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I frown, perplexed by where this could be coming from. “I don’t understand?”
She crosses her arms and my eyes dip to the swell of cleavage that has been teasing me all afternoon. It’s modest, but anything on this woman drives my sexual need to preposterous heights.
“The room. What the hell, Linc? You can’t do this without checking with me first.”
I swallow the smile at her slip of the tongue. “I just had his room decorated, where’s the harm?”
“Of course you wouldn’t see it. Damn silver spoon in your mouth, but when we leave it will be hard enough on him without you filling his head with every boy’s dream bedroom. He needs stability not luxury.”
“Everyone deserves luxury, Lottie.”
“Yes, well, not everyone can afford it.”
I’m angry now, she’s pissing me off with her constant battle of wills. “Stop being a bitch for just one second, Lottie, and consider Eric in this. He thinks we’re in love and that I’m the big brother he always wanted, and I’m going to do what little this cost me to make him happy.”
She seems to pale before me. “Consider Eric? Are you fucking kidding me? He’s all I consider.”
I know I’m being harsh on her, but she’s driving me crazy with these walls of hers. “Then stop trying to deprive him, just because you’re still nursing wounded pride over a silly prom date. It’s selfish, Lottie.”
I see the blow land as she draws in a harsh breath and want to snatch the words back, but I don’t. Pride won’t let me beg, not yet at least.
“I see.”
The wounded wobble of her voice almost makes me relent, but we’re interrupted by my mother and Lottie takes the chance to escape into the bathroom down the hall.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sweetling, but I need to head out. Is Eric ready?”
“It’s fine, Mom. Lottie is just feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“I’m sure she is. This has been pretty quick, Lincoln.”
She cups my cheek, and I’m the little lost boy again. My mother and I are close. She lives for her two sons, and we adore her. The fact our father is a lying, cheating prick only made me and Clark all the more protective of her.
Heather Kennedy is where all my father’s money and privilege comes from. He was nothing until he met my mother and he charmed her into marriage and then bled her dry and continues to do so. But when I get control of Kennedy Enterprises, I’m going to change that and convince my mother to leave his sorry ass once and for all.
“It’s not quick for me, Mom.”
“Oh, my boy, you never stopped loving her, did you?”
“No.”
She’s the only person apart from Audrey who knows the truth of what happened the night I lost Lottie. I confessed everything to her the night I told her we were getting married. She knows me too well and managed to wheedle it all out of me.
“Does she know?”
“No, and I don’t want her to. It serves no purpose.”
“I disagree, but this is your life and I hope it works out for you. I always loved that girl and who you were around her. You lost the sweetness when she left, and I feared you were becoming someone cold and hard. I see the light in your eyes again and hope for all your sakes this doesn’t backfire.”
Heather Coldwell isn’t wrong. I was cold and hard and I still am. Some things can never go back to what they were. I’ll never be a naive boy again who believes in chance. Now I know the only way to make the things I want happen is to take them and orchestrate them.
Lottie comes out of the bathroom looking pale, and she ignores me as she says goodbye to Eric, fussing over his medication and promising to call him later. She goes over the details of what to do if he has a hypo, and it makes me see what she’s been dealing with and I regret being so hard on her.
I should apologize.
When the door closes, and it’s just us, I move toward her but she backs away. “I have a headache.”
Lottie rushes to the spare room beside my own, or should I say our room, and slams the door locking it with a flick of the switch.
