True to his word, Emile brought out a wide variety of non-ostentatious engagement rings ranging from simple bands covered with what looked like diamond flecks to solitaires in basic settings on platinum. There were actually several I liked—rings I could see myself actually wearing in a non-pretend engagement scenario. I only wished they had price tags hanging from them. It seemed silly to expect Trent to pay for a pricey ring when we were only pretending at this whole thing, but then again, I reminded myself that money rarely seemed to be an obstacle for any of the McNeils.
As I tried on rings, I told Trent about selling the house. If Dani was moving out anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live there by myself.
“You could rent it out,” Trent pointed out. “Have a nice monthly income. That would help, right?”
“But it’d be one more thing to worry about.”
“You could pay a property manager.”
“And there goes the monthly income…” I didn’t mean to be negative, but I’d thought about this a lot since Dani had acquiesced.
“Where will you live if you sell the house?” Trent had asked tentatively as I tried on another ring and held my hand up to the light.
“Student housing?” I said. “I applied a while ago, but the wait list is crazy. Amber suggested I do it.” I was still staring at the ring I’d slipped on, admiring the way the small diamond sparkled beneath the soft lights. It was pretty and simple. “I like this one,” I told Trent. This is what I would want if this was all real. This ring. This man.
“I think we’ve got a winner,” Trent told Emile, a happy glow lighting his tanned skin as he held my hand, a small bright diamond glowing on my finger, flanked by two little sapphires.
Remember, this is all just pretend. Having Trent in my life was a strange comfort. I’d begun to rely on him, to turn to him. And I felt less alone than I ever had before. It was tempting to let myself believe this was more than it was. But I reminded myself often our engagement was Trent’s reaction to his family’s efforts to control him. I wasn’t much more than a pawn in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much effort Trent was putting into “wooing” me. I needed to keep my guard up, because nothing here was certain.
“It’s perfect,” I agreed, having slid my self-protective shield back into place after losing it just a bit in the heady swirl of champagne and diamonds.
The ring fit perfectly, and I wore it out of the shop, feeling like a fraud.
“Are you happy?” Trent asked, his arm around my shoulders as he dropped a kiss on the top of my head. He smiled down at me then, but before I could answer, his phone chimed in his pocket, and he slid it out to look at it. “Elyse,” he said. “What was that code? She texted X.”
“Call her,” I said, worry dropping in to quash any lingering happiness in my stomach. “X is the code. She needs help.”
Trent opened the car for me and then stepped away, dialing Elyse. I heard his voice drifting through the settling nighttime air. “Hi, Elyse, something’s come up at home, and we need you back. I’m coming to get you right now,” he said. “Text me the address. I’m on the way.”
He got into the car, his jaw tight. “I’m really sorry,” he said, turning to look at me. “I wanted to spend the evening with you. I haven’t really gotten to see you all week.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “Is she okay?”
“We’ll see. She acted annoyed when I called her.”
“That’s the point of the plan.”
His phone chimed with the address, and we drove to a big house in La Jolla that could give the McNeils a run for their money. Literally. I stared up at the brightly lit house as Trent went to the door. This is a teenaged party in Elyse’s world? Music blared from open windows, and cars were parked haphazardly around the circular drive in front of the stone mansion. Trent was at the door for at least ten minutes before I caught sight of a bright blond head appearing next to his. He turned back toward the car, Elyse tucked under his arm as she staggered on too-high heels across the driveway.
“Amy,” she said, sliding into the back seat.
“Hi,” I said. We’d promised not to ask questions or to be judgmental if she used the X Plan, so I didn’t say much else as Trent slid back into the car.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a pained whisper.
Elyse’s face crumpled, and she sniffled miserably. “Can we just go home?”
The car was silent as Trent drove slowly through the winding streets toward his parents’ house. I steeled myself for a potential run-in with Mrs. McNeil, which had definitely not been part of my plan for the day. Thinking of her reminded me of the wad of cash in my purse, however. I had planned to leave it on Trent’s dresser, maybe with a note. Now I’d have to bring it up before she did, but this didn’t seem like the time.
“They had Ecstasy,” Elyse said softly between hiccups. “I’ve done other things before, but I didn’t want to do it.”
“I’d be happier with that statement if you’d just said the second part,” Trent said, his voice emotionless. I glanced at him and could see him trying to control his emotions. “I’m glad you called. You did the right thing.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft and sad.
Trent’s lips were pressed into a firm line, and it didn’t appear he was going to say anything else, but the sound of Elyse sniffling made me feel like something else needed to be said.
I turned to look at her. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry you had to deal with that situation and that your friends are doing things that make you uncomfortable. You did the right thing.”
She nodded, tears smearing the mascara down her cheeks.
“Here.” I pulled a piece of gum and a Kleenex from my bag and turned to help wipe the makeup from her face. “Your mom can’t see you like this.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she put the gum in her mouth and didn’t argue as I dabbed at her face and eyes. “Better,” I said. “You’re not going to be sick, are you?”
She shook her head. “I’m okay.”
We arrived at the house a few minutes later, and Elyse did a good job playing the sober innocent. She let us inside with her key and headed straight for her room as Trudy’s voice called from the opposite direction. “Lysee? Is that you? You’re home early.”
Trudy arrived in the foyer to find Trent and me standing there, debating whether we should go or say hello.
“Trent.” Trudy was surprised. She smiled at Trent and flicked her gaze over me before turning back to him with a question on her face. “Why…?”
“I was chatting with Elyse on the phone and she mentioned needing a ride,” he said. “We were nearby, so we picked her up. She said she was really tired and just headed up to bed, I think.”
“Oh.” She shot me another evaluative glance as if I might have done something to inspire this unusual turn of events, but then she seemed to accept the explanation. “Well, come in,” she said, seeming to remember her manners. “Come have a drink with us.”
Trent turned to me, a question on his face, and I nodded. What else can I do?
A few minutes later, we were seated in the living room in front of a wall of windows looking over the well-lit back patio and pool, drinks in hand. Mr. McNeil had greeted us both warmly, and now we sat somewhat stiffly facing one another and sipping wine.
“So, medical school,” Mr. McNeil tried, looking at me.
I nodded. “Yes, I guess so.” I had no idea what to say. Dani’s default was babble. Mine, unfortunately, was silence.
“You ready?” he tried again.
“Not really.” I laughed as I thought of the long list of materials I’d need before I even started. “I’ve got about forty books to buy and a huge list of other things. I guess I’d better get started, though. I just finished up work, so now I’ll have time to get prepared.” They didn’t need to know I was distraught about the price tag and was about to sell the only house that had ever felt like home.
&n
bsp; Mr. McNeil nodded, smiling.
“Have you thought about what being involved with a doctor could mean, Trent?” Mrs. McNeil asked. Her question didn’t make sense to me, and Trent looked confused, too.
“Yeah, free pens and easy access to antibiotics,” Trent joked, scooting closer to me on the couch we shared.
“I mean from a family perspective,” Mrs. McNeil said, unfazed by his joke. “Doctors have very little time for anyone outside their work.”
Trent shook his head. “Not on the top of my list of worries, Mom.”
She had a point. Amber complained about this very thing. But Amber also managed to raise her son and find time to hang out with me. “I think most doctors find ways to make it work.”
Trudy shook her perfectly coiffed bob, ignoring my statement. “I know several families that have imploded due to the demands on the doctor’s time,” she said, looking me right in the eye. Her words were clear, as was her tone. Now not only am I not good enough for Trent, but I’m a threat to his future.
“I don’t think that’s something we really need to worry about,” Trent said, his arm around me tightening.
“It’s worth a thought.” She sniffed and patted her husband’s knee, as if he were the one with the ridiculous concerns.
We all sipped in uncomfortable silence, and then Mr. McNeil tried again. “I’ve been really proud of you this week at the office,” he said to Trent. “Rebecca tells me you’re really stepping up quickly.”
I couldn’t help but stiffen at the mention of the gorgeous blonde. Trent had mentioned they’d worked together a bit, but I didn’t like to think about it.
“She says you have a few more weeks of shadowing her, and then you’ll be ready to move ahead on your own,” Dad said.
Trent shot me an uneasy look before responding. “She’s been a lot of help.”
“It’s nice that you can spend so much time with Rebecca,” Mrs. McNeil said, her eyes sliding to meet mine before returning to Trent. “She’s a smart girl, from such a good family.”
“Isn’t her mother a doctor, Mom?” Trent asked.
Trudy stiffened. “I don’t think I remember what—”
“An orthopedist, I think,” Mr. McNeil said, glancing at me with something that looked like mirth dancing in his eyes. “They are a good family.”
I smiled at Mr. McNeil, surprised to find an unexpected ally in the older man.
Trent put down his drink and turned to me. “You about ready to go?” He turned back to his parents. “It was nice to see you guys. Amy and I have plans, though, and we’d better get going.”
“Oh.” Trudy put her own drink down and stood as we did. “Of course. You go have a lovely evening.”
“Thanks for stopping by, son,” Mr. McNeil said. They walked us to the door and waved us off.
“Sorry,” Trent said. “That wasn’t really part of the plan.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m glad we could help Elyse.”
“Still want to come over?” he asked as we drove down the driveway.
I did want to; I wanted to spend the evening in his arms, feel his warmth and solidity. But I also needed to find some solace on my own, to remind myself that I would be okay when this all ended, and right now, I was finding the whole situation confusing. Everything Dani had said, the very act of sitting here having drinks with Trent’s parents, all the outside trappings of a real relationship, were starting to make me feel like that’s what this was, and my heart was getting entangled.
Beyond my own growing confusion, Trudy seemed determined to find a way to keep me out of Trent’s life, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the battle she wanted to wage. I was exhausted and depressed.
“I think it’s probably best if I just go home.”
“Want me to come in?” he asked.
I stood with him on my doorstep and said the opposite of what I wanted. “No, not tonight. I think I’m just going to go to sleep.”
He watched me with those deep brown eyes, understanding shifting in his gaze before being replaced by something else, something dark and lusty. He dropped his head and waited a beat, and my own chin lifted in automatic response. Trent kissed me then, hard and urgent, his mouth drawing an answer from me that my voice hadn’t been able to give. In that kiss, he confirmed that while there might be millions of reasons we should stay apart, there were other things—primal, hot, instinctual things—that drew us together. He broke off the kiss after a long minute, both of us panting slightly as we parted.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” His voice was a whisper rubbed raw, and it wrapped around me and held me as I fell into a fitful sleep that night. Maybe I wasn’t the right girl for Trent in the long run, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted him.
Chapter Nineteen
Trent
I left Amy’s house and pulled over. I need to think. I can’t drive like this.
I’d expected to have Amy sleeping at my place tonight, to wake up to her hair across my pillows in the morning, her long limbs tangled with mine. It was supposed to be a casual night in after we picked up the ring. It was supposed to be fun and light. There was supposed to be sex.
Instead, there’d been Elyse and Trudy and Hank, and everything about my family that was decidedly not casual. Standard McNeil family shit.
I’d promised Amy a fling. I’d promised her hot sex with a carefree fireman who ran a bar—what was more casual than that?—and I’d delivered a fake proposal and a family with their money shoved so far up their butts they couldn’t see the real world anymore. I promised her casual, but I can’t do it. I don’t want to. I’m falling for her.
I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel and dropped my forehead against the cool leather between them. “Fuck.”
This wasn’t what I did. I didn’t get wrapped up in women. I never let them get inside my head, I didn’t spend time thinking about them when they weren’t around.
I don’t do relationships. I don’t do love. What the hell is happening to me?
Amy was different. And now…now that I knew what exactly she’d come from, what she’d been through…now I was seriously fucked. Whatever gene I had that had made me a good firefighter, the thing inside me that wanted to save people and protect them, that gene had gotten switched into “on” position tonight. All I wanted to do now was hold Amy in my arms and protect her from anyone and anything that might ever try to hurt her again. You can’t, because she sent you home.
Shit. How did I let this go so far? And why don’t I feel like I need to escape? I’m so fucked.
I pulled away from the curb and drove to the High Note, where I proceeded to get properly drunk and take a cab home. Enough thinking for one night.
…
“It makes sense,” Rob said the next night, leaning back on the couch in my living room and nodding.
“No, man, it makes no sense at all.” Chad laughed, shaking his head at Rob.
Mateo, Rob’s younger brother, looked less charitable after I’d explained the details of my pseudo engagement. “Dude, why would you want to pretend about something like that?”
We were supposed to be watching baseball and playing poker, but so far we’d managed to drink a lot and talk with the game on in the background and cards scattered around the table.
“I didn’t want to,” I tried to explain. “It kind of just happened. I mean, you’ve met my mother.” It wasn’t an explanation, but I didn’t know how to lay everything out for these guys so they could understand.
“Family is important,” Oliver chimed in, “but your mother is terrifying.”
“Right,” I said, swigging my beer and hoping the alcohol would mix with whatever was left in my system from the night before and combine to relieve the lingering headache I’d woken with.
“So what’s the end game? Should we be planning a bachelor party?” Chad asked.
I put down my beer. “Nope. When Amy goes to med school in a few weeks, we call it off, tell my family w
e broke up, and go our separate ways.” Because that’s what we both want. Right.
“You cool with that?” Rob asked. His tone told me he already knew the answer. That fucker stayed quiet most of the time, and it allowed him to perceive more than most people wanted him to. He already knew the answer.
“Yeah.” I stood and went to the refrigerator. Not. At. All. I’d spent most of last night thinking about Amy and realizing how completely out of my comfort zone she had me. I figured I had a choice: I could either end it now before I actually got in deep enough to get hurt, or I could actually try to win her over and see if she felt something for me, too. I thought I knew which way I was going to go, but I wasn’t eager to open up to these guys about it.
Luckily, Mr. Strong and Silent—Rob—was more talkative than normal, thanks to Dani having agreed to move in with him, and talk turned to his relationship instead of mine.
“She’s excited about it,” he said. “But I think it’s also hard for her to leave the house they grew up in. And Amy.” He said this last part looking over at me, and I could tell there was a lot packaged in those two words. If it was hard for Dani to leave Amy, I knew it was probably next to impossible for Amy to watch her go. They depended on each other so much, and the way they’d grown up had made them closer than any siblings I’d ever known.
“Amy mentioned it last night,” I told him. “I think it’s hard for her, too, but it might be a good thing. Amy wants to sell the house.”
Rob looked stunned, sitting up straighter on the couch and putting his beer down on the coffee table. “Does Dani know?”
I shook my head. “Think so, not sure.”
Mateo leaned forward and lowered his voice as I sat back down, putting a fresh beer in front of each of the guys. “Buy a ring yet, man?”
A smile broke across Rob’s usually stoic face and his eyes lit. “About to.”
Without Promises (Under the Pier) Page 12