“You just went ahead and did that without me?” she asked, shocked and slightly appalled at what he’d done.
She wasn’t happy.
That apartment belonged to her.
She didn’t have much in the world but her apartment meant everything to her. Growing up in foster care, she’d had nothing. Being passed around constantly, hoping a home would open up for her, she’d come to realize the few important things in life were a home and food.
The moment she left at eighteen, she’d found a job, settled down, and made a life for herself. She earned a living, rented that apartment with the sweat and tears of her hard work.
People were not to be trusted, even though Ian was nice to her.
He wanted something.
He was using her, and she had to keep remembering that.
While he wanted to rub his parents’ faces in the fact that she wasn’t perfect, she had to come up with a plan B.
The limo turned around and they headed into the city.
“We’re not going to your parents’?” Had he really listened to her?
“You’re right. Going to them on my wedding day is in really bad taste. I don’t know what I was thinking. We could stay home, have a quiet meal, enjoy each other. Learn everything there is to know about one another.”
She stared at him for a long time. “I thought you said we knew enough about each other.”
“I’m starting to think I talk trash.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek, and heat filled her entire body. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Your parents? How come they didn’t appear at our wedding? In fact, I noticed that no one came to our wedding. Just people I knew who could act as witnesses.”
She licked her dry lips. “I don’t have any parents.”
“Come on, everyone has parents.”
“Mine left me in front of a church when I was a baby. It was freezing cold out, and I had a card placed on top of me asking for someone else to deal with me.” She still owned the card, which was now faded. Every time she had any doubt or started to trust anyone, she’d look at it, and realize there was no one in the world she could trust.
“Damn, shit, I’m so sorry. That’s fucking awful.”
“It’s fine.” From how much he hated his parents she didn’t want to know what it was like to grow up with them either.
They were both screwed up in their own ways but simply did different things to deal with it.
“You don’t have any family?”
“None.”
“You never thought to go looking for your parents when you were older?”
She shook her head. “There was no reason to. Not once while I was in the system did anyone come looking for me. They got rid of me when I was a baby, Ian. I’m not going to go looking for people who didn’t care.” She shrugged.
There was a time it would hurt.
She’d see other kids be taken to homes, be loved, while she remained in the foster care system. Now, years and years later, she was sitting in the back of a limo with a rich man. Maybe she’d gotten the better deal after all.
2
Lucy felt out of place, uncomfortable, but there was no going around it. Even now she still questioned why she’d gone through with agreeing to marry him. Ian was crude, rude, so very arrogant, and no amount of money or being handsome could change that. He’d married her simply to get back at his family.
Even when they’d spoken before the wedding and he told her how his mother pushed beautiful blond women at him, she knew instantly that it was just a payback marriage. It seemed ridiculous and over-the-top for a man to go to that length just to piss off his family, but she supposed when someone had enough money, they had to find something to occupy their time.
And I’m that something.
She sat in the stiff, but no doubt ridiculously expensive leather loveseat. Ian’s penthouse apartment was deep in the city, with floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the skyscrapers, chrome and leather furniture, and everything else that screamed so much wealth it was suffocating.
She felt so out of place that her palms were sweating and her heart was racing. Lucy’s apartment was basic, with hand-me-down furniture, thrift store purchases. But it had been hers, what she’d earned, worked hard to acquire, and the more she thought about Ian doing what he did without her consent, the more pissed she grew.
Lucy glanced over to where he stood. He gazed out the window at the city below, his posture stiff, the suit he wore fitting him to perfection. If his personality wasn’t so ugly she could find herself falling for him, not just her body growing warm at the sight of him, but her emotions caving. As it was, she tolerated him.