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“I didn’t mean for this to happen, coming here like this.” I turn to catch his eyes and ours hold. I hope he sees how desperate I am.
“Shouldn’t have left you to come to work, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, only to me, but obviously, everyone else hears it.
“What the hell is going on?” His father’s focus swivels back and forth between us.
He doesn’t seem to care that a restaurant full of customers is listening to him berate me and his son.
“Enough,” Mrs. Ashton silences her husband. “You don’t know half of what is going on, and the man I married would never speak to another person that way. Much less the girl our son is in love with.”
Even though I’m struggling through my emotions about the trespassing, my heart stutters to a stop in my chest. Did she just say Patrick is in love with me? From the way his jaw tics, the annoyed expression on his face directed at his mother, and the red tips of his ears … I can’t tell if it’s true or if he’s pissed his mom is going around throwing that word out.
“In love with?” His father snorts. “I told Patty to get close to her so she’d sell us that land.”
Silence, pure and stunning, fills the dining room. My stomach plummets to the floor, every sick and nauseating feeling twisting inside my gut and worming its way to my throat.
“What?” I squeak out, tears collecting at the corners of my eyes.
Humiliation doesn’t begin to cover the hot-cold feeling running over my skin right now. Standing in front of almost every member of his family, having them hear the same news I just did. Thomas stares at me with a smug sort of satisfaction running over his face.
Is Patrick annoyed that a moment ago, his mother suggested he loved me or because he was just trying to con me this entire time? If I don’t get out of here, I’ll double over and heave on the restaurant floor. That would only give Thomas more ammunition to hate me.
“That’s messed up, Mr. A,” Warren pipes up, shaking his head in disapproval.
“You’re disagreeing with my father? What a day this is.” Alana appears, visibly annoyed at her best friend.
“What’s your problem with me respecting your father?” he snaps back, and the two of them locking eyes is enough to send us all tumbling onto our asses.
I sense a backstory, but I’m in enough of my own shit not to involve myself in their fight. The break-in, the mortification, Patrick’s intentions … they all swirl until I feel dizzy.
“Will you all shut the fuck up with your opinions? Her house was broken into last night, and now you’re driving us apart,” I hear Patrick yell at them while I’m bolting for the door.
My feet can’t move fast enough, and I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. White dots gather at the corner of my vision, and I know I need to make it to my car, but I stop and perch a hand on a bench, trying to calm down.
“Baby …” A touch at my elbow.
“Don’t.” I shrug Patrick off, not turning to look at him.
“I’m sorry about what happened in there. If you had texted me you were coming, I—”
Suddenly, everything snaps back into place, a gust to my chest igniting the rest of my body with anger.
“You would have what? Told me not to come? Hidden me away like you’ve continued to do? I get it, Patrick, I’m not a somebody in this town. Your father thinks I’m scum, and apparently you do, too. Or was sleeping with me always on the agenda for getting me to sell the land to you?”
He looks stricken and has the decency not to deny it. “He did ask me to do that. It’s … horrible. I should have told you from the beginning. But three seconds with you, and I knew it was never about that.”
“Yet you kept the secret, so how the hell should I know if that’s true?” Sadness echoes in my chest, leaving little cracks in my heart.
“Have I ever once asked you to sell it to us after I initially did? We’ve been together for weeks, baby. I haven’t brought it up at all, haven’t tried to sway you, haven’t made any suggestions in my family’s favor. The proof is right there. Be pissed that I didn’t disclose what my father wanted, but you can’t say I’m lying.”
Prickles of awareness travel through me. He’s technically right, but I’ve been burned by the people of this town too many times. With the break-ins and the threat to my safety—maybe someone is trying to get me to sell the land. A new thought occurs, a new motive I haven’t considered.
“The break-in …” My voice is a whisper, as if pieces are being put together in my head.
Patrick swoops down to my eye level, intensity igniting his expression. “If you’re seriously insinuating I could have done those things. That I’d ever risk your safety, or stoop that low just to get a fucking piece of land …”
The way his eyebrow quirks and his tone shakes with hurt and anger, I know it could never have been him. No, Patrick would never do those things.
But he had lied. “You told me to leave. So how do I know what your father just said in there isn’t true? That you haven’t been manipulating me? That you took the way I feel about you and twisted it for your family’s benefit?”
