Page 30 of Carry Me Home
She wasn’t really my girl. It wasn’t my place to tell her mother to go to hell, butfuck. I wanted to. Even though Janie had just proved she was more than capable of fighting her own battles, I still wanted to fight them for her.
“You look amazing,” I said. “Beautiful.”
Her eyes softened as she smiled at me. “Thank you. Maya says hello, by the way.”
“Is she here?” I craned my neck to search the garden.
“No, she’s—” Janie’s eyes darted to her mother and she chewed the inside of her cheek. “This isn’t really a child-friendly event. She’s in the house.”
There was a hint of anxiety in her expression. I glanced around the lawn again. Not a single child was present, and I wouldn’t have expected there to be. Children weren’t known for enjoying political fundraising parties. Janie was telling the truth. So why did it sound like a lie?
“You’ve met Maya?” Mrs. Belmont asked in tone that suggested she wasn’t entirely pleased.
“We—” I started but was interrupted by a blonde server with a tray of drinks.
“Wine?” she asked brightly. “Beer?”
Janie swiped a glass of white with a small smile for the server. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Belmont took one, as well. “Small sips,” she murmured to Janie. “Remember to treat it as a decoration.”
Janie rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to get drunk and embarrass you, Mother.”
Mrs. Belmont ignored her and turned to me. “You were saying about Maya?” Her tone was perfectly cordial, but the way her nose wrinkled ever so slightly as she looked me over made it clear she didn’t approve of me. “You’re Cat’s son, aren’t you?”
Janie noticed it too, because her eyes narrowed on her mother. “Mother, you know Jack Price. He was in the paper two years ago, remember? His team rescued the news correspondent who was taken hostage.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Belmont’s smile was genuine now. It was truly incredible how quickly she warmed up to me now that I was something other than the son of her caterer. She should have been ashamed of herself, but I doubted she was. People like that were never as embarrassed as they should be. “Jack. Of course. My husband will be delighted to meet you. I’ll have to introduce you to him.”
My stomach dropped into my shoes. The last thing I wanted was to be paraded around a party full of politicians and socialites looking for a photo op with a war hero.
“If I have time,” I said. “But right now, I need to help my mother. Janie?—”
I blinked at the empty space where Janie’s tits had been just a second before.
Janie was gone. She’d escaped while her mother was distracted and fawning over me.
That shameless little hussy.
I managedto dodge Mrs. Belmont for the next hour, but it was hard to hide from the hostess when you had to be literally out in the open with no cover, serving bite-sized hors d’oeuvres to guests who really ought to put something more substantive in their bellies to soak up all the alcohol. When she finally caught me, she and her husband spent the next eternity introducing me to all their friends like some damn show pony.
The worst part was, they were so fuckingnicenow that they had decided I was a worthwhile human being. But I saw how they treated the servers who carried trays just as I had. They weren’t rude. They remembered to say thank you about half the time, even if they never looked directly at the them. Mostly, the Belmonts and their guests treated the staff and servers like furniture. They were there to serve a purpose. They weren’t actuallypeople.
But Janie…she wasn’t like that. She looked them in the eyes when she said thank you, and when she knew their name, she used it.
Her bright hair made it easy to track her around the party. My eyes went to her again and again.
I wasn’t the only one.
Most of the glances going her way were furtive and quick. A few double-takes from men whose wives were quick to intervene. But one man in particular—he appeared to be a friend of her father’s—was blatantly leering in way that put my hacklesup. The least he could do was be subtle about it like a fucking gentleman.
I didn’t like the way he watched her. But I fuckinghatedthat he slung his arm over her shoulders like he had every right in the world.
Janie froze, her doe eyes round like saucers as she stared at her father in a silent plea for intervention. My blood pressure ratcheted up as I apprised the situation from a few yards away. Her father wasn’t going to let this dickweed get away with that, was he?
Mr. Belmont’s forehead knit in a frown. “I—ah?—”
Apparently he was. Alarm bells rang in my head. Are you fucking kidding me?I strode forward.
