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“Seeing as he just got back here, I don’t know how you’d have had a chance to have lunch with him.”
There, little bitch. Spin a lie around that.
“Oh, we did just get back. We went to Maeme’s. Storm never comes to Sunday breakfast anymore because, well, you’re at his house and he can’t bring someone who’s not family to Maeme’s Sunday lunch, she made a big spread for us today. I know he’s missed her cooking. He ate it up,” she replied.
My spine stiffened, and I got that tight knot in my chest again. She was good at doing that to me. Damn her.
“I don’t keep Storm from doing anything. He can go where he pleases.”
She scrunched her nose. “But can he though? Listen,” she said, uncrossing her legs and standing up. “I know this thing y’all have seems perfect and all, but it is temporary. You understand that, right? He’s not bringing you into the family. He’s not having you over to family gatherings. You’ve not been invited to a dinner at his parents’. To them, you are just a … well”—she puckered her brow—“a little fling. I mean, he can’t trust you. It makes sense he can’t bring you to family things.”
My throat burned with acid rising in it, and I fisted my hands at my sides. She was making this up. Being nasty seemed to be her talent in life. I was not going to let her bait me.
“Storm trusts me. But I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Is that so? If he trusted you, he wouldn’t have cameras all over his house, watching you when he’s not there. Your phone calls and texts wouldn’t be sent to his phone so he can screen who you’re talking to. There is not one thing you do that he doesn’t watch. It’s why everyone is okay with you and the girl lying up at his house like you are. We know he’s watching you at all times.”
A cold chill ran down my spine as a calculated smile curled her lips. I wanted to call her a liar and go find Storm. Tell him all of this and have him deal with her. And I would have done just that, except for one thing she’d said. The phone. The texts I hadn’t gotten. I thought back to the phone conversation with Storm. Could he have just bald-faced lied to me, saying he’d check it?
Lula Mae let out a small, pleased laugh. “You’re just his current whore. Nothing more. When he marries, it’ll be someone the family trusts. One of us.”
For possibly the first time in my life, I had nothing to say. No words. I turned and walked out of the room, out of the stables, and back to my G-Wagon.
I was going to the house to look for cameras. My heart hammered in my chest. What if I found them? A wave of nausea hit me, and I trembled. If she wasn’t lying, I wasn’t sure I could survive it.
• Twenty-Two •
“He wanted you vulnerable.”
Briar
I had just walked into the living room and begun my search when the door chime went off. Was Dovie here already? I needed time to look without her knowing what I was doing.
Storm came walking into the room, and his eyes locked on me. “Why did you leave?” he asked, looking strung tight.
Did I tell him? Did I just ask him point-blank? No. He would lie. I knew I couldn’t trust him completely, but I loved him so much that I had accepted it. Overlooked it. Pretended like it wasn’t an issue. When, clearly, it was.
“You weren’t around. I looked for you and couldn’t find you.”
“You didn’t call me. Stellan had called me up to the house. I knew it was going to be quick, or I’d have called you. I thought you’d wait with Noor.”
“Where did you go before? When you said you were just getting back to the stables?” I asked, needing to see if there was any truth to the things Lula Mae had told me.
“Maeme’s for lunch.”
“Who with?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, who with? It was Maeme’s. Thatcher was there, Wells, Stellan, Dad. Why?”
“Lula Mae?”
His eyes narrowed then. “What the fuck did Lula Mae say to you at the stables? I knew it. I fucking knew she was why you’d left,” he growled.
“She was at Maeme’s though, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. Are you pissed about that? I can’t control who Maeme has over to eat.” He took a step toward me.
“Why didn’t you mention her when I asked who was there if it wasn’t a big deal?”
He grabbed his hat and slung it over to the sofa, then stalked over to me. “Because it would make you mad. That’s why. And I didn’t want to upset you. She’s not important, and I wish the bitch would go back home.”
