found you stranded out here in the middle of the night.”
“And what’s that?”
He shrugged before finally meeting my gaze. There was a twinkle in his eye that sent a chill down my spine. “When a good girl is gone, there’s no getting her back.” Ever laid a placating hand on my shoulder, but I could tell he was biting back a laugh. “If I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open.”
I shook off his hand before taking one last look at my baby and turning away. Yeah, we’ll see about that. One way or another, Tyra was going to get in line, even if it meant facing her to do it.
If I’d known that this was just the beginning, I would have hunted her down much sooner.
“THANKS AGAIN FOR TONIGHT,” I whispered even though we were, for the most part, alone. “I had a great time.”
“It was my pleasure,” Oliver whispered back. He cleaned up astonishingly well and had made it impossible, despite my hang-ups, to keep my eyes off him the entire night. Oliver had been a balm on my darkest of days these past weeks and had even become a friend. “To be honest, I was surprised when you finally said yes to a date, but not more than when you suggested what we should do in place of dinner.” He winced, and I knew he was reliving our “date.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he peered down at me. “Are you sure we won’t get into trouble?” he asked for the fifth time. “I don’t exactly have half a million dollars lying around.”
Brushing off the dust he’d gotten on his button-up, I smiled. It hadn’t been hard at all getting Oliver to commit grand theft auto once he saw the car I had in mind. Getting him to destroy it after I had him tow it to his father’s recycling center, however, had been the hard part. Contrary to what anyone might think, I hadn’t done it for me. Tonight had been for River.
And I refused to believe it meant something that my first sighting of Vaughn, or rather his car, after months of being in Blackwood Keep occurred only after agreeing to a date with Oliver. I’d held my breath the entire time, expecting Vaughn to appear while we waited for Oliver’s brother to arrive with the tow truck. It had been a risky move, but everyone who’d ever been wronged hadn’t lied. Revenge tasted good. I wondered what Vaughn had been doing at Brynwood.
You don’t care. “I’m sure.”
“So whose car was that anyway?”
“It belonged to River’s father.”
Oliver stared at me for a few seconds, and I wondered if he could hear my heart racing inside my chest. My only regret was not being there to see Vaughn’s face. Imagining it had me pressing my thighs together and my breaths coming a little faster. When Oliver leaned in, mistaking the source of my excitement, I even let him kiss me. His lips touched mine, and I greedily moaned even though there was no spark to set my blood on fire, no feeling like I’d been made whole, that my soul was no longer mine, or that my life had been irrevocably entwined.
I knew it wasn’t just a pipe dream.
With one kiss, Vaughn had turned the fantasy of a soulmate into a reality, and then with a single blow job from my sister, he callously destroyed it. As Oliver deepened the connection, I found myself being transported to that first kiss with Vaughn. Not wanting to face it, I pushed Oliver away and, with it, the memory.
“I-I-I’m sorry,” he immediately apologized. “Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head when words escaped me. I felt like I’d regressed to that girl who’d gotten her heart broken on the beach eight months ago. “I’m fine. It’s just…slow is the only pace I can handle right now.” I peeked up at him. “Is that okay?”
He readily nodded, making it even more clear why I could live a thousand years and never deserve him. “I can live with that.”
I offered him a shy yet relieved smile, but before I could say more, the door behind me opened, and I groaned. I didn’t have to turn to know who was standing there.
“Tyra, it’s late, and I have work in the morning.” I peered over my shoulder in time to see my dad had shifted his stern expression to Oliver. “Young man, I’m sure you also have somewhere to be.”
If fate