by Ashlee Price
“I can’t because of Erin.”
“Erin?”
His ears perked up and it seemed like he was listening then. I should have known that Erin was wrong about Drake. It was clear to me that Drake was into her. I started to wonder if everything was just a misunderstanding. I knew that she would be mad about it if I told her, but I had to press for more from his reaction. “Yeah, you and Erin know each other well from what I hear.”
“You have seen her?”
I kind of shrugged and really looked at the devastatingly handsome man in front of me. He was filled with emotions and I couldn’t help the pang of jealousy. No one ever looked at me like that. I wished someone did, but even my boyfriend wasn’t as into me as Drake was into her. That much was clear, and I knew that I had to do something to get them back together. By the look in his eyes, they were meant to be together.
“Yes, we are best friends, and that is why I can’t work for you again. I don’t think that Erin would like it very much.”
“Is she that mad at me?”
Drake looked hopeful and I was surprised once again that he was showing that kind of emotion. I knew that everything was strange between them, but I was starting to think that it really was just a lack of communication.
“Well you promised her that you would keep the museum running and she had to find out from some vile woman that you had lied about everything. That is going to make someone mad, especially if they have already fallen for you.”
“She has fallen for me?”
I knew then that I had said too much. I wished that I had just kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t like I was trying to make it worse, but I was positive that Erin would not appreciate that last slip. She wouldn’t want him to know that she cared, because she wanted to pretend that nothing had happened. She was going to pretend like he didn’t exist. I knew my best friend quite well.
“You didn’t hear that from me, Drake, but you hurt her. I am not going to say that she was in love with you, she didn’t tell me, but what I do know is that you hurt her and I don’t like that. She has been my best friend since college and I don’t think I ever remember her being like this, so whatever you did to her is not okay with me.”
He sat back and kind of grinned for a moment until he saw the way I was looking at him. “Sorry, this is not funny. I just don’t understand what happened. We were having a great time and then she just disappeared.”
“That is what girls do to lick their wounds. They go to their friend’s house and drink, talk about their problems.”
Drake didn’t get it, that much was clear, and I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure that I wanted to help him get it. What he had done to her had hurt her. I had never seen my friend so distraught before, and I hated to think that it was all going to be for nothing. If it was all for nothing, it seemed to make everything worse.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her, Rose. You have to believe me. I just couldn’t stop the deal. Too many people are depending on the profits, and the place is perfect for my new club.”
I just kind of shrugged. I knew that he had a point, men like him always did, but it didn’t seem like he was going to get how that had made her feel. I wondered if he even cared. It looked like he did.
“If that were the case, you should have never struck up a deal with her. If you knew that you were going to buy it and tear it down anyways, why would you make such a deal with Erin?”
I wasn’t going to pull any more punches with him. I had to let him know that I knew more than just a little bit about what had happened between them. I knew what he had said and I knew that he had taken advantage of my friend. Not that Erin didn’t need someone to give her life a little spunk, but it didn’t make sense for it to be a man like him who was going to hurt her in such a way.
“She told you?”
I kind of nodded. “Who do you think she came to? So I know quite a bit about the two of you, and I know what you did. That is why I can’t work for you, Drake.”
He didn’t know what to say, but he tried several times to tell me that he had not meant it. In the end, though, the truth came out. “It was the only way that she would go out with me, that’s why. I would have never agreed to anything if I didn’t have to. Do you know how many women have told me no?”
“Not enough. Erin is different.”
Drake shook his head that he knew and paired it with a sigh. It didn’t seem like he was so happy about the fact that she wasn’t like all of the rest. “I know she is different. That’s why I can’t stop thinking about her and that’s why I need to see her. I need to tell her that it is all wrong and I was wrong. I don’t want to go on anymore without her, because I just can’t.”
It was a moment of weakness, and I felt for him then. I knew it was hard for a man to admit such feelings, and especially to do it with the emotions that he had. It was hard not to melt a little inside for Erin and wish that someone would say the same thing about me.
“She is staying with me, but if I told you where she was, I don’t know if she would be able to forgive me for it. You would have to do a good job of convincing her to forgive me.”
“Your secret would be safe with me. All I want to do is see her. I can make it right.”
I wasn’t sure if he could, but it felt like both of them needed a second chance. It seemed a shame that a man who loved her as much as Drake seemed to would walk away. I shouldn’t let that happen to Erin. She was stubborn because she had been hurt before. I didn’t want this to be one of those times and I finally gave in and gave him the address of my apartment.
“I am going to stay gone a couple more hours, so if you are going to convince her, you need to do it now before I get back and she is mad at me. Then she won’t listen to either one of us.”
“Do you have any advice for me?”
I kind of smiled at him and got up from the table. I had a lot of advice, but most of it, I was not going to be able to say out loud. How was I supposed to tell him what to do when I knew that she was hurting so bad? “Whatever it was that made her fall in love with you, Drake, that is what you need to do.”
The man had a devilish grin on his face and it was contagious. Again I felt the same pang of jealousy that went through me as when he was talking about her before. I could imagine what had come into his mind, and I hoped that Erin took the bait. Drake was gorgeous and really loved her. What more could a girl want?
Chapter 4 – Erin
I was packing up my things. I had been at Rose’s almost two weeks, but she was about to leave for a couple of months and I was going to have to get myself together. I knew that there were a lot of things that I could have been doing, like getting the museum ready to close, but I had basically quit that job. I hadn’t been back to my apartment, knowing that I was going to have to find somewhere else. I had done none of the things that I was supposed to do. What I had done instead was mope around and feel sorry for myself.
Now it was time to move on and I still wasn’t really sure what I was going to do to fix it all. It was hard to think of a solution when one just didn’t seem to materialize. I had thought about Drake and my situation for some time, but nothing was really jumping out at me. It had been nice to live with Rose again, and it made me realize how lonely I was there by myself. I missed my father and the rest of the people who had drifted off through the years. More than that, I missed Drake and all of the open possibilities that had come with him and me together.
I told myself I was just dreaming. He wasn’t some knight in shining armor and I wasn’t a damsel in distress. Well, the first part was true, anyways. That had to count for something.
I picked up the small suitcase and wheeled it in next to the door. I wasn’t able to get anything else into it, so I searched for an extra bag to put in the clothes that Rose had forced on me. She was going more traditional, and I fit into most of her clothes that were a little more risky. It wasn’t my style, but if I had learned nothing more in the last couple of weeks, I had learned
that the way I was doing things just wasn’t working. I needed to do something new, and as I turned around in the mirror, I thought that a new little black dress was the way to go. This time I wouldn’t let it get me in trouble.
I was just about to go to my car – my hand was literally on the door – when I heard a knock. It scared me a little, and I backed away from the door. I figured it was Rose back from her secret meeting, and I wanted to see her before I left. I’d told her that I was leaving today, but I hadn’t told her where I was going because I didn’t even know.
“Hey, girl…”
I stopped when I realized that it wasn’t Rose looking for her keys, but Drake standing at the door. I was speechless for a moment and didn’t know what to do. What in the world was he doing there, and why was he looking at me like that?
“What do you want, Drake?”
There was contempt in my voice. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know if I really wanted to anyway. There was something about him that threw me off, and him standing there now was not helping me at all. I wanted him to tell me what he wanted so that I could go on about my business without him. I had to fight the melting that was going on inside of me and figure out a way to pretend that I didn’t care. It was hard to do, though, when I cared too much and my heart was pounding in my chest.
“I want you, Erin, and since you won’t answer your phone, I had to come down here to see you.”
I didn’t know how he knew where I was or what he was doing there. It seemed a little too late for everything, and I needed to get away.
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you, so why don’t you just go and save us both some trouble?”
I moved to slam the door in his face. It was because I was mad, but also because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. All I knew was that I needed him out of my sight. I wasn’t going to be okay with seeing him. How could I be when I knew that the only reason he was there was because of some guilt that he felt? I didn’t want to make him feel any better about what he’d done. I didn’t think I was ever going to feel any better about it.
But he wasn’t going to have that from me. He stopped the door from closing with one of his beefy hands against the hard wood. He pushed himself in and then I shut the door behind him. There was nothing to do but to talk to him. He was the type that always got what he wanted, and if he wanted to talk, then I was going to give him just that. I was sick of hiding, and it wasn’t like I had done anything wrong. He was the one who had lied and used me to get what he wanted.
All the bravado left me when our eyes met, though. I had never really been able to tell him no, and looking at him now I knew this was not going to be the first time. He was handsome and in one of the suits that I remembered so well. My heart was already racing and my body remembered him fondly. Everything that I’d told myself was a lie, and he was there in front of me again.
“Erin, I think that it is time that we finally talked.”
He moved towards me but I skirted around him and moved deeper into the apartment. I needed space between us or I wasn’t going to be able to think clearly. If he got his hands on me, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to tell him no on any account. There were things that I would like to say; I just needed a little space to say them.
“What do you want to talk about, Drake? I heard about the sale and the demolition. I was told everything that I needed to know and more.”
“Mary.”
He didn’t ask it as a question, so I figured that he knew it was that rude woman who had told me everything. She certainly hadn’t spared me any details. She’d been clear about what was going on. What I didn’t know was why he was in front of me now or why he had sent her and couldn’t have just told me himself.
“Yes, Mary. Your little assistant was a nice touch. I could have done without that, but I guess that is how businessman like you are, aren’t you?”
Drake tried to take another step towards me, but I didn’t want anything to do with any close proximity with him. I didn’t want him near me. I put my hand up like it would shield me from his touch. “Just stop, Drake. I get it, okay. I know what you wanted, and you got it, so I get it.”
I turned away from him because I knew that my voice and face were going to give away my true emotions. I wasn’t supposed to care, that is what I told myself, but it was a lie through and through.
“I didn’t know you then, Erin. I didn’t know I was going to feel this way.”
I stopped him before he could say more. Turning around, I really looked at him. Our eyes finally met, and for once I was not going to be meek. I had spent too much time being afraid of my own shadow, but I was finally drawing the line somewhere. He was too much and what he had done to me was too much.
“So it was okay when I was just a woman that you wanted to get in bed?”
Drake was full of audacity, and I knew that it was because of how he was raised. I was almost sure then that he had never been told no in his life. When I’d told him no, I just unwittingly became a challenge. It made me wonder if I was still a challenge to him. Was that why he was still pursuing me?
He grabbed my shoulders and moved to kiss me. I turned my face and got out of his grasp. There was no way that I was going to be okay with that, and I didn’t want him to even try.
“You have to forgive me, Erin. I will do whatever you want me to do.”
I just shook my head. I had gone from turned on, to mad, to furious, and now I wasn’t even sure what all I was feeling. There were just too many emotions, and his touch wasn’t helping any of them.
“You should have kept up your end of the bargain, Drake.”
He stopped moving towards me and I could see something new in his depths. “Is that really all you are worried about, your job?”
I had to bite my lip to not give him all of what I was thinking. “I am not worried about the job. That is the only home I have known, Drake. My father raised me there, and now that he has passed, that is all I have left of him. Then you come around and want to buy it up, tear it down and make it into another club where mindless people can dance around mindlessly.”
There was a pause as I tried to collect my thoughts on what bothered me more than anything else. “More than that, you made me fall for you and then I find out it is all lies. I fell in love with a man who doesn’t even exist. That is the worst part of it all.”
Drake finally moved towards me and grabbed my upper arms, pulling me to him. “It wasn’t all lies. Nothing but the deal was, Erin, and I can change that.”
“Mary says that you never back out of business.”
His lips got closer and he shook his head gently. “Business does not matter. I will find somewhere else and I will stick to what I said. This is not a lie.” He put his hand on my chest and I knew that he could feel the pounding of my heart. “This can’t be a lie because every time we are together, mine does the exact same thing.”
Chapter 5 – Drake
It took some sweet words and a bit more of my soul than I had wanted to show, but I had gotten Erin back. I needed her in my arms, and once I convinced her of that and showed her, Erin seemed to finally forgive me. I also kept my side of the bargain and let her keep her job and the museum open. It was a great place for the city and it kept her happy. I found out that I would do anything to keep her happy that was in my power to do. She was a simple woman and didn’t want much from me, so I found myself wanting to give her more and surprise her just because I knew that she wasn’t expecting it.
I also had to get rid of Mary, which wasn’t that much of a loss. She was a good assistant, but she meddled too much and I knew how Erin felt about her. While she would never ask me to fire someone, I saw how happy she was when I told her that I had. It was little looks like that that made me a slave to her. I would have done anything to see her smile.
To say the feeling was foreign would have been an understatement. I knew that I had never felt this way before. It had really come to a head in my mind when I turned
down a beautiful woman who wanted nothing but some innocent pleasure. It was no strings attached and I would have gotten away with it. When I wasn’t even tempted, I knew then that I really loved Erin. I had told her I did, but it took a scenario like that for me to really get it.
Now I was going to the next level, and I knew that a lot of it had to do with the fact that I couldn’t think about being without her. I didn’t want to go another day without her, so marriage seemed like the next step. It was a mess to think about all of it, though, and as soon as I mentioned it to my family, there was a question of her background and money. They thought that she was some kind of gold-digger, which I found preposterous. I knew that Erin wasn’t worried about money. She never seemed to be, and the simple life she lived was because it suited her.
But they pressed and threatened my inheritance if I didn’t get a prenuptial agreement out of her. It was the last thing that I wanted to do, but walking away from that kind of money didn’t make sense either, especially if it went to my younger brother, who was an idiot when it came to finances. I didn’t want to see the family legacy go down the drain in Duane’s hands, but I wouldn’t lose Erin over it either. It put me in a strange situation that I didn’t know how to handle, but as I went to pick up Erin for our date that night, I had the papers drawn up and in the center console.
The museum was quiet, as it had been closed for a couple of hours. Erin was just as bad as me when it came to work, and she had told me that she was going to work late. I knew it was because I had Rose take her out for a long lunch so I could make a closed exhibit ready. But to her it meant that she was behind when she got back. While I hadn’t anticipated her still being there at this time, I should have known that was how she was going to be. Erin was nothing but predictable, and the fact that she was already locked in just proved it. I knew her too well, and it gave me the advantage when I wanted to sneak up on her.
It had been several months since I kissed her on the counter, and it still held something in my heart when I saw it. My eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting and I stopped to see if I could hear her working. She had a tendency to sing and hum under her breath when she was there alone. It was something that she wouldn’t do if she knew I was there, but I followed the sweet harmony to the back of the museum by the mineral collections.