When our eyes met, I knew he saw the wicked thoughts in them.
We nowbothleaned toward each other, and my breathing grew shallow. “You fancy getting out of here?” he asked gruffly.
Straight to the point. I liked it.
I nodded, forgetting the purpose of my being in the Gloaming in the first place.
Reading the heated triumph on his face, we both moved to slide off our stools when my sister’s voice sounded behind me. “Oh, good, you’ve met Jared.”
I whipped around as my feet hit the floor and looked up at my big sister. Aria stood by the bar, her arm around her fiancé North. There was a tightness in her eyes, despite her warm smile as she glanced between us. “It looks like we’re first to arrive. Walker and Sloane are grabbing a booth.” She gestured across the bar where, sure enough, her friends were seated, watching us.
Just then, the pub door opened, and Sarah McCulloch and Theo Cavendish walked in. Theo was a famous screenwriter and club member. Sarah was a local who’d worked at Ardnoch as a housekeeper. She quit last year to pursue a successful career as a crime writer and was now in a relationship with Theo.
Familiarity hit me. I glanced from Sarah to Aria to Jared.
Iknewhim.
He was Sarah’s cousin. I’d witnessed the awful moment he’d told Sarah that their grandfather had died. Their grandfather … the farmer.
From whom Jared had inherited the farm.
Oh my God.
“Jared, this is my little sister, Allegra. She’s only twenty and in college in the States,” Aria added pointedly.
My head whipped around as I glowered at my sister. At her not-so-subtle warning.
But as Sarah and Theo approached and everyone greeted one another, I let my gaze wander to Jared. Whatever warmth had been in his expression was gone, replaced by a guarded look when our eyes met.
That wariness hurt more than it should, considering we barely knew each other, so as a whole group of us huddled around a booth, I did my best to be friendly to everyone. To engage. But my body was still wound up from the anticipation of sex and the disappointment of it not happening. I couldn’t help the way my attention drifted back to Jared as he sat directly opposite me. I wanted that warmth back. I wanted him to reveal his obvious attraction from earlier. He wouldn’t.
So I pestered him with questions about the farm, showing him my interest had not waned upon the discovery that our family members were friends.
Buthisinterest had waned.
Jared made that perfectly obvious when he excused himself from our table and began flirting with some woman at the bar. She was attractive and definitely older than me.
They left together.
And I told myself the crushing feeling in my chest was an overreaction, and I should probably talk to my therapist about why.
Yet I think I knew why.
Some people I met, when they discovered who my family was, just wanted to hang around me to be near the spotlight and success and fame. Others assumed negative things about me, that I was spoiled and pampered and didn’t know a damn thing about real life. My own family thought that, so why not him?
Or—my rational mind fought through my insecurities—maybe he realized it was too complicated to hook up with someone in his friendship circle.
It doesn’t matter, anyway, I told myself as I left the bar with my sister and her fiancé. I didn’t want to hook up with a guy who could so easily trade in sex with me for someone else on the same night. That was a turnoff. I didn’t want to be interchangeable.
Even if it was just sex … I wanted to feel wanted formein that moment, not just a body.
I had more important things to worry about than a stupid attraction to Jared McCulloch.
Like where I was going to live when college finished next year. What I was going to do. How I was going to build my business as an artist. How I could find a way to be close to Aria, who was the one person in the world who made me feel safe.
So much to think about.
When you’re a kid, no one talks about how overwhelming being an adult will be. One minute, there’s structure and safety and rules to guide you … and the next you’re flung out into the big wide world and expected to fly with wings you’ve never used before.
