Love Arranged (Lakefront Billionaires, #3)(114)

If I didn’t have a bigger task to focus on, I’d ask him when he bought all those clothes for me. My guess is sometime before the debate.

Lorenzo disappears around the corner and returns carrying one of his T-shirts. I throw it on while he pulls on a pair of new boxer briefs.

“So?” I say once we’re both no longer naked.

“Do you want a drink for this conversation?”

“Do I need one?”

“Maybe.”

I shake my head. “I’ll take Daisy though.”

He opens the door and calls her name. She runs down the hall and skids to a stop by his feet, and I expect him to order her to the dog bed in the corner. Instead he pats the mattress, and she jumps onto the bed and curls into a ball beside me.

That should’ve been my first clue that I wouldn’t like whatever he is about to share, but it’s the second one that makes me uneasy. Because Lorenzo is visibly trembling, and I’m no longer afraid of how he could hurt me but rather what could’ve hurt him.





CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO


Lily


When I saw the look in Lorenzo’s eyes, I knew I wasn’t mentally prepared for this conversation, but I didn’t realize how unequipped I was until he begins talking.

“Trevor killed my parents.”

“Trevor…Ludlow?” I ask, too shocked by the news to fully process it the first time.

He nods.

The faint ringing sound in my ears grows louder as I mentally spiral. In my head, ten different questions pop up, none of which make it past my parted lips.

Lorenzo begins pacing the space in front of the bed. “He was out late, drinking at some bonfire with all his friends.”

Even though I know how this story ends, my throat still closes up like someone wrapped their hand around my neck.

Lorenzo continues walking back and forth, his body riddled with tension, and his hands visibly shaking. “Trevor could’ve walked home if he wanted to. He lived that close to the beach where he and his buddies were drinking. But no, he decided to drive like an entitled, reckless brat who thinks they’re untouchable.”

Thankfully I’m not standing because I’m hit with a dizzy spell. I concentrate on Lorenzo, as if I’m lost at sea and he is my horizon.

“If he were my friend, I would’ve stolen the keys straight from his hands, but clearly Trevor was surrounded by all the wrong ones. Or maybe they tried to block him from driving, but they clearly didn’t try hard enough because who tells a Ludlow what to do?” The bitterness in his tone isn’t directed at me, but it feels like it with how harshly Lorenzo speaks.

“No one,” I murmur.

He nods, the movement short and stiff. “So, he drove, and still to this day, I’m not sure where he was going because he ended up on the opposite side of town—” His sentence ends with the break in his voice.

“No.” Acid crawls up my throat at an alarming rate.

“If he drove straight home… If he paid attention to where he was going, my parents might still be here today. No, I’m sure they would be because Trevor wouldn’t have hit them. He could’ve gone home and slept it off, and my parents would’ve never ended up dying in a ditch.”

He whispers the next part, sounding more like the ten-year-old child who lost his parents than a bitter adult with a score to settle. “They would’ve come back home to me.”

I don’t notice I’m crying until Daisy starts licking my face.

“For a while, before I found out the truth, I blamed my parents.” He looks down with shame. “Why did they insist on driving the sick dog to the vet in the middle of the night? Why couldn’t they wait until morning?

“The dog didn’t even make it. Not because of the accident, which he miraculously survived, but from kidney complications.” His pain is a living, breathing entity, and I absorb it like my own.

With an experience like that, I’m surprised he wanted to adopt Daisy.

Because he wanted her for you.

Daisy butts her head against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her neck while wishing I could hug Lorenzo instead. Something tells me he needs to get this out without any interruption, so I hold off.

“Eventually I learned the truth about everything that happened, and it made me sick.” The words tumble out of him without any pause, and he isn’t the only one who feels sickened by the news. “Trevor called his dad first. Can you believe that? Not 911, but his dad.”

My heart pumps furiously in my chest.

Lorenzo shakes his head with disgust. “And then the mayor called his brother, who was a deputy at the time.”

I’m so disgusted by the entire cover-up, I can’t begin to describe how I feel about it, but I think my expression must do the job because Lorenzo frowns when he turns to look at me.

“It was more than an abuse of power. It was…”

“One of the most awful things a person can do,” I answer.

His voice drops. “I’ll never know if they could’ve gotten help in time, and that’s what haunts me most. It keeps me up at night sometimes, thinking about their last moments and whether they were bleeding out in front of each other, praying for help but never getting it.”

I’m full-on sobbing by this point.

“How did you…” I can’t even finish the sentence because it’s too horrible. To think that not only did Trevor Ludlow kill Lorenzo’s parents but then tried to cover up the crime?