I didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know what to feel. Didn’t know how to process any of what I’d just learned. I was sad. Incredulous. Disappointed. In shock.
“I need to go home,” I told Helen just moments after Luke and his father drove away. “I can’t—I’ll call you later. I need a little while to deal with this.”
“But we…we must come up with a plan for winding down the business,” she said, the words leaving her mouth hard and fast. “What are we—well, what am I—going to do? I have less than thirty days to come up with a solution.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll call you later. I promise. We will get through this.”
I couldn’t even remember how I got home, but somehow, I made it to the parking lot of my apartment complex. I sat in the car for a few minutes, staring into space as I tried to process the reality of what had just happened. What had I been thinking? Luke and I came from different worlds, and there was no denying that. He had family commitments, a name, and a business putting pressure on him. I had none of that, and nothing to offer him. We’d never fit. This would never work.
Sometimes, reality just had to be faced.
I found my way into my second-floor apartment and located a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet. I couldn’t remember who’d given it to me as a college graduation gift, but I’d promised myself I’d save it for an emergency.
No time like the present—which qualified as an emergency.
I poured half a can of diet soda into a plastic glass and topped it off with a generous serving of the liquor. “Bottoms up,” I said to no one. Then I swallowed a third of the drink in one large gulp. It felt smooth. Crisp. Like an escape.
And god, I needed it.
Bang. A pause. Bang. Bang.
“Natalie?” a muffled voice said. “Are you in there? Natalie.”
I opened my eyes. Somehow, I’d made it to the couch and lay there, sprawled across the cushions. Everything seemed foggy. I stared at the door. How long had I been asleep?
“Natalie?” The person on the other side of the door knocked a few more times. “I saw your car in the parking lot.”
Recognizing the voice, I sat up from the sofa. Luke. What was he doing here? I glanced at the clock above the stove in the galley kitchen. It read 9:45 PM.
Wow, I’ve been asleep a long time…
“Give me a minute,” I called toward the door. My voice sounded like I had a half-dozen cotton balls in my mouth.
“Okay,” Luke said through the door.
I rushed into the bathroom, located in the short hallway between the living room and bedroom of my apartment. The alcohol had done its work. A haggard, pale, still halfway drunk woman stared back at me in the mirror. I splashed some water on my face, wiped my lips with a tube of Black Honey I found in the medicine cabinet, pinched my cheeks, and wrestled my hair into a topknot on my head.
When I opened the apartment front door, I found Luke on the other side with one arm propped against the doorframe. His handsome, flushed face didn’t hide anything.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“We need to talk, Natalie. Can I come in?”
I shrugged and stepped aside. In all honesty, I still felt too drunk to care about having Luke Rothschild inside my meager apartment. It had been a long day. Long week.
The perfect time to start giving zero fucks.
“What do you want?” I asked again after I closed the door. “If this is about the eviction—”
He held up a hand. “Just give me a chance to explain.”
“I don’t know if I want to.” I leaned against the door and didn’t bother crossing the room. If Luke noticed, it didn’t show on his face. Instead, he settled onto the left side of my shabby red couch and placed a manila file folder on the cushion beside him.
“I can only guess what you must think of me. What you must think of the last few weeks.”
I closed my eyes. “I have a few opinions.”
“This is not what you think.”
I opened my eyes. “What do you mean? Seems pretty clear to me.”
He tilted his head, giving me his full attention.
“I’ve been thinking this over.” I let out a long, heavy breath. “And no matter what—not matter how hard we try, we can’t overcome the one thing that will always keep us apart.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “We are from two different worlds.”
It surprised me how detached I managed to sound as I made this argument to Luke. Maybe the cocktail had been a better friend than I’d expected.
“Being from two different worlds has never stopped us before,” he said, his voice even, steady, and calculating. “It doesn’t have to stop us now.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t following him. “How?”
As our gazes locked, Luke’s eyes softened around the edges. “I don’t care about being a Rothschild anymore, Natalie. It doesn’t matter to me.” He tapped the manila folder. “And I realized this afternoon, I don’t have to care. Not anymore. My father doesn’t own me.”
“But what about the contract?
He stood from the couch. As he said his next words, he took a few tentative steps toward me. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore. My father can take his company and all he has with it.” He paused. “I’m leaving it all behind. For good.”