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I flinch. “Get away from me right now.”
“All dressed up and pretty,” he rasps, ignoring my command. “But as I said, I hope it was a gift. Because I’d hate to see you waste money that you don’t have. For something you’ll never get.”
“And what is that?”
“Him.”
It shouldn’t have stung the way it does. I knew what he was going to say.
But hearing it andexpectingto hear it are two different things.
And even though he got my intentions for tonight wrong — I’m not here to get him back — he knew where to hit me to exact maximum pain for me and pleasure for himself.
“And you’d make sure of that this time, wouldn’t you?” I say bitterly.
“Make sure of what?”
“That Idon’tget him. Because you never liked me with him anyway.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Pain stabs my chest. “So what, do you pop champagne every night now? In celebration.”
“And snort a couple of lines of cocaine on Sunday, just for good measure.”
“That I’ve disappeared from your best friend’s life.”
I expect him to answer. To make a quip. Rub it in my face, make it hurt more. But he goes silent for a few seconds, his reddish brown and glinting-a-second-ago eyes shut down. Then, murmuring, “Best friend.”
“Yes.”
One more sweep of his gaze over my face before he goes back to being his usual arrogant self. And I’m left wondering what that was.
That momentary flicker on his features.
But as always, he makes me realize that I have other things to worry about when he says, “Sure, yeah. Life’s pretty fun.”
“I —”
“Although,” he continues over me, “not as much fun as it was watching you out there. Pretending to be all aloof and unaffected, pretending that you don’t care, that you don’t notice. When we both know that you do. You did.”
“I know about his dad,” I blurt out.
“What?”
“I know he’s dying, okay?”
His face screws up in disgust. “His dad’s a fucking piece of shit.”
Well, yeah. I can’t argue with him there.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt Lucas.
“Even so. Lucas must be having a tough time of it. He always cared about his dad.” And then, because I can’t resist, I add, “Not that you’re capable of understanding that.”
Because he’s a shitty son, isn’t he?
While Lucas has an excuse to be a shitty son — but he isn’t — Reign actually is. And he doesn’t even have an excuse. His parents have always been good to him. They’ve always tried to help him, reach out to him so he could reform his ways. But he’s always been a disappointment to them.
