Page 103 of Cruel Riches

The girls waved and headed off in the opposite direction. Nate pushed on my back, digging the tip of the blade into my skin again. “Hurry up,” he muttered.

I winced and picked up the pace as I stepped into the nearby parking lot. “Could you possibly have made that any more awkward?” I said in a low voice. “I think Laurel noticed something wasn’t right.”

“The only thing that made it awkward was you being so weird and jittery,” he said, shooting me a dark look.

“Bullshit,” I muttered. “Those queen and princess comments were way over the top.”

“Shut the fuck up. Your friends don’t know anything.” He unlocked his car and shoved me inside.

“Are you really taking me to your house?” I asked as I clipped my seatbelt.

“Yes. But you won’t be staying there.”

He didn’t offer any explanation for what he meant by that, and I didn’t ask.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the sculpted black gates of the Lockwood estate. Nate clicked a button on his key fob, and the gates swung open, revealing the formal landscaping and four-story Gothic mansion beyond.

We headed down to the end of the long driveway and parked next to a large marble fountain.

“This way,” Nate said after we stepped out of the car, guiding me away from the fountain and onto a hedge-lined path which led down the south-facing side of the mansion.

“Where are we going?” I asked, looking over at him.

He kept his eyes on the path. “Remember when we were talking about the island tunnels, and you said you heard that a lot of them were blocked off during the war and turned into private bomb shelters?”

“Yes.”

“There’s one on our property,” he said, pointing into the distance. “It’s in a clearing in the woods over there.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. My mom showed it to me when I was a kid so I could play in it.”

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Of course he played in old bomb shelters when he was a child. Weird, creepy asshole.

“Why didn’t you just put me in there from the start?” I asked, forehead wrinkling. “Why risk the Blackthorne tunnels?”

He gave me a withering look. “Because my mother lives on this property, and there’s usually a few staff members here as well,” he said, gesturing toward the house. “I didn’t want anyone to see you.”

I followed his gaze back to the mansion and stopped in my tracks as a sense of longing overwhelmed me.

He glared at me. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing as we’re so close to the house, do you think…” I cut myself off halfway through my sentence, realizing he’d probably say no to my question. There was no point in asking it.

“Do I think what?”

“Never mind,” I mumbled.

“Just fucking say it.”

I looked down at my feet. “I know you don’t owe me any favors after what I did yesterday, but would you let me have a shower?” I asked. “It’s been so long, and I feel so disgusting. If I could just—”

He cut me off. “No fucking way.”

“But you said you wanted to keep me for a few more weeks,” I said. A pleading note crept into my voice. I’d never been so desperate for something so basic. “If I stay dirty, those cuts on my leg could get infected. Didn’t you say you were worried about that?”

He frowned. “I guess I should probably change the bandage,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw.

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