Poker Face: A Small Town Romance (The Beaufort Poker Club Book 1)

by Maggie Gates

  “Mad?” Melissa called out. “You dressed?”

  I looked down at the pair of Luca’s plaid boxers I had on and the buttercream-splattered t-shirt I had been too lazy to change out of last night. “Enough,” I mumbled.

  Footsteps neared, and the door cracked open. “Where is he?” Steve barked as he loomed in the doorway behind Melissa.

  “Los Angeles,” I mumbled, not even caring that he was going to disembowel Luca when he got the chance. My feet hit the floor, and I moved like a zombie. I pushed through Steve and Melissa to get to the kitchen and punch the button on the coffee maker that would give me the liquid to turn me slightly human.

  “Maddie,” Melissa said as she followed me. “Is there any chance that this is just a misunderstanding?”

  “Probably a snowball’s chance, but I haven’t been able to stomach the thought of talking to him. The last time we did, he practically bit my head off.”

  “Maybe you just caught him at a bad time. I mean, he had to go do damage control, right?”

  Why the fuck was everyone defending him?! I grabbed a mug out of the dish drainer in the sink and filled it halfway. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? He made his choice when he let her into our bedroom. I think what happened is pretty clear.” The words brought bile up with them as they ran off my tongue. I choked down the lump in my throat. “I’ll be fine.”

  “We all know you’ll be fine, Mad, but you’re not fine right now.”

  I thought back to the one phone call I had made last night. The one I made when I left Luca’s house after running into Astrid.

  “I have to pack.”

  Steve crossed one muscled arm over the other. “Where you goin’?”

  “New York.”

  “For what?”

  “A job interview.”

  Mel and Steve looked like I had told them I was planning on shaving my head and running naked down Front Street.

  “Why the hell do you have a job interview in New York?” He shouted.

  “I got an offer a few weeks ago, and I’ve been mulling it over.”

  “Bullshit. You weren’t even thinking about taking some other job. You’re running away.”

  “It’s like… my dream job. And it’s not like I’m running—I worked in New York years ago and really liked it.” That statement was only partially true, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I wanted to be anywhere but Beaufort. Everything reminded me of him, and I couldn’t take it. My house, his house, the restaurant, Jokers—there wasn’t a single damn place on the whole coast I could go that wouldn’t have his mark on it.

  I couldn’t even risk going to visit my mom and seeing that damn photo album out on her knitting table.

  “And in a city of almost nine million, you think it’ll be easier to hide from him than little ol’ Beaufort?” Melissa snapped. “Madeline Lee Dorsey—you are not a scaredy cat, so stop acting like one.”

  Steve hunched over and rested his forearms on my kitchen island. “Tell me about the job.” Mel’s head whipped around, but he held his hand out to stop her from biting his head off.

  I drained my coffee and set the mug in the sink. I muddled my way through, telling them about the call from Aiden Crawford and the dream job with a salary that I’d be a dumbass to turn my nose up at. “I’d be stupid not to go at least interview for it. I may not even get it, but I have to try,” I said as I finished my spiel.

  “Bullshit,” Steve said as he pushed off the island and headed back toward my room. He grabbed something and was back in the kitchen. “You’re gonna get the fuckin’ job if you go up there and do the interview.” He slammed my phone down onto the island and shoved it toward me. “I’ll drive you to the fuckin’ airport myself, but I’m not doing it unless you call that bastard and get his side, so I know what kind of jail time I’m looking at when I end him.”

  Steve walked Mel out as I threw mostly clean clothes in a suitcase and double-checked my flight status. I grabbed my wallet that was perched right beside the photo of me and Luca that I kept on my bedside.

  It was ironic, really. He had lied to my face the very first time we met. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t. Unfortunately, the lie was better than the truth. I had fallen for someone who didn’t exist. Steeling myself for the tears, I yanked the zipper around my carry-on with a vengeance. I sat on the edge of my bed and hesitated before swiping through my phone and tapping Luca’s name.

  “Maddie—” He blurted out after the first ring. “Fuck, baby—I’ve been trying to call you all night.” He sounded exhausted and worn. Then again, keeping up with two personas will do that to a person.

  Just the sound of his voice had my heart aching and my stomach twisting in knots. Heat flashed around my neck, and I beat down those pesky butterflies that boiled up inside.

  “Tesoro, per favore dì qualcosa. Ho solo bisogno che tu mi parli. So che sei arrabbiato, ma ho bisogno di sentire la tua voce,” he rambled.

  Even if he spoke in English, I wouldn’t have been able to understand him with how fast the words rolled off his tongue.

  “Maddie, I know you’re pissed—and you have every right to be—but it’s not what you think. Jesus, I miss you so fuckin’ much. Please, Tesoro… just talk to me. Please.”

  I laid back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. One tear turned into two that turned into ten. “I can’t do this, Luca,” I finally said as I rolled over and silently sobbed into my pillow.

  “Just give me a day. Please,” he begged. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I just—dammit, Maddie—don’t do this.”

  I shoved my phone into my pillow so that it would hide my sobs. I heard Steve’s Challenger roar to life and knew that our time was up. “I have to go,” I whispered.

  “Fuck going to the restaurant. Have it out with me right fucking now. You want a fight? I’ll give you a damn fight. I’ll argue with you. Just don’t walk away, Maddie. Stay and let’s have a fight.”

  “I’m not going to the restaurant,” I said as I grabbed a Kleenex from the almost empty box and dried my eyes. I tossed it in the trash and grabbed the handle of my luggage.

  “Where are you going?”

  There was no sense in lying, so I simply said, “New York.”

  “I’ll catch a red-eye tonight and be there.”

  “I’m interviewing for a job with François Toussaint. As my current employer, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t show up.” I tried to be as cold as I could, but there was no way I could hide the hurt in my voice.

  He stammered and stuttered. His timbre dropped into a low growl as he choked out a hoarse, “Stay.” Luca growled and I heard something shatter on his end. “Dammit, Maddie. Just stay.”

  “You’re the one who told me I was meant for something more than Beaufort,” I cried.

  “I lied.”

  I looked around at my tiny little houseboat. The life I had built. The promise I had made to myself that I would create a life I loved in Beaufort. I wanted to light a match and set the whole thing on fire. The wheels of my suitcase clacked as it bumped over the deck and onto the wood-slatted dock to Steve’s waiting car. I chewed on the corner of my lip and took a steadying breath. “Goodbye, Luca.”

  ✽✽✽

  I pushed through the freezing rain and sprinted from the subway entrance three blocks to my hotel. Luca had texted me half a million times begging me to stay at his apartment—Not that I answered any of his texts. I needed to clear my head. A couple days away in the city would do the trick. No Luca. No pressure to stick around in Beaufort and be the Maddie my friends expected, the daughter my mom needed, or the pastry chef the restaurant required. Despite the chilly air and the near-arctic rain that sloshed under my boots, I felt lighter.

  The interview had gone perfectly. I wasn’t expecting to meet François Toussaint in the flesh, but there he was, sitting across from me in a wrinkled button-up with a mustard stain on the pocket. It’s always nice when you realize your heroes are human. Aiden Crawford had been there too. He was in
town for an event, and Toussaint invited him along since he made the introduction. I worried that Aiden would bring up Luca, but thankfully, he didn’t.

  We didn’t talk hours or negotiate my salary. We chatted over coffee about the restaurant industry and discussed baking methods and techniques like old friends. It was the most relaxed I had been at an interview, well, ever.

  I stomped up the front stairs of my hotel and shrugged off the rain before heading for the elevator. “Dammit,” I muttered as I dug through my bag, in desperate search of my room key. I felt the smooth plastic under my fingers, and pulled it out from under the pile of gum wrappers and old receipts. “Aha!” I rounded the corner, and just when I thought I was home free, there was Nonna. My smile turned to a frown. “If he’s here, I don’t want to talk to him,” I said as politely and firmly as I could. It would be just like Luca to send his adorably irresistible grandma as bait.

  Nonna tsk-tsked me and waved her hand. She dug around in that big bag slung on her shoulder and pulled out a bottle of wine. “I don’t want to see that culo either,” she spat in her thick Italian accent. “Let’s get a move on, passerotta.”

  I wasn’t really sure how she got here in the first place. Did she come all the way from Brooklyn by herself? I shoved my key card in the slot and pushed the door open. Her short stature didn’t hinder her surly demeanor. Nonna’s wispy white hair was pulled back in a staunch braid, and her mouth was set in a hard line. She may have been little, but she was a lot scary.

  “You have stories for me, passerotta,” she said as she pulled a bottle opener out of her bag and yanked the cork out. “Tell me why you look so glum. A girl like you with a bright future should be all smiles. How was the interview?”

  I made myself comfortable in a chair by the window and let Nonna do as she pleased. “How did you know about the interview?”

  Nonna snickered as she grabbed two coffee mugs from beside the standard hotel coffee maker and filled them with wine. “Any cup can be a wine glass if you believe in it.” She toddled over to me with a mischievous smirk and handed me a mug. “My boneheaded grandson raised hell trying to find out where you were staying. He wanted his sisters to come talk some sense into you, but I told them that if they stepped one foot out of Brooklyn that I would haunt them for all eternity.”

  “Nonna!” I exclaimed. Either I had fallen into an alternate dimension or I was drinking wine out of coffee mugs with my ex-boyfriend’s ninety year old grandma. Then again, weirder things had happened.

  She waved me off and added, “I had a feeling that a smart girl like you had her reasons. Reasons my Luca probably didn’t listen to. He’s a man, you know. The men—they tend to think with the wrong head.”

  It was definitely thinking with the wrong head that got him into this mess. I snorted at Nonna’s anecdote while I inhaled a big gulp of wine. It lodged in my throat, and I nearly spat it out when I collapsed into a coughing fit. Finally composing myself, I shook my head and took another sip to calm my nerves. “He didn’t deny that he did it.”

  Nonna set her mug on the coffee table between us and clasped her hands in her lap. “Do you think he would be that foolish, passerotta? Trading sunshine like you for a woman without seni and natiche?”

  The woman was determined to kill me. I nearly wretched on my wine again when Nonna mentioned my well-endowed tits and ass and Celeste’s lack thereof. Well okay then—I see we’re past the point of ladylike conversation.

  “Enough about my idiota grandson. Tell me—are you going to take this new job?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” I sighed as I looked at my reflection on the dark surface of the wine in my mug.

  “You’ll be miserable if you do,” She clipped as she drained her mug and poured herself a little more. “New York is my home. It’s not yours. You’re a sparrow. Full of hope and meant to be in the sunshine and the air. The piece of your heart that is hurting will not heal here, and you need your hurt to heal. That wound will only grow and fester if you run away from where you’re supposed to be.”

  Nonna was the second person to tell me I was running away, and I hated it. “I can’t go back to him, Nonna,” I admitted as I toed off my boots and pulled my knees to my chest. “What he did…”

  “Tell me, passerotta, what did he do?”

  “He slept with another woman.” My voice faltered on the last few words. Had he, though?

  “Well, if he did—I will make his life miserable. You have my word.”

  “And if he didn’t?” The words were out before I had time to think about what I was saying. There was a part of me—a rather large part—that thought maybe he didn’t do it.

  “No one faults you for trying to protect yourself. You know your heart best. My Luca is a sweet boy. Sometimes stupid, but he would never be so careless with the ones he loves.

  “Nonna…”

  “Do you still care about him, passerotta?”

  I looked down into my half-empty cup as a tear sprang into the corner of my eye. “I don’t know how to stop loving him.”

  “But?”

  “But I’d be stupid to trust him.”

  “You’re not a stupid girl, Maddie. You know deep inside whether you can trust him,” she said without a care in the world as she plugged the wine with the cork and put the bottle back in her bag. “I’ll see you soon, passerotta.” I hoped she was right.

  Nonna walked to the door, and I got up to let her out and say goodbye. When I opened it, a tall, blond man stood in the doorway with his fist raised to knock. He was the complete opposite of Luca. Tall, yes, but where Luca had black hair, olive skin, and eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate, this man was slightly more fair skinned. His hair was a sunny, golden blond and his eyes were a crisp blue. The last time I had seen him was over dinner with Luca during our trip to New York for the James Beard Awards. “Why are you here?”

  “Isaac Lawson,” Nonna exclaimed as she pushed me out of the way. For a little sprite of a woman, she was strong. “What are you doing here, piantagrane?”

  Isaac leaned down and gave Nonna a kiss on the cheek. “I could ask the same of you, but I have a feeling I know the answer.” He looked straight over her at me and flashed a billion-dollar smile. “I’m here to show Maddie a sex tape.”

  41

  ———

  LUCA

  Astrid sat across from me, her back straight as an arrow. She didn’t seem nervous, or at least concealed it well. Three sets of documents were arranged on the desk between us—a lawsuit, a contract termination, and copies of the social media bullshit that she and Celeste broke the internet with.

  The moment I got into Beaufort, I ordered her to meet me at Revanche. I got to the restaurant, politely told the new G.M. to get lost, and escorted Astrid into the office for her haranguing. I had already cut off her access to my bank accounts and had someone changing the locks to everything I owned that had doors. I’d give her a ticket to get out of North Carolina, but after that, she was on her own.

  I pressed my palms together and rested them on top of the desk before me, covering the copies of the lawsuit my lawyers had filed against her, Celeste, and the magazine.

  “Do you want to explain what the fuck possessed you to do what you did, or should we just get on with it?” I said with as much professionalism as I could muster. If she wanted to try and explain her way out of the grave she dug for herself, so be it, but the deed had already been done. There was no coming back from this one.

  Astrid sniffed indignantly like she still wielded power here. “The social media traction that you’ve gained from Celeste’s posts is worth the blowback. People want the rich, mysterious man who takes lovers. Not whatever this whipped, emasculated thing is that you’ve been sporting these days. I did my job.”

  “Worth the blowback?” I barked as I rose to my feet and craned over the desk, towering over her. For the first time, I saw a worry in her eyes. “Worth the fucking blowback? Are you kidding me, Astrid? You and Ms. Montgomery imp
lied that I had an affair with a woman who was supposed to interview me in a professional capacity. You intruded on my personal space when I gave explicit instructions on where I allowed people in my home. You made the love of my life believe that I fucking cheated on her! You tarnished my name to get ahead, and you know damn well that’s not how I do things.”

  “Right, because you’re such a choir boy,” she retorted. “The next few million you earn will be the result of everything I’ve done for you and you know it.”

  I drove my fist into the solid wood desk and growled. “There is no dollar amount on this earth that would make what you did acceptable. Ever.”

  “Please. Maddie Dorsey is just another notch in your belt,” she said as she folded her hands in her lap like she was about to have tea. The woman was a stone cold bitch. “When you realize that she’s just a detour in your path to bigger and better, you’ll see that I did you a favor and you will beg me to come back.”

  “A detour?” I scoffed, laughing at the ceiling. “You think Maddie is a fucking detour?” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the ring I had carried with me everywhere I went. Astrid’s jaw dropped just a little and I began my tirade. “She’s it for me. She’s still going to be it for me. Whatever I have to do to fix the mess you created, I’ll fucking do it. But let me get one thing crystal clear with you before I have your signature on the last NDA you’ll ever sign—Maddie is fucking priceless and I’ll spend every penny I have to protect her integrity and mine. People like you will never understand that because you don’t have a decent bone in your body.”

  I practically threw the contract termination and non-disclosure agreement at her. She scribbled her name at the bottom and with the last vestiges of her pride, gathered her things and left.