My eyes widened. Well holy fuck. “She sounds like a shitty therapist.”
Hamilton nodded. “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is, you’re allowed to be unhappy. It’s easy to give ourselves permission to be happy. Happy is easy. You want to really dig through the trenches of your mind? Let yourself be anything else. I think you’d be hot as fuck while good and angry.”
Hamilton leaned in and kissed my neck. His lips tugged on my ear lobe. I squirmed in my seat as his hand drifted higher, and higher, and my eyes scanned the room. Was anyone watching?
“Relax. It’s just you and me, Petal. Let’s smell the roses a bit,” he said before pressing the tip of his middle finger against my heat.
“Please stop,” I whimpered, not meaning it at all.
“Kiss me, and I will.” Hamilton brushed his lips against mine. It was a soft question, a demand. I chased after the brief touch with my bottom lip, aching to prolong the heated touch. “Tease,” he chastised me on a breathy whisper.
“I’m not going to kiss you, Hamilton,” I promised. “You and me? We’d be a disaster.” I murmured those words painfully close to his perfect mouth before pulling away and straightening my spine.
“I can’t wait to break you, Petal.”
I picked up my Pepsi and took a sip of it before clearing my throat. “To be honest, I want you, Hamilton,” I admitted. “You’re attractive. Experienced.”
He grinned. “Well, what’s stopping you?”
“Have you ever ruined someone’s life? I mean genuinely ruined it—whether intentionally or not.” His expression turned serious. I waited for him to answer me, but he never did. I continued. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself, because I’m a product of the most painful thing to ever happen to my mother. I’m a living, breathing atonement for my existence. I’m a perfectionist and a martyr. Acting on the impulse—and this is an impulse—to kiss you would be too reckless and risky to be worth the reward. Like it or not, you’re Joseph’s brother. I don’t need your orgasms, your heated words, or your temptation, Hamilton. I’m not foolish enough to think that I am anything more than a game of pleasure to you, and I’m not willing to gamble on my mother’s shot at happiness.”
We exchanged a heated stare once more. Something passed across his expression, a break in the determined flirtatiousness of his behavior that caught me off guard. I broke our eye contact first to look around. Our moment had the power to stop time. I hadn’t realized we were in a room full of eyes.
It wasn’t until my gaze landed on a familiar, smarmy face that my blood turned cold. “Saint,” I whispered before snapping myself away from Hamilton.
“What?” he asked.
“Saint. He’s here,” I choked out as my heart raced. Hamilton spun around in his seat and cursed. Saint was wearing jeans and a tight shirt. He raised the glass in his hand with a satisfied smirk on his face. Had he taken a picture? Oh shit. Hamilton and I were sitting awfully close.
Hamilton got up just as the band took the stage. Jess intercepted him as I started to hyperventilate. Was Saint going to follow me everywhere? Were Hamilton and I going to make the front page of the newspapers tomorrow? The edges of my vision turned black.
“We’re Diet Fun,” Infinity said softly into the microphone. “And we’re going to rock your socks off.”
The drums started playing, and Infinity immediately screamed into the microphone. I tried to look for Saint, but he disappeared down a hallway. Jess was still chatting with an angry-looking Hamilton. My chest felt so fucking tight.
Why was he here?
I stood up and made my way toward the door. No scandals. I couldn’t ruin anything. My eyes felt hot with tears. It was such a mistake coming here. “Vera!” Hamilton called at my back, his deep voice raising over the music. I ignored him and exited the café, air hitting my cheeks the moment I made it outside.
Standing on the sidewalk, I called the one person I could trust in this world. “Mom?”
“Finally, you call me! Baby, it’s late. What’s up?”
“Are you home?”
“Yeah. Our flight got in a few hours ago. What’s wrong?”
“Can you come get me?”
8
I was sitting at a McDonald’s down the street from the café when my mom pulled up in her brand-new Escalade. She was wearing pajamas and marched up to the door with her hair in curlers. I grinned at the determined look on her face. “Where is he?” she snapped when I got up from my spot at the booth and gave her a hug.
“I don’t know. He disappeared when the band started playing. I got out of there and called you while walking here.”
I didn’t mention that I was with Hamilton, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Mom found out that I was there with him. “Joseph had to go to the office to work on something for Jack, but he assured me that he would make sure Saint is arrested immediately. I can’t believe he’s just following you around now.”
She let out a huff, and I smiled at her protectiveness. “Can you just take me home?” I asked. It had been a long night, and I wanted nothing more than to lock the deadbolt and curl up under my bed. Maybe I needed to get a dog. The apartment already had a security system, but I’d watched enough crime television to know that a security system wasn’t much when up against a crazed person.
“Should we go to the police? I’m just not sure about you going home. Want me to spend the night?”
Letting out a sigh, I wrapped my arms around her tiny body and breathed her
