“Then you’ll get it.”
I glanced up at him, but there was no hint that he was making fun of me.
“You think so?”
He rolled his eyes. “Sloane, what have you ever worked for that you didn’t end up getting?”
The man had a point. With the exception of my father’s health, everything I set my sights on eventually came to fruition. Could I just will the perfect man into my life?
“Thanks,” I said. “So tell me one of the things my mom was thanking you for at the funeral.”
He remained silent.
“As per the rules, I’m not allowed to hold it against you or throw it back in your face ever,” I reminded him.
He lifted my foot and applied a heavenly thumb to my arch. “Fine. I helped them find their condo.”
The man was definitely withholding information. “That was nice of you. But in the pursuit of honesty, Mom was more thank-you-for-saving-the-life-of-our-favorite-child and less thanks-for-sending-me-a-real-estate-listing grateful.”
He muttered something that sounded a lot like “tenacious pain in the ass” under his breath.
“Come on, big guy. This boil isn’t going to lance itself.”
“You are such a pain in the ass,” he complained.
“Oh my God. Just tell me already,” I said impatiently.
“Fine. I bought it for them.”
I blinked. “Bought what?”
“If you’re going to force me to talk, the least you can do is pretend to listen. I bought the condo for your parents.”
That shut me up.
“Stop it,” he said, dropping my feet and using my ankles to pull me closer.
“Stop what?” I managed.
“Stop trying to read anything into it. It wasn’t heroic or thoughtful. I was just balancing the scales.”
“Crap on a cracker, Lucian. What scales require a very expensive real estate transaction?”
“Sloane, your parents drove me to college and furnished my first shitty apartment. They helped me get a job. They fed me when I was hungry. They kept an eye on my mother until she moved. They took me out on my birthday every year since I turned eighteen. They showed up to my college graduation and stood up and cheered when I walked the stage. They invited me to be a part of their family when I couldn’t be part of my own.”
My eyes were starting to burn and blur. It had been a huge gift, finding the perfect “affordable” place just two blocks from Dad’s oncologist. Lucian had given them that gift.
“That was very generous of you,” I rasped.
This was not helping me. If I was going to get over the man, I needed to focus on his dark, stubborn side, not his hidden, microscopic heart of gold.
“Do not get emotional about this,” he warned.
“I’m not getting emotional,” I insisted even as my voice cracked.
“I should have just put the pillow over your face.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what? Not smothering you?”
I shook my head and then did something neither of us could have predicted twenty-four hours ago.
I hugged him.
My arms went around him, my face pressed into his neck, and I held on. “Thank you for what you did for my parents.”
He tried to disentangle himself, but I refused to let go. Finally he stopped fighting it and gave me an awkward pat on the back. “I like it better when you hate me.”
“Me too.”
He tugged on my ponytail until I met his gaze. “Tell me the truth. Isn’t there part of you that wishes you would have gotten that scholarship and gone into sports medicine? Is this life some kind of consolation prize?” He gestured around the family room.
Baffled, I sat up straighter. “Is that what you think?”
“You had bigger dreams than this, Sloane.”
“Lucian, I was a teenager. I also wanted to marry Jerome Bettis from the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
“Just because they were teenage dreams doesn’t mean they weren’t real,” he said quietly, no longer meeting my eyes.
I wondered what teenage Lucian had dreamed of before he’d been forced to become the man of the family.
“This life is better than any I could have planned at sixteen. Or at twenty. Hell, even thirty. I love this town, this house. I love being close to my sister and my niece. All that time I got with my dad that I wouldn’t have had if I’d moved across the country in pursuit of some crazy career. That time is priceless. I would have missed out on so many things. I wouldn’t have the library. I wouldn’t know Naomi and Lina. So no. I don’t regret for one second that my teenage plans were derailed.”