  “Charlotte, I saw you after your father turned you down for that job at his company. And I was there when your mother sniffed at your prom date and asked about his last name. I know what those people do to you. You’re never good enough for them. But with Prescott, you had a chance to finally—”

  “That’s not true,” I said, a sick feeling welling up inside me, but Valentina ignored me.

  “Prescott had a better family name, a bigger inheritance, and a prettier penthouse than yours. No wonder Mommy and Daddy were so gung-ho about this union. Their social stock would climb like nobody’s business.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip, not willing to give in yet. God, the person she was describing sounded so pathetic. Poor little rich girl, desperate for her parents to love her. That couldn’t be me.

  “My parents’ approval is important to me, but it’s not everything.”

  “And that’s why you made the right decision and left.” Valentina gave me an approving nod. “But tell me, when was the last time they really listened to what you thought or what you wanted? You can’t go on like this, just living life to please them, and they need to know it.”

  She jerked her head toward the phone on the coffee table between us. “Tomorrow, you call. But for now? You’ve had a long trip. I think you should take a nice hot shower, have a nap, and then we’ll hit the town. Come morning, you can decide what to say to your parents. And Luke. Maybe even Prescott too.”

  “You’re too wise for your own good,” I said, and she laughed.

  “I get that a lot.”

&
nbsp; So, that afternoon, I did as she suggested. I took a shower and then lay down to sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I felt like I was in Luke’s bed, waiting for his warm, strong arm to wind its way around me and pull me close. Waiting for him to smell my hair and kiss the back of my neck. Wanting him to pull me close and whisper something dirty in my ear. Waiting for something that would never come again.

  Of course, in the rare moments I didn’t think about Luke, I considered my life. My choices.

  I was, I knew, a daughter of privilege. I had no student loans and no debt to speak of, a fancy car I hadn’t paid for myself, and a black credit card I could whip out at a moment’s notice.

  But at what cost?

  My mother’s indignation when I made a choice she didn’t like. My father’s continued disapproval. The expectation that I would continue in their footsteps by marrying well and raising children who would live sheltered, privileged lives just like mine, with a history of cold boarding schools and even chillier romances.

  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t a price I was willing to pay.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Luke

  It had been three days since Charlotte had left, and in all that time I hadn’t bothered to leave the barn.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The day she left, Duke had taken me into town and I’d gotten shit-faced drunk. Then I spent the next day in bed, pretending to be hung over, but I was really just heartbroken.

  Now, though? Now, I was determined. Throwing myself into my work seemed to be the best distraction I could find.

  Our first public unveiling would take place in a month, and there was still so much to do, so many events to plan. My face was rough with unshaven stubble and my eyes were dark with exhaustion, but in the end, I knew it would be worth it. The barn would house more than just a distillery—it would be a hometown tasting room complete with special lighting and ambience, all the touches that Charlotte had so carefully laid out for us.

  If only I didn’t see her face . . . feel her touch . . . smell her hair every second of the day.

  She’d come up with half the specialty mixes for the tasting bar, the ideas for the whiskey-barrel pub tables, and the burlap coasters with the branded design on them. Even as I strung the lights from the rafters, I could recall the way she’d laughed at me when I asked why it mattered so much that we got Edison bulbs instead of twinkling Christmas lights.

  “See?” she’d said. “This is why you need me.”

  I ran my hand over my scraggly beard, then climbed down from the ladder and snapped a few shots. Soon, I’d be sending off my ideas to investors to see if we could expand the barn—make it into a full-scale grand destination. Something for parties and weddings.

  That, I realized with a thud of my heart, had been Charlotte’s idea too.

  A light knock sounded against the door behind me, and I turned to find my sister leaning against the door frame.

  “Wow.” Molly let out a low whistle. “Duke said you’d been hard at work, but I never imagined . . .”

  The place was pretty impressive. I’d built the tasting bar myself, and had already arranged four of the sixteen bar stools that would be clustered around the wide oak-barrel tables. A lantern sat in the center of each table, and as I flipped a switch, the soft light of the Edison bulbs overhead let me know that Charlotte had been right. The soft yellow glow made all the difference, especially on a rainy day like today.

  “You like it?” I asked.

  “I think it’s perfect.” Molly nodded. “Looks like you had help, though.”

  I cleared my throat, trying to sound casual. “Charlotte ordered most of it before she left. I just had to set the place up.”

  “If only she could see it now,” Molly said with a pointed look. “I bet she wouldn’t believe it’s the same barn you showed her around before.”

  “Well, she did have a soft spot for the place.”

  “She’d be proud.”

  “Yeah, I bet she would.”

  Molly slid onto one of the stools in front of the tasting bar. “Hey, make me a Little Wilder, huh?”

  I made quick work of mixing her drink, and when I passed it her way, she lifted the glass slightly.

  “This one was your idea, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I can tell. Traditional old-fashioned with a little twist of something modern.”

  “Look, Molly—”

  She held up a hand to silence me. “I’m not trying to influence you one way or another. Your life is your business,” she said with a little sigh. “But if you ask for my opinion, on the other hand—”

  “Which I haven’t,” I reminded her.

  “Which you haven’t, but if you did, I would tell you what I really thought.” She took a sip of her drink and waited, knowing that I’d have to ask.

  “Fine. What do you think?”

  “I think you’ve been a miserable prick since Charlotte left, and you let her go for no good reason.”

  I let out a humorless laugh. “Is that all?”

  “She hasn’t posted even a single Instagram pic since we all when to What the Cluck. I’m thinking she’s probably pretty miserable too.”

  “In Los Angeles? A girl like her? I doubt it,” I said, although my selfish heart lifted at the thought that she might miss me. That even some small portion of her was hurting the way I’d been hurting—even though she couldn’t possibly be as haunted by my absence as I was by hers.

  “I think you were too quick to judge her,” Molly said.

  I shrugged. “You weren’t with us all the time.”

  Molly sat down her drink with a thunk and waggled a finger at me. “I was with you enough, and I’ve been around you all your life. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. I saw what happened at the party.”

  “What do you—”

  “I was in the corner talking to Dana French, and I heard Charlotte tell you to ask her to stay.”

  My heart dropped into my stomach. “I asked for your opinion, not a recounting of the facts.”

  “Fine, then, here’s my opinion. You’re a dumbass.”

  “Molly—”

  “You forget that I knew Sarah. I was going to be the maid of honor at your wedding. I was there when Dad . . .” Molly cleared her throat and gathered herself before she continued. “I was only around Charlotte for a week, but I’m here to tell you that while you do have a definite type, those two are most certainly not interchangeable people. Charlotte would never have left you like that, without a word right after Dad died. Sarah was self-involved and entitled. Charlotte isn’t like that.”

  “How would you know?” I shot back.

  “Look around this room,” Molly said simply. “You didn’t pay her for this. Charlotte helped you out of the goodness of her heart, and she never once told you to give up.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that she’d never be happy in Shady Grove,” I said, although my argument sounded feeble, even to me.

  “You never know anything until you try. And you? You’re afraid of trying.” Molly shoved off her stool, then pulled the hood of her rain jacket over her head. “Look, I have a feeling that no matter what I say, you’re going to have some argument for me, so I’m not going to waste my breath. I only came to tell you that a letter came today from an investor who saw your pictures online. He’s coming to see the place next week.”

  A little thrill of excitement ran through me, but it did nothing to assuage the guilt and turmoil borne by everything Molly had said. What followed was a tiny grain of something like hope.

  “Don’t work yourself to death in here,” Molly added, then hunched over and hurried out into the rain.

  I glanced at her half-empty glass and then reached for my phone. Scrolling through my contacts, I opened Charlotte’s information and stared at it, my thumb hovering over the Call button for what felt like the hun
dredth time.

  Logically, I knew it was better to cut things off with her cold turkey. But after everything, Molly had said . . .

  I shoved the phone back in my pocket and headed for my truck, my head whirling with everything that needed to be done before the investor showed up. It also spun with all the reasons I shouldn’t pull out my phone and see if Molly was right.

  To see if Charlotte missed me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  On my second day at Valentina’s, I summoned my courage and picked up my phone, finding another slew of missed calls and texts.

  None, I noticed, were from Luke.

  I was going to have to deal with the emotions that came along with that soon enough, and I was dreading it. But there were other things that needed tending to as well. Things I felt more sure of with every passing minute.

  Clicking open the first message, I listened as my mother’s voice poured through the speaker. “Charlotte, sweetie, you missed your appointment with the doctor yesterday. You do know it’s very hard to get appointments like those at such short notice. I’ll reschedule, but you should know what an awful imposition this is.” The message clicked off.

  No “I love you,” no “I hope you’re safe.” Again, no question about where I was. For them, it was all about damage control.

  Well, I was sick of being a liability. With shaking fingers, I dialed my mother’s number and waited until her bored, upper-crust tones filled the line.

  “Charlotte, finally.”

  “Hello, Mother.”

  “What day will work well for the doctor? I assume you got my message?”

  “I’m not going to any doctor.” My voice was more resolute than I’d ever heard it, and I straightened my shoulders to project even more.

  “What on earth do you mean?” my mother cried. “You’ve had a nervous breakdown. You have to see a doctor to set you right.”

  “Nothing is wrong with me.” I pulled my black credit card from my purse and gripped the scissors I’d found in Valentina’s kitchen in one shaky hand. “Look, I was calling to let you know that I’m safe. Also, you should contact American Express and take my name off the account. I cut up my card.”