“I am.” She lifts her head and cocks it to one side. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
My lips curve in a slow smile. “I have a lot to look forward to.” First of which is peeling that dress off her.
She doesn’t miss my meaning, and her eyes darken. Her tongue flicks over her top lip and I resist the urge to cover her mouth with mine. Her desire sears me, and I want to dive into it headfirst.
“When Nelson was talking about your parents earlier…” she murmurs. “I just…I read about you on the internet, so obviously, I found some news stories. I noticed that you were upset. I don’t know how it feels to lose someone, but I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t upset.” The last thing I want to talk about is my parents. “I would just rather not think about it.”
“I can imagine.”
I chuckle bitterly. “You can’t. Not really.” Painful memories from my childhood take over, and everything good about the moment fades away. “They were all in love with her, you know, every single man in their circle—including Nelson Bledsoe—but she was crazy about my father. The rumors made her crazy. No matter how often he told her they were lies, if he wasn’t right in front of her, she drove herself to jealousy imagining he was with someone else.”
Rachel’s brow furrows. Is she surprised I’m sharing all this with her?
I continue. “The day we had the accident, some busybody called her about yet another rumor…” It hurts to describe the events of that day, watching my mother crying, getting our things packed, bundling us in the car…
I want Daddy.
I hear Aidan’s plaintive voice like the four-year-old version of him is right beside me. I take a deep breath. “We never found out where she meant to take us. Car crashed. She died. End of story.”
Rachel’s eyes are glistening with unshed tears. Somehow, her pain, so many years later, compounds the memories, making them almost unbearable. Her voice breaks on my name. “Landon…”
“Aidan didn’t utter a word for the next five years,” I shake my head. “My father was never the same. People like to say he became a recluse…” This part hurts even worse because of how much older I was, how much I needed the man who chose instead to drink himself to death. “One winter, he left the house in the middle of the night and went out into the water. By the time they found him in the morning, it was too late. He died of hypothermia, at forty-nine, a few feet away from a warm house.”
Your father…he’s dead.
I killed him. I killed him.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel says. She’s going to cry, and I feel a pang of regret for causing her any pain at all, even if the pain is on my behalf. Her arms tighten around me, and I want to lose myself in her embrace. I want to believe she will take my pain away, even though I know I don’t deserve that.
“I don’t know why I told you all that,” I say with a light chuckle. “You shouldn’t think too much about it. It’s all ancient history.”
She meets my eyes again, and when she speaks, her voice is tender. “But you dream about it.”
I stop moving. “What?”
She pulls in a nervous breath, as if she knows I don’t want to share that part of me with anyone. “Last night, you were dreaming, and you said a few things. I didn’t want to wake you because I was afraid you wouldn’t go back to sleep.” She swallows. “It’s why you hardly sleep, isn’t it? Because you still dream about it.”
I don’t reply.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
I want to laugh at the ridiculous question, and at how quickly she’s gone from naked sexual desire to wanting to help me, to cure me. “Let it go,” I snap.
“I’m just trying to help.”
My temper stretches. “I don’t need your help…and just to be clear, it’s really none of your business.”
Her eyes cloud with hurt, and immediately, I’m contrite. Then she gives me a tight smile. “You’re right, it isn’t.”
We talk little for the rest of the dance. When Bledsoe cuts in to dance with her, I take Jules and her belly for a spin then return to our table, chatting with her and Cameron and the people who find reasons to stop by. Throughout, I can see Rachel dancing, laughing, having fun.
I hurt her, and as much as I regret it. I can’t…won’t open that part of me to anyone, even her.
And I don’t want her pity.
I miss the moment Rachel disappears from the dance floor. It makes me nervous, not knowing where she is. I’m trying to find her when Davina Bledsoe waylays me with random questions about moving to New York. I suspect she’s flirting, but because she’s so young, I try not to be cruel in my dismissal. By the time I finally excuse myself, I see Rachel pushing past Evans Sinclair, who’s sneering at her as she marches out of the ballroom.