Page 111 of Luck of the Draw

A deep crinkle formed between her brows. “But I don’t—”

“I know you don’t, and that’s okay. I understand that you have a lot of issues tangled up with the notion of love, but just trust me when I say that wasn’t real love. Trust me that it’s okay for someone to just love you, Skye. It’s okay for there to be people out there in the world who love you, and who you don’t owe anything to for that love. That’s what I am for you. From here to eternity, baby girl.” He lifted his hand to slide his palm through the air like he was wiping away time. “World without end, I will always be here for you. I’m going to help you get on your feet, and then…” He hitched a shoulder. “For the rest of your life, wherever you are, you’ll just know there’s a spoiled little rich kid down in ol’ New Orleans who loves you and will do anything for you, and all you have to do is call. Okay?”

Her beautiful bottom lip did that devastating tremble again, and she turned her face so that her cheek rested on his chest. “I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t have to understand me either. I’m still going to love you.”

She was silent for a while, cheek still pressed against his chest. After a few moments, she turned her head to look at him again. “I’m sorry about the wedding thing with Luke.”

He offered her a quick, but warm smile. “Don’t be. I was being petty. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you going to a wedding with Luke. Even with as much of a man-child as he can be, he’s one of the best guys I know. I love him and trust him with my life. I’d trust him with yours, too if that were up to me. But it never will be. And that’s okay, too.”

Her brows drew together. “I hurt your feelings, Brennan.”

“Yeah, well…I guess I can be a bit of a man-child, too, when it comes to my feelings.”

“I really am sorry, Brennan. I wish…” She drifted her gaze away from him, her bottom lip doing the faintest tremble. “I just wish everything were different. Everything sucks. Like, even things you’d never think about.” Her eyes met his again. “For example, at first I thought Luke was a trick.”

Brennan looked at her blankly for a second. “A trick,” he repeated slowly. He had a faint urge to laugh at Luke being called atrick. It was a gateway to so many jokes, but the look on Skye’s face made it clear the term was the furthest thing from funny. “Oh. Well, I don’t think Luke would ever…”

Trailing off into a pause, Brennan’s mind automatically processed the idea of whatthatwould feel like. For things between he and Skye to magically work out somehow, only for him to find out that Luke, or Carson, or any of his other friends or people he encountered in his family’s social circle had been with her. That would be fucking uncomfortable as all hell.

“See what I mean, Brennan?” Skye added, apparently reading his mind. “That’s the kind of thing you’d be dealing with if I didn’t leave. If I tried to be with you. In this city, there would always be a possibility that you might bump into a guy thatknowsme. You know.” She lifted her brows knowingly. “That wouldn’t be fair to you. And I know that’s not the kind of love you always imagined.”

“Yeah, but you know what?” he hastily retorted, but then his mouth hung open wordlessly as he considered how he wouldreallyfeel knowing that Luke or Carson had fucked his girlfriend long before he had. Thatwouldkinda suck. Thatwouldbe a little awkward.

But only if they all let it be. And they didn’t have to let it be.

After all, Brennan had fucked so many women in this city that the possibility of them encountering one of his previous flings wasn’t exactly small. That didn’t have to be weird either.

He closed his mouth and offered her an easy, disarming smile. “If that were the case, we’d deal with it. It wouldn’t make me stop loving you. It wouldn’t make me stop wanting you. And if someone I know is someone you…y’know…met…and they wanted to act like a piece of shit about it, they just wouldn’t be someone I’d be spending time with anymore. You would come first.”

Skye looked back at him for a beat before drifting her eyes away again. Her stomach gave a tiny, little growl. “It’s nice that you believe that’s how it would be, but…” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

“It is how it would be, but it’s also a moot point, and you’re hungry.” Brennan sat up and stood, turning his back to her. “Hop on and I’ll piggyback you to the kitchen.” After a second of her not hopping on, he glanced back at her. “Come on, Skye. I’ve got a pint of ice cream with our names on it.”

A small laugh burst from her as she climbed on, and she giggled lightly the whole way to the kitchen. This was okay. She was still going to leave, and he was still going to be left with a third little aching hole in his heart, but that would be okay. After all, he’d have this sweet little memory of piggybacking her to the kitchen in addition to several months of others, and that was enough.

It would have to be.

27

FRENCH QUARTER, NEW ORLEANS

About an hour or two later, the empty pint of ice cream sat on the coffee table with two spoons sticking out of it. Skye sat cross-legged on the squishy den sofa facing Brennan, who reclined casually in the opposite corner of it. He’d slipped out of his shoes and turned on some quiet music. The couch was cozy. They’d talked for a long time about his life and her life and a whole lot of everything else. And she wished this could be her new life. The one she was going to start once she was safe from Jesse. Which meant there was no way for it to be her new life because it had to be far away from New Orleans and, by extension, Brennan.

She wasn’t stupid. It didn’t matter how he felt or she felt, someone like Skye would never fit in his world. No matter how much he claimed to love her, and even if she could work through her emotional and psychological cluster-fuck enough to love him back like a normal fucking person, it could never be permanent. He couldn’t keep her history a secret from his parents. Everything his mother had said about her didn’t matter. Constance said that stuff because she didn’t know. If his parents knew, they would want Skye as far away from Brennan as humanly possible. They’d think she was a gold digger, and Brennan being with her would drive a wedge between him and his family. She just couldn’t do that.

Brennan stretched his legs across the couch toward her and crossed one ankle over the other, looking at her with a serene expression. “How’d you start going by Skye instead of Isabel?”

She pressed her index finger against her chin as she pondered. It was a good question. “I can’t really remember.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s like…I remember my mother calling me Isabel, and I remember the CPS people always calling me Isabel, but at some point, everybody was just calling me Skye except on official paperwork.” She paused. “Also, I’m pretty sure I blocked out a lot of shit. If you experienced fucked-up shit as a child, one side effect is blocking it out.” She shrugged. “I mean, I just read that somewhere on the internet. The little web browser on these fancy phones is like a gold mine.” She offered him a self-deprecating half-smile. “I’m kind of ignorant, Brennan.”

His brows drew together. “Sweetheart. You’re not—”

“I honestly am.” She shrugged again. “Ignorant literally means lacking in knowledge or education. I never finished high school.” She pointed at Brennan’s phone on the coffee table. “For nine years, I lived with a person who restricted my access to information about the world. He made me ignorant on purpose. He had to so he could control me. He picked me up in that Waffle House without any intention to let me go back to school at some point. Knowledge is power, Brennan. And if you’ve never had it, and then suddenly you do, you find out in a big way just how powerful it is.”

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