Page 43 of Trouble in Love
Hot.I was suddenly very, very hot, and the air was very, very thin. Luca seemed to be feeling it, too, as his chest was rising and falling as rapidly as mine. “Thirsty? Can I get you a drink?” Pushing off the counter, I took the five paces to the closest fridge, opened the door, and shoved my face inside.Ahh. Sweet relief.Grabbing two beers, I opened them with practiced ease. I took a long pull from one, while handing him the other. Our fingers brushed as the cold glass shifted between us, and I swore the damn thing sizzled.
Luca’s whole body tensed and then shivered. “Iwanttolickyourneck.”
“What?” I coughed, sending beer dribbling down my chin.
“Fuck,” he blushed. “Ahh … I mean, I want to drink this long neck … this beer. Nate said they call beer bottles long necks.”
“Yeah, we do, but that’s just a middie, and that’s not what you said.” Before Luca could spit out the excuse he was scrambling to come up with, his phone began to ring. “Saved by the bell, eh?”
Clearly relieved, he wriggled in his seat and pulled the phone from his pocket. “Hey, Eves.”
The familiarity in his greeting, the affection in his voice made me want to gag. It was Luke and Nate choosing her over me all over again and whatever spark I thought I felt between us was instantly snuffed out.
The bitch was back … if she ever left.
Without thinking I snatched the phone from Luca’s hand and plastered on my fakest smile. “Evie, darling. How is it you always seem to call at the worst possible time?”
“What. The. Fuck?” It was shrill. A hiss almost. And I loved it. “That’s right. Wewereabout to fuck, so why don’t you fuck off so I cangetoff.”
“Polly, what the hell?” Luca was up on his feet, swiping the phone back from me. “Evie. That’s not what happened. I just came here to get beer. There was no fucking. Only sitting.”
“Yeah, on his face!” I yelled, leaning in as close as I could, internally scolding myself at the same time. Though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, I could hear how pissed she was. Funnily enough, it failed to bring the satisfaction it once would have. Maybe because Luca was staring at me like I just ripped his heart from his chest and shoved it in the ice fridge.
With a head shake, he backed away, the hurt in his stare affecting much more than I cared to admit. “I know. You’re right. I should have stayed away. No. No. You don’t need to pick me up. I’m coming home now.” Shoving the phone back onto his pocket and pulling out a fifty, he tossed it at my feet, then grabbed a slab of beer from the stack beside him. Trapping it under his arm like it was a feather, he grabbed the handlebar of his bike with the other, gave me one more disgusted look, then turned and walked away.
Should self-sabotage be a marketable trait, I would have been a millionaire. There I was—a beautiful woman who should have been in the prime of her life—trying to dodge an arranged marriage with a Greek schmuck while simultaneously beingpursued by a charming, semi-famous American hockey player. The latter being yet another person I’d so royally fucked over, there was no way I could ever repair it.
Not unless the guy was a complete moron, anyway. Despite a constant toll of self-deprecating,“I’m dumb” jibes, I very much doubted he was.
Because of Luca, the “I don’t care, it was a one-time thing, I have no heart” bullshit I’d been feeding myself for years was becoming harder and harder to swallow.
Training my brain to stop constantly repeating, “If you’re willing to share your story, I’m willing to listen” proved even harder.
How dare he roll in and be so kind and sexy and willing to hear me out? Who the fuck even does that?
“Who does what?”
“What?”Shit.I’d said that out loud. In front of my mum.Shit.I was sitting beside her in the hospital gardens after her first walk of the grounds with the rehabilitation physiotherapist, who was totally hot. The me of a few weeks ago would have been hitting her up. But it didn’t even cross my mind until she left, and I realized I didn’t. And why.
Cowboy was under my skin.
“Ahh.”Think Polly, think.“The bakery delivery guy.” I lied. “He dropped the dinner rolls off this morning and hit on me.”
“Francis? You think Francis Dinkle is sexy … and he hit on you? He’s married, Polly. I hope you didn’t encourage him.”
Of course, she knew the bread guy’s name. And his marital status. “I didn’t encourage him.”
“Hmm. First time for everything, I guess.” It was the first little slut jab she’d handed me in days, and I knew it was because of my boring, obsequious cousin, Elias. Mum was on the phone with him when I arrived, practically giddy that he’d found an earlier flight and was on his way.
“Be a nice girl and speak with him,”she’d insisted, shoving the phone in my face as I broke out into a cold sweat, panicked, and ran from the room claiming an urgent case of diarrhea. Normally, I could have come up with something less humiliating, but Luca had thrown me off my game, reducing me to a liar who couldn’t lie to save herself.
Mum dropped the rose she’d plucked on her wander and pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the bakery right now to cancel our order. I will not have our customers chewing on bread handled by an adulterer.”Fuck.Without thinking, I snatched the phone from her hand and piffed it over my shoulder. “Polly Constantine Hart! What the devil has gotten into you?” she chided while leaning around me to see where it had landed.
“Sorry, Mum. Nervous tic.”
“A nervous tic you’ve suddenly developed made you toss my phone into the dewy couch?”
Frozen with stupidity, I just smiled, showing every tooth in my mouth before turning and skipping away to find it. I hadn’t skipped in twenty years. I’d lost my freaking mind. And Mum’s phone, which was probably a good thing because it had caused nothing but grief since I showed up. By the time I found it wedged between a rose bush and a discarded, half-eaten muffin, a light drizzle had set in, and I had to help Mum back to her room. The rain, though not good for my freshly straightened hair, was at least another distraction, and Mum seemed to forget all about poor, innocent Francis.
