I crawled back from the edge and sat up, rubbing at my eyes. “A guilt-trip? That’s your plan to wake me up?”
She shrugged, and I blinked at the strapless, gray dress she was wearing and the matching heels cradled in her other hand. Was she going somewhere this early?
“It was either this or dump cold water on your head. I can still make that happen if you’re going to complain about the alternative I chose.”
“Ugh.” I climbed out of bed and stretched. “There. I’m up. Happy?”
“Unless I can rub your belly and wish for inexhaustible margaritas, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe myself as happy. But I’ll be close once you get ready.”
“Ready for what? It’s the weekend.”
“Don’t ask so many questions, Little Brennan. Get ready, put on something pretty, and maybe I’ll have some coffee waiting for you.”
I stalked to the bathroom on a yawn. “That’s what you should’ve started with, for the record. Coffee is the way to every girl’s heart.”
Her brows lifted. “Lies. I’m pretty sure the secret is good dick, but whatever. To-ma-to, to-mah-to.”
Twenty minutes later, I was dressed in a short, blue skirt I’d paired with a flowy, black shirt and black boots. Even without taking into account the ponytail I’d put my still-wet hair in, no one could claim I looked fresh off the runway the same way Renata did. But it wasn’t like I cared.
Who was I trying to impress?
The thought of any guy other than Ambrose checking me out barely registered on my radar. His eyes were the only ones I ever wanted to catch, and that wasn’t really happening anytime soon since I didn’t know where we stood.
At best, we had another truce going. That wouldn’t last forever.
I loved him enough to be worried. I also loved him enough that I couldn’t stand the thought of him with another girl.
But my heart still ached from his deception, and I didn’t know if all the truthful texts in the world could fix it.
Where that left us, I wasn’t sure.
I put those thoughts aside as I joined Renata in the kitchen.
True to her word, there was coffee, eggs, bacon, and toast to choose from. For at least a good thirty seconds, I was impressed. I’d never seen her cook before, and while breakfast food was somewhat basic, it made me smile to think of her risking a chipped nail or breaking a sweat by standing over a hot stove.
Then Martina walked in, set a plate of hash browns on the table, and swiftly ducked out when she noticed my scowl.
Throughout it all, Renata kept her gaze straight ahead. She sipped so calmly at a glass of orange juice that I almost doubted what I’d seen. Then her lip quirked, and a peel of laughter escaped me.
I shoved a piece of toast in my mouth and guzzled down coffee like I was possessed. “What would you do if you weren’t rich and had to survive on your own?”
“Does it matter?” She bit into a crispy piece of bacon and finished it off. “As long as I keep playing by Daddy’s rules—or pretending to at any rate—I can do whatever else I want. Grab something to take with you so we can get on the road.”
Deciding to prioritize being awake more than anything else, I poured more coffee into an over-sized thermos, grabbed a couple more pieces of toast, and followed her out the door and to her flamingo pink Lamborghini.
The sight of it made me remember why I usually drove.
She didn’t waste time before cranking the heat, putting the top down, and whipping out of the parking lot with enough speed to make me send up a thankful prayer that she hadn’t been drinking.
Renata drove an hour out of town before a sense of awareness had me sitting up in my seat. I noted the familiar terrain and anxiety mixed in unpleasant ways with the coffee. Sure enough, we traveled down a winding road surrounded by tall trees and my parent’s old house came into view.
I sat back with a groan and glared daggers at my so-called friend. “What did they offer to put you up to this?”
She put a hand to her chest as she pulled into the driveway. “Are you implying that I can be bribed?”
“Yes,” I deadpanned, not letting up on my glare for a second.
Renata nodded. “Okay, you’re absolutely right. But I didn’t have to be bribed to do this part. Well, not heavily bribed anyway. Lucky for you, my cold, dead heart decided to thaw out for a bit.”
“You’re not funny. This is the last place I want to be, and I mean that. I’d rather be on an island talking to a soccer ball I’ve painted a face on.”
“That’s...oddly specific.”
“You haven’t seen that movie?”
Her nose curled. “I like my movies with a lot more blood and guts instead of whatever the hell you’re talking about.”
Before I could chase her down that rabbit hole, we reached the house. My dread morphed into surprise that was swiftly followed by confusion and a general energy of what the fuck.
The three-story colonial home was exactly like I remembered. Smaller, or maybe it seemed that way because I’d grown, but everything else was the same. The off-white paint. The baby blue shutters. The swing set hanging from a tree in the front yard that no had sat on in at least a decade.
So, it wasn’t the house that left me baffled, mouth open, mind running laps as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
It was the sight of four other vehicles parked in front of the double door garage.
Chrom’s Escalade. Erik’s two-seater. Baron’s motorcycle.
Ambrose’s immediately recognizable Porsche.
“Renata...” I glanced at her, and I didn’t trust her bright grin in the least. “Mind telling me what’s happening here?”
“I could,” she said. “But I’m not being compensated for the explanation. That’s all up to him.”
“Him?”
“Him.”
“Him, him?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do that one more time. I dare you.”
I looked at the house again. “But...”
“You can sit out here the rest of the day or you can get out of the car and figure it out yourself. When you decide to stop acting like a weirdo, go around back.”
Renata ignored the next babbled murmurs that left my mouth as she hopped out and crossed to the house. Erik stepped out long enough to hold the door for her, his searching gaze quickly finding me still awestruck in the car before he sent a clipped nod and followed her inside.
They really had no interest in making this easy for me, did they?
Why here, though? That was what I really wanted to understand. My parents had made their feelings for Ambrose clear the other week. Suddenly, they were fine with him and the rest of the Tarots?
You’re never going to know if you keep sitting out here like a scaredy-cat.
It was annoying to be right sometimes.
Nerves dancing through my skull like a marching band attached to an over-pitched amp, I got out of the car. Adjusted my skirt. Ran my fingers through windswept hair before giving up on that venture and redoing the ponytail instead.
I’d made it an entire step away before I went back to the side view mirror and checked my teeth for stashed away pieces of toast because that would not be cute.
Why do you care about being cute? You’re done with him. That means not caring how you look.
On a scale of one to ten on the believability of that pep talk, I was giving myself a score somewhere in the negatives.
I didn’t know how to be done with him.
I didn’t know how to make my heart not race at the thought of seeing him again as I followed the pebble-strewn path around the back of the house.
Did I say my heart was racing?
Because when I caught sight of a lone figure standing on an all-too-familiar pier by himself, a needle full of nitrous oxide went straight into my chest. There were sound effects and everything as my body went into overdrive, skin tingling, palms sweating, breath coming in shallow pants. And that was just fro
m seeing the expanse of his back in the black shirt and jeans he wore clashing against the dark, blue-green water of the lake before him.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I found myself counting slower than a sloth, I released a muffled screech and forced my legs forward anyway. No time like the present. The sooner I figured out what was going on here, the sooner I could get my pulse under control before I did something stupid like fainting.
That would be a sight. To make it onto the pier and drop in the water because I couldn’t keep my shit together with him being right there.
I stopped on the grass, unable to take that next step onto the wood. Ambrose kept his back to me as if he was immensely interested in the houses on the other side of the water or the rows of tall trees or the sun climbing higher into the sky.
But I didn’t believe for a second that any of those things held his attention.
He knew I was here. Somehow. Someway.
Or maybe he’d been that certain that I would come all along.
Wetting dry lips, I called out, “You’re not going to look at me?”
“Not until you’re close enough, Cupcake.”
There it is again. Maybe I will end up strangling him after all, freaking jerk.
“Close enough for what, exactly? I’m not sure how close I want to be to someone standing near a large body of water while looking super suspicious.”
“I’m not moving until you get out here,” he said, voice softer this time. “And since I’ve been here for an hour and a half, I’d appreciate you making that happen sooner rather than later.”
“Why so long?” I asked, taking my first step onto the pier. It creaked and groaned beneath my approach the same way it always had. The closer I got, the more my memories overlapped with the present.
I saw a young, quiet boy waiting for me at the end. Then I blinked, and he was older, meaner, more complicated, and utterly irresistible. I no longer had to force myself. My body moved on its own, drawn to the black hole that was and always would be Ambrose LaCroix.
The boy I’d hated.
The guy I’d fallen in love with.
The other half of my soul, molded from jagged pieces that somehow still fit together perfectly.
“Because I didn’t know how long it would be before you got here,” he said once I was close enough to reach out and touch his back if I wanted. “It would’ve ruined the surprise if I had to race down here when you arrived.”
“What surprise is that?”
He turned, and after recovering from being flayed open by the sharp lines of his face after so long without, I noticed other things. The redness of his nose, ears, and cheeks. How pale his lips were. The slight tremble in his jaw like he was one cold gust away from freezing and trying not to make a big deal out of it.
He’d really been waiting out here to make sure he got this right.
My heart swelled, threatening to choke me as I dropped my focus to the pink box in his hands. It was just like the ones I’d started sending Mary at the women’s shelter so she could hand them out as needed.
I reached out, tapping the lid on the box. My eyes lifted, meeting two dark pools that watched me so, so carefully. Like he was worried I’d disappear into the lake never to be seen again if he blinked even once. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t going anywhere.
“What’s in the box?” I asked instead.
“Open it,” he said in the soft, lulling voice that pulled me closer to him.
Close enough to smell his crisp scent. Close enough to count the leaves of the rose tattoo on the column of his neck. Close enough to stand on my toes and press my lips against his if I dared.
I opened the box.
Looked inside.
Nearly managed to fall off the pier anyway.
Except it wasn’t because I was close to fainting. No, it was because I’d started laughing and I simply couldn’t stop.
“You can’t be serious!” I howled, bending at the waist and clutching my stomach. “This was your big plan?”
Ambrose glared at me for a moment while I wiped joyful tears from my eyes, then his face eased into a small smile.
“You make it look easier than it is,” he said, glancing down. “Believe it or not, this was like, the twelfth try. I didn’t dare cross over into unlucky thirteen territory.”
“Let—” I giggled again and clamped a hand over my mouth to try and find some self-control. “Let me guess. You ran out of eggs?”
He grimaced. “I thought I had enough. Then they were just...gone.”
God damn him, my heart never stood a chance.
Cheeks hurting from the smile that stretched them, I reached into the box. Nine of the ugliest cupcakes I’d ever seen were arranged in three rows to spell a sloppily scrawled message in frosting.
And I did mean sloppy. His letters looked more like hieroglyphics. I considered pretending to look through a magnifying glass, but decided the gesture was sweet enough I could let him off the hook this time.
The message said: Forgive me <3
I grabbed the cupcake with the frosted heart and held it up. “Vanilla frosting. I figured you would’ve gone for something fancier.”
He rolled his eyes, fighting a grin. “Do you know how hard it was to get the frosting out of that damn squishy sack thing?”
“You mean the piping bag?”
His lips thinned and I laughed, peeling the wrapping around the edge of the cupcake.
I slowly made like I was going to take a bite, but the eager expression on his face gave me a much better idea. Without any windup whatsoever, I tossed the cupcake over his head and into the lake. He turned at the wet plop and I stepped up beside him to see the ripples spread out from the point of impact.
He moved closer to me, dropping his head low enough so that his nose caressed my cheek. “I’m going to bend you over my knee for that,” he whispered.
Letting my voice drop to a husky purr, I said, “Is that a promise?”
His eyes darkened and heated as I watched. Ambrose pressed a soft kiss behind my ear, and I shivered when he swiped his tongue along that spot before retreating.
He hummed like that small taste wasn’t nearly enough, and the beat of my pulse between my legs very much agreed with that sentiment.
Before he could react, I’d grabbed another cupcake and tossed it into the lake.
“Hey!” He raised the box out of reach when my hand returned once again. “We’re more than even now. You have to try at least one.”
I tapped my finger against my chin. “What if they’re poisoned?”
“What would poisoning you get me?”
“How should I know? I’m the poisonee in this situation. Maybe there’s a love potion in there that’ll turn me into your docile, little pet.”
“There’s not,” he rumbled, forgetting that he was trying to get away from me as he closed the distance. “I don’t want you docile and tame, Emily Brennan. I want you to call me on my shit. I want you to make me work for it. I want you to be the compass that always keeps me on track, day and night, rain or shine, even when I make cupcakes that sink like fucking bricks in an attempt to win you back.”
“It did land pretty hard, huh?”
“Em...” he said carefully. “Reach into my pocket.”
My brows lifted. “Goodness gracious. What kind of lady do you think I am?”
He raised his head to the sky, and I heard him begging for patience under his breath. “Just look. Please.”
It was the please that did it.
Mostly.
Totally not the fact that I was already prepared to forgive his mean ass and wrap my arms around him.
So I did what he asked.
Found and unfolded a piece of paper.
Then the laughter started all over again.
42
Ambrose
It would be a cold day in hell before I took advice from the Tarots about relationships ever again. Chrom, Baron, Erik, and Renata had assured me that
winning her back was all about the grand gesture. The spectacular display. The Hail Mary in the fourth quarter that said this is it and there’s nothing else for me if this doesn’t work.
A lot of effort had gone into making this day happen. I’d had to bribe the hell out of Erik to get his parents to even sit down with me face to face. My explanation about what had actually happened that day with Kaylee hadn’t put me in their favor, but I could deal with them disliking me. It wasn’t like I’d lose sleep over it. What I did need was their house and this pier for the venue if my plan was going to work.
Clearing the air with them and the rest of the Tarots should’ve been the worst part of it all, but it wasn’t.
Emily made baking look so easy. Let me be the one to tell you right here and now that it was not. I’d called myself following the most basic recipe to the letter, yet that didn’t stop me from having a disaster on my hands no matter how many times I started over. Fuck, I’d been telling the truth about why I’d gone with this latest batch.
They hadn’t turned out much better than the others—at least the words were...somewhat legible—but I was superstitious enough to want to avoid burning the house down on the thirteenth attempt. That wouldn’t have gained me any favors with anyone.
So, after all that, it was fair to say that watching the girl of my dreams laugh in my face stung more than a little. But I endured. The embarrassment when weighed against the smile on her face and the peals of laughter slipping from between pink lips couldn’t compare in the least.
While Emily held onto the paper and tried to control herself, I set the box of cupcakes down on the pier and watched her.
The dusting of freckles across her nose weren’t as prominent today, and I briefly mourned the count I’d almost completed over the last several weeks. Her strawberry blonde hair shone in the morning sun, making a halo around her curvy figure like God himself was highlighting the places I wanted to hold her, touch her, kiss her.
Defiant Prince: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Black Rose University Book 1) Page 39