“Do whatever you want. Lucy and I have to go.” Joel held out his hand, which Lucy took in an automatic response she had when it came to him.
“Wait, are you giving me carte blanche on your engagement cocktail? Like, you don’t even want to offer flavor suggestions. I can go wild?”
“Go as wild as you want,” Joel told him, already leading her toward the door down the back hallway. But before they were out of ear shot, he shouted back, “In fact, if you keep everyone out of our hair tomorrow night, you have dibs on the wedding cocktail too.”
The last thing she heard before she was pulled into the hallway was Carter’s cry of delight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Joel held Lucy’s hand all the way up the narrow stairs that led to the apartments, the sounds from the bar fading into the dull white noise he’d grown accustomed to. He continued to hold her hand as he fumbled with the key and opened the door. When they were safely ensconced, he led her to the couch, but she resisted, and that was when the first tendrils of panic jabbed his insides. She didn’t move. She simply stared at him with the million thoughts that were circling in her brain that he wasn’t privy to.
“Is this the part where we fight, then?” he asked, resignation leaking into his tone.
When she still didn’t speak, he stepped forward, fingers threading through her hair as he gripped her skull and tilted her face up to meet his. No hiding.
“Is this the part, Lucy, where you tell me we have to break off the engagement and I tell you there’s no chance in hell?” Heart thundering in his chest, he moved even closer, until their foreheads nearly touched. “I don’t have it in me tobe apart from you again. Please don’t make me,” he whispered.
Lucy’s eyes fluttered shut, and she sighed, then pulled back from him. “Where did you go earlier this week, when you left for three days?”
With those words, his heart sank. He should have known. This time he didn’t speak.
She broke free of him completely. “Where did you go, Joel?” She stood rigid, watching him carefully.
He sighed deeply. “I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out.” He didn’t bother spelling it out. She obviously knew where he’d been.
“But it did work out.”
“Yes. It did.”
“Argh!” She whirled away from him. “Why are you so annoyingly calm all the time? It’s infuriating.” She turned again and glared at him hotly before pacing back and forth. “She told me you told her not to say anything.”
“I did.”
“Why!?” She threw up her hands in exasperation, stopping abruptly. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? Why would you think leaving me here alone for three days, to go getmy sister, after you asked me to move in and not telling me where you were was a good idea?” Her voice escalated to a shout, and he caved to it.
“Because you wanted her here,” he shouted back. “And I wanted you to have something important that you didn’t feel you owed me for.”
“Well, maybe I do owe you! Like everybody else does.” She swirled her arm to the side as ifeveryone else was in the room with them. “Because it sounds like you saved her from a major creep.”
He took a purposeful, measured step toward her. “You do not, and never will, owe me anything,” he stated firmly.
After a pause, a bleak sadness bled into her eyes. “We need to break off our engagement.”
Only his years of practice in the boardroom made it possible for his face to remain expressionless.He couldn’t allow his expression to reflect the way his stomach had just bottomed out. “No. Fucking. Way.”
She broke eye contact, focusing on her hand as she fiddled with the ring he’d given her.
“I get it. You have a deep desire to fix things. I don’t blame you. You’re good at it. But this is too far. You saw them down there. They’re planning an extravaganza, a colossal party where our families will drink too much together, and your mother and my mother will name their future grandchildren. I barely know Carter, and he’s making us engagement and wedding cocktails named after us. It’s out of hand. You came here to grow your business, not get wrapped up in this. It can’t possibly be what you want.”
“I need you to stop fucking telling me what I want.” His intonation must have been sharper than he intended because her eyes flew to his, and in return, he burned his gaze into hers. “How do you know what I want?” His voice grew harsh, even to his own ears, but he couldn’t help it.
For four years he’d carefully avoided her, given her the space she seemed to need, watched her from afar as she meticulously picked up the pieces of her life and moved on without him. He’d endured it because he thought it was what she wanted, what she’d needed,what would make her happy. But after last night, he’d realized how wrong he’d been, and how much time they’d fucking wasted. That made him angry, especially since she was trying to backpedal now, looking at him with tears in her eyes, aftershe told him to break off their engagement. Fuck no, he wasn’t taking that.
“I knew that if I told you I was getting your sister, you would feel indebted, or you’d want to come with me, and I wanted to avoid both of those inevitabilities. I should have known she’d tell you.”
“Fairly short-sighted of you considering she’s my sister. The very reason we were making de-stressing lasagna only yesterday.” Her half-smile gave him a glimmer of hope.
“You wanted her here,” he repeated quietly. “And with me, you will always get what you want. Simple as that.”
