“Ryke,” I say with the fakest girly voice I can muster. “Can you please come help me?” I feel like I just choked on a steak bone.
He nods, and I forget that he’s not his brother. He’s not going to put up a fight with me. Thank God. I don’t have time for that. He kneels at my feet, and before he touches my heels, I flinch back.
“What?” he asks roughly.
“Your hands, they’re dirty.” I crinkle my nose.
He glares as he wipes the chalk residue on the burgundy rug.
I cringe even more. My poor rug. But if I had to choose between my rug and my heels, I’m going to choose the heels every damn time.
He raises his hands to show that they’re slightly clean. Fine. It’ll have to do. I stick out my feet again, and he buckles them at the ankles while I text Connor.
I don’t fuck cheaters. Send.
That should get him to speak.
My phone buzzes, but the new text isn’t from him.
2 months and 13 days – Mom
“Who died?” Ryke asks.
I stare down at him with furrowed brows.
“You look upset,” he clarifies, fumbling with the last buckle.
“Worry about my heels,” I snap.
He shakes his head and lets out a short, irritated laugh before standing. “Finished, your highness.”
I smooth my dress as I head to the door. “Thank you.” See, I do have manners. “Try not to dirty the couch while I’m gone.” Translation: Go take a shower.
“Love you too, Rose,” he says with a tight smile.
My lips rise as I walk outside, down the brick stairs. The limo sits on the street, and I have to pass a couple guards to get there. He better text me before then.
Like he’s read my mind, he’s finally made a real decision.
Fuck. Kill. Marry. – Connor
He’d fuck Daisy.
Kill Lily.
Marry me.
He barely gives me any time to think this over before he texts again.
Lo, me, Ryke – Connor
Now I have to level the playing field.
And it’s pretty easy to do so.
Kill. Marry. Fuck.
I send nearly the same answer as him. Now I think I’m ready to meet his mother. I take a deep breath. It can’t be as hard as having to admit to fucking Ryke Meadows or hearing that your boyfriend wants to kill your closest sister.
This will be easy in comparison.
Right?
CHAPTER 39
ROSE CALLOWAY
“I can’t believe I did that,” I say with wide, petrified eyes, my chest rising and falling so heavily that it feels like I’m one small step from hyperventilation. We climb back into Connor’s limo after a dinner that literally lasted ten minutes. We didn’t even order food yet. “I stooped to the level of a child.”
Connor smiles, the first real smile all night. He grabs a bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket as the limo bumps along the road.
“There is nothing to celebrate!” I shout and slap his arm as he leans back next to me.
“I’m celebrating the fact that the dinner is over seventy minutes earlier than I expected.” His grin overtakes his whole face.
I gape. “Your girlfriend just threw wine on your mother’s silk blouse!”
He tries to hold in a laugh. He’s unsuccessful.
“It’s not funny,” I deadpan. “It probably costs a fortune. Can you tell her I’ll have it dry cleaned or replaced, whatever she wants.”
I haven’t been this embarrassed since the sixth grade at the Smithsonian science museum. I had started my period, and to make the event even more memorable, a stupid boy pointed and told me that my Uranus was bleeding.
This might be worse though. I was the immature one in this scenario.
“I’ll talk to her,” he says calmly. I expel a breath of relief. “I’ll let her know that I fully supported your decision to act like a child, and if you didn’t do it, I would have.”
I attack his bicep with my purse, whipping the black sequined clutch at him. “You’re not helping, Richard!”
He grabs my purse and tosses it aside before I have anything to say about it. And then he passes me the uncorked bottle of champagne. “Drink,” he orders.
I gladly take a swig, trying to sweep away the humiliating memories that I’ve created. The first two minutes had been cordial enough. She asked about Calloway Couture, and I told her that a couple department stores were interested in stocking my clothes. And then she brusquely swerved the conversation to my relationship with Connor.
She said, “While I admire your ambition, it’s going to ruin my son.”
“Excuse me?” I retorted, my spine arched and prepared for attack.
“He needs someone better than you by his side,” she elaborated. Her dyed red hair suddenly looked animatedly devilish. I understood that she was trying to protect her son, and she happened to be a very blunt woman.
Well, so was I.
I said, “And what makes you the best judge of your son? He spent his childhood in boarding school.”
“And you’d be a better judge? You’re just a silly little girl,” she retorted, cupping her white wine.
That line did it.
The silly part—saying I’m stupid. And the little girl. I’ve been called so much worse, but by her, it was like a punch-gut blow. And I blew back. I stood up on impulse and splashed my red wine all over her cream blouse.
Her eyes went big like saucers as she sprung from her chair in alarm.
I froze.
Connor set a comforting hand on my shoulder, silently telling me it was okay.
And Katarina pursed her lips, but she didn’t curse me to hell or make a bigger scene. After collecting herself, she calmly set down a napkin and pushed in her chair.
She neared us on her way out, stopping for the last word. “You think you have time for each other now, but when you both get older, you’ll see.” She looked me up and down. “You two continue this path, and you’ll realize that something has to give. And your ambitions will always trump each other. And you, Rose, will be the one sending off your little son to boarding school. Years will pass like minutes, and it will be too late before you realize you’ve missed everything.”
With this, she passed me and Connor to reach the door.
That woman was so full of regrets, and her words suddenly seemed less like insults and more like warnings. My cheeks burned. They still do. I feel so stupid. Like the little girl that she called me.
“She hates me,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose after I chug the champagne.
He steals the bottle from my hands. “She hates herself more,” he replies. “She’s been really nostalgic lately. You just caught her at a bad time.”
“If I gave up my profession for you, would she like me more?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says. “But I would like you less. You can’t please both me and my mother. You can only make one of us happy.”
I narrow my eyes. I don’t like this fact. I want to squash it immediately.
But he leans close, his hand beside my thigh on the leather seat, and I smell the sweet champagne on his breath. His sultry gaze rakes my body. “Don’t ever quit Calloway Couture for me. Your drive turns me on.” He kisses me roughly, his lips hard against mine. His hand rises up the length of my bare leg, slipping beneath the hem of my black dress and plummeting between my thighs.