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“Drop it, Audrey. I don’t love her. Lottie is just a means to an end. A convenience to me and nothing more.”
“If you say so.”
I can see she isn’t convinced and when Audrey is being stubborn there’s no talking to her. “I do.”
“Fine. When can I see her and welcome her to the family?”
I frown. Do I want Audrey and Lottie to be friends? Will that complicate things even more if I can’t convince Lottie she loves me? Will I have to contend with her friendship with my cousin to rub salt in the wound? Yet Lottie doesn’t seem to have anyone else, and I hate that she’s so alone. “I’ll arrange something.”
“You do that.”
“I’ll have to wait a few weeks. She doesn’t like leaving Eric.”
“Her brother?”
“Yes, he’s diabetic and she’s a bit overprotective.”
“Oh, wow, I had no idea.”
She’s lying to me and I want to know why, but now isn’t the time. I swirl my drink. “Me either until yesterday after the wedding.”
“That must have been tough for her handling that alone.”
“It’s why she was drowning in debt.”
“Life can be such a bitch sometimes.”
“It has to her, for sure.”
“Well not anymore, she has you now to help her out.”
“Ha, if she’ll let me. Lottie is fiercely independent and has walls up that would rival Everest they’re so high.”
Audrey purses her lips. “That’s not really a surprise after everything she’s been through.”
I’m not one to dwell on regret, if I was I’d be toast, but I feel it now. Mine were too many and too great.
Suddenly I have the overwhelming urge to get home to see her. To kiss her and touch her like she’s mine, which is why when Audrey leaves, I stay exactly where I am. If I give in and go running every time I think about her, I might as well just never leave her side. I read through some emails, send instructions to the security team to change the access for my father, and compose an email to be sent to all staff. I’ll meet with the press and media team to announce my posting as CEO at the end of the week. It will also include my marriage announcement.
Around six pm I close the computer down, gather my stuff, and head home. I’m surprised I lasted this long, but I’m nothing if not determined.
16: Lottie
Wakingup alone had left me feeling off all morning. It isn’t that I want Linc to cuddle me or hover over me and treat me like a real wife by giving me attention. It’s just letting go of that last part of me that wants the fairy tale ending is harder than I thought it would be. I know I don’t want that. I can’t allow myself to want that. It’s a dangerous illusion and I see that now.
The sex was better than I’d ever dreamed. Linc played my body like it was a symphony orchestra and he was the conductor. He knew every sensitive place on my body guaranteed to give me pleasure and even showed me new ones. I can’t suppress the shiver at the memory of his hands and mouth on me, inside me. I wonder if some of that talent is perhaps a memory of long-forgotten summer nights learning each other’s bodies, but I suspect most of it’s just another damn thing he’s magnificent at.
Moving through to the room we’d shared last night, I smoothed the blue cover as I sit on the huge bed. I’d imagined the many ways in which I’d lose my virginity, God knows at twenty-five it was about time, but it had always been sweet and gentle. What we’d done last night was neither and yet it was more spectacular than all the sweet talking in the world. The way he’d dominated me and the dirty things he’d said had the power to make me weak and complicit. No not complicit, needy and desperate. Even now I crave his touch, despite the ache down below from our night together.
Linc leaving me to wake alone wasn’t something my Linc would have done, but this isn’t my Linc. He isn’t really mine and that’s for the best. I have to put Eric first and not allow Lincoln to get in my head and make me fall in love with him again.
His absence this morning was actually better for my mental health, allowing me the time to rebuild the walls around my heart which last night had chipped away at. At least that’s the mantra I’m reciting over and over in my head as I move back into Eric’s room feeling a little lost. I need my brother home so I can focus on something other than my thoughts so I finish unpacking Eric’s clothes and put them away in his new room.
Looking around at the vision-board-worthy boy’s bedroom, a lump comes to my throat. I’m so grateful that Linc has done this for him. I’d been angry, but also incredibly touched that he’d gone to this much trouble and expense. But I’d meant what I said to him yesterday, giving my baby brother all this luxury and attention would only make it harder when we left.
Three-hundred and sixty-four days to go before we were nothing but a blip on each other’s radar. Would Linc look back in twenty years and remember our year together or would it be so inconsequential in his life that he’d forget us?
A noise in the main living room makes me tense as I drop the clothes I’m folding and rush to the mezzanine to see what it is. Looking down, I see two men who make me smile.
