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I look down at her glassy eyes. “You’re going to regret that soon enough, I think.” When the valet brings my black Porsche around, I open the door for her and say, “Try your best to not throw up in my car.”
“As if,” she mutters, but then she giggles, and the carefree sound of it pulls a genuine smile from me.
I drive deeper into downtown, glancing over every few seconds to make sure she’s still with me. When we hit a red light, I turn to fully face her.
“Why don’t you live at the mansion?”
“Because I’d end up killing my parents if I had to live with them. I left as soon as I turned eighteen.”
“You don’t like your parents?”
She raises her eyebrows at me in disbelief. “You just met them. Would you live with them?”
“Not a chance in hell,” I say with a laugh. “They let you leave drunk and with a complete stranger. I have a very strong urge to go back and kick their asses for that.”
“I would pay good money to see that.” When the light turns green and I start driving again, she looks out the window and says, “In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t really give a shit about me. They would’ve let me leave with Connor without a second thought, even though my mom knows what an abusive ass he is.”
My body tenses at her words, and I feel a familiar rage start to grow inside me. “He hurt you?” I ask, trying and failing to keep my voice neutral, but she’s too tipsy to notice.
“No, not me, but his dad just had to do a big coverup thing for him. He beat the hell out of some girl, but my mom thinks that’s excusable because she was just a whore, not his wife.” She waves a hand at me before deciding it’s too much effort and drops it. “You could be just like him for all I know. Based on what you said earlier, you seem to have the same opinions about women.” She thinks for a second and adds, “I really shouldn’t have let myself drink so much or gotten in the car with you. Despite what my mom said, this is very unlike me.”
“I’m nothing like that piece of shit,” I say, making the turn up ahead that she points at. “And I have my reasons for what I said tonight. Not everything is as it seems, Emily.”
“Nothing is as it seems,” she counters. “Everything they do is fake and for show. None of it is real.”
She doesn’t sound angry, just resigned to the fact that everyone around her is a deceitful liar. I never possessed an innocent, naïve view of the world, but I don’t like that Emily doesn’t seem to have ever been allowed to have one. I park in front of her apartment building, wondering just how aggressive her dad’s friends have been with her over the years. The thought doesn’t sit well with me.
When I walk around and open the door for her, offering her my hand, she looks up at me in surprise.
“I’m not having sex with you,” she says, and it’s impossible not to notice that she’s started slurring her words a bit.
“I’m not asking you to.”
She grabs my hand and uses me for balance as we step onto the sidewalk. “Yeah, yeah, hot Russian strippers. I remember.”
“What?”
“That’s the kind of women you like,” she mumbles.
The alcohol is fully in her system now, and when she stumbles, I pick her up, carrying her bridal style into the apartment building.
“I can walk.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” I push the button for the elevator, noticing that there isn’t any sort of security here at all. “Which floor are you on?”
“The fifth.” She rests her head against my shoulder, and I have the insane urge to smile. “You know I can stand, right?”
“I know,” I say, but I don’t put her down. “What did your mom whisper to you before we left?”
She sighs, and I feel the heat of her breath hit the skin of my neck. It sends a shiver down my spine, which is fucking ridiculous. I’ve fucked more women than I can even remember, and just the feel of Emily’s breath on my neck is making my heart race. She tightens her arm around my neck and lets out a soft sigh as her fingers play with the back of my hair. My heart does an annoying flip-flop thing, and I don’t know what the hell to do about that. No woman has ever affected my heart in any way, shape, or form.
As soon as the elevator doors open, I carry her into the hallway. “Which apartment is yours?”
“Number 536,” she says, and then lets out another adorable giggle.
It takes her a few minutes, but she manages to dig her key out of the small purse she’s clutching, and when I open the door and carry her in, a part of me hates that I no longer have an excuse to keep holding her.
“I think you can set me down now,” she whispers once I’ve shut the door and I’m standing in her living room.
