I shake my head. “I don’t have a favorite.”
Melanie shrugs. She proceeds to order a martini and a Moscow Mule. The bartender sets them down and she pushes the Moscow Mule over to me. “On me.”
My hands curl into fists. The moment I saw my mother, I wanted a drink. I wanted to get wasted just because I hate her. I wanted to go back there—to the parties and everything else.
Here’s why I liked the parties: The drugs and alcohol are your friends, you know. I was the life of the party because I never wanted the party to end. Because when the party ends, you’re left alone in your penthouse with a mess you have to get someone to clean the next day, and it’s quiet. And it’s lonely. You wake up when the party is gone and you don’t know what to do with yourself. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I drank. I got high. And I thought of her the entire time I did it. With all the bad decisions I made, I thought of her and how she’d hate me if she saw me like this. But she could never hate me more than I hated myself, so I kept doing it.
I kept throwing parties that were sometimes filled with people I didn’t know, people who tagged along on the arms of my “friends.” Some I did know that I met at meetings and what not—guys with connections that could get the harder stuff. I never did thesuperhard stuff though, not anything that involved needles even if it happened around me.
Then the women would come and I used them to keep me company. And they used me because I was a name to check off on a list, I think. Sometimes people see the “rich, handsome man” talked about in articles and magazines…
Well, it’s romanticism, I guess.
I push the drink back toward her, my fingers shaking as I do it.
“Your cufflinks,” she says as I’m looking over my shoulder to Lana.
Her eyes are narrowed the way they get when she’s concerned, asking a silent question. Then her eyes flit to Melanie, and it’s like she sees red.
“What’s the L for?” Melanie asks and comes closer, her finger grazing the back of my hand. I snatch it away and put my hand in my pocket.
I huff, a hint of a smile to go with it. “For her.”
CHAPTER 28
Lana
Iknow Christian well.
I don’t usually have to look at him to know something is wrong. It’s sometimes just a prickly feeling at the back of my neck, a dip in my stomach, or just a certain type of beat in my heart. I can’t explain what it feels like, but it’s kind of like a ghost just nudging me toward him.
And I’ll be damned if I ignore it.
I turn from the window that overlooks the New York City nighttime skyline and see him with tight lips and the space between his brows flinching.Discomfort.
There’s a woman with a blonde bob and a dark blue dress, inching closer each time he inches farther from her. Her finger is dragging itself up and down his sleeve and over his hand, and then he smacks it away to put his hand in his pocket.
Something in my head screams,mine!
Christian looks at me over his shoulder with a hint of amusement, and I make my way over to him. He turns so he’s leaning sideways against the bar like he’s waiting for me to fit myself against his side.
As I get closer, he only smiles and everything else around me fades to nothing. “Hey, baby,” I say, and pull him by his tie.
His mouth is on mine and his hand is on the small of my back, sliding down to squeeze my ass and pulling me into him. I kissed him to make him dizzy, to push him down a rabbit hole of lust for me and make him weak. But he’s turned it around on me, and I can’t be upset about it.
Christian pulls away, breathless and smiling down at me. “Hey, baby.”
We turn to find the blonde with her lip curled and her eyes shooting daggers at me. “And she is?”
“Melanie,” Christian says firmly. “This is mywife. Lana.”
My heart flutters. Oh, I’m going to kiss him so good for that.
Melanie huffs and it turns into a dry laugh. “Yourwife?”
I nod, smiling. “I am. And you are…”
“Melanie.”
