Page 45 of The Prodigal

“I swear, Eve—”

I meet Remington’s hateful stare in the mirror and laugh. “What? You’re looking at me!”

Remington yanks his gaze away and reaches over to the passenger seat. “Here.” He throws a book that narrowly misses me. “Find something to do for the next hour besides stare at me.”

Honestly, I really want to just keep watching him to see what he does, but I won’t. Because, well, I just realized what he threw. “You want me to color?”

He tosses back a pack of colored pencils. “I want you to keep your eyes down and your mouth shut.”

“That sounds like a practiced line. Is that what you tell your dates when you bring them home?”

Those eyes flash just for a second in the mirror. “I don’t bring women home.”

He says the wordhomesoftly, like it means more than the rest of the words he says. I want to ask him if that means he has never brought a girl home to meet his family or if he’s never felt at home anywhere. Either one would make sense. From what I know about Remington’s past, Congressman Albrecht carried out an illegal adoption, and Remington didn’t get to know his real parents until recently. I don’t know how recently, though. I only know that his real mother was engaged to the congressman a little over a year ago.

I doubt she loved Albrecht, since she ended up marrying Remington’s father on the eve of her wedding to the congressman. I think she knew something. I think she was trying to find her son. But that’s just a hunch. There were only a few articles on the wedding scandal. But adding Remington’s revenge story about his friend being taken at birth made it easier for me to put two and two together. And while Remington didn’t confirm it in so many words, him allowing me to figure out the truth and to help him exact his revenge speaks volumes.

His family was wronged.

He was wronged.

Everyone deserves a home—everyone deserves love.

And the more I get to know the man behind the smoke, I realize he might just deserve it the most.

Somewhere between coloring three pages and staring at Remington for a solid thirty minutes, he finally has enough of me.

“I’m tired,” he clips out, pulling into a roadside motel.

It’s not exactly the Hamptons, but then again, I’ve never been to the Hamptons to compare.

Remington, though, seems particularly unimpressed.

“Do you want to stay here and rest?” I hadn’t wanted to discuss sleeping arrangements since Remington would have likely had a cow at the slightest inconvenience and called the whole thing off. But here we are, him tired, staring angrily out the windshield like I spit on the unlit cigarette pinched between his lips.

“No,” he snaps back, “I don’t.”

“Okaaaay. Do you want me to drive so you can rest, then?”

He doesn’t even spare me a glance. “You’re never driving my car.”

Is it just me, or is he not making any sense? “All right. We’re staying here.”

I open the door and wait for Remington to follow.

He doesn’t.

“Is there a problem with the motel?” I ask, when he just sits there, gripping the steering wheel. “It looks nicer than Midnight Gardens.”

“It isn’t.”

I take a look around, scanning the area for anything that stands out as to why he wouldn’t want to stay here. I was serious when I said this place isn’t any worse than Midnight Gardens. “Why not? We brought sheets, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Fuck the sheets.”

He starts the car, so I hurry back and jump into it before he leaves me, while backing out of the lot like a Formula One racecar driver.

But it wasn’t until we had ridden in silence for five miles that I realized the problem he had with the motel.

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