Two firstborns fighting it out for their patriarch’s attention. In the end, they were both losers.
Yet yesterday hadn’t been half as bad as he’d been imagining. And that was thanks to Becca. Her smile, her laugh, her warm palm clasped in his. She made everything feel lighter. Softer.
Better.
“Did you have a nice evening?” his mom asked, looking at him over the rim of her teacup.
“It was tolerable.” He gave her half a smile.
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself. And Becca was delightful.”
He swallowed. “Yeah, she was.”
“I like her a lot.”
His lips twitched. “I get that impression.”
“How about you?” Eliana tipped her head to the side, scrutinizing him. “Do you like her?”
He looked at another photograph. This one was posed. His father and the four siblings, sitting around him like planets orbiting the sun. The older Larry Carter looking so damn smug as Lawrence and Daniel stood on either side of him, Nina and Nathan on chairs in front.
Once upon a time, even looking at that photograph would make him want to smash the glass. It was all a lie. The perfect family on the outside, a torn up mess on the inside.
But it didn’t matter, did it? His father was gone. The game was over. Neither he nor Lawrence had won.
The door opened and Rona walked in, carrying something in her hands. “I found this in the guest bedroom,” she said, carrying it over to where Daniel was standing. As he realized what it was, a huge smile pulled at his lips.
A shoe. Or a glass slipper. Damn, it was Cinderella playing out in real life. If Cinderella was a gorgeous brunette distiller who knew exactly how to make his body surge with pleasure.
But it was more than a shoe. It was an excuse to talk to her. And he wanted it, badly. Because Becca Hartson made everything better.
What happened to no promises after last night? He shook his head at his inner voice. Last night changed everything.
She lit up his dark world.
“I guess she forgot to pack it,” he murmured, taking the shoe from Rona. “I’ll take it back to Hartson’s Creek. Make sure she gets it.”
And while he was there, he’d find a way to persuade her to see him again. Because she was still a strong-as-heck magnet. And he wasn’t ready to give her up.
Becca turned her car onto Gray’s driveway, waiting for the gates to open before she pressed her foot on the pedal and drove inside. All of her family was here, from the number of cars parked outside Gray’s sprawling ranch house. She could see Tanner’s car next to Logan and Cam’s, along with her aunt’s brand new Ford that Gray had insisted on buying her. He’d tried to buy Becca a car, too, but she’d turned him down. The same way she’d turned down all their offers of help when she bought her condo.
She loved them, even though they were too much sometimes. And right now her family was exactly what she needed to take her mind off last night and this morning.
And Daniel Carter.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about him for the entire drive home. A hot, steamy shower did nothing to help, other than to remind her of how slippery their bodies were as they came together for the third time last night.
Her lips twitched as she remembered them sneaking back to his mother’s house like teenagers, her giggles muffled by his lips as he kissed her all the way up the stairs.
She’d been surprised when he’d followed her into her bedroom, taking his clothes off – again – and climbing into her bed, wrapping his arms around her as she nestled against his warm chest.
When she’d woken this morning he was gone. Eliana had gracefully offered her breakfast in the kitchen, and then she’d gone to pack. They’d agreed it was for the best if she left before he did, but it still made her chest ache to go.
She walked around the side of Gray’s house, hearing the sound of talking and laughter drift through the air from his yard at the back. Mia was the first to see her. She was sitting with Maddie and Van, and shot up as soon as Becca walked around the corner, hu
rrying to catch her before she could join them all.
“Oh god,” she whispered, holding Becca’s hands and backing her up. “They’ve been incessant. Constantly asking why you had to work and where you were working at and whether they should contact your boss and tell him to stop riding you so hard.”