“I mean it.” Lily shrugged. She’d heard the same bullshit before. “This was a huge mistake, and I really don’t care anymore. I’m done cleaning up your messes. I’m done letting you walk all over me. I’m done letting you trash my life. I’m done with all of it.” Lily took a step back. “I was your last chance, Maddison. Your. Last. Chance.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maddison’s voice rose an octave.
“It means that you blew it. It means that I won’t let you stay here and ruin my life again.”
“I never ruined your life—”
“You slept with my fiancé, didn’t you?”
“But that was a mistake. I said I was sorry for that, and I meant it. I was drunk and high, and well, he was the one who started it, not me.”
Lily didn’t doubt that for a second, and yet, she didn’t care. The end result had been the same. Her sister had slept with the man Lily had been engaged to.
“What about the time you stole my PIN number along with most of the cash I had in my savings account?”
“But—”
“What about pretending to be me in that stupid sex tape? Did you really think people weren’t going to notice that your boobs are big and fake and mine aren’t?”
Silence was the answer and maybe Lily should have been surprised at how much nothing she felt for her sister, but she wasn’t going to dwell on it. Not now. Not ever.
“I want you gone when I get back.”
“But…Daddy said I had to stay here because if I didn’t…” Maddison’s eyes widened, shiny with tears. “He’ll make me go to that fucking rehab place, and there’s no way in hell I’ll do it.”
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
“Dad will freak.”
“I’m also done letting Dad tell me what to do. If he wants someone to clean up after you, he can damn well do it himself.”
Lily turned around.
“Lily! Where am I going to go?”
“Far away from here, I hope.” She headed toward the kitchen. “There’s five hundred in cash on the table. I’ve already called a cab, and it will be here in an hour. Don’t miss it, and don’t be here when I get back.”
“But that’s not even enough for a flight and…other stuff!” Maddison’s voice was shrill.
“Take the bus.”
Lily grabbed her overnight bag and closed the door behind her. She’d already packed a lasagna—the first she had ever attempted to make herself, and she had Maggie Black to thank for the recipe—along with greens for a salad and a loaf of garlic bread.
By the time she reached Mac’s place, she was nervous, anxious, scared, and feeling a lot like her fifteen-year-old self. It was ironic really. Most people she met had this perverted idea of what she was all about—fed, in fact, by the exploits from her youth. They thought she was a sophisticated, rich, trust-fund baby who went through men as if they were candy.
Her reality was about as far away from that as she was from the moon.
Lily’s heart started to pound when she spied his truck in the driveway, and it hadn’t calmed down one bit by the time she parked behind him. She smoothed her shorts, a pair of faded jean cutoffs, and glanced in the mirror quickly.
Her makeup was minimal—a bit of mascara, some pale silvery shadow, and gloss on her lips. She’d left her hair down, and it fell across her bare back—bare because she’d chosen a royal-blue silk halter top. It was a bit of class paired with the casual shorts.
She took a deep breath, opened the door, and was about to reach into the backseat for her food when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. A soft crunch along the ground told her that she wasn’t alone anymore, and then his scent—that clean, masculine scent—washed over her.
“Now that’s a sight I’d like to see more often. A beautiful woman bent over wearing shorts that my mama just might find a little obscene.” Strong arms slid around her waist, and she was pulled back against Mac’s hard and—her heart skipped a beat—bare chest. He was warm and felt so good that for a moment Lily basked in the simple pleasure she felt in his arms. Honestly, she could stay like this all day.
His mouth nuzzled her neck, and she shuddered as his arms tightened. “Jesus, Lily you taste so damn good, how the hell am I going to get through the next few hours without throwing you over my shoulders and locking us in my bedroom?”
“I guess you’ll have to—”