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I wave off the thought, worrying my lip with my teeth as I hug myself. Not only did he bring me home, the CR-V is in the driveway. The tires look good as new.
I swallow as Lucas comes around to my side of the car. I gesture at my CR-V. “How?”
Lucas hitches a shoulder. He hands his bundle to me—my bag. My phone sticks out from the side pocket.
“Alec and Devlin took care of it after I executed my prank.”
I grant Lucas a suspicious look and take out my phone to inspect it for damage after that fall in the parking lot. He didn’t have time to go through it in the midst of kidnapping me and he didn’t text and drive. I make a mental note to change my passcode and make it something Alec won’t guess. There’s some gravel wedged in the lip of my case and a smudge of dirt on the screen, but it seems okay.
At least, until I unlock it and it opens to a text conversation with a new contact—Lucas. My teeth clench so hard that I go lightheaded for a second.
Gemma: Gemma Turner is Lucas Saint’s property. [Kissing face emoji] [Peach emoji]
Lucas: And don’t you forget it baby. [Black heart emoji] [Eggplant emoji]
Fucking bastard. There’s also a photo sent from my phone. I tap on it to see it full size. My stomach bottoms out.
It shows me sitting in the Jeep, blindfolded by a Silver Lake High Coyotes t-shirt wrapped around my head and my wrists restrained by the zip tie. The flash gives the picture an illicit quality, casting me in harsh contrasting light, the shadows made darker, where sinister thoughts lurk.
In my school uniform and leather jacket I look like something naughty and forbidden with the skirt riding up like that, exposing more of my bare thighs.
Heat floods my face, prickling across my skin and throbbing in my ears.
I rip my gaze away from the incriminating photo to find Lucas watching me with an intense expression. He wants a reaction.
If he spreads this photo around the school, I’ll kill him.
God, if my parents see this photo, I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do.
The front door opens before I formulate a scathing response to the final prong of Lucas’ elaborate prank. We turn and my mom comes out, bundled in a puffy jacket and teal scrubs.
“Hi kids,” she greets with a cheerful smile.
I press my phone to my chest to hide it from her. My heart thumps. Lucas guides me up the driveway with his hand at the small of my back.
“Hey, Mom.” I curse at the quaver in my voice. Maybe she won’t notice. “Um, sorry I’m home so late. I, uh—”
“Did you enjoy your dinner date?” Mom asks. “Alec said not to expect you for dinner.”
I falter, tripping when my boot catches on my ankle. Lucas said he texted her from my phone that I was hanging out with a friend. Lucas wraps his arm around my waist, steadying me.
“Careful, sweetheart.”
The smarmy amusement in his voice rakes across my irritation threshold.
Lucas shakes my mom’s hand when she offers it
to him.
“We had a great time, Mrs. Turner. Thanks for letting me take her out on a school night.”
Lucas turns on the charm that has everyone calling him the golden Saint. I glance between them with my brows raised high. He rubs my arm, like he’s trying to caress me and keep me warm from the biting chill in the air. Then he drops a chaste kiss on my temple—right in front of my mom—and pinches me when I turn into an ice sculpture, stiff and brittle.
Lucas murmurs against the side of my face, “Didn’t we enjoy ourselves, Gemma?”
He terrorized me all night, kept me at his mercy, and, with the help of my brother as his accomplice, had my parents believing he took me on a date?
That. Fucking. Asshole.
