Selling Scarlett (38 page)

"It's not you,” he pants. “You're perfect. It's just...I don't want your first time to be like this. With me like this." He looks down at himself, and when he looks back up, he leans his head against my neck and speaks his warm words on my collar bone: "You could do better."

His words shock me. I sit up a little, jarring him, and then I lie back down and cradle his shoulder. Hunter thinks I could do better than him? "Better how?"

“Better place, better circumstances...better guy."

"What's wrong with this guy?"

He swallows. " You deserve someone who's got his shit together."

"You seem pretty together."

He chuckles, but it's a dry, humorless sound. "That’s just because you don’t know me.” He runs a gentle finger down from my throat, between my breasts. "You deserve the whole package, Libby."

"I'm not sure anyone has that." I haven't called to check on mom since I left California—because I just don't care. I'm still angry enough to spit nails at my dad. The more I think about seeing Dr. Bernard again, the more afraid I feel. "No one's perfect, Hunter. You need to give yourself a break?"

He swallows, and his eyes look so clear, like the river. "Don't try to get close to me. It's not a good idea.”

“I don't care if it's a good idea. I don't think I can stay away from you. Now that I know you better...”

He shakes his head. “You're wrong.” He pushes himself up and lithely shifts his body off the bed. “You don't know me. And what you do know should not make you want to learn anything more. You need to trust me, Libby. Stay in your own world, and leave me in mine. We can have a little fun together, but that's it.”

I'm surprised and humiliated when my eyes well with tears. “That's all you want from me?” I can't believe this. That he's giving me no chance to go beyond just sex. And after what I told Dr. Bernard. Since I've been here, and we've spent some time together, I'd actually started thinking…I don’t know. That we click. That there is something here worth exploring.

He rubs his face roughly, like he's frustrated, or his shadow is itching. “It doesn't matter what I want. I've got...a lot going on, and I don't want to get your hopes up falsely.
If
you're crazy enough to have those kinds of hopes,” he adds, pulling his mouth into an ominous frown. “Maybe you're not.”

I push myself off the bed. “All I said was 'You don't give yourself a break much'. It's not like I got down on one knee.”

He just looks at me, his jaw locked. For the longest time, I think I'm being stonewalled. Then his mouth softens, and he sighs. “Then maybe it's me,” he says, very, very softly. “Maybe it's me who's wanting more. Like I said, you're beautiful and sweet. I'm sure you're not surprised.”

He grabs my arm, gentle even as he steers me to the door that joins our rooms. I drag my feet, mostly because I'm shocked—and thrilled—and totally confused. Hunter wants more! But he doesn't want to let himself have it?

I frown up at him, but he's shaking his head again. “Libby, I'm so sorry that this didn't work. I guess I didn't think it through. You need to go. Tonight or tomorrow—as soon as you can get away. Tap your red slippers and go home to Napa."

My chest aches, and I'm shocked to find I can't speak over the lump in my throat. I swallow hard and try my best to look dignified, instead of like a beggar. "Hunter...I don't understand."

He shrugs. "This is how it's got to be."

He opens the door that joins our rooms, but I don't move. He puts his hand on the small of my back. “C'mon, Libby…I don't have room for wherever this might be headed, so why not end it while we're both ahead?”

“We're not,” I whisper.

He tugs me through the door to my room and sweeps his palm over my hair, giving me a look of what can only be longing before he holds up his hand in a goodbye pose. “Take care of yourself, Libby.”

I can't even form an answer as he steps back through the door.

*

~HUNTER~

I woke up sometime after Priscilla arrived. At first I thought it was a nightmare. Then I heard Libby, telling her to go away. I'm so ashamed that I just lay there, eyes closed, listening to that bitch talk shit about me—and listening to Libby, my avenging angel. I soaked it up. It soothed something inside me. Made me feel like I'm alive instead of dying.

That's what it's been like with Priscilla. Like suffocation. A slow snuffing out of everything I want and everything I need.

Like it was with Rita.

I don't understand how Libby is so different. After I peeked into the hallway and I realized Priscilla was being dealt with, I feigned sleep until Libby came back and got in bed with me. I stayed completely still while she wrapped an arm gently around the lower part of my back and nuzzled her face into the crook between my shoulder and my neck. Why did it feel so good? I've been touched before, but it never felt like that. What's so different about her?

I sit for a long time in front of the door I sent her through. I shut my eyes and try to feel her in the room behind me, packing up her things. There is a part of me—a raging, senseless part—that wants to burst the door open, rip her clothes off and fuck her until she can't walk anymore. She’ll be stuck in my bed, the smell of vanilla and cinnamon surrounding me forever.

However, the part of me that actually cares about her wins the day. I wasn't lying when I told her she deserved the whole package. She is selfless, kind, beautiful, smart, good, and in so many other ways out of my league.

I don't know why she seems to care for me, even just a little, but I shut my eyes and try to drown in the peaceful feeling that I get whenever she's around. It's more than the lust I used to feel whenever I bumped into her. It's like the amplification of that feeling I had the very first night I saw her, with the broken Porsche. Peaceful. Pleasant. Beautiful. Good.

As I listen to the room around me, I think that I can hear her voice. She sounds upset, and it kills me that I’m the reason why.

My back is sore from pressing on the door, so I rock forward, leaning over my knees with my head propped in my hands.

"I fucked up... I fucked it all up... I fucked up..."

Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can hear myself sobbing and my dad yelling and I see all that blood.

I inhale deeply.

Libby. Think of Libby.

I've got her face pinned to the forefront of my mind like a motherfucking screensaver when the phone rings. Not my cell phone, but my land line. Shit.

*

~ELIZABETH~

I don't want to leave, but I'm not sure what else to do. Hunter doesn't want me here, and I can't force him to, regardless of how much I want to stay. I want to walk back through the door, and I would, but this is the second time he's said I should leave, and Priscilla
was
just here. He has a whole life outside me, and if he means what he says about not wanting to take things any further with me, I don't see the point of trying to force myself on him.

I'm packing my bags, feeling numb and desolate, when Suri calls.

"Lizzy—hi.” She pauses for a second. “How are things?"

“They're good. I'm headed home.”

“Really? Wow. So I guess things must have progressed?”

“Kind of,” I hedge. I don't even try to go into it, because I can tell by her voice that something's wrong. My stomach's tied in knots, because I'm worried that it's Cross.

“Is something going on? You sound weird,” I say.

She sighs. “Girl, you always know, don't you?”

“I'm your bestie. That's my job. So spit it out.”

“It's Cross. He's saying...what happened that night wasn't an accident. That someone
did
it. He's upset, like he pulled out all his IVs and cursed at Nanette, and then he told me to leave because he needs some time to think." Her voice breaks on the word 'leave' and I know something is going on with the two of them.

“Wow.” I clutch the phone a little tighter. Cross has had some serious issues with his father, but I don't think he has any real enemies. Does he? I lean against the bedpost, feeling sick—over this, over Hunter. Over everything. “Is he doing better now? I mean, when you left was he...”

“I didn't leave. I'm outside, in a waiting area. I think they sedated him. He was really upset.” She drags in a teary breath and I can hear a sniffle, followed by the rustle I'm sure must be a tissue. "I'm sorry to burden you with this while you're at Hunter's, but I didn't know who else to call. He said that when he left to go...after the fight the two of you had, there was this guy messing with his bike. Like, touching it and stuff. The guy told him he liked the bike, and when Cross tried to go, he tried to get him to go back in and have another drink. It doesn't sound like much, but Cross says when he got onto the road he had trouble steering. He said the steering had been messed up, and the breaks were messed up too, but not completely. So he didn't flip like he might have, he just lost control of the steering...because of how much he had to drink.”

“Holy shitballs. Did he know this guy?”

“Cross said he looked like someone he used to know. I asked if it was an enemy or something, and he acted kind of weird. I don't know if we can trust him, though, Liz. He thinks you two had a fight because he was jealous over you messing around with Hunter.”

“He was,” I whisper.

Suri huffs her breath out, and I can feel her censure. Her irritation that I kept it from her. “I guess I don't know anything.” The next second, I'm left there standing with the dead line in my hand, and no way home. How nice.

A phone rings, and for a moment I think it’s Suri. It’s actually the landline on the table in the corner. It rings once, twice, three times before I reluctantly lift the earpiece.

"Hello," I hear Hunter say. His voice is extra low and slightly raspy, and if I'm not mistaken, I can hear the echo of it through the door that joins our rooms.

Almost immediately, there is another voice.

"Hunter." It sends a shiver down my spine, because I know that voice from TV. Hunter's father. Shit. "Are you alone?" Conrad West's voice has always been a little creepy: a cross between Darth Vader and a used car salesperson.

"I'm at my house and yeah, I'm by myself. What can I do for you, Sir?" Hunter sounds weary. Under that I hear a ring of irritation.

"It's been a long time since I've heard from you," Conrad says.

"Yep."

"You feel no obligation to keep in touch with your father? Your sister says she never hears from you either.”

"What do you want, Dad?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know." His voice tightens. "You wanted to wish me a good day?"

"You know damn well why I called!” Conrad snaps. “You're in water hot enough to boil a crayfish. Is there anything you care to tell me?"

"I don't care to tell you shit. That's why I never call."

I can practically feel Conrad's anger through the phone line. My palm around the phone starts sweating as Hunter’s dad growls, "You don't want to talk? Then allow me. You are being investigated for the murder of a woman named Sara Meyer. Does that ring a bell?" Conrad's voice has gotten more Southern; he's practically drawling. "Sometime between the night you engaged her services and the next morning, she disappeared. Right out of your bed. She was found dead last night in a ditch in Arizona, with your cuff link in her cold, dead fingers.”

“I didn’t—”

“That is immaterial, Hunter. You can't
be
investigated. Do you understand how badly you've fucked up?"