“I swear to God, if you tell me not to go visit my mom, I’ll kick you in the balls so hard you’ll be a soprano for the rest of your life.”
He narrows his eyes at that, then shakes his head, dark hair glinting in the sunlight. “I wouldn’t tell you to do that. I know you’re upset. This isn’t what I wanted.”
His tone is sincere, and it cracks my heart.
It might not be what he wanted, but he didn’t do shit to try to stop it. And he was the one who deleted the tiny scraps of evidence we might’ve used to prove my mom’s innocence.
My emotions have always been so all over the place as far as Lincoln Black is concerned that I don’t trust myself around him. I don’t trust myself not to get sucked in by honeyed words and empty promises. I let it happen once before, and everything in my life came crumbling down as a result.
All I can do now is stop listening to the empty words he speaks and judge him solely by his actions.
And his actions have spoken plenty loud.
“It doesn’t matter, Linc.” I step around him, gathering up the pieces of my heart like shards of glass. “It’s not what I wanted either, and it sure as hell isn’t what my mom wanted, but here we all are, aren’t we?”
“Fucking hell. Wait!”
He doesn’t let me get more than two steps before he’s in front of me again, grabbing my arms to stop me this time.
Even through the sleeves of my jacket and light blue sweater, I can feel the heat of his palms, the strength of his grip, and I freeze, trying to control my body’s reaction to his touch. My traitorous brain wants to convince me this is comforting, but it’s not.
It can’t be.
“No.” I keep my voice firm and low, staring at his broad chest because I can’t stand to look into his eyes. “There’s nothing I want to say to you, Lincoln. And nothing I want to hear. We both know the only reason I’m still living here is because I’m too fucking broke to go anywhere else. I owe your dad for that, but I don’t owe you shit. And if you don’t leave me alone, I will find someplace else to go, whether I can afford it or not.”
I can’t see his expression because I won’t let myself look, but his Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. His hands release my arms, hovering in the space between us for a moment with fingers splayed.
“Okay, Low. Okay.” His voice is quiet, something like defeat echoing in the heavy words. “You win. Just… don’t go.”
There’s something that sounds like pain in his voice too, and I have to battle against the stupid part of myself that wants to step into the comfort of his embrace, to let him whisper pretty lies and empty promises just so I can feel less terrified and hopeless for a while.
But I don’t say anything, and although his hands stay suspended in the space between us, I don’t touch him again. I just keep my arms folded and wait, and after a long moment of silence, he gets back in his car and triggers the mechanism on the gate, making the heavy black metal swing inward.
He rolls up the curving driveway, and I follow after him, my steps deliberately slow to give him time to pull into one of the garages before I reach the house.
The Black family mansion is huge, two stories tall with a massive basement, a motor court, an actual ballroom, and an attached pool house in the back. It’s so different from the squat, ugly house mom and I lived in back in Bayard that there’s really no comparison. It doesn’t even feel like a house sometimes—more like a museum of opulence.
But it was starting to feel a little like a home, before all of this happened. My mom had a small, self-contained apartment on the northwest end of the second floor, and I was given a spare room around the corner from her—one so big and well-furnished that I was sure it hadn’t originally been intended for staff.
That little corner of the sweeping mansion was ours, and although the rest of the place might be big and cold and filled with some seriously weird vibes from the house’s other occupants, our out-of-the-way nook felt cozy.
But without my mom here, it just feels empty.
By the time I reach the mansion, there’s no sign of Lincoln or his car. I walk around to the service entrance, anxious to avoid running into anyone else before I can slip into my room and lock the door.
I don’t quite know how to exist in this space anymore. I tried to do some cleaning on Monday, since Mom wasn’t here to do any of it and I was crawling out of my skin with worry anyway. But Mr. Black found me dusting in the great room and told me to stop, saying he didn’t feel right having me work with everything that was going on.
Which I appreciate, except—I don’t know what to do. My mom and I were brought to live here so she could be their housekeeper and I could be her assistant. And since neither of those things are true anymore, I don’t quite know what I’m doing here.
It makes me wonder how long it’ll take before the other shoe drops.
Mr. Black was quick to step up and offer to let me stay with them, but my mom is facing murder charges, for fuck’s sake. That’s not something that’s gonna get resolved in a week or two. Her lawyer said she probably won’t even go to trial for several months.
Are Samuel and Audrey Black really going to let me stay here rent-free all that time?
In my limited experience with rich people, they get overexcited about their pet causes sometimes and make big, sweeping gestures because they like being the hero. But their attention spans aren’t great, and once the thrill of playing savior wears off, they move on to the next thing.
How long will it be before Mr. Black gets tired of supporting his maid’s teenage daughter? Especially as word spreads among