He couldn’t screw this up. She meant too much to him to screw this up. Yet he couldn’t imagine how this could go well. His little brother was in the grave, and he was an ex-con—so what right did he have to happiness? The score between him and Ethan seemed closer to settled when Luke was lonely and cut off from connection. Also, he still suspected that Finley was in love with Chase. He couldn’t compete with Chase.

A relationship between a man who had no right to happiness and a woman who was in love with her dead fiancé wasn’t going to work. Right?

Finley would continue loving Chase, which meant he could never be happy. And since he had no right to happiness, that was how it would be.

There was a horrible perfection to it—

Stop.

He couldn’t think about the future.

All he knew was that here in the present, he could not screw this up.

Uneasiness circled inside him like birds of prey.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Midmorning the following day, someone knocked on the door of Luke’s apartment. For the first time since he’d moved into this place, the sound didn’t cause him to frown, because his immediate thought was, Finley?

He had no reason to think that. She’d never come to his apartment. Still, he couldn’t help but hope.

In recent weeks, he’d finally let go of his prison schedule. He still preferred for his days to have structure, but he didn’t need that structure to be as strict as it had been. This morning he’d slept in and was wearing pajama pants. He shouldered into a T-shirt, then crossed the living room in bare feet.

Let it be Finley.

Opening the door, he saw that it wasn’t Finley.

It was Blair.

Disappointed, he swung the door shut.

She stuck a combat boot between the door and its casing, entered, then looked everywhere but into his face.

“I came by to apologize,” she said to his area rug.

“Did Mom and Dad force you to do this?”

Amusement tugged at her mouth. “Mom and Dad don’t really have the ability to force me to do anything.”

He crossed his arms. “I’m waiting.”

“For?”

“Your apology.”

She hauled her focus to him. He was used to seeing cockiness in her expression. Today, the cockiness was still there but so was remorse. “I’m sorry I got drunk at the party and broke our deal.” She pulled her knit cap lower. “I’m also sorry that you had to come and get me and see me like that. And I’m really sorry that you spilled the beans to Mom and Dad because now they’re mad at me, too.”

“What do you care? They don’t really have the ability to force you to do anything.”