The words fit too well. I feel like a fool because I can’t let Luke go, even when I know I should. I feel weak for wanting him to make it right, for even thinking I could forgive him if he could just take this pain away.
Love feels like a cruel joke.
And Luke is in every thought I have, even when I’m trying to carve him out.
After I leave the stage, a friend from the gym stops me and asks me to dance. Another slow song is playing. I step intohis embrace and let the normal moment exist for two minutes.
Then Christina taps my arm. Her gaze shifts to someone just over my shoulder. I turn to follow her line of sight.
Oh. Him.
Luke is coming toward me like a bull, head down, rage up.
“Andi,” he barks.
“Yes,” I answer smugly, because if I don’t put sarcasm in my mouth, I’ll put tears there.
His hands clench and flex like he’s holding himself together by sheer force. “I need you to come with me.”
“No.”
He nods as if he understands…until I realize he doesn’t intend to argue because he intends totake.
He steps in, picks me up, throws me over his shoulder, and charges toward the front door. People watch like it is entertainment. I scream obscenities like a lunatic…right up until I realize we’re heading outside and there may be cameras.
No. Not tonight.
“Luke,do notwalk out that door with me over your shoulder,”I say in my sternest voice. “I’m in the news enough as it is. I don’t need to add any more to it.”
He stops. And I know he hears the words I didn’t say.
Thanks to your family.
He sets me down, but he doesn’t let go. “Then walk with me like a normal person would.”
I sigh, long and heavy, and give him the typical pissed-off female response. “Fine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUKE
Damn, infuriating woman.
I’ve called. I’ve texted. I’ve left voicemails. I’ve banged on her door at hours that should qualify as criminal. Nothing. Not one response. Not one crack in the wall she built to keep me out.
The last thing she said to me implied I was only with her to help my dad get what he wanted.
That hurt.
It also mademe see red.
Then she disappeared behind silence and wouldn’t even let me defend myself. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
Shane’s barely spoken to me for the past couple of weeks. He’s known something was wrong. Today I finally told him everything, and I swear he almost tore my head off. He went into the gym like a man possessed and broke a bunch of equipment just to avoid breaking me.
He did eventually threaten to have my balls stuffed and mounted if I didn’t make this right. I believe he would do it, too.
He loves Andi as a brother should. Like I should have. But when it mattered, when the pressure hit, I caved. And now the press is getting worse around her, circling like sharks because they smell blood in the water.
