Page 53 of Retrograde
‘Hey, that’s cold.’ He feigned hurt. ‘I’ve never run over plant pots in a golf cart.’
‘No, but you’ve just destroyed dinner.’
‘Shit! Have I really?’
Lucie reached into the bucket and pulled out the remnants of a tomato, promptly launching it at Brett. His T-shirt wasn’t expensive. She would know, because she’d bought it. And the shorts were beyond saving. When itmade contact with his shoulder, Brett’s face lit up with the challenge. Then Lucie remembered what she was wearing. A white dress. ‘Oh, no.’
‘You started it, Sunny.’ With a wicked smile, he shot a tomato at her. She tried her best to dodge it, but Brett was trained to have good hand–eye coordination. It was part of being a racing driver. She had no hope.
The tomato splatted right in the middle of her chest, almost winding her. What had he used, a catapult? ‘Ow!’
‘Did that actually hurt? Luce, I’m so—’ She cut him off by firing one back. ‘Yousnake!’
They spent the next few minutes hiding behind various plants and trees throughout Rosa’s garden, neither one surrendering. Lucie’s dress was more red and orange than it was white, and she had already said her mental goodbyes to it.
Brett stripped off his T-shirt, attempting to use it as a shield. It caused a momentary pause in their battle, during which Lucie shamelessly admired him. She couldn’t help herself. His hair was clinging to his forehead with sweat, his body glistened from the heat, and he had that look on his face. The look she tried to avoid, to shut down at any opportunity.
But the Tuscan sun must be getting to her, because when Brett made advances towards her side of the battle zone, she didn’t stop him. She didn’t step back, didn’t launch another tomato in his direction. She just waited for him to close the gap across the garden and take her in his arms.
He tastes like tomato. That was her first thought whenhis lips met hers. His hand tugged at her claw clip, setting her hair free from its grip and replacing it with his own. Once the shock wore off, Lucie let him pick her up, wrapping her legs around his waist while he held her with one arm. It was so much easier to kiss him like this, when they were a similar height and she could focus on the way his tongue parted her lips and danced with her own.
It was magical. But she didn’t want it to be magical. She wished she could hate kissing him. She wished he would just let her down, and they could go about their day as if it hadn’t happened. Except they had a family dinner to get through. A family dinner where she was going to take one bite of a tomato and be taken right back to this moment. Every time she tasted a tomato for the rest of her life, all she was going to taste was Brett.
21
Brett watched the way Lucie’s face flushed when her Mum handed her the tomato salad across the table. He felt a sense of pride within him, knowing that the reason her cheeks were red was because of him. She was remembering every moment vividly, just as he was. The way she’d sighed and collapsed under his touch. The way he’d held her tight to him so she wouldn’t fall, and because he knew it was as close as she would ever let him get.
He wasn’t stupid, he knew she would never let things go as far as they had in the Alps. But there was something about them being in Italy that had him reminiscing in ways he tended to avoid. Usually, he could turn it off. Think about something else. Right now, though? He was remembering her in a compromising position that he knew was implanted on his brain for the rest of time.
He couldn’t deny that he loved pushing her boundaries. In those moments that she let him get close, he believed that she craved him just as much as he craved her. But as much as he wanted to raise the friends-with-benefits topic again, he respected her enough not to push hertoofar. If anything further happened between them, it would be on Lucie’s terms and Lucie’s terms only.
The reputation he had created for himself did moreharm than good these days. Maybe if he hadn’t been so wild, such a party animal and a flirt, he’d have a shot with a woman like Lucie. Well, not a womanlikeLucie. Just Lucie herself.
The only person he would ever evenconsidergetting down on one knee for, if the stars and planets ever aligned and put them on the same path, was Lucie.
The same Lucie who couldn’t even look him in the eye right now. They’d only stopped kissing when they’d heard Mateo starting up the tractor, and Lucie had slipped from his grasp, her dress bunching up in the process. If Mateo hadn’t been right around the corner, Brett might have taken her into the greenhouse right then and there.
He didn’t know how she had so much willpower around him. He had made so many moves, ninety per cent of them rejected. But that ten per cent? He clung to that ten per cent. He could feel it in the way she looked at him. Her eyes full of desire, her cheeks rosy. She wanted to cross that line again. It was written all over her face.
It was thosealmostmoments shared between them that he lay in bed and fantasised about every night. That he woke up thinking of. He spent countless mornings staring out the window of wherever he was, remembering the way his best friend felt beneath him. Lucie was always the first and last thing on his mind each day.
Brett didn’t think she would ever understand the hold she had on him. Nor did he think he would ever be able to express it. Brett held on to his emotions. Hereleased them on the track for the most part, but he also, in recent years, sought other vices. Alcohol was the winner. He would never say this to her, but sleeping with Lucie on that hiking trip may have been his downfall, not Sienna’s betrayal. The whole fiancé-cheating-on-him thing was old news. He’d got over that with a string of women, until that night with Lucie. Since then, there had been nobody except her. Well, apart from his attempt to forget Lucie with Sienna.
Lucie thought there had been other women, and he’d let her believe it. If she thought he was waiting for her, and she didn’t want the same thing, he’d be embarrassed. Vulnerable. He hated being vulnerable. Usually, Lucie brought it out in him, but when she was the cause, how was he supposed to let her know without damaging their friendship?
So, he let her catch him in what she thought was ‘the act’, let her think he’d taken women back to his hotel room. But instead, he ended things after a kiss and sent them on their way. Nobody would ever compare to his sunshine girl.
‘Luce, your mum and I were talking about a family camping trip next summer,’ Mateo chirped, serving himself a hearty slice of lasagne and sprinkling it with extra parmesan.
‘When you say family…’ Lucie’s face paled.
‘He means everyone,’ Rosa added, already looking tired at the mere thought.
‘We could fly back over to the US, and we could go somewhere like Utah, or Virginia.’
‘Dad, that’s a lot of people. We might as well hire a whole campsite.’
‘Hey, maybe that’s not such a bad idea!’ His eyes lit up.
