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“Should I have Mrs. Porcelli cook that for you today?”
She’s laughing now. “No, I don’t eat ham hock, whatever that is, so that won’t be necessary.”
At some point in the drive, she becomes quiet and I think she has Ben’s accusation on her mind again until I realize her hand has relaxed. She’s fallen asleep. I pull into the garage and park, but take a moment to watch her sleeping. As I brush her hair from her face, she reminds me of a sleeping angel and I can’t understand how that bastard could hurt her by saying such horrible things.
I brush my fingers against her cheek. “Laurelyn, we’re home.” She stirs a little and I think about how that came out all wrong. “We’re at the vineyard.”
She doesn’t wake so I get out and go around to her side of the car. I scoop her out to carry her to bed. I take a few steps toward the door and she tries to focus on me with exhausted eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I’m carrying you to bed.”
“I haven’t been carried to bed since I was three.”
“Now you can say you haven’t been carried to bed since you were twenty-two.”
I place her on what I have come to think of as her side of the bed. She seems to have gone back to sleep already. I note the cocktail dress she’s wearing and I’m certain she doesn’t want to sleep in it, so I pull a T-shirt out of my drawers for her.
I slip off one of her shoes and she inhales heavily as I remove the second one. “Thank you, Lachlan.”
I place her shoes on the floor next to the footboard. “I don’t mind.”
Her eyes are closed as she says, “No, I don’t mean for carrying me to bed. I mean for everything. You treat me like I’m somebody instead of a nobody.”
She’s showing me a new side of herself. It’s childlike and damaged. I know in my gut that this moment has nothing to do with anything Ben said. She carries an old scar and it causes her deep pain.
I brush my fingers down her cheek. “You’re such a special person. You should always be treated like somebody.”
She reaches for my hand and holds it against her face, but doesn’t say anything. I want to tell her how her heart belongs to someone she’s yet to meet and she’ll be loved and adored by one bloody lucky man someday. She’ll have his babies just like she told me she wanted to do and he’ll love her in a way like she’s never known.
But I can’t tell her these things. And I don’t know why.
27
Laurelyn Prescott
I open my eyes and I’m alone. Waking in Lachlan’s bed without him has become a routine morning for me since I haven’t been spending many nights at Ben’s. And then it hits me. I remember what happened with my host and why I won’t be staying with him anymore.
I dread telling Addison because I don’t know what I’m going to say. I find my purse and overnight bag in the chair in the corner of the room and I take my phone out to call her. I might as well get it over with.
I see a missed text from Addison at three in the morning.
*RU w/ L?*
There’s really no reason in worrying about what to say. I’ll just tell her what happened and that I can’t stay there anymore. It’s that simple.
She answers on the first ring. “Call back when I’m not hungover and ready to hurl.”
She must have drunk a lot more after I left. “Rough night?”
“No. Rough morning. You don’t sound too bad.”
“I’m not.” I stopped drinking after Lachlan came to the club.
“You disappeared on us last night. I guess you went home with lover boy.”
It’s just like her to not remember. “I told you I was leaving with him. Your drunk ass just doesn’t remember it.”
“Oh.”
Here goes nothing. “I need to talk you about something that happened last night.”
“Is everything okay?”
It definitely isn’t okay. “No, it’s not. Are you at Ben’s or Zac’s?”
“Zac’s.”
Good. At least she finally had the guts to stay all night. “Ben and I had an incident last night. He came into our room while I was packing a bag to take to Lachlan’s. He asked me to stay with him instead of leaving. I told him no and he tried to kiss me. When I pushed him away, he called me a whore.”
“Oh, Laurelyn. Ben was really drunk last night. I’m sure he regrets the whole thing this morning.”
She’s his sister, but I didn’t expect her to take his side so completely. “He may, but I can’t live with someone who calls me a whore. We’re coming for my things and I’m going to stay with Lachlan.”
“You mean until this blows over.”
“No, he’s asked me to stay with him until we go home, and I’ve decided I’m going to. I’ll make arrangements to come to the apartment for my things in a couple of days.”
“But you don’t know him.”
“Addison, I know him as well as you know Zac. There’s no difference.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I felt like I knew most of the important things, even if it didn’t include his name.
“Fair point well made, I guess.” Good. I didn’t feel like arguing with her over this.
“Lachlan works long days, so call me next week when Zac is busy and we’ll get together. Maybe we’ll go shopping.”
“Okay.”
I hang up and think of how differently our stay in Australia is from what I imagined. Addison and I haven’t been apart for more than a day in four years, and now our time together is barely existent. I could tell she didn’t care much for me staying with Lachlan, but she’d get over it. She was spending as much time as she could with Zac and that meant I was going to be stuck alone with Ben, so I didn’t feel a bit guilty about leaving to be with Lachlan.
I’m still wearing Lachlan’s T-shirt, which barely covers my panties, when I leave the bedroom in search of him. I go into the kitchen first and find the open refrigerator door. I slip over to him with the agility of a lioness and wait for him to close it so I can surprise him, but when the door swings shut, it’s me who gets the shock.
I’m standing face to face with a woman, not Lachlan.
She smiles at me while diverting her eyes away from my bare legs. “Miss Beckett?”
I reach for the bottom of the T-shirt and pull it lower on my legs, as if it’s somehow going to cover my bareness. “Yes.”
