On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [112]
“Oh.” Lilah twisted her hands together until her knuckles throbbed. “Well. I can actually answer that.”
“What?” Astonishment rolled off him in waves.
Here goes nothing.
She squared her shoulders. “I invited him.”
“You. You did what?”
Devon couldn’t believe what he was hearing—or, no. He didn’t want to believe it. The truth was, it was all too easy to swallow.
After all, Lilah Jane Tunkle never met a problem she didn’t want to solve.
Even when it was none of her fucking business.
“I know! I’m sorry! But I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”
He almost wanted to laugh, except he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop once he started. “What the hell did you think was going to happen? That we’d take one look at each other and all the wonderful, warm, fuzzy family memories would come rushing back?”
“Of course not,” she said, although the blush rising up her neck messed with the credibility of her denial. “It’s pointless to dwell on the past. But the present! I wanted your parents to have a chance to see how much you’ve accomplished. I thought they’d be proud of you.”
“My father has never been proud of me, and he never will be.” It was one of the concrete, bedrock truths of Devon’s life. He might’ve forgotten it for a second earlier tonight, but he never would again.
“That can’t be true.” She looked so unhappy at the very idea, Devon experienced a strange urge to comfort her.
“Sorry to disappoint you, honey. But despite the front my parents put on for the neighbors, I grew up knowing exactly how little Dad thought of me.”
“But you’re so successful . . .”
“Not to hear my dad tell it.” Devon hated the echo of disaffected teenager in his own voice, but couldn’t quite stamp it out. “He disapproves of my playboy lifestyle and thinks I use my big piles of money to assuage my guilt over living in filthy sin.”
“Well, I can’t say I entirely approve of your playboy lifestyle, either. But that’s not all there is to you.”
The laugh grated Devon’s throat on the way out. “Don’t bet on it. I told you, Lilah Jane, what you see is what you get with me.”
It was definitely safer that way. This way? Blew goats.
Lilah got that stubborn set to her mouth. “Baloney. I know who you are, Devon Sparks. You can hide all you want, but I see you.”
“This isn’t a fucking game of hide-and-seek,” Devon shouted. Her refusal to understand, to acknowledge that sometimes life was shitty and people sucked, made him want to throw something. “And it’s not my fault if you’re incapable of distinguishing between reality and your fairy-tale version of what you wish life would be like. Oh, I know, it’s such a great story—poor little country mouse comes to the big city, meets a rich guy with a cute kid, gets a makeover, strengthens father/son bonds all over the place, and lives happily ever after.”
She sucked in a breath, and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. Her mouth was still a firm little line, though, and Devon knew she wasn’t getting it.
“I don’t expect life to be a fairy tale,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, you do. And that’s sad, it’s a fucking heartbreaker, because in two more weeks, the dream is over. We stop playing house, Tucker goes back to his mother, and reality sets up shop again. Because this? Our happy little family? Is an illusion, like every other so-called ‘happy family’ in the world. And no amount of wishful thinking or manipulation or meddling is going to change that.”
Lilah didn’t look stubborn anymore. She looked stricken. Her eyes were wide and wet, her mouth an unhappy curve. “I said I was sorry about calling your folks. There’s no call to talk like this.”
“Why not? It’s the truth,” Devon said, holding to what he knew because to allow himself to hope for anything more was to open himself up for the worst kind of pain. “Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t make it any less true.”
She watched him for a long moment, her eyes fathomless. And even though he waited with his breath caught in his lungs,