Mrs. Riscoff’s sharp inhale preceded a slap, and her heels clicked off even faster than they’d arrived.
I was trying not to throw up in this little alcove and wondering where the nearest exit was when Lincoln’s father’s footsteps clipped on the marble floor—and stopped right in front of me.
“Did you hear all that, girl?”
I looked up and froze. Roosevelt stared directly at me with a smirk on his face that had none of the charm of Lincoln’s. Any response I might be able to come up with was stuck behind the lump in my throat.
“Don’t get any notions of reaching above your station. It’s never worked for any of the women in your family, and it won’t work for you.” He tilted his head to the side. “But at least my son has good taste.”
His gaze raked over my body, stopping on my bare legs, and I felt filthy.
“Staff entrance is around back. Tell one of the drivers I gave orders to take you home. If you walk back into that restaurant tonight, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
With a smug smile, he walked off, and I was left reeling.
One thing I knew for sure. I wasn’t going back in.
35
Whitney
“You just left me there.Alone. Waiting for you to come back. For half a fucking hour. If you were worried about people talking about us before, you picked an even better way to make sure they had juicier gossip to talk about.”
My lips stayed locked together as I listened to Lincoln lecture me as he paced the cabin. I had no idea why I even came. I’d been planning on telling him everything I overheard and about the threat his dad made, but something stopped me.
Maybe Lincoln really was just with me as a rebellion. If he knew his parents were letting him “get me out of his system,” it would make him even more stubborn about staying with me.And that’s not real. I didn’t want to get caught up in a Riscoff family power struggle where I had no business being.
“You shouldn’t have taken me there to begin with. I don’t know what you were trying to prove, but it didn’t work.”
“I was trying to prove that I care about you, and I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.”
I nodded, holding back tears. “Are you sure? Because it felt like you were trying to rub it in your family’s face that you don’t give a damn whattheythink.”
He turned toward me. “So what if I am? Isn’t that what you want me to do? Pick you over them?”
“No! I don’t want any part in your family’s battles. I don’t want to wonder if you only want me because I’m the girl you’re not supposed to have.” I spun around and headed for the door, but Lincoln gripped my hand before I could touch the handle.
“I wanted you from the very first fucking second I saw you. I didn’t know your name. Didn’t give a damn who you were. I still don’t. That’s what I’m trying to show you.” His breath brushed my ear, and my entire body heated instantly. “Just let me show you, Blue.”
His tone was so soft and tempting, I melted against his chest.
“I don’t know how to do this. It’s too much,” I whispered.
He turned me around in his arms and buried his hand in my hair. “Then fuck everything else and just be with me tonight. I need you.”
He pressed the bulge in his pants against me, and I knew it was pointless to pretend I didn’t need him too.
Just one last time.
“I need you more.”
36
Whitney
Present day
Lincoln’s gazeleaves trails of heat down my back as I go snatch up my towel. I know I look different than I did at twenty-one, but that’s the least of my worries right now.