Would he leave me for her?
It was too much. The room too small. The air too thin. Too many people, too many pressures, all in one room.
“Are you going to be okay?”
I nodded, sliding off the counter, my shoes full of lead. “Let’s just get through this.”
Laney nodded, taking my hand, squeezing it gently.
I didn’t feel anything.
Luke entered the shop, and what little breath I had was sucked into him like a vacuum. He moved across the room to me like we were caught in a tractor beam, my awareness shrinking yet again.
“Tess,” he breathed.
He was touching me, I realized absently, the pressure of his hands on my arms distant.
I looked up at him, unseeing.
His eyes searched mine. “Please, say something.” Those hands moved from my arms to my face, tilting it up to his. “We’ll figure this out,” he promised.
“So it’s true then.”
Fear. I could feel it skating on his fingertips.
“I don’t know. There … there hasn’t been time. Please, Tess, let me explain—”
“You’ve been keeping this from me too, Lucas?” Mrs. Bennet’s voice was shrill, her face ruddy.
Natalie glanced over her shoulder at us, but Ivy laughed too loudly, hooking her arm in Natalie’s to direct her outside where her photographer was setting up.
Mrs. Bennet’s eyes shone with furious tears. “What else have you not told me?”
“Mom, I—”
“A baby. With her. Of all the irresponsible, thoughtless things you could do. After all she’s done, after you finally were free, and now this? You knew she was trouble. You knew it, and you went back. And here we are. She will never let you go, Lucas. Never. You handed her all she needed to take advantage of you forever. Forever.” Her face bent, her twisted hand pressing to her lips. And she turned away, found her way into Mr. Bennet’s arms.
He guided her away to the back with an apologetic, disappointed look on his face.
Luke had let me go, his hands covering his face and fingers pressing into his eyes. And I just stood there, stunned still and silent.
I watched through the front window. Marcus had gone out front to try to smooth things over. Kash trailed after his mother, probably to plead a case for Luke. Jett and Laney were head to head, speaking in hushed whispers in that way twins sometimes did.
It felt like a dream, my body and mind too tired to process the madness of what was happening. All I wanted was to wake up. Or fast-forward. Or go to bed. Or be anywhere but standing in this shop next to Luke Bennet.
I opened my mouth to excuse myself so I could retreat, to find a place where I could catch my breath, quiet my mind.
But before I could speak, a pop shot through the room, followed by a groan, a snap.
A crash.
Our faces snapped to the sound, every person in the room frozen still as everything happened in slow motion. One of the installations came unfastened, the pole the pampas was tied to falling into the wheat with a crunch and a thump, crushing it.
Crushing everything.
We ran toward it as everyone outside ran in. Luke reached it first, inspecting the end of the pole that had fallen, looking up with his brows gathered. Tears pricked my eyes, seized my heart with a squeeze of my ribs.
The rope it had been fastened with was in his hand. “It’s wet.”
Down the rope his hand moved, to the pole. When he picked it up, my hand flew to my mouth as I took in the carnage.
The dyed fibers had gotten wet, the colors bleeding onto the wheat it had touched.That wheat was crushed, the stalks smashed and bent, with a myriad of color in senseless streaks across the feathery heads.
It was ruined. There would be no salvaging it.
“I can fix this.” Luke made another promise he couldn’t keep, a frantic, thoughtless promise. He grabbed one of the ladders from behind the counter and popped it open.
“Stop, Luke,” I said. “Just … don’t touch it.”
“I can fix this, Tess,” he said, determined.
“No. It can’t be fixed. You’re just going to break it worse. We need another ladder. We need to move the wheat. We need to—”
“No,” he insisted, rope in hand as he climbed the ladder. “Look, there’s a leak. Marcus, call the plumber.”
Marcus’s phone was already in hand.
“If I just screw it in here instead—”
“Just leave it alone,” I snapped. “You’re not helping, Luke! It’s just going to—”
“For fuck’s sake, Tess, I’ve got it,” he snapped back, glaring at me.
Another groan, a snap. The lot of us yelped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding the other side of the installation falling in a poof of dust and wheat.
We stared silently at the wreckage for a long, breathless moment. Everything we’d worked for, all we’d done…gone.
The installation. My relationship. My heart.
Gone.
In its place rose a wave of frustrated fury, and I leaned into it as I looked up at him.
“I told you not to touch it.” The words trembled, quiet and contained. “But you just did whatever you wanted. You didn’t listen to anyone but yourself. Just like always.”
“I was trying to help. I was trying to make it right. I didn’t do this, Tess. I didn’t force a leak. I didn’t make it fall. I didn’t do this.”
“No, you’re right. You’re innocent, as always. It’s never your fault. Nothing—nothing—is ever your fault,” I snapped.
Natalie interjected, her voice hard, “It’s clear that we’re off for today. I know I put a difficult timeframe on you, and you delivered something truly outstanding. But there is no way for me to shoot this, and I’m not certain you can conduct yourselves in a way that we’ll be able to photograph you all and the rest of the shop. I need to talk to my team, figure out what to do. We’ll be in touch.”
Luke hurried down from the ladder. “Natalie, please. Wait.”
He hopped down, following her as she hauled ass out of the shop. I watched them talk on the sidewalk—Natalie stern and closed, Luke pleading. With a narrowing of her eyes and a curt nod, they parted.
The second he started for the door, I started for the back.
Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t control my tears. I couldn’t understand what had happened with the shoot, with the shop, with Luke. And I couldn’t fathom what would come.
All I knew was that I needed to get somewhere safer than this in order to figure it out.
He called after me. I didn’t stop. I’d leave through the back. Go home. Pray Dad wasn’t awake. I’d climb into my bed and stay there until my tears were dry and I had a plan.
“Tess,” Luke called again, closer.
I picked up my pace.
“Tess, stop.” He hooked his hand in my elbow and pulled me to a stop.
“Let me go.” With a whirl and a snap, I removed my arm from his grip, glaring up at him through angry tears.
“Please, let me explain.”
“You were with her last night. That’s why you came back here so upset.”
A sorrowful nod. “I was going to tell you tonight. We had to get the installation done, and—”