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“Have you changed too? I hear you’re working for your father.”
I twisted my wrist, but he didn’t budge. “Bastard.”
He goaded me. Pressed the exact wrong buttons.
“What?” he asked innocently. “Am I wrong?”
Fuck him. I was done with this.
Never mind that the guy nearly made me come the second he grabbed my wrist. Never mind that the veins in his forearm were visible even beneath his tattoos. Or that the look on his face made me want to forget how he was treating me at this moment and screw the ever-loving shit out of him.
I was done. “Let go of me.”
In an instant, his hand was gone. My wrist, suddenly and unexpectedly felt bereft.
My chest rose and fell, my breathing, uneven. I remembered feeling breathless around him back when we dated. Back in high school. But never quite like this.
My feet wouldn’t move. A second ago, I’d wanted to run out of this shop. But now all I wanted was to fall into his arms.
Ever so slowly, the corners of his lips rose. It was the first time he’d smiled in my presence since returning. But it wasn’t a sweet or friendly smile. Instead, it was knowing. Taunting.
“And so,” he said, his voice low and deep. A voice to make a girl lose her shit. “We dance.”
I couldn’t process his meaning. I just had to get out of there.
I did. Ran like a baby out of that shop and into the street, where the air wasn’t so heavy and I could actually breathe. When it became clear he wasn’t going to come after me, I slowed my pace.
Walked toward my car.
Got in.
And sat there.
CHAPTER EIGHT
lucas
I didn’t recognize the number, but a call at two-thirty in the morning warranted a pickup. For years I’d slept with one eye open, so the second my phone buzzed I was sitting up, phone in hand.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lucas Warner?”
This wasn’t just a spam call. “It is.”
“So sorry to bother you at this hour. This is Sam from—”
“I know where you’re from,” I said, not needing to hear it. “What’s he doing?”
“That’s the problem. Nothing. He won’t move. Claims it’s two in the afternoon, and that I’m just trying to bust his chops.”
How long had I been home for? The biggest surprise wasn’t that I was being called to the corner bar to fetch my dad but that it had taken this long.
“I’ll be right there.”
Hanging up, I got dressed quickly and grabbed my keys. Downstairs, I walked through the studio to the front door, pausing just long enough to stare at the spot where I’d foolishly held Charlee’s wrist. What the hell had I been thinking?
Just like that, a million scenes flashed through my mind.
