Girl Lost (10 page)

“I’m not leaving,” I say, cutting Aunt J off as she babbles about me coming home and taking residence in her Upper East Side penthouse. “Believe what you want, but I’m fine. I have friends and a guy who’s interested me, and I’m doing a damned good job in my classes. Yes, there have been bad days. But I had bad days in Pembrooke too, and your house, Aunt J, is a short step away from the institute. We all know it.”

“We could compel you to go back,” Aunt J says stiffly.

I heave a tired sigh. “That would mean getting the lawyers involved. And I might not have come into my inheritance as a Board member, but I have access to my trust and I’ll get my lawyers involved.”

Aunt J’s eyes are wide, and Grayson is staring at me, his gaze appraising. “It would cause a scandal,” she protests.

I glance at my menu—where the hell is our waitress?—and nod. “Yep. It would.”

“Why—“

“Shut up, Jane,” Grayson says abruptly, and her mouth snaps shut. I swallow my smirk. He stares at me intently. “Why go that far? What makes it different now?”

My anger wells up suddenly. “Because I’m not fucking crazy,” I spit. “And I’m not a pawn on her chessboard.”

He doesn’t react to my anger—but then, Grayson is well accustomed to it. I grab my purse. “Unless there is something else that you urgently need to ambush me with, I’m leaving.”

“Gwen,” Micah protests.

“No,” I snap, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to see you right now—I sure as hell don’t want to hear your lame ass excuses.”

His eyes fill with hurt, and I don’t care. I’m too angry to care—and I’m hurt. He chose to open this can of worms. He can deal with the fallout.

“Let her go,” Grayson says softly.

Micah opens his mouth to say something and then thinks better of it. He moves aside, and I slip out of the booth and stalk out of the restaurant.

Our waitress still hasn’t made an appearance. Probably a smart girl.

I take Micah’s car. Because I know Aunt J will give him a ride, and because it’s bitchy and after that little meeting the least I can do is be a little bitchy.

I think about heading to the boat house, but taking my kayak out alone is asking for questions from Grayson and Micah, so I angle for the Cliff instead. It’s sure to be deserted, and it’s close enough to the ocean that I can get some calm.

I crank the music loud, letting Shinedown wash over me as I drive and try to blank my mind. I don’t want to start crying while I’m driving, and if I think too hard, I will.

Thankfully, Crayville is small enough that it doesn’t take me long to reach the parking lot by the Cliff. I toe off my shoes and let my hair loose of the pony tail then hurry across the gravelly cement until I hit the rock that slants upward.

The wind is picking up, and it’s stronger up here where it sweeps off the ocean with nothing to break it. I shiver, digging my toes into the crevices of stone to steady myself.

It’s going to storm. I can’t help the little thrill of excitement at the thought—I adore storms.

Suddenly the magnitude of what just happened sweeps over me. I stumble, dropping to my knees.

Am I really so fragile that I need to go back to the city, to be watched and cared for? And if they think I am despite my censoring what I tell them about—how true is it? Maybe I should go back. It would get me away from Peter.

Except I’m not entirely sure I want to get away from Peter. He irritates me and he confuses me—reminds me of things that are best forgotten. But he’s also bracingly real, and I never expected to have the Boy.

Not really.

Even knowing that he isn’t
my Boy
, he is closer than I’ve ever come. Every ounce of common sense says to run, but I’m tired of running. How do I keep doing something I don’t want to do, when he is so adamant about chasing me?

You leave
.

I can’t. I need college, to prove to my brother and Aunt J that I am not irrevocably broken.

To prove it to myself.

Leaving isn’t an option.

“Gwendy?”

I glance at him. His exotic eyes are worried, narrowed in concern. I bite my lip, and he drops into a crouch next to me, the bill of his ball cap brushing my hair as he leans in. I stiffen and he sighs. Sits back on his heels. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” I whisper, and tears prick my eyes.

Northern was supposed to be my fresh start. My chance to get away from the memories and the Boy and the stigma of being so fucking crazy. So why is it that he’s there at every turn, pushing for answers?

“My aunt wants me to go back home,” I say.

Panic flashes in his eyes, there and gone so quickly I can almost pretend it was my imagination. But it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t, just like I know there is more to Peter than first glance would lead me to believe.

“Are you going?” he asks, his voice surprisingly steady.

“No,” I say, catching the way his shoulders slump just a little. “Even though I should.”

“Why not?” he asks curiously.

I look at him. “Because I’m tired of being broken. I’m tired of them telling me that I’m one bad day from falling apart. I want to be stronger than that.”

He smiles, reaching out to brush my hair over my shoulder. “You are one of the strongest people I know, Gwendy.”

I laugh, but the noise gets stuck in my throat. “Can you tell my brother that?”

He nods, and I shift, staring out at the water. The waves are picking up with the incoming storm. I shiver.

“Are you afraid of it?” he asks softly.

“No,” I say. “I should be. But I’m not.”

He’s quiet and still, sitting cross-legged next to me. “When I was twelve, I went on a cruise with my parents, in our private yacht. It was a way to appease me—Daddy was sending me to his alma mater, a boarding school in New York. I’d always known he would, when I got close to high school, but I wasn’t expecting it to happen. Anyway. I was miserable, and he knew how much I loved the
Second Star.
So he took me and Mother out for a month—we were sailing from Spain to the southern tip of Africa.”

I expect him to say something, to interrupt me. But he’s quiet, merely reaching out and brushing my cheeks with his thumbs—I don’t realize I’m crying until he does.

“Mother and Daddy died on that boat,” I say, my voice unsteady. “The official report says an attack of Mongol pirates. And I suppose that’s true. But they never came near me—I was in the cabin, napping. I didn’t see anything until I went on deck.”

Blood. So much blood. It stained the pretty deck of the
Second Star
, even though I scrubbed the deck for hours a day. Gore was splattered on the side of the boat where they shot her. And a machete was buried in the wood, scarring it and marking where Daddy died.

“I was on the boat for three weeks, drifting in the Atlantic, before a Navy vessel pulled me out of the ocean,” I say softly.

It felt longer.

Illusions. Not real.

The Island was real.

NO.

“And you went home?” he asks.

I shrug. I don’t want to talk about it—about coming home and telling Aunt J about the island, about the boy and the months I was gone. She didn’t believe me—and since the calendar refused to support my delusions, I could hardly blame her.

I hated her, a little. For not believing me. I sometimes think I still do.

“I don’t talk about it. At home, everyone knows about their deaths—it was big news.”

“Why?”

“I’m a Barrie,” I say simply.

Peter’s eyebrow goes up, and I gape at him. Does he really not know? “My father was Piers Barrie—we own Barrie Enterprise.”

He shrugs. “I don’t pay attention to company executives.”

A warmth floods me. No one is ever this oblivious about who I am, what I stand to inherit. It’s intoxicating, that he doesn’t know. Or care. "I came here because I didn't want to be immediately associated with Barrie Enterprises, with my father. We've been an institution of the financial world for so long that everyone knows me at home."

"Then why tell me the truth?" he asks, so softly.

I shrug. "Because I can't help but trust you. Even though it's stupid and I have no good reason for it—I want to trust you. I want you to be someone I can trust." I open my mouth, to tell him more about the Boy, about why it is so important to me. Why I
should
stay away from him, and why I can't seem to. I can’t separate the Boy from reality, not when Peter is real, and a walking memory.

Peter speaks first. "I don't know who your father is. I don't know why you want to run from your past. But the thing is, Gwen, I don't care. I want to be part of now. I'll fight tooth and nail to be part of now."

"What if now is temporary?" I ask, thinking about my aunt and my tenuous grasp on sanity and all the reasons I should step away from Peter.

"Then we enjoy what we have," he murmurs. I shudder as his voice wraps around me, as warm as the hand curving around my neck. He makes a low noise and lifts me until I'm sitting in the circle of his crossed legs. Pressed against him. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, the unsteady pounding. His fingers are still pressed against my hips, still holding onto me despite having me where he wants.

I should move back, put distance between us, so he knows that this isn’t ok. I sit still and silent in his arms and wait for the chiding voice, telling me it’s wrong.

The voice that has drown out every thought and feeling, every time a boy has touched me.

But it’s silent, oddly absent—maybe it is as charmed by Peter’s appearance as I am.

“What is Lane, to you?” he asks, breaking my thoughts.

I shrug, looking at the pulse point pounding in his throat. “A friend.”

“I don’t want you near him,” he says.

There is a part of me, slight but there, that is annoyed by his pronouncement. But the bigger part is smirking, leaning in so that my lips tickle along his neck. Peter goes very still as I whisper, a hairs breath from his skin, “Are you jealous?”

His voice is low, gravelly, “Yes. Fuck yes, I am. I don’t want any man near you—I hate Micah for being your brother. I want you with me, always.”

His voice is so fierce, wild. It’s a savagery that is at odds with the soft circle of his arms, the gentle press of his fingers on my back.

That
is all tenderness and fragile care.

His eyes are hot when I look up, and my breath catches in my throat. I make a tiny noise, and heat flares in his eyes, his grip on my hips tightening. And then his lips brush over mine.

As first kisses go, it’s not a good one. It’s hesitant and off center, and he pulls back immediately, his eyes wild with panic. I reach up, running my fingers down the curve of his jaw, and he trembles. He looks so lost.

That’s what breaks me. That he looks nervous and out of his element. I have seen Peter angry and determined, elated and wild.

I have never seen him lost. And it pushes me to my knees, framing his face with my hands. I push his hat back and do what I’ve wanted to since I first saw him in class—I run my fingers through the silk red curls, loving the way they spring around my fingers. I stroke through his hair until his eyes calm and drift closed.

“What’s wrong?” I murmur, shifting in his lap until I am straddling him. He hisses as I settle back onto him, my legs wrapping around his hips.

“I don’t want to fuck this up,” he says shakily. “I’ve waited so long for this. For you. I can’t stand the idea that I might screw up something and push you away.”

Something about his words tickle me as wrong, but I shrug it aside as I lean down and catch his mouth with mine.

There is a moment of hesitation, and I dig my nails lightly into his scalp.

And he comes alive. His lips part on a groan, a noise that is so fucking hot I can’t stand it. His grip on me tightens, almost bruisingly so. I love it. I nip at his lip softly, and he makes another noise that makes me wish we were somewhere private, with a lot less clothing. His tongue flicks out, slipping alongside mine, a soft stroke that drives me wild.

He kisses without skill, without any of the finesse other boys have shown. But he kisses with a raw passion, his lips hard on mine. There is something desperate about the way he holds me to him, the way his lips move against mine.

He kisses me like he’s waited years for this one moment, like he can’t quite believe it’s real.