Wrecked (Crystal Book Billionaires) (9 page)

He looked at me curiously. A quick heat overtook my face, and I dropped my gaze to the sidewalk. “My, uh, aunt told me a little bit about you. She asked me if I’d met anyone here yet and I told her your name, so…um…”

I looked back up, hoping my rambling had been enough to convince him I hadn’t been digging around looking for the scoop on him.

“Why did you come here?” he asked quietly. Something about the tone of his voice scared me. He couldn’t possibly know… could he?

Pet Hop’s
fall from the top
had
been in the news. But my name hadn’t. At least I didn’t think so.

“I-I…”
Think, Grace. Think.

But I couldn’t. I felt frozen in place; exposed.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “That was out of line. It’s none of my business.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to vent; let it all loose. And who better to do it to than someone from a similar background as mine?

“My dad’s company went under,” I admitted. “And he sent me here because he thought it would be good for me. It’s awful though. I hate it. I miss my friends. I miss everything about California. I don’t belong here. And now my aunt and uncle want me to go to school and get a job, and I’ve never even had a job before. And all my friends are laughing at me. I know they are.”

With the last word my voice cracked. I sucked in a sharp breath, afraid that if I said any more, I’d burst into tears. Biting my lower lip to keep it from trembling, I looked up at Luke. Instead of the look of sympathy I expected, though, I saw something entirely different.

His face was as still as stone, and his eyes looked sad.

So he
was
sorry for me.

Slowly, Luke opened his mouth. “There’s nothing wrong with getting a job, Grace.”

I reeled back, the words feeling like a slap. “I didn’t say that.”

“I apologize if I misinterpreted your words… but it did sound like you feel that way.”

“No,” I quickly said. “It’s just that I’ve never done it before. I wouldn’t be good at it.”

He laughed, but unlike the joyful chuckle from earlier, this laugh was cold. “There are hundreds of different jobs you could have. Even without an education. As privileged as you are…”

“I have an education,” I interrupted him, planting a fist on my hip. “I went to NYU.”

“Ah,” he said as if he wasn’t impressed in the least bit.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He sighed lightly and ran a hand through his sandy hair. The action called every bit of my body to attention. Even as annoyed with him as I currently was, the physical pull towards him was still magnetic.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I wasn’t trying to suggest you came across as stupid.”

“Well, that’s what it sounded like,” I responded and knew I sounded like a little girl.

“Sorry again.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

I stared at the road. After a few more moments, he spoke again. “So you’re not going to get a job or go back to school?”

“No,” I said a little too quickly.

I looked back at him and now, instead of just sadness, there was also disgust on his beautiful face.

“You’re just like all the kids I grew up with,” he said.

Everything inside of me stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you expect the world to be handed to you on a silver platter.”

I blinked heavily and stared at him. How could he be so judgmental of me? He hadn’t even spent a whole combined hour in my presence, for God’s sake!

“I think I should go back home,” he announced.

Ice flooded my veins, making it impossible to speak. Luke turned away, heading in the direction we’d just came.

I opened my mouth to call his name, but nothing came out. With each step he took, the possibility of me having a happy and secure future got farther and farther away.

“Luke,” I finally managed, but it was no more than a gasp. He didn’t hear it. He just kept walking… and the world just kept crumbling all around me.

*

For the first half of the walk home, I allowed ten minutes of feeling sorry for myself. I took the street one block over from Luke’s. Even the thought of him seeing me walking by his house felt shameful. After the beat down he’d given me, I was sure I hadn’t been so embarrassed since the day my period started during an assembly in eighth grade. I was wearing skin tight white pants, FYI.

The second half of the walk was different. At that point I started brainstorming, coming up with ideas to get myself out of the quagmire. For some reason, I’d slipped up big time. I’d put my foot in my mouth and said things I shouldn’t have.

It sucked to have a guy you were genuinely interested in turn his back on you like that, but it sucked times ten worse when that guy was the human being you were counting on to turn your life around.

By the time I walked through the front door, I had a concrete plan.

Sitting down on the couch, I pulled my phone out and opened up the browser. Aunt Ginger said that Luke had started a food pantry in Crystal Brook. Surely the pantry was in need of help.

I was desperate to show Luke I wasn’t the self-involved shopaholic he thought I was. Honestly, did he just assume that I had no concern for anyone else simply because I was from Hollywood Hills?

I found the site almost immediately. There was only one pantry in the whole town, and it was called Community First.

Of course, I could have just gone and banged on his door and given him a speech about how wrong he was about me. It wouldn’t have worked though. I knew that the second the idea flitted through my head on the walk home. The way Luke had looked at me told me everything I needed to know. I’d disappointed him. Let him down before we’d even really gotten a chance to know each other.

There was only one way to build up his image of me. I needed to do something drastic.

And so I sent an email to Community First asking if they needed help. The email address listed on the website was for a woman named Brie Marsden, so I could be sure Luke wasn’t going to be reading it.

It was a fireproof plan. Luke hadn’t gotten the chance to mention Community First to me. As far as he knew, my showing up there as a volunteer would be completely coincidental. And once he saw that I was so much more than the spoiled girl he seemed to think I was, his falling for me would be quick.

It was all so perfect I thought about giving myself a pat on the back. Instead, I opted for relaxing into the couch cushions and creating a mental list of possible locations for mine and Luke’s wedding.

Once I’d jumped from Irish countryside locations to the Hawaiian Islands, I was so excited about the whole thing that I knew there was only one thing left to do.

Pulling my phone back out, I called Rainy.

“Hey,” she answered, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Hey. Why do you sound so tired?”

“I’m running at Runyon. What’s up?”

“Okay, do you remember that guy I told you I saw when I first got here?”

“Yeah.”

“Long story or short story?”

“Uh, can you give me the short version now and the long one later? I have to get back and shower. Amy Lynn’s birthday dinner is tonight.”

In another moment, it might have depressed me to hear about yet another party in L.A. that I was missing. Right then, though, what was going on in my life was so much more important than a stuffy dinner party in Amy Lynn’s garden.

“I’m going to marry that hot guy,” I blurted out.

“Huh?”

“His name is Luke Anderson. He’s from this banking family that’s worth, like, billions.”

“Wow,” Rainy said. “That’s so cool. But what do you mean you’re going to marry him?”

“I’ve already decided I am. I mean, yeah, he doesn’t know yet, but come on. You know how I am when I set my sights on a guy.”

“Yeah I do… this is good, Grace. This is really good. Um, I gotta go.”

“All right. Call me later?”

“I will if I’m not out late. And now that my late is your morning, ugh.”

“I don’t care about time zones. I have so much more to tell you. Please,” I begged. “Call me.”

“I’ll try. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up and scrolled through my saved text messages, seeing if there was anyone else to call and dish with. There was the usual squad, of course, both girls and guys that I’d been friends with, but the problem was that everyone thought I was in New York City with my dad. The only person who knew the truth was Rainy.

My thumb rested on Eli’s name. I’d almost forgotten all about him. Not even half a week ago, he’d been a giant part of my life. He wasn’t boyfriend material, sure, and I’d never really been into keeping a steady boyfriend anyway, but he’d been someone to have fun with. The fact that I still hadn’t heard from him was annoying and a bit painful.

After giving it some thought, I composed a text.

Miss me yet?

I waited for his text back. When it didn’t come within five minutes, I decided he was probably either out at his pool, the place where he spent half his time, or out on the golf course with his two best guy friends. The place where he spent the other half of his time.

The front door opened, and I looked over the back of the couch as Aunt Ginger walked in. “Oh, Grace. Hello. Nice day?”

“Nice enough,” I said. “Aren’t you home early?”

“I leave the library early on Tuesdays.”

The library. So that was where my aunt worked. Now I just had to figure out where my uncle spent his days.

“What about Joe?” I innocently asked.

Aunt Ginger hung her purse up on the hook by the door. “He has regular hours. Nine to five, Monday to Friday. People need to get their money.”

She winked at me.

So Uncle Joe worked at… a bank? Or in payroll somewhere?

Unfortunately, it was way too late for me to flat out ask. I’d look like an idiot for not grilling my father about my extended family before going to stay with them.

“I had an idea about a job,” she excitedly said, coming to sit on the opposite end of the couch.

I flinched inwardly but tried my best not to show it. “Speaking of that, I just sent an email to that food pantry you told me about. I was thinking I could maybe help out there.”

“The one that Luke Anderson owns?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I hung out with him today. He told me they always need volunteers.”

“Oh, that’s so nice.” Aunt Ginger beamed. “It would be great if they had a paying position, but you know they probably can’t afford to have regular staff.
So,
I was thinking, what if you started a dog walking business?”

I looked at her dumbly. “Huh?”

“It would kind of be like keeping with the family trade. Your father knows all about pets. You must know something too.”

Her assumption that we were a pet loving family was pretty off the mark. We had one dog when I was ten, a little Chihuahua named Button. He’d peed all over the house, and my dad ended up getting rid of him after one week. The only reason my dad had gotten into the pet store business in the first place was because he’d bought the first
Pet Hop,
a tiny little hole in the wall in Venice Beach, off of some veteran who wanted to finally retire.

“I don’t know,” I hedged.

Aunt Ginger waved her hand. “It’s easy. And fun. I did it for a bit a couple years ago, while the library was moving locations and closed for a month. Trust me, it beats waiting tables. Plus, I can introduce you to some people; you know, get you started.”

“Okay,” I said, twisting my fingers together.

There was really no way around it. As long as I lived at the mercy of my aunt and uncle, I was going to have to humor them.

“You’re gonna be so busy,” Aunt Ginger cooed. “What with working, going to school, and volunteering at a food pantry.” She smiled at me, crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. “I’m so proud of you, Grace.”

My heart literally cracked in two. That compliment wasn’t one I often heard. “W-wow. Thanks.”

She patted my knee and stood up. “I’m going to call Bethany Roessler now. She’s got this little terrier that has so much energy he needs three walks a day. Maybe she’s still looking for someone to take him out.”

Luke

I
lifted the final box from the back of the white van and passed it over to Ricardo. He gripped the edges of it, trembling slightly under its weight.

“Got it?” I asked, eyeing him warily.

He nodded and grinned, despite the drop of sweat sliding down his temple.

We’d been at it all morning. As soon as Ricardo, our college volunteer who helped out on Friday mornings, got to Community First at eight, we’d hopped in the car and made the trek to the regional food bank.

I’d been grateful to have company for the two hour round trip. The last three days had been hellish.

It was all my fault, of course. I’d gotten way too excited about a girl I didn’t even know. It served me right that things turned out to be a major disappointment.

I’d almost done it. Really. For a whole day there I’d felt free of that awful disappointed feeling that so often plagued my existence. If it wasn’t one woman, then it was another.

And now it was a girl I barely knew.

I would have liked to convince myself that what I really needed was a break from women, but wasn’t that what I’d been taking the last few months?

I’d hoped to come out of my respite wiser but, so far, that wasn’t the case. I was the same sucker for a pretty face that I’d always been.

No. It’s more than that.

It had been something else about Grace — something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If good looks were all it took to draw me in, I would have asked Sasha the bartender out months ago.

I shook my head and slammed the back doors of the van closed. No more thinking. At least not while working.

Ricardo had taken the last box through the double doors leading into the back of the pantry. I nudged the door jambs out of place and let the thick doors close behind me.

Ricardo leaned against one of the taller stacks, wiping his forehead with his shirt sleeve.