Page 69 of Don't Take the Girl
His lips curve into a smile that never reaches his eyes. He slides back to my side, his voice dropping to a murmur meant only for me. "I'm not asking you to hurt him, darling, but it's...revealing...that you immediately assumed that was my intention." His eyes lock with mine, unblinking. "Fascinating how quickly your mind went there."
He tricked me into an admission, one I've yet to fully comprehend myself. I can't hurt someone who feels nothing. But London…London still cares.
"Noah, wasn't it?" he calls out, his arm snaking possessively around my waist as he steers us toward the exit. "If you'redetermined to stick around, you might as well join us. You have that look of a man desperately in need of a stiff drink."
I don't argue as Noah falls into step behind us, his presence a constant reminder of an everything I've tried to leave behind. Some pasts don't stay buried no matter how deep you dig the grave. They follow you around, patient shadows waiting in the balance for the moment your new life falters. Tonight held the promise of escape. Now that's gone, and I, too, need a stiff drink because something tells me, by morning, nothing will be the same.
Chapter 22
LONDON
"What game are you playing, Trigg?" I ask when he joins me behind the bar to pour a round of shots for my friends.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he says coolly, but because I know him, I can hear the hint of piqued peculiarity in his tone. Trigg is fully aware he's playing with fire. He just doesn't know how hot it is. "Hale's Cask is not a stop on the Bourbon Trail."
"I know," he says, deftly arranging shot glasses on a tray. "Sydney wanted to dance, and on Saturdays…" He sweeps his hand toward the back of the distillery where sliding glass doors lead to the outdoor event space where patrons dance on the burnished wooden floors, flanked by wrought-iron gas lanterns that cast an amber hue across the space. This place used to be reserved for cocktail parties and wooing Thoroughbred buyers, and now, every Friday and Saturday night, boot heels pound into the floorboards. "We have dancing."
I'm just about to call him out on his bullshit when Laney's eyes connect with mine across the dance floor. I can tell by the look on her face she had no idea I'd be here. Her blonde hair is in loose curls, falling over her bare shoulders. She's different now, but hereyes haven't changed. They're still that impossible shade of honeyed brown that, when locked on mine, makes time stop. But it's the amount of skin she has on display tonight that's making my pulse pounding heavy in my ears. She's still the sexiest fucking woman I've ever seen.
The bustling around the bar comes to a halt, and the music fades into a low hum as I remember the weight of her head against my chest as I spun her around a moonlit patch of grass beside the lake. She doesn't look away, and for a small moment, it feels like she's in the memory with me.
"Hey, cowboy," Madison says, stepping into my line of sight and breaking my momentary spell. "Mind making me one of your famous bourbon sidecars?" she says, making herself at home on a stool in front of me.
"Sure," I say, my eyes quickly flashing back up to Laney, who is now tossing back one of the shots Trigg brought everyone.
Madison turns around, glancing in the direction I had been staring before making her drink. "So, rumor has it, Trigg finally made things official with the horse whisper," Madison says with an excited energy that makes her words come faster than usual. I drop the glass I picked up to make her drink, and it shatters on the floor, grabbing the attention of everyone at the bar. Her head whips back to mine. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. The glass was wet," I lie, not returning the gaze I know is squarely on me. I don't need anyone else prying into my emotions. I already have enough of that going on with Trigg and Fish. I grab the dustpan and broom we keep behind the bar for accidents. "I wouldn't believe everything you hear. The tall, preppy boy currently attached to her hip already occupies the space Trigg was vying for."
She turns back. "Really? I don't get couple vibes from those two."
Had Madison said any of this before my shift, I would have said I agreed with that assessment, but before Laney showed up here tonight, I was told she broke things off with Noah, and hewent home. Yet, here he is, in all his Brooks Brothers glory, sticking out like a sore thumb. I'm unsure who is annoying me more—my brother or him.
Madison's eyes flick between watching them and me. "Laney Hart…" she says her full name, letting it hang thickly in the air between us, and my heart thuds hard in my chest, knowing the reason for her perfectly timed pause. She is connecting the dots—ones only she could know. "The two of you went to high school together?"
I shake her drink and try to keep my face impassive. I don't want to hurt Madison. She's kind, but I know where this line of questioning is going, and there's no truth that ends the way she wants it to. I could say we were neighbors growing up or that her best friend is my best friend's little sister, but they all sound like cop-outs, ways to skirt around the pieces Madison is putting together in her head. I respect her, and I don't want to give her half-truths that evade what Laney was to me, especially when I think she already knows.
"We did," I answer, holding her gaze to ensure she knows I'm fully aware of the direction her thoughts have gone. Her brilliant blue eyes dim, almost imperceptibly, before dropping to her glass.
We've always been casual, with no strings attached, but that's always easier said than lived. When you share yourself intimately, it leaves marks. She picks up her drink, and I leave her to sit with my unspoken truth. I care for her, but it can never be her. My heart can't unlove the girl who owned it completely. With or without Laney, it will always be hers.
I've been watchingLaney dance with Asha and Sydney for the past hour, my eyes never leaving her as my brother shadows her every move, his boots matching her rhythm just two steps behind her swaying hips. It's been pure torment witnessing the way his hand occasionally brushes her waist or how she tentativelylistens every time he leans in to whisper something in her ear. That should be me. My touch. My words making her react. Not his.
But I've swallowed every bitter drop of jealousy because, across the room, Noah Donovan has been standing at his corner table, knuckles white around his beer bottle, looking like he might shatter it or someone's face at any moment. A misplaced primal satisfaction curls inside me. That's right... The thought crosses my mind as I watch his jaw clench when she tosses her head back at something my brother says. She'll always choose a Hale over a Donovan.
It's that ridiculous, possessive thought, so petty it should embarrass me, that drives me forward when I see her break away from the group to head inside. Before she can reach the bar, I catch her wrist, spinning her behind one of the massive steel support columns where the shadows pool deep enough to hide us from prying eyes.
"What do you think you're up to?" I demand, leaning into her.
"You really have to stop doing that," she scolds, catching her breath before adding, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Fisher said you and Noah aren't together," I get straight to the point.
"And how would he know?" Her eyes narrow as she smiles condescendingly.
"You think your best friend and my best friend aren't scheming? They're siblings, for crying out loud." Laney knows as well as I do they've both had a vested interest in our relationship from the start.
"What does it matter to you who I'm here with?" She nods toward the bar. "I'm not blind. I know that was Madison sitting at the bar." I want to set the record straight with her about Madison, but the last time I tried, she wasn't ready to hear it. When she's ready to listen, I'll tell her everything. I want to give her all my truths. It's why I pulled her aside to begin with, but when I don't reply, taking too long to figure out what's going on inside herhead, she says, "If that's all…" She tries to dip under my arm and walk away, but I lower it and firmly pull her back, this time pressing my weight into her and securing her against the column so she can't run.
