Ow-ow-ow. She tried not to wince when he removed them from her feet. Then, when she was unsuccessful in doing so, he went for her sock to see what had caused it. She was unsuccessful again as she tried to keep him from taking it off.
Vincent slowly removed her sock and carefully examined her blistered foot before he did the same with the other. He rose from the ground.
“Lie down.”
Lake scooted up on the bed and lay down as she watched him leave the room. She wiped away her remaining tears, wondering what he was doing.
She was so exhausted she had almost fallen asleep before he appeared in her room, wearing gym shorts and a shirt. Looking at his changed clothes, she realized she might have dozed off.
“Where did you get those from? Wait, why did you change?”
He sat down on the end of the bed and placed her feet in his lap. “I always keep a couple changes of clothes in my car, and I’m going to spend the night here.”
“No, you’re not.” She went to sit up and pull her feet out of his lap, but he held onto her legs.
“You’re not staying alone in this neighborhood all night, especially with no car out front if I leave.” He squirted some clear gel into his hands and began rubbing it into her feet.
Her foot jerked at the coldness, but it started to feel good as he massaged it in. “What’s that?”
“Aloe Vera.”
Lake merely looked at him, stunned.
“I called Maria and asked her what helped. Then I walked to the store down the street real quick to get you the things on the list she gave me,” he explained.
Walked? “Why did you walk?”
“I told you that you can’t be left alone in this neighborhood without a car out front. No one would try to come in with my Cadillac there. Now lie back.”
She apprehensively rested her head back on the pillow and watched him care for her feet. His touch was light and soothing, and he was careful around the blisters. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he took his time tending to her. He was being incredibly sweet and kind. It tore at her heart strings that he would think to call Maria and walk down to the store to make something as silly as her feet better. She didn’t want him to stay the night, but she didn’t have the heart to argue against him after what he had done.
By the time he had wrapped her blisters in a strange brown tape and put on some type of special super-soft socks, her eyes had started to drift close. She felt the covers envelope her as a body slid in beside her.
“You can’t sleep in here, Vincent,” she drowsily told him as she rolled over to give him her back.
“Why not?” he asked, pulling her to his chest and wrapping his arm around her.
“Because you’re going to try something on me, and I’m not going to have sex with you.” She tried to wiggle out from under his arm.
Vincent simply pulled Lake into his body tighter. “You don’t have to worry; I wouldn’t fuck you in your dad’s house.”
Oh, good. That makes me feel better.
She relaxed against him, too tired to fight. “We’re only friends, Vincent. I could lose my job if Sadie thought otherwise.”
“Fine, we’re friends. Now go to sleep,” he murmured.
She let exhaustion take over her body with one last thought of what Vincent had said to John earlier. Lake is mine.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Put Her Back Together One Piece At A Time
Vincent hushed Lake back to sleep when she woke up in the middle of the night. For a girl who had said she didn’t want him to sleep next to her, she sure liked to be held pretty tightly.
He couldn’t find sleep as thoughts of how fucked-up the whole day had been filled his brain. He had never wanted to wring someone’s neck as much as he did John’s. That fucker had been torturing her for God knew how long, and that bitch Pam hadn’t given two shits that she flirted with him in front of Lake. He might have fucked a lot of mothers, but not one had blatantly displayed she liked him in front of their daughters like she had. They had always tried their fucking best to hide it.
That was the hardest dinner he’d had to sit through, watching Lake too scared to eat a bite of that asshole’s damn food. Then when he had gone upstairs and found out her bedroom was the attic, he had lost his shit. The motherfucking attic? In a motherfucking mansion?
He had watched her try to jump up and get the string, making him sick at the thought that they enjoyed watching her struggle and fail to retrieve it. He had felt the end of the fucking string and knew they had cut it. Considering their heights, he knew one of them would have needed a ladder and some work ethic, which meant that bitch Ashley had done it.
When Lake had said ‘it’s cool’ to him, he had sincerely believed a part of her actually thought that, as if she had forced herself to believe it. He knew there was no way in Hell he was going to leave her there for even five more minutes.
Taking her to her father’s home was a whole different experience. The house was old and small. The neighborhood was complete shit and dangerous for a girl like Lake, but he saw her change. He could sense that she felt like she was home and safe, which was all that mattered to him. He didn’t judge her—or her father, for that matter—for not having much money.
It was hard for a man to be in the family yet not be in the family. All the good jobs and high-paying ones went to the men who were made—that was how it worked. The others bore a curse to be soldiers for life based solely upon the fact that they weren’t born with Italian blood. It was a harsh rule of the family as old as time, and the rules were hardly ever broken. Vincent’s whole existence was for the family; however, he wouldn’t ever want to be in Lake’s father’s shoes. To know he always wanted to be a family man but was forced to be at the bottom of the ranks would be Vincent’s worst nightmare.