Page 57 of Sold Rejected Mate
“No, I—”
“That’s right,” Frederick says, his eyes landing on me, too. “The stray of the group. That’s you—”
“Lachlan, I’m sorry, darling, obviously you didn’t know—”
Shae and Frederick talk over the top of me, and I can’t shake the sinking, horrible feeling that I’m losing a game I never wanted to participate in. My vision starts to tunnel to the point that I can’t see Lachlan standing next to me anymore.
This is exactly what happened back then, but worse. Back then, Lachlan only had to imagine his parents disapproving of me. But now here they are, making it clear that they don’t even want me in their house, let alone dating their son.
“That’s it.” Lachlan reaches back, takes my hand, and yanks me out of the room. “We’re leaving.”
“Wait, Lachlan—”
Shae hurries after us, bursting into the foyer first as Lachlan pulls on his coat, grabs mine from the rack, and holds it for me so I can slip into it. Shae watches this like it’s the most vulgar thing she’s ever seen.
“Lachlan, what in the hells are youdoing?” she asks, aghast. “Didn’t you hear what I said? She started that fire, she—”
“We’re done,” Lachlan growls, shaking his head, then meeting his mother’s eyes. “All this fucking talk about decorum, about doing the right thing, and you spend an entire dinner making your guest feel like shit. I’m over it.”
Shae calls after us, and Frederick appears, saying, “Now, Lachlan, you listen—”
But he’s already shut the door in their faces, pulling me down the marble stairs and out to where his car is parked.
At first, I’m worried, desperate to see if he’s okay, but when we reach the car and he turns around to open the door for me, I see that he’s laughing.
“Come on,” he says, looking strangely happy as he helps me into the car. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 28 - Lachlan
My house smells like paint and new furniture, just like it did when I first moved in.
During the drive from my parents’ place to here, Valerie and I were quiet, the kind of companionable silence that happens when you’re comfortable with someone.
At first, I wanted to run through the entire evening with her. Hit on each thing that my parents said. Talk more about Caspian and how strange an idea it was that he might be marrying my sister. That Aurela would ever want anything to do with a man like that.
But it was nice to sit in the quiet with her, let my body decompress from the confrontation. The first time in my life I have ever stood up to my parents, said what I was really thinking.
I’ve acted out in other ways—wearing something I knew they wouldn’t like, sleeping around instead of getting serious. In a lot of ways, I was just doing anything I thought they would hate.
Which was just another way of letting them control me, even though I didn’t realize it.
Now, the moment we walk inside, Valerie swings around, steps up to me, and presses her lips to mine before the door has even shut behind us. She tastes like cherry lip balm and smells, finally and completely, like herself.
I walk her backwards to the couch, unable to breathe or think, consumed in the taste, scent, feel of her. Adrenaline pumps through me from the high of telling off my parents, and Ican’t stop myself from wondering why the fuck I didn’t stand up to them sooner.
In high school, I let my assumption of what they would say about Valerie stop me from having her. That is the biggest regret of my life, but it’s not even the only thing I’ve let them control. I’ve let their perceptions and their judgment and their opinions about my life guide me for far, far too long.
“I’ve never seen anything more sexy than that,” Valerie says, pulling back from me and stripping off her blouse. It flutters to the ground like a piece of fine silk—which it is. Something I bought for her, and as much as I liked seeing her try it on, I much prefer watching her take it off. “I thought you were going to fight Caspian.”
“Ugh,” I mutter, lowering my mouth to her skin. I’m tall enough that I have to bend down, and she has to arch up for us to make contact. “Please don’t say his name right now.”
She laughs as I run my teeth over her chest, one of my hands spanning her back, drawing her closer to me as I get one of her nipples in my mouth. She throws her head back, letting the tips of her green hair tickle against my skin. It’s gotten so long since the day I found her at the center of that fire, since she first came back into my life.
And I never want her to change it, unless she wants to. I’m obsessed with her, everything about her, including the color she chooses for her hair.
Green, like her eyes.
“Wait,” I mutter, pulling back. “Me fighting him would have been a turn-on?”
