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“Well I’m not a fan of finding out you got a promotion from a stranger,” he countered.
“I didn’t get a promotion,” I said.
“That’s not what it sounded like.”
“My father offered me one. I didn’t take it. Or not take it. Either way, no one should have found out about the possibility yet, but Dad made an announcement at a manager’s meeting the other day.”
“Okay, and you didn’t mention it because? Seems pretty significant to me.”
“Because I didn’t want you to think my father was continuing to control my life. I’ll have you know at dinner last night I told my parents we were together, were staying together, and refused to say anything more about it.”
“What’s the promotion, Charlee?”
I pursed my lips together.
“What’s he offering?”
He made it sound dirty somehow. “Vice president.”
“Of Lakeside?”
“Yeah,” I said, resentful for whatever reason.
“And the current VP?”
“Is retiring.”
Lucas was pissed. “I just don’t get why you didn’t mention something so significant?”
“Because you’re not reasonable when it comes to my father.”
He made a sound that told me exactly what he thought of that statement. “I wonder why?”
It was like we were boxed in with nowhere to go.
“So this is always gonna be a thing between us?”
“Your father? I don’t know, Charlee. You tell me.”
I didn’t know what to say. Except the roller coaster of emotions with Lucas was sometimes too much to handle. When things were good, they were really fucking good. But somehow, he had the ability to cut through me, to wound me, like no one ever had before.
“I think you should take me home,” I said with nothing else left to offer. Maybe I should have told him. But it was my father’s meddling that had caused so many problems since the start.
“Let’s go.”
No arguing. No trying to talk me out of it. Lucas simply began walking into the alley where his truck was parked. I peeked at the wall that he’d pinned me up against. And thought of this past week, especially just now, in his shop. How the hell had we gone from that to this?
Lucas shut down so damn easily. He was like a brick wall even as he held the door open for me. It was as if he had a switch, and there was no dimmer. Just on and off.
Right now, he was most definitely off. Which was fine because I was too. If he could be stubborn, so could I. Begging in the bedroom was one thing, but I wasn’t going to do it on a regular basis outside of that context. If he didn’t want to talk, fine.
Not surprisingly, when we pulled up to my house, Lucas didn’t say a word. Sometimes when I felt like I was with the old Lucas— the one I knew before he became an Army sniper, before being deployed to two active combat zones, neither of which I knew enough about to know how they had changed him since Lucas didn’t like to talk specifics about his time in either—it was easy to forget he’d been gone so long. And had become a different man.
Now, glancing briefly at his profile before jumping out of the truck, it wasn’t hard to forget at all. This was the disciplined, almost cold, Lucas. The one whose shell I didn’t know how to crack. The one who had asked me for a dating arrangement I knew was wrong but agreed to just to be with him.
I slammed the door shut and realized he hadn’t opened it for me. Honeymoon, I guess, was over before it really even got started. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe losing even more of myself wasn’t a place I needed to be at the moment. Because who Charlee Donovan was, what she wanted out of life, out of her career, was about as clear to me at this moment as what would happen with Lucas, a man I alternatively loved and wanted to give a swift kick in the rear to sometimes, and tonight had absolutely been one of those times.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
