“Right. Keep lying, and I’ll make you come on stage and dance for one of our sets. You know Jess will make you if I ask.”
Hamilton’s eyes widened. “I feel like there is no safe way to respond to that. So I’m going to take my niece, who is also my friend, who is also my sexy date for the evening, over to a table to sit down.”
Infinity’s brows raised, and she quirked a smile.
I could have punched him. “Oh, he’s just joking,” I stammered as Hamilton placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me to a table with two chairs toward the front. Once we were seated, I gave him an angry look. “Why did you say that?” I hissed. “That’s how rumors get started.”
“Infinity won’t say anything, and I really enjoy watching you squirm. When you called yourself my friend, I knew I had to tease you about it.” Hamilton placed his palm on my upper thigh and grinned. The warmth from his touch made every nerve ending in my body tingle. Fuck. He was seriously messing with me. My libido was all out of whack.
“Um,” I replied while shoving his hand off of me. He bit his lip and took another drink of his scotch. “When does the show start again?”
“Another thirty minutes. So, tell me, Vera, how did your mom and Joseph meet? You didn’t always live here, right?”
I wasn’t expecting Hamilton to ask me about her, but it seemed normal enough. He probably just wanted to know more. “We moved to a town about three hours north of here from Atlanta when I was in eighth grade. Mom wanted me to attend a better public school so that I had a better chance of getting a scholarship for college. She found a housekeeping job, and the homeowners let us stay in their converted garage. It was a small apartment, but I was able to go to a really good school. And the hours were awesome, so she also got a night job at a local restaurant that had good tips.”
Hamilton stared at me as I spoke. It was an easy enough story. I left out the parts where I felt like an outsider in the pretentious community. Once people learned that my mother was a housekeeper for one of the wealthier families, they treated me like I wasn’t good enough to breathe the same air as them. I had to work three times as hard to prove that I was worthy. I stayed focused and only dated a few people casually. It felt like a gigantic fuck you when I graduated valedictorian. I’ll never forget the way Mom cried when I delivered the class speech.
“I guess Joseph went to eat there while he was visiting a nonprofit in town. They hit it off. He took her on a couple dates and bam.”
I shrugged, not really knowing the details. Mom was never the type to share about her dating and personal life with me. One minute she was single and working all the time, the next we were moving here to be with Joseph. Thank God I had graduated before we had to move. I would have been devastated had it ruined my valedictorian status.
“It’s just so unlike my brother,” Hamilton admitted. “Your mom is beautiful and definitely out of his league, but he’s the most calculating, cautious, meticulous person I know. Marrying someone he’d only been dating for a few months is completely out of character for him. I figured he’d marry someone Jack set him up with for sure. Not that I’m mad he went against that. It’s just…curious.”
I let out a huff of air. “I just want her to be happy.” There went that same damn phrase again. The more I said it, the less authentic it felt.
“And what about you?” Hamilton asked.
“What about me?”
“You can be happy too, you know,” Hamilton whispered before putting his hand back on my upper thigh. This time, I didn’t push him away.
I internally scoffed, though. I was happy. Plenty happy. I was starting school soon. I had a place to live. What more could I possibly need?
“Are you thinking about how happy you are right now?” Hamilton asked.
I sputtered. How the fuck could he read my thoughts? “I am absolutely happy,” I promised, though my tone felt forced and my teeth were clenched so tightly I thought my tooth would crack. What the fuck did it matter? I was taken care of. I was successful, right? “You could have been a therapist, you know.” I wanted to put the attention back on Hamilton. It was safer that way.
“I’ve seen enough over the years you could call me an expert.” He rubbed my thigh with his thumb, pressing the pad of it against my bare skin. I swallowed. “I found my mother when she o—died.”
My shoulders slumped, and I felt myself softening in pity for him. “I’m so sorry—”
“I didn’t tell you that for your pity, Petal. My first therapist quit after my eighth session; she told me that I was allowed to be happy and that I didn’t have to grieve my dead mother for the rest of my life. I told her to get fucked and jump off a bridge.”
My eyes widened. Well holy fuck. “She sounds like a shitty therapist.”
Hamilton nodded. “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is, you’re allowed to be unhappy. It’s easy to give ourselves permission to be happy. Happy is easy. You want to really dig through the trenches of your mind? Let yourself be anything else. I think you’d be hot as fuck while good and angry.”
Hamilton leaned in and kissed my neck. His lips tugged on my ear lobe. I squirmed in my seat as his hand drifted higher, and higher, and my eyes scanned the room. Was anyone watching?
“Relax. It’s just you and me, Petal. Let’s smell the roses a bit,” he said before pressing the tip of his middle finger against my heat.
“Please stop,” I whimpered, not meaning it at all.
“Kiss me, and I will.” Hamilton brushed his lips against mine. It was a soft question, a demand. I chased after the brief touch with my bottom lip, aching to prolong the heated touch. “Tease,” he chastised me on a breathy whisper.
“I’m not going to kiss you, Hamilton,” I promised. “You and me? We’d be a disaster.” I murmured those words painfully close to his perfect mouth before pulling away and straightening my spine.
“I can’t wait to break you, Petal.”
I picked up my Pepsi and took a sip of it before clearing my throat. “To be honest, I want you, Hamilton,” I admitted. “You’re attractive. Experienced.”
He grinned. “Well, what’s stopping you?”
“Have you ever ruined someone’s life? I mean genuinely ruined it—whether intentionally or not.” His expression turned serious. I waited for him to answer me, but he never did. I continued. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself, because I’m a product of the most painful thing to ever happen to my mother. I’m a living, breathing atonement for my existence. I’m a perfectionist and a martyr. Acting on the impulse—and this is an impulse—to kiss you would be too reckless and risky to be worth the reward. Like it or not, you’re Joseph’s brother. I don’t need your orgasms, your heated words, or your temptation, Hamilton. I’m not foolish enough to think that I am anything more than a game of pleasure to you, and I’m not willing to gamble on my mother’s shot at happiness.”
We exchanged a heated stare once more. Something passed across his expression, a break in the determined flirtatiousness of his behavior that caught me off guard. I broke our eye contact first to look around. Our moment had the power to stop time. I hadn’t realized we were in a room full of eyes.