by H. M. Ward
Chapter 9
We stay in his apartment for the night. I sleep rather restlessly in his guest room. The place smells like Cole. I can't stop thinking about him, but I finally pass out not wanting to consider what I offered earlier in the evening. He lets me sleep late and I emerge from the shower around noon. We go into the Manhattan office and work until sunset, editing the remaining images from last week's shoot.
Neither of us says much. When we leave, he holds the door to his Porsche open and I slide in.
I feel his eyes on the side of my face as we drive back to the new studio. Cole is silent. His fingers are wrapped around the steering wheel tightly. It's like nothing happened last night, like he didn't agree to do something completely sexy with me. I lean my head back and stare out the window. I don't turn to look at him.
It's late by the time we hit the open stretch of highway back to the beach house. I wonder about him. I wonder who he really is, what he really sees. He does such a good job of hiding everything that I realize I have no clue. There's a passionate side to Cole, but there's something softer and more vulnerable, too.
"What are you thinking?" he finally asks, glancing between me and the road.
I shrug, like I'm not thinking anything, like I'm not obsessing about him and wondering about his past. "Just wondering about stuff," I mutter the half-truth to cover the lie, then add, "Nothing really. "
"You have that far off look in your eyes. I've been around you long enough to figure out what that means, so spill Lamore. What has your brain in a knot?" He smiles softly at me.
I glance over at him wondering if I'm so transparent all the time, or if he just reads me better than others. I sigh and shake my head, "It's none of my business, but I saw something I wasn't supposed to see when I grabbed your bail money. " I shrug like it's no big deal, and glance at him out of the corner of my eye. "It was a picture of you in an army uniform and a beat up Tiffany's box. It looked like it'd been run over. " He says nothing and stares at the empty road, concentrating as if it were rush hour. I'm looking at my hands, running my thumb over the thumbnail on my other hand.
My voice is soft, "You looked so young and afraid. And the ring, I guess there's a heartbreaking story there?" His shoulders tense. Cole works his jaw and swallows hard as I finish speaking. I think he's angry, but I can't tell. I look at my hands and say, "I didn't mean to look. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. "
He doesn't glance at me anymore. His eyes take on a vacant stare like he's remembering something he wants to forget. "It's fine. I'd forgotten it was in there. The rest of those pictures were burned. " He doesn't acknowledge the Tiffany ring.
Burned? There's a story there, a part of him that I want to know. I can't not ask. Carefully, I say, "Why'd you enlist? I mean, most families would have disowned a kid over something like that. "
Now he glances at me. His eyes are cold as stone and I visibly flinch. "What makes you think mine didn't?" His words are filled with scorn for someone else, but some of it drips onto me.
I falter. My mouth hangs open. "But, you're the only heir - " I sputter, shocked, not believing what he's implying. A sole heir wouldn't be disowned. That's extraordinarily bad. I can't even imagine what he'd done. Enlisting doesn't seem big enough to warrant such a reaction, but as I look at him, I know I can't ask. I seriously doubt my mother would have been disowned if there were no cousins, if there were no one else to claim my mother's birthright.
Hedging, he says, "You seem to know some things, for a girl who hates rich people so much. "
I laugh, but there's no joy in it, "Yeah, well, let's just say life wasn't kind to my parents. I saw things from the wrong side and it took its toll on me. " Suddenly I stop talking. That's my darkest secret. It fills me with anger and shame to even bring it up - anger at my Grandmother for treating her daughter so cruelly, shame that I'm not more like my mom. She has backbone that I'll never possess. I look out the window, but I still see Cole out of the corner of my eye, watching me.
"I understand," he says and glances at me again. "Things struck a little closer to home for me and it didn't matter that I was the sole heir. I enlisted to prove a point. They disowned me prove a point. " He's staring out the windshield. His voice is cold. He doesn't look at me. Gripping the steering wheel of the Porsche, his knuckles turn white. I feel like I've picked open old wounds for both of us and desperately wish I could take it back. The pain in his eyes floods me and I want to take it away. That distant look, the feeling that he's not good enough - that he'll never be good enough - is plastered across his face.
Turning, I stare at him with my jaw hanging open. There's a word that's lodged itself in my throat, something I was going to say - but I've forgotten what it was.
It can't be true. He couldn't have been disinherited. Cole Stevens didn't have his family's millions? But, he's said it all along - he made Le Femme, it was his blood, sweat, and tears.
Oh my God. Staring, mouth still agape, I don't know what to say. I want to tell him that I understand, but I don't get it the way my mother does. I don't know what it feels like to have everything one day and nothing the next. His parents blindsided him. They chose money over love. They rejected their only child.
I finally say, "I'm sorry. I didn't know. "
Shrugging, he says, "It's not your fault, so there's no reason to apologize. And no one knows. It was part of our agreement. " He laughs and shakes his head like it's some cruel joke. "I was allowed to keep my name - my fucking name - if I didn't tell anyone that I'd lost my inheritance. Even that wasn't mine. Anyway, it's a long story, but the short version is that you should never piss off a Stevens'. They have long memories and will tear you apart when you least expect it. "
The savageness in his voice startles me. "But," I say softly, "you're a Stevens. " You're not like them. You can't be, I think.
His eyes are on the road, staring into the inky night. "I know. "