“Yes,” he admitted.
Color flared on her cheeks. “So. Not only did you go behind my back to pull some strings, but then you didn’t come clean about your involvement when you had the chance.”
She was blowing this all out of proportion. “I know the college applications have been hard on you and Dylan. When I found out that he’d applied to Georgia Southern and realized I had a contact there, I wanted to do something to help. So I called the dean. But I planned to keep my involvement anonymous—”
“Because you knew I wouldn’t like it. But you got caught.”
“I got caught doing somethinggoodfor your brother.”
She scowled at him. “Dylan and I are not helpless. We are not incapable. We are not incompetent! We don’t need a Daddy Warbucks to pull strings for us behind our backs!”
“I know you’re not helpless—”
“That’s not what your actions say.” A strand of hair slipped over one eye. She shoved it back. “Do you, with your degrees and your money, pity Dylan and me?”
“No.” But honestly, how could he not pity her? She was supposed to have accepted a full ride to Princeton.
“I think that youdopity us,” she said, reading his mind. “Which annoys me no end because, in case you’d failed to notice, I’m an exceptionally independent person. My job is important and satisfying. Dylan and I are doingfine. We don’t need necklaces or graphing calculators or art supplies or hubcaps or phone calls to deans. My affection can’t be bought. So, please. No more.”
His temper stirred. “I was trying to lend a hand.”
“But you didn’t ask me first before involving yourself in something that pertains tomy brother.” She drew herself tall. “I’ve been taking care of him for a long time, and you can trust that I will continue to take care of him. We don’t need your intervention.”
“Everybody needs the help of others sometimes, Leah.”
“I don’t need help from you. At all.”
Sebastian crossed his arms and said nothing.
“Well?” she said, clearly waiting for him to tell her he was sorry.
For making a phone call for her brother’s sake? He wasn’t sorry. “If you think I’m going to apologize, I’m not.”
Without another word, she stalked from the alley and down the sidewalk.
Seething inside, he watched her go.
Turn around, Leah.
She didn’t.
She was leaving. She was going to get in her car and drive back to Misty River. And he was irritated with her, so her departure should be okay with him.
Itshouldbe. But it wasn’t. He set his jaw to keep himself from calling out to her and asking her to stay in Atlanta with him for another few hours, months, centuries.
Leah pointed her car toward home.
As the miles passed, the city dropped away. She drove into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and then higher as her brain chewed on the events of the weekend the way she’d chew on a piece of taffy that had been mostly delicious but ended with a surprisingly bitter finish.
Fabulous Saturday, with their Halloween dinner at a sky-high restaurant that had as its carpet the lights of Atlanta’s buildings. Their servers had been dressed in costume, and she and Sebastian had shared a dessert named Death by Chocolate.
Wonderful Sunday with church and museums, a movie night at Sebastian’s apartment, and kisses that incinerated the air.
Rocky Monday, which had started out with promise and finished with the realization that Sebastian had been meddling in her affairs.
In her lifetime she’d received one huge advantage—her years atthe Program for the Exceptionally Gifted at Clemmons. She’d had no qualms about accepting that gift. And, had she been able to take Princeton up on their offer, she’d have had no qualms about accepting that gift, either.
Back then, she’d been a teenager. Economically disadvantaged. The daughter of a volatile family. She’d been desperate for education and comfortable with the idea that she’d earned her scholarships through merit.
