Page 38 of Devious Temptation
“What do you mean?” I frown when my fingers brush an empty space where my pink and golden Zippo usually is. “I’ve been right here.” I sit up to get a better look in the drawer.
It’s filled with things like my old journal, colored pens, and annotation tabs for whatever books I was reading in high school. There’s a small vibrator that looks like a tube of lipstick that Rhys got me for my eighteenth birthday and a few unused condoms from when he’d sneak into my room. But the lighter my aunt Kendall gifted me for my sixteenth birthday when I was going through a candle phase is missing.
“No, you haven’t been.” Lorraine sighs softly. “All through brunch, you were distracted. Does it have anythingto do with Rhys’ dad becoming your new boss?” She twirls a dark coppery lock around her finger with a dreamy expression like we’re discussing her favorite couple in a romance novel.
“How do you know about that?” My cheeks instantly burn as I slide my feet into my slippers. I didn’t bring up the Lawson situation at brunch because I didn’t think it was necessary to tell my mother. At least not right now. I still remember how suspicious she was about graduation night, and I can’t even speak Lawson’s name without turning as pink as my favorite lip gloss.
“Rose and River were talking about it yesterday. Don’t worry. I kept Mom distracted so she didn’t hear them.” My sister sends me a knowing smile as I head to Liam’s room. “I’d tell her sooner rather than later, though, or else she’s going to wonder why you kept it from her.”
As I cross the hall and enter our brother’s room, I contemplate my close relationship with my mother and wonder if, now that I’m older, she’d accept if anything were to happen between Lawson and me.
Fat chance of that happening, Lucy. He made it clear he didn’t want you.
No, he technically didn’t say anything. You were drunk and threw yourself at him. Of course, he doesn’t want a drunk, sloppy girl when he could have any woman he wants.
My proverbial angel and devil on my shoulders argue while I search the top of Liam’s dresser. It’s cluttered with papers and random things that belong in a junk drawer. Big sister instincts kick in, and I take the chance to check anything that looks like he could be hiding any sort of paraphernalia in it.
Liam is only two weeks out of his second stint in rehab. I love my brother dearly, but I’ll never understand how such an intelligent man let alcohol and cocaine ruin his early adult life. He’s lucky our parents are so good to us. They sent him to a great facility the first time and an even better one the second. Now if he can just keep his shit together, he’ll be golden.
A small maroon box appears as I flip over a piece of yellow receipt paper. Wanting to make sure he’s not keeping anything he shouldn’t be in there, I open it just as he appears in my peripheral.
“What are you doing?” he snaps angrily.
“What is this?” I ask simultaneously, plucking a small rose-shaped pendant on a dainty golden chain from the box. The gleaming rose-gold petals are edged in tiny sparkling diamonds that suggest the necklace cost a pretty penny.
Glancing up, I notice that Liam’s jaw is clenched, his chest rising and falling heavily as he stares at the jewelry in my hand. Instantly, I recognize that he’s counting in his head. It’s an exercise he learned in rehab for when he gets overwhelmed or feels the need to rage at whoever he believes has earned his ire.
Not wanting to trigger him further, I place the necklace back in the box and continue searching for my lighter. “Do you have my pink Zippo?”
Without a word, he crosses the room to his nightstand. I don’t say anything about the stench of fresh marijuana that permeates his room as soon as the drawer is open or berate him for taking my stuff.
“Who is the necklace for?” I want to hear him say it. Notbecause I need the answer but because I’m afraid I already know.
He shoots me a flippant look, running a hand through his shaggy blond hair as he places my Zippo in my waiting palm. “It’s not a big deal, Luce. It’s a birthday present for Rose.”
I’m equally shocked that he answered me truthfully and slightly disturbed by his admission. I don’t know what happened when we were younger, butsomethingchanged between them when Rose was nine and Liam was seventeen. I’ve questioned both of them about it numerous times—hating that I had to mentally prepare myself to possibly hear that Liam had done something downright treacherous—but I believed them both when they assured me it wasn’t like that, they just didn’t want to talk about it.
“Rose’s birthday isn’t for another seven months. And that’s a pretty intense gift for a fifteen-year-old. Especially coming from her twenty-three-year-old cousin.”
“Eww, Lucy, don’t go there. First off, it’s for her sixteenth birthday, which is a milestone for girls. You know that. I saw it and thought she’d like it. It’s really not a big deal. And second, we aren’t cousins by blood. Just because Mom and Aunt Daphne are best friends doesn’t make us related. Don’t make it weird.” He grabs my shoulder and turns me toward the door. “Now beat it. I’m gross from working with Dad and Uncle Henry and want to shower.”
“Why’d you get her a present so early?”
Without missing a beat, his ominous reply comes as he closes the door behind me. “Because who the fuck knows where I’ll be in seven months.”
A heavy sense of sadness fills me. It’s clear my brother doesn’t think he can stay clean, and evidently, he can’t if he’s already smoking weed to cope with the loss of his other addictions. I don’t relay any of that to Lorraine as I return to my room, handing her the lighter before quickly finishing the bracelet I’d been working on.
“Your phone went off,” she tells me as she lights the end of her cord and quickly blows it out, pressing the frayed ends to melt together before stringing more beads.
I grab my phone. My vision tunnels, and the air disappears from my lungs as I stare down at the screen, where I have a notification from Iconic.
Lawson Morgan followed you.
“Is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Lorraine touching my knee startles me, and I jump. I can feel the panic settle over my features as it dips from my chest to my stomach, threatening to make friends with the blueberry pancakes Mom made earlier.
Worry is evident in my sister’s doe-like eyes. “Luce?”
