I pass Rob and want so badly to reach for his hand, or say something to reassure him, but when I look at him, his gaze is cold and hard. What I see in there is hate rather than the love I was so sure he was feeling. I walk by and pretend that look didn’t just pulverize my heart.
I head for the T-Bird at the end of the drive, but Dad grasps my elbow and puts me in the passenger seat of the cruiser.
“What about Mom’s car?” I ask, finally feeling the shame that evaded me when I took it to meet Rob at the beach that night.
“I’ll send someone from the station to retrieve it.”
My heart lurches at the disappointment in his voice. Mom would be so ashamed that I only started driving her car to go behind Dad’s back.
He pulls out of the driveway and turns us for home. “I’ve been digging into that family’s past—”
“Dad!” I say, terrified at what he’s found. If he already knows about Rob, there’s no saving this.
He shoots me a reproachful look that shuts me up. “Their Florida IDs all check out, and there are court papers giving the oldest, that Robert,” he says with disdain, jerking his head at the back window of the cruiser, “custody of the boy in your class. But other than that, there’s nothing—no sign of where they came from before they landed here out of thin air. It’s like they didn’t exist, which means they’re running from something, Adri. Probably criminal activity. I don’t know what you’ve got going on with that boy, but it’s going to stop. Now.”
I turn in my seat to face him, my heart pounding in my throat. “Despite what you and Chuck seem to think, I’m an adult. Who I spend time with is my decision.”
His eyes shoot to me as he skids to a stop on the sandy road. “You are not going to get involved. Do you hear me, Adri?”
A tear leaks over my lashes. “I love him,” I say, little more than a whisper.
Dad swallows hard and turns back to the road. We ride the rest of the way home in heavy silence. When we get there, I go to my room and close the door, then curl up on my bed.
“Mom, please, tell me what to do. How do I fix this?”
But she’s gone. She’s never coming back.
It’s hours before I cry myself dry.
Chapter 23
Rob
When my phone rings, I’m sitting at the kitchen table over a mug of forgotten coffee, wondering how an hour ago I was balls deep inside the sexiest woman I’ve ever known, and now I’m here, in my own personal hell. I turn it over slowly, bracing myself for Adri’s number.
It’s Elaine.
“Hey, Rob. Sorry to bother you,” she says when I pick up, “but Maurice just went down with the flu and he’s got an assignment today. I know it’s supershort notice, but you and the driver need to leave in about an hour for an overnight in Tampa. The client has an afternoon flight tomorrow, so you should be home by four at the latest. Are you free?”
“Hell, yeah,” I say.
I’m totally fucking imploding, all these emotions that I’ve never allowed myself to feel before colliding like the perfect storm inside me. Guilt over letting Sherm see what he did, anger over what my father forced me to become, sorrow that the only person who could have saved this family ended up a victim of it have lived in my gut for so long they’re old friends. But I don’t even have a name for what I’m feeling for Adri. Or about Adri. Or about what I just did to Adri.
I’ve been with more women than I can count, but I don’t think anyone’s ever given me her virginity. I don’t even remember losing mine, it was so damn long ago.
She said she didn’t need a fairy tale. I deluded myself into thinking she didn’t deserve one because I knew I couldn’t give it to her. She’s a little pixie. A princess. She should have waited for her prince.
I’m no fucking prince.
And the cop who’s been harassing me is her old man. If I’d intentionally set out to expose my family and put them in danger, I couldn’t have planned it any better. With the local cops on my ass, we’re not safe here anymore. Grant was never the problem. It’s always been me.