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“No, I do.” She places her hand on my forearm resting between us, finger gently twirling in slow, steady circles. “It’s just that tonight’s the festival opener, and I’m not sure what’s planned. But I’ll try to slip away if I can.”
“Cool.” I slow the car and wait for an opening in the oncoming traffic to make the left-hand turn.
In a few short minutes, we’re in front of the iron gates to her home, or more like mansion. I press the intercom, Leighton announces we’re here, and the gates open.
Her home is huge and sprawling with green manicured lawns, marble statues, and fountains. At the top of the drive, standing at the end of the long walkway to the front door of the house, is an older man, early to midsixties in an expensive suit.
Judging from the way Leighton stiffens at my side and mutters something unintelligible, she isn’t happy to see him.
“That’s my father.” She grabs her purse and unbuckles her seatbelt before I can park the car.
“Wait.” Quickly, I hop out and nod a brief greeting to Rupert Price on my way to open his daughter’s door.
I was wrong. He isn’t in a suit. No, it’s a tux and his once black hair is more salt-and-pepper, short on the sides, a little longer on the top, and perfectly coiffed.
Leighton steps onto the driveway with eyes only for her father. It’s subtle, but she trembles and plasters on a Daddy’s-girl smile. Her chin juts out and there she is, the woman I met at the Chateau Marmont.
I don’t like the transformation, especially since I’m guessing this is all for her father. She offers a little wave as she walks to him. “Hi.”
The man is cold—not even a twitch upward to the corners of his mouth, shoulders square and his jaw tight.
His sharp glare swings from his expensive watch to me and finally, to his daughter. “You certainly left it to the eleventh hour.”
“We actually made good time.” I slam the car door to emphasize my point.
It’s only a little after five in the afternoon, and from what Leighton’s told me, tonight’s gala isn’t until nine. Plenty of time. I’m not sure what that means for her showing up at the restaurant, but now isn’t the time to dwell on that.
With my hand outstretched, I approach Rupert Price. “I’m Tom Raine.”
His smile is plastic and clearly well practiced as he takes my hand in a firm shake and offers a curt nod. “Tom, thank you for getting my daughter safely home.”
Then with a turn toward his daughter, I’ve evidently been dismissed. Leighton doesn’t so much as look my way. It’s as if I’m no longer there as she swings her arms around her father.
Reluctantly, or at least that’s how it appears to me, her father slides his arms around her. He grumbles something sarcastic about how he’s glad she could make it and she’s going to need to get ready quickly. They pull apart, and he steers her toward the house. “Everyone’s inside.”
Leighton hesitates almost as if aware that I’m still here. It’s brief, and if I wasn’t looking, I’d have missed it. But she doesn’t look at me or talk to me, and just as quickly, her uncertainty vanishes.
Together, with her father, she strolls to the front door while I remain transfixed and stunned. A suited man appears out of nowhere and instructs me to leave the bags just inside the front door. Then he’s gone, and I’m alone to wonder if the past eleven days on the road with Leighton Price ever happened.
Once her bags are taken care of, I can’t get out of the house fast enough. Everything is too much. Marble, glass, wood, and way too much gold, or at least that’s what it looks like to me.
Jogging toward the car, I falter midway when Leighton says, “Tom. Wait.” She scurries down the oversized and way too expensive—if I had to guess—pavers toward me. “I’m sorry about that. I just couldn’t deal with my father right now.”
I stuff my hands into my pockets as if to stop myself from doing anything or most of all, saying that what she did—how she ignored me—was okay. It wasn’t.
When the silence stretches between us, she looks frantically back at the front door of the house then to me and repeats.
“Please don’t be upset with me. I really am sorry. I do want them to properly meet you, know you as not just my driver...”
It feels like she has more to say, but the word driver just hangs between us like being held at gunpoint. Without much thought and an urgent need to move, my shoulders start to lift in a pathetic shrug, but fortunately, I come to my senses and stop.
I’m not one to talk anything to death, but now I wish we’d talked more about what we wanted. How this thing between us was going to work or if we were better to just let things stay as an awesome memory after the drive.
“Look, Leighton, if you don’t want to come tonight, you don’t have to. You don’t have to do any of this.”
And what the fuck am I doing? Giving her an easy out?
“You know what?” I rake a hand through my hair. “Fuck that. I’m not going to act like I don’t care if you show up tonight or not. I want you at the restaurant opening.” I step closer so our bodies are less than an inch apart. She sucks in a breath but doesn’t make any attempt to move away.
