Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I went straight from Leister Enterprises to Charlie’s. I didn’t want to see anyone who would try to convince me not to be angry at Nicholas; I didn’t want Jenna telling me that she understood where I was coming from but that Nick had a right to accept a job lots of people would kill for.

I wanted to be selfish. I needed to be selfish when it was about Nick. Two years apart…? It had only been a week, and we were almost going crazy.

I’d never been to Charlie’s home, but I had dropped him off before, so I knew the address. When I rang the doorbell, I heard a noise behind the door before he opened in a state I’d seen him in more than a few times: drunk as a skunk.

“Noah,” he said, slurring my name slightly. His eyes were bright red, and he stank of alcohol.

“Hey…you mind if I come in?”

Drowning my fears and insecurities in alcohol was the last thing I needed to do. But one drink never hurt anybody.

Charlie smiled and invited me in. We spent the day in his room sharing secrets over a bottle of tequila. I told him what was going on with Nick, and he confessed that his boyfriend had left him. He was an alcoholic, he told me, and I felt immediately guilty: getting drunk with him was clearly a bad idea, then, but in my defense, he’d already been well on his way before he’d opened the door for me.

“If my brother saw me like this, he’d kill me,” he said. “He thinks his bullshit therapy can help me, but actually he’s the one who needs to be in therapy… He can be a real asshole, you know? You have no idea what it was like growing up with him when my mother died…”

It saddened me to see he really wasn’t the happy, carefree kid he appeared to be. I didn’t know about his past, and it made me realize everyone had secrets they didn’t want to reveal.

Since alcohol wasn’t going to solve anything, I said we should eat something and watch a flick. We put on Shrek and cracked up, and I forgot all about Nick for a few hours.

It had been a long time since I’d had a friend I could share simple moments like this one with. Jenna was too out there; all she ever wanted to do was party or shop, and only a few times had we ever just sat on the couch and hung out.

It was almost nighttime when the door opened and Michael came in looking pissed. I didn’t expect to see him there, but I realized then that it was his apartment, too. Charlie lived with his brother because he barely had enough money for school.

I don’t know why I felt uncomfortable—maybe because I was used to seeing him in his office, maybe because he knew almost all my secrets, fears, and insecurities. He looked across the room and spotted me. Lines appeared in his forehead, and I sat up straight, almost as though I expected him to chew me out. We’d stopped drinking hours before. Charlie had even taken a cold shower and looked relaxed, so I prayed Michael wouldn’t guess at what we’d been up to.

Noting the tension in the air, Charlie said, “Hey, Brother, what’s up? You feel like watching something with us?”

Michael started unpacking a supermarket bag at the counter. “Have you eaten?” That was his only response. He hadn’t even said hi to me. Feeling strange, I got up, ready to go.

“I should leave, I think,” I said, picking up my purse.

Michael stared at me for a moment before saying, “I brought food for dinner. You can stay if you want. In the meantime, you can tell me why you decided to skip your appointment today. I was waiting until seven for you.”

Shit! I’d completely forgotten… That was why he was acting so weird, because I’d left him hanging.

Charlie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and said he needed to go clean his room.

Some timing.

I walked over to the marble counter where he was laying out his groceries. “I’m really sorry, I totally forgot.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch up in the next session. You like mushroom risotto?”

He seemed so relaxed, so different from when he’d come through the door. All the anger in that look he’d given me before was gone. I nodded, dropping my purse in the chair and deciding it would be better to stay than to risk offending him after I’d already left him hanging.

I put on an apron and helped him with the mushrooms and the sauce. Charlie knew nothing about cooking, and when he came out, he basically just bothered us trying to stick his fingers in the sauce to taste it.

We sat at the coffee table and talked about nonsense while we ate. It was nice to see Michael so relaxed; it was also strange seeing him outside of work. He seemed younger, and he had a flair for cooking: the risotto was incredible. We exchanged recipes. He knew what he was talking about.

I had a smile on my face as I returned home that night. I’d felt relaxed, good, in a way I hadn’t for a very long time. With Nick, everything was so intense, just one look from him electrified me, one touch of his lips made my stomach quake.

I had needed to get away from that intensity, spend at least a few hours on my own, not letting someone else’s shadow fall over me and tell me what to think or how to feel. I’d needed to forget all that, turn off the phone, let myself go—stop feeling so much.

And I’d managed to do that, to catch my breath, to just be Noah, not someone else’s Noah, but my Noah. But as soon as I entered the apartment and went to my room, I found Nick’s note. I picked it up, nervous, and read:

I’ll give you more time. If that’s what you need, if that’s what you need to realize I love you and you alone, then I’ll do it. I don’t know what to do to make you believe me, make you see that I want to take care of you and protect you forever. I’m not going anywhere, Noah, my life and my future are with you, my happiness depends on you alone. Stop being afraid: I’ll always be your light in the darkness, my love.

My heart skipped a beat when I read those words, and I felt even guiltier for what I was doing to him. Nick was ready to give up a job that was second to none for me…

I grabbed a bottle of water, went to the living room, and flopped down on the sofa. This was a huge mess, no doubt about it. I was scared that if Nick stayed, he would hold it against me in the future that he’d passed on that opportunity. Sophia’s words kept echoing in my head: You need to support him now, Noah. Why was she getting involved? Why was she talking as if he mattered to her? Why had Nick told her about everything and not me?

I hated Sophia, I truly did. I knew I didn’t have any real reason to, but my jealousy had taken over. I was jealous because she seemed perfect for him and then I looked at myself and saw the polar opposite.

I don’t know how long I stayed there sitting on the sofa before I fell asleep. When the light coming through the windows woke me, I realized I wasn’t alone. A pair of eyes stared at me as I sat up warily. Briar was there with a cup of coffee in her hands.

“Good morning,” she said, a strange smile on her face.

“I guess I nodded off,” I said.

“You’ve got mail,” she said, handing me a white envelope.

I read it quickly and realized I’d totally forgotten what it was about. It was an invitation to the sixtieth anniversary of Leister Enterprises.

“Shit!”

Briar grabbed the letter out of my hands and read it. “Is this the gala they’ve been talking about in the media for like a month?”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I nodded anyway. It was the stupid party where Nick and I were supposed to act like a stepbrother and a stepsister who loved and respected each other as family. This was the absolute worst time to go to an event like this, especially given that we were fighting.

“Goddammit, why does it have to be now!” I exclaimed, getting up to pour myself a coffee.

There was a strange gleam in Briar’s eye.

“It says here you can take a date. Unless I’m mistaken, you’re not talking to your boyfriend right now, are you?”

I mean, sort of… It was more complicated than that. Anyway, I’d forgotten about the plus-one. Nick had told me we’d go together, so I just assumed I was going to have to deal with the stupid party beside my boyfriend I was pissed at, a mother and stepfather I barely spoke to, and people I’d never seen in my life.

“I don’t really know where we’re at right now, but no, I’m not going with him…” I rested my head in my hands and closed my eyes. The party was that weekend, and something told me my problems with Nick wouldn’t be solved by then.

“I could go with you if you want…” Briar said a few seconds later. I looked up at her. “I mean it, I don’t care, plus I could probably meet some influential people at an event like that… You know, in life, it’s all about contacts. We’d be doing each other a favor: I’ll stick with you so you don’t get bored, and you’ll give me the chance to hook up with some big-name agent.”

I thought it over. It didn’t sound like a bad idea. It was better to go with her than to show up alone, at any rate.

“You really don’t mind? It’s going to be boring as shit, and I’ll have to play the role of perfect daughter, shaking everyone’s hands and taking a bunch of dumb photos.”

She smiled, showing me her perfect white teeth, looking like an angel fallen from heaven… Briar threw me off completely. I had no idea what to make of her.

“I don’t mind at all. You’d be doing me a favor.”

After saying this, she turned on her heel and entered her bedroom.

I just had two more days before I would see Nick at the Leister gala. I had no idea how we’d act around each other. I was surprised to see he really was giving me distance, but I wondered if there was some reason behind it that I didn’t know.

Two more days, Noah. Two more days, and then you’ll see him, and everything will go back to the way it was before.

I kept repeating that to myself over and over and trying to distract myself by buying my dress and accessories for the gala. The dress code for women was a long gown and heels. I called Jenna, and we went to the mall, where we walked around, talked, and window-shopped.

“I was thinking about going, too, but Lion’s been calling me every day for a week. He won’t stop saying he needs to see me, he wants to take me to dinner, he wants to talk, to see how I am… What now, Noah? I miss him so much, it hurts, but I’m scared… I’m scared he’ll hurt me again. I’m scared of things going back to how they were.”

Listening to her, I couldn’t help but compare her situation with my own. Nick and I hadn’t broken up—I couldn’t even imagine that happening—but still, that time apart seemed to mark a before and after in our relationship.

“You have to go, Jenna. At the very least, Lion deserves for you to hear him out. You’ve been split up for more than a month. It’s time to put your cards on the table. I know you keep saying you’re better off without him, but we both know that isn’t true.”

She started chewing one of her nails compulsively, and I grinned.

They were made for each other. I don’t know how they could fail to realize that.

I tried at least twenty dresses. My mother had told me to put everything on my emergency credit card. I had originally planned on borrowing something to wear, but I didn’t want to have to worry about it.

I went to Chanel, Versace, Prada… It was hard for me to stomach those prices. For a moment, I thought of buying a brand-name dress at half price from a consignment shop, then keeping the rest of what it would have cost for myself, to pay for my food and other necessities, but I discarded the idea. Mom would look at her statement and would figure out what I’d done.

We wound up at Dior, which was one of Jenna’s favorites. The prices were complete madness, but I let her drag me along and pretended I wasn’t buying it for me, almost as if I were doing an errand for someone else.

The worst thing that can happen to you in a place like that is that you fall in love with something. And I did. It was there, in the middle of the shop, displayed on a mannequin. My eyes traveled over to it as soon as I walked in.

“Jesus, Noah… That’s the one. That’s your dress,” Jenna said next to me, almost as stupefied as I was.

The fabric was pearl gray. I touched the soft silk with my fingers. It was gorgeous—I couldn’t help but admire it.

“You have to try it on,” Jenna said, and a second later, a salesperson was all over me like I was a Hollywood star. We were taken to a side room where they helped me try it on. The upper part of the dress was a kind of corset studded with tiny diamonds against a silver background. The skirt hung almost to the floor, showing off my curves like water dripping over my skin. There was a slit up one side that rose almost to my hip. It was absolutely perfect.

When I emerged from the dressing room, Jenna was gobsmacked.

“It’s fucking incredible.”

I looked down and grabbed the ticket hanging from one side. When I saw the price, I nearly choked.

“It’s seventeen thousand dollars, Jenna.”

She showed no surprise whatsoever.

“What did you expect? This isn’t the Gap. You need to be able to hang with everyone else there. Trust me, this will be far from the most expensive gown there. Plus, you look like a dream, Noah. I mean it; I feel like I’m about to cry.”

I rolled my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror.

It really was beautiful. That pearl gray was a perfect contrast to my tanned skin and my hair. Plus, it was a special occasion. I’d be wearing it in front of the cameras… I’d be wearing it, more importantly, in front of Nick.

Yeah, I definitely wanted to see Nick’s face when I showed up looking like that. If this gala was going to be our reunion after two weeks with barely a word…then like Jenna said, it needed to be spectacular.