Page 2 of Something Tattered
And the worst thing was, I couldn’t even correct him. Not if I really cared. And Ididcare, more than he obviously knew.
Suddenly, I hated everything. I hated the big, crumbling place that I called home. I hated my last name and everything it stood for. I hated the fact that some guy I'd known for only a few weeks had come to mean more to me than the hollow life I'd been living for far too long.
I watched, helplessly, as Joel turned away yet again.
Short of throwing myself at him, I wasn't sure what I could do.
Sure, I could tackle him, and we could roll around on the front lawn like Aunt Gina's drunken date last Christmas Eve. Or, I could claw at his clothes and beg him not to walk away. Or maybe I could do what Angelina the Skank had done the first time she'd met him. I could beg him for just one blissful night alone – in his arms, in his bed, in his life.
Except I didn't want Joel for just one night. I wanted him forever.
Six weeks. That was how long I'd known him. Six amazing, crazy weeks.
During those weeks, I'd learned a few things – about him, about myself, and about the things in life that really mattered.
And if he left me now, I knew that nothing else would matter, ever again.
I blinked long and hard. Ihadto find some way to tell him. I'd just need to be creative. That's all. Supposedly, creativity ran in the family, right? No matter how long it took, or what I had to do, I'd find some way.
He was worth it.Wewere worth it.
Funny to think that not too long ago, Joel was just some guy who'd beaten the crap out of the closest thing I had to a brother – not that I'd known that the first time I’d seen him, walking into my family's boardroom like he owned the place.
Chapter 2
Six Weeks Earlier
I tried not to stare.
The guy didn't belong here, any more than I did. But here he was anyway, standing like some kind of bad-ass, where no bad-ass belonged.
This wasn't a place for brooding eyes and a fighter's build. It was a place of business. A place of art. A place where pompous posers made pompous decisions, all in the name of my overly famous dad.
A sad smile tugged at my lips. If my dad were alive, he'd totally hate this. Probably, he'd call it a crock – or, knowing him, something a lot more profane. But me? I'd been raised to be way too polite, unfortunately.
So, here I sat, with my hands folded and my face schooled into that familiar mask of ladylike interest. Except now, it wasn't just a mask, and my interest wasn't all that ladylike either.
It was real, and it was because of him, the guy who'd just strode into the packed boardroom.
From the room's opposite side, I watched with nearly twenty other people as the stranger exchanged a few whispered words with Beatrice, the grey-haired receptionist who'd just escorted him in.
From somewhere behind me, I heard a female voice whisper, "Talk about hot."
A second voice whispered back, "No kidding. He can paintmeany time." She stifled a giggle. "I hope he does nudes."
I wanted to roll my eyes.College interns.Funny to think, I should be in college, too. In fact, until a few months earlier, Ihadbeen in college – before the funds had dried up, leaving me with half an art history degree and no guarantee that I'd ever finish.
As the interns whispered back and forth, I wondered why I felt so much older than they sounded. Maybe it was the weight of responsibility. Like for one thing, the boardroom was actually inside my house, which meant that if interns started drooling, I'd be stuck mopping it up.
And yet, they weren't wrong. I felt my knees tremble under the table, and not because of the air-conditioning. I knew this, because the air-conditioning had been on the fritz for weeks now, and worse, I didn't have the money to have it repaired.
In cheerier news, we were in Western Michigan. It was mid-September. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t be needing any air-conditioning for at least nine months, maybe more.
I looked down as the flipside of that logic belatedly hit home. I'd definitely be needing heat though – a lot of it, considering the size of the estate. Searching for a silver lining, I reminded myself that at leastthatpart of the furnace was working fine – for now, anyway.
Hoping to forget all of that, I returned my gaze to the dark-haired Adonis, who stood, watching Beatrice as she adjusted the lights, making them brighter on his side and darker on ours.
As formygaze, it remained firmly on him.
