The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,72
on the table at the Derby Brunch. Gin had been down there crying when he had snuck away and taken the woman in a fashion that had made the bimbo sound like a porn star.
Going by the history of Gin’s relationship with Samuel T., it was just one more in a long line of nasty tit for tats … that had started at their first kiss when she’d been fourteen and culminated in Amelia.
The problem was, though, when they stopped the fighting, the conflict, the pebble-in-the-shoe, thumb-tack-in-the-heel imitations, he could be …
Just the most amazing, incredible, dynamic, alive man she had ever known.
And in the past, she would have said that her marriage wouldn’t have stopped them from being together. Theirs had always been a love affair that was like a bad intersection with no traffic light, crashes time and time again, sparks, the scent of gasoline, burned-up, tangled metal and rubber everywhere. They were safety glass busted into a spider’s web of cracks, air bags deployed, tires popped and sagged.
But the rush just before the impact? There was nothing like it in the world, especially not to a bored, under-utilized, Southern belle like her—and it had never mattered if one or the other of them had been with anyone else. Girlfriends, boyfriends, serious lovers, booty calls. The constant for both of them had been the other one.
She had seen the look on his face when he’d learned of her engagement, however. He had never looked at her like that before, and that expression was what she saw as she lay awake at night—
“Helluva diamond he got you.”
She jerked her head up. Samuel T. was leaning against the archway, arms crossed over his chest, lids low on his eyes, mouth tight as if he resented the fact that she was still in the room.
Gin tucked the ring out of sight and cleared her throat. “Couldn’t stay away, Solicitor?”
As taunts went, it was a failure. The flat delivery just killed the dig completely.
“Don’t be flattered,” he said as he came in and headed for the sofa. “I left my briefcase. I’m not coming to see you.”
She braced herself for that old familiar surge of anger—looked forward to it, in fact, if only for its familiarity. The corrosive grind in her gut did not bubble up, however, rather like a dinner guest who rudely failed to show and thusly disappointed their hostess. Samuel T., on the other hand, was playing by their old rules, poking, prodding, with an edge that seemed ever sharper.
“Please don’t come to the wedding reception,” she said abruptly.
He straightened with that old, inherited case of his great-uncle’s in his hand. “Oh, but I’m so looking forward to watching you with your true love. I plan on taking inspiration from your amorous example.”
“There’s no reason for you to come.”
“Oh, we differ on that—”
“What happened? Is it over with?”
Amelia burst into the archway, all sixteen-year-old energy in that body and with that sense of style that were not particularly teenaged-looking anymore … and those features that seemed to be more and more those of her father’s.
Oh, God, Gin thought with a jolt of pain.
“Oh, hello,” Samuel T. said to the girl in a bored tone. “I’ll let your mother fill you in on the particulars. She’s feeling ever so chatty. Looking forward to seeing you in a few days, Gin. In your white dress.”
When he just sauntered away, without giving Amelia much of a glance or any thought at all, Gin got to her feet and started marching after him before she could stop herself.
“Mother,” the girl demanded as she passed by. “What happened?”
“It’s none of your business. You are not a beneficiary. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Amelia said something disrespectful, but Gin was focused on getting to Samuel T. before he sped off in that Jaguar.
“Samuel T.,” Gin hissed as her heels clipped over the foyer’s marble floor. “Samuel!”
She followed him out the front door just in time to see her father’s executor drive off in a big black Mercedes and Lane walk around the back of the house.
“Samuel!”
“Yes,” he said without stopping or looking back.
“You don’t have to be rude.”
At his convertible, Samuel T. got behind the wheel, put his briefcase in the empty seat and stared up at her. “This coming from you?”
“She’s a child—”
“Wait, this is about Amelia?”
“Of course it is! You walked by her as if she didn’t exist.”
Samuel T. shook his head like something was rattling in his skull. “Let me get this straight.