Page 3 of Sweet Temptation (Love & Legacy #1)
I feel Mom before I see her. The brush of her shoulder against mine as she sits next to me on the hand-scraped hardwood floor.
Knowing I don’t want to be coddled but offering the silent strength she’s always given freely.
I love my family all equally, but Mom..
. she gets it differently than Daddy and the boys.
She was diagnosed with lupus years before we were born, and she’s fought hard to live her life on her terms. I think that’s helped her come to terms with me wanting to do the same.
I mean, she still likes to treat me like glass, but she backs off when she realizes she’s doing it. .. most of the time.
She’s the only reason they agreed to let me spend a year studying in France, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alive.
Nine months at Le Cordon Bleu, studying pastry and culinary and then another three months staging at some of the most incredible kitchens in France under mentors I still can’t believe I got to learn from.
It was everything I ever dreamed it could be and so much more.
I lean my head on her shoulder as the last of the medicine relaxes my airway and eventually slide the mask off.
“Hey, sweet girl.” Mom wraps an arm around me and rests her head against mine. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Just tired and not really in the mood for a party.” I look up at her and wince. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, Lex. The family just missed you, and since your grandparents were in town, one thing turned into all the things.” She smothers a laugh.
“Are you calling the family things ?”
She presses a finger to my lips and smiles. “You don’t have to stay long. Daddy and the boys are moving your stuff into the house tomorrow. I was thinking I could stop by Sweet Temptations and grab some coffee and pastries for everyone, and you and I could catch up while they do the heavy lifting.”
“Thanks, Mom. That sounds really good.” She stands, and I let her pull me to my feet. “Just let me rinse the airplane funk off, and I’ll be down in a few minutes, okay?”
“You look good, sweet girl. Happy .” She presses her lips together, and this time, her smile reaches her eyes. “ Healthy . France was good for you.”
“It was, but sometimes it takes going away to make you realize how much you want to be home,” I admit as much to her as to myself. “Amelia has a job waiting for me at Sweet Temptations.”
“I know.” Not like I hadn’t already assumed she knew.
Mom’s lingerie shop is one door down from the bakery, and everyone in this town is all up in each other’s business.
But still, I should have mentioned something before now.
“She’ll be glad to have you back. I have it on good authority you always were her favorite employee. ”
“Do you think Daddy will be mad?” I hate that I even have to ask, but Cooper Sinclair takes protective to a nuclear level, and he never wanted me to work.
Not to be controlling but to protect me.
He’d always say I didn’t need the money.
He refused to see that what I needed was the freedom. The fulfillment. The purpose.
The normalcy. If only even part-time.
Mom pushes my travel-matted hair behind my shoulders and tilts her head, just looking at me, like she’s so relieved I’m here, in front of her instead of on FaceTime.
“No, honey. He won’t be mad. He’s so proud of you.
We both are. Now, should you expect your father to start showing up at the shop with a laptop in hand and a sudden addiction to coffee and cupcakes? Maybe.”
“Oh my God. He totally would do that.” And now I’m basically expecting it to happen as I grab my bag and head toward my bathroom. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Take your time.”
I watch as she steps into the hall and closes the door behind her with a quiet snick of the knob. Maybe being home won’t be as bad as I thought.
“ C ome on... it wasn’t that bad.” Lincoln pulls up next to a midnight-blue Mercedes G-Wagon parked in the driveway and shuts off his engine. “It’s not like they pulled out your baby pictures.”
“You’re only saying that because if they pulled out mine, they’d have pulled out yours too.” I yawn as I look up at the house I still consider my grandparents’, suddenly a little emotional.
I did the whole college thing, but I commuted from home.
It didn’t make a ton of sense to live on campus, and Linc and Lochlan had both gone away to school by then, so it wasn’t like I was going to move in with them.
I lived with my best friend, Brea Beneventi, while we both studied in France.
But that was an ocean away, and even then, I think my family only agreed to it because our moms own a business together, and she’s basically family.
I’m twenty-two years old, and this will be the first time I’ve had a place of my own in Kroydon Hills. That’s not lost on me. Neither is the reality of who I’ll be living with. “And you’re sure Lucky’s okay with this?”
Linc pulls my suitcases from the back of the Jeep and carries them to the front door, pushing it open without even unlocking it. Gotta love this town. “You’re good, Lex. It’s Lucky. He doesn’t care. But remember how I said no judging my love life?”
A smart remark sits on the tip of my tongue, but Lincoln sees it coming and stops me. “Nope. Don’t go there. Not with me and not with him, okay?”
That will be so much easier with Linc than with Lucky.
He’s never met a girl he didn’t like. Not when he was twelve or sixteen or twenty-two.
And they’ve always loved him. His jet-black hair and chiseled jaw that looks like a work of art I saw in the Louvre.
His ridiculous muscles that had already developed by the time he was thirteen when all the other boys were still tall and lanky and tripping over themselves.
And those eyes. Bright baby-blue and gorgeous.
Even if they do hide the devil inside him.
“Fine,” I give in and follow Linc inside. “But I’m only human. You guys better not bring home skanks if you don’t want to be called out on it.”
“You find a skank waiting outside or something?” That voice.
.. Like thick honey poured over sharp gravel.
Always at odds with the man it belongs to.
Lucky steps out of the kitchen, a bottle of water in one hand and his phone in the other.
His ever-present smirk firmly in place, like he’s in on a joke you could never even hope to be privy to.
Always a shithead.
A sexy one. But still a shit.
“No skanks hiding in the bushes tonight,” Linc jokes. At least, I hope he’s joking.
“Please tell me you’re not serious.” My face scrunches up involuntarily. “If skanks follow you home, I might have to rethink this living arrangement.”
“Like Mommy and Daddy are going to let you live anywhere else,” Lucky jokes, only it cuts a little too sharp.
“Poor little Beneventi boy. Is that your fourth G-Wagon we parked next to in the driveway?” I snap back and head for the stairs.
A chill races through me as I look over my shoulder at the man standing still, staring back at me.
“Pretty sure Mommy and Daddy bought the first three, so I wouldn’t go throwing stones. ”
Lucky’s eyes narrow, and I smile way bigger than I need to.
“Damn, man. She’s got you there.” Linc hoists my bags. “I’m going to drop these in Lochlan’s room for the night since there’s no furniture in yours.”
“Thanks.” I turn back to Lucky, the boy who spent three years of high school tormenting me.
Thankfully, he graduated before it could be four.
The same one who still taunted me at Kroydon University.
And thoroughly enjoyed driving me crazy whenever he’d stop in his mom’s bakery during one of my shifts. “Linc said you were okay with this.”
He sips his water, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob with his swallow.
Can someone’s throat be sexy? Because something about the movement grabs hold of me in a way it absolutely shouldn’t.
Lucky’s bright, baby-blue eyes drag over my body like a heavy-handed caress.
One I can feel from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.
One I want more of. “Course it’s okay, little Sinclair. You’ve always been one of the guys.”
And with that, he swings the other way and heads to the family room, while I stand at the foot of the stairs, cursing the sexy shit’s entire existence.
There was a time I would have done anything to get Lucky Beneventi to notice me. Really see me. But he never did. Not as anything other than his best friend’s little sister.
Guess some things never change.