I was suddenly down the steps and my hand was in Lachlan's firm grip, his hand on my waist while we posed for pictures, and the entire time, his hand seared my skin wherever he touched me.

I sucked in a breath of air, only to be confronted with his thick cologne and mint scent that made my knees weak. His hands on my hips were doing things to my brain and I couldn't believe that I had to withstand the torture of having him so close without actually getting to keep him.

"Alright, let's head out," my mother said, and I was glad that we were allowed to ride in a separate town car, able to talk freely with everyone without the parental watchful eyes.

I didn't miss the evil glare my dad threw Lachlan's way as he helped me into the car, and smirked to myself at the sight, shaking my head as I laughed silently to myself.

My dad thought I'd forgiven him, and I supposed in a way I had. I understood why he had done it, to protect his little sister, but that didn't mean that I had to like it.

Once settled in the car, all eyes turned to me, and I realized it was explanation time.

"Well?  What finally changed your mind?  Don't tell me Lachlan did in one day what I was trying to do for an entire month, just because he has a dick that you like?"

I spluttered at Sloane's words while Lachlan draped his arm across my shoulder with a cocky smirk on his mouth, but at my raised eyebrow no-bullshit look, he quickly retracted his arm, no matter how much I missed the feeling of the weight on me. 

"No.  I just figured...it's time to stop hiding."

Not necessarily a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth, either.  I was planning to do something so stupid that if it didn't kill me, everyone else would if I survived it, but that was on me and not them, and it was a way to keep everyone else that I loved safe. 

"Well finally!  I have to call Vera and Blythe, they told me to tell them the second you finally came to your senses," my sister said while pushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear that had escaped her intricate braid crown on the top of her head, thumbing through her contacts on her phone while doing so. 

I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't told Vera myself, but that was all forgotten the second I heard the screeching through the other end of the phone. 

Vera and Blythe weren't coming to the gala because with the animosity that both of their parents felt about their choice of who they wanted to love, they had been properly disinvited by their elders.  It made me sick to my stomach that they wouldn't be there and the reason why, but it wasn't like I could have stomped up to their parents and forced them to allow their daughters to come, especially not when Blythe's father repeatedly abused her and her siblings...

No, Lachlan, Blythe and Brandon's father was a menace, no better than my own monster of a birth father, and he needed to be dealt with too, just like how I planned to deal with mine, I just needed a solid plan to execute in order to keep him from hurting any more of his children. 

I wished I could have said that I knew Lachlan would handle it, but thus far, his track record with keeping his father in check was spotty, not like I could say I was doing any better, but at least Lachlan knew where his father lived, could trap him in a confession with his cell phone or something.  I could hardly do anything similar with mine.  

"All it took was Lachlan talking to her?!  Why didn't you talk to her a month ago??!"

Vera's screeching voice came through the speaker phone and I cringed, knowing that she made me seem like some kind of love struck girl. 

"Excuse me, that is not all that it took.  I decided to stop staying away thank you very much, and no offense, but it had nothing to do with Lachlan," I said matter-of-factly, even though it was a bold faced lie and it seemed like they all knew it. 

"Damn, now I really wish we could come!  Do you guys want to come over afterwards, and we can hit the hot tub like we did the night Kate came back from California?"

"To whose house?"

"Mine.  Our parents are out of the country with Brandon going over foreign contracts," Blythe answered Sloane's question. 

"Okay, sounds good to me," I answered, noting that Lachlan's room would be the perfect place for the night to end. 

"Yay!  I'll invite Evan and the guys," Vera said and I contemplated what I was going to say next, knowing everyone else would think I was crazy but I said it anyway. 

"I'll invite Jenna too."

I pulled out my phone to text her, knowing that we'd just end up seeing her later at the gala but I wanted to make sure she got the invite loud and clear. 

"Um, am I missing something?"

Sloane looked at me like I'd lost my mind, and Lachlan held a similar look on his face, while Holden didn't seem like he could care less, and there was dead silence over the phone. 

"What?  She apologized to me, and explained her actions.  I forgave her," I explained while Lachlan looked at me, his gaze filled with so much hope that it was a gut punch. 

He assumed that if I could forgive Jenna of all people then naturally, he was next.  I swallowed down my misery at the fact that he was right, but he couldn't know that I'd forgiven him.  My whole plan hinged on the fact that I needed him to know that I didn't forgive him, and it didn't matter if that was a lie or not. 

One more night of happiness, freedom, and then it would all come crashing down, but at least I'd live life to the fullest and without regrets before going off to face my doom alone. 

It didn't matter how many times my friends told me that we were in this together, it didn't matter how often they reassured me that I didn't have to do it alone because the fact of the matter was that I refused to put anyone else in more danger than they already were, and I was finally making a stand. 

"Anyways, I think we should really be discussing what we're drinking tonight," I said to divert the attention from me and my forgiveness, and instead we all spoke of wine coolers and the liquor we could pilfer from our adult parents as we snuck under their 'watchful' gazes. 

All too soon, we pulled up before I'd had a chance to fully sink into Lachlan's side, his hand gently resting on my exposed knee sending sparks of lust and anticipation through my body. 

He was up and out of the town car in an instant, his hand outstretched and awaiting my own to join in his so as to escort me inside.  The debutante's were to enter from the spiral staircase at the top of the ballroom where the escorts were to stand at the bottom and wait for their turn to step forward and grab their date to be pulled towards the dance floor and commence the gala. 

"Don't trip, sis.  That scholarship award's mine," Sloane told me, the competitive aspect of her completely shining through.  I laughed at her and told her that the title was all hers, as Lachlan helped me up a few steps that were hard to navigate in my steep heels. 

One slight misstep flung me straight into his awaiting arms, our faces mere inches apart as I breathlessly stared up into his wide brown eyes. 

It was like a scene out of a movie, where the clumsy girl falls at the main love interest's feet, except in our case, I'd already fallen for him, hard, and he'd dropped me the moment I needed him most. 

But it didn't matter if I really forgave him or not, because after tonight it would all be over, one way or another. 

"Careful there, Cinderella, don't want to lose your glass slipper," he whispered huskily into my ear as my core clenched with abounding lust and need, the shivers that he elicited from my spine racketing through my body as his warm body pressed into mine for a moment longer than he needed to, and I hated that I sought refuge within his touch. 

I was weak when it came to him, which was precisely why I couldn't let this go any farther than I would permit it to after that night, but just leaning into him and seeking his comfort when I needed it most...something that he couldn't do for me after Ian's funeral, so why should I have felt guilty for doing it then? 

Because I knew it was wrong to be leading him on like that, but still I couldn't help myself.  I was a drug addict, and he was prescription pills.  

"After you," he said after clearing his husky throat, those piercing brown eyes slamming into me as he calculated my reaction to him: elevated heart beat, bumps along my risen flesh from the chills he'd given me from his touch alone, rapid and almost raspy breathing. 

His smirk grew confident in that he was fully aware of the effect he had on me, and was more than happy to try and elicit from me again. 

I rolled my eyes as I stepped out of his touch, taking the steps much more carefully lest I come into another 'accidental' fall with Lachlan. 

"We still have things to talk about tonight, so after the judging at the stage, meet me in room 302."

"Aren't we going back to your place after the event?"

"Yes, but what I want to tell you needs a little privacy," he said and I grew wary of just what it was that he had to say. 

"Okay," I told him, wincing as he let his hands trail down the side of my hip, wishing upon everything that he never had to take his hands off of me again, but he did, and there was likely a chance that he'd never get to touch me ever again after that night and I wanted to relish every feeling that he could give me, including the fleeting ones.

Moments later I was atop the stairs with Jenna smiling happily beside me, eager to reach Taylor who was waiting for her down at the bottom of the stairs. 

"How the hell did you manage that?"

She smiled a demure half smirk at me and threw me a wink, saying, "A girl never reveals her secrets," causing me to laugh and wonder just what I'd gotten myself into by inviting her to the hot tub after party, knowing there'd probably be drama between her and the rest of the group, but if she was as cool as she'd been towards me lately, then we probably wouldn't have a problem...I hoped. 

"I probably didn't have to work half as hard as Lachlan did to get a date with you, though.  I can only imagine how much he's been groveling," Sloane added as she sidled up next to the two of us, her winter blue gown complementing Jenna's pure silver silk dress that puddled around her feel like liquid.

"Hardly.  He's going to explain everything, in vivid detail, tonight after the scholarship."

"Oh...so, he got a hotel room then?"

Sloane and Jenna were looking at me with raised eyebrows, and I just knew what kinds of dirty things were playing through their minds. 

"Yeah yeah, I figured that stuff could wait until we got back to his house tonight, but honestly, it doesn't really matter to me.  I know why he did what he did, and I came to peace with it."

Total lie, but I didn't want word getting back to Lachlan that I hadn't forgiven him yet.  I wanted to have the full experience of a last night, and by damn I was going to get it. 

"Wow, you're a better woman that I.  Oh, hey I'm up next.  Don't trip and fall, ladies," Sloane announced and stepped out into the fray of beaming lights from around the curtain. 

"I'm glad you're taking a chance with Lachlan.  Love like that's rare, and when you find it you have to hold onto it with everything you've got.  I almost lost Taylor to my mental health, and when I finally explained to him what was wrong, he was behind me one hundred percent.  Don't lose Lachlan to your monster, too."

My eyes brimmed with unshed tears, forcing them back down as she stepped out into the blinding array of judges and clapping debutante attendees.  

I fiddled with the hem of my gown as the announcer called my name and I stepped out, last to join the fray, and pushed the words Jenna had spoken down into the furthest corners of my mind.  How she'd known I'd fallen in love with him was news to me, but her words still rang true. I was throwing away everything we had and everything we could be, but it was so that he could go on and have something even better than me in the future, so my mother could go on parenting Sloane, so my dad could parent his new baby and be a good husband to his new wife, a better one that he was to my mom.  

It was so that Vera could go on and prove her family wrong about her, so that Blythe could be a boss bitch in cosmetology and grow up and marry Vera and have cute little babies that made them completely and perfectly happy. 

It was even so that Taylor and Lincoln could go on living without looking over their shoulder, so that Evan could go on to his number one choice school and play field hockey with the best of them, if that was even a thing in college.  Maybe it was even so that Holden could go on to a good Ivy League school and, when it was time, make my sister a happy step ford wife like she wished. 

Hell, it was even so Jenna could continue being her usual Jenna self, doing whatever she wanted and taking no shit while doing so.  

But it was also for Ian, because in doing this, I was ensuring that no one else would be hurt in my name.  It was for Leah. 

I stepped forward and brushed aside the curtain, staring into the packed crowd searching for familiar faces and finding them in my mother, her date Jessie, my father and Ellen, and finally the rest of the debutantes and finally resting on Lachlan's form, his eyes filled with divine rapture and whole amazement. 

My foot had just crested the staircase when the music began, and all too soon I was swept up in my escort's arms, mind swirling and stomach lurching as I realized that this, right here, was what I wanted forever. 

Too bad we can't always get what we want.