by Elise Faber
Sera stood. “I’m going to stop you right there.”
Bec blinked at Sera’s tone. Never, and she meant never, had she heard such a tone from her friend’s mouth. It was sharp and reprimanding and made Bec feel about two inches tall.
“I may be stupid for holding on to hope that someday someone may love me for the person who I am inside. That may be a fucking pipe dream”—Bec blinked again. Sera and F-bombs rarely mixed—“but at least I’m not too scared to take a chance on something just because it might make me vulnerable. And I think that makes me the brave one of this pair, don’t you?”
She strode to the door, paused with her fingers on the handle. “Also, nice try on the pushing people away thing. It’s kind of your specialty.”
A heartbeat later, Sera was gone, the door closing softly behind her.
Bec would have much preferred a slam.
But then again, if Sera had slammed the door, it would have confirmed to Bec that her friend was irrational and emotional rather than logical and smart and . . . maybe right.
So, in full Sera-rant-hangover mode, she texted Luke. Just to prove to herself that Sera was wrong and Bec wasn’t scared or unsure or—
Shut. Up.
It didn’t matter why. Only that she did text Luke and found herself committing to a date the following evening.
Name your time and place, Pearson. Only nine more dates until you’re out of my life forever.
Ten
Luke
Why had he decided it was a good idea to give his woman a weapon?
His Becky stared at him, weighing the ax in the palm of her hand. Then her eyes dropped to his groin, and Luke had to resist the urge to wince and cup his dick protectively.
Her lips twitched, and she turned to face the target, throwing the ax in a near perfect arch. It hit the bull's-eye but didn’t stick, falling to the floor with a clatter.
“Nice,” he said, picking up his own ax without any of Becky’s unspoken threats.
“Come on, Mountain Man,” she teased. “Show me how to work that hard, hard blade.”
Considering he was mid-release when she said that, Luke was unsurprised that his ax missed the target completely and crashed to the floor. “Sexual euphemisms?” he asked, lifting one brow. “Really?”
A shrug, though her mouth was curved into a smirk. “If we’re revisiting our teenage and college years, then all of the hard puns fit, don’t you think?”
“We never threw axes in high school,” he said, walking over to pick his up from the floor.
“No,” she said and hopped to sit on the little half-wall that formed the back of their booth. She was wearing skintight jeans and a plaid flannel with one too many of the buttons undone for his psyche.
Hell, who was he kidding?
They'd been together all of twenty minutes, and Luke had spent most of it fantasizing about what her reaction would be if he unbuttoned the rest of the fabric, spreading it wide, kissing down the soft expanse of her stomach, slipping his fingers under the waistband of her jeans—
“But we did go camping for our senior trip, which I’m sure you remember.” One blonde brow lifted. “Considering it was the night we both lost our virginity.”
Luke swallowed hard as he set the ax on the table.
Their boarding schools were technically separate—all boys in his, all girls in hers—but they’d combined for events like dances and the seniors’ camping trip. So, yes, he’d been thinking of that weekend when he’d seen the ad for this place, of the outdoor games they’d played, of him pretending to help Becky with her archery skills—even though she’d been better than him by far.
It had been a weekend of teasing touches, of sneaking away for a few kisses, and yes, of their first time.
Luke crossed over to where she sat on the half-wall, nudging her legs apart so he could stand between them. Becky’s smile was teasing, and he wanted to kiss it off her lips. Especially when that dangerous little pink tongue of hers darted out, wetting her bottom lip, and her eyes went hot. “I think you’d like my hard, hard blade,” he told her, somehow managing to not crack up when he said it.
Probably because his blade was, as Becky had said, hard, hard.
“Yeah?” Teasing laced with heat in her tone and so fucking tempting.
He leaned in, close enough to smell the floral scent of her shampoo, to feel her hot breath against his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d make sure you enjoyed it. You know that.”
“Yeah?” she said again and leaned even closer, only millimeters separating their mouths and, fuck it all, he couldn’t help himself.
Luke kissed that pretty mouth.
Thank God, she kissed him back. Her arms came around his neck, her breasts pressed flush against his chest, and that pert little tongue slipped into his mouth.
One hand gripped her hip, tugging her snuggly against him, while the other wove into her hair—hanging down her back in gentle waves that were beyond fucking sexy. He tilted her head, angling their mouths in order to find that perfect fit.
And then he lost himself in his Becky, kissing her the way she loved, groaning when she rose pressed closer to him, memorizing those soft, breathy moans rising from the back of her throat.
Luke’s hand was sliding down to the buttons of her shirt when he remembered himself, remembered they were in a very public place.
One more stroke of his tongue, one more nip on the corner of her mouth.
Then he forced himself to step back.
And promptly almost kissed her again.
Because her mouth was swollen and reddened, and her eyes were glazed. Because she reached for him and the feel of her hands against his chest was every-fucking-thing.
Fuck, but what wouldn’t he give to have her back in his hotel room.
Except . . . sex was never the issue between them. They could scorch the cotton sheets right off a bed. But sex wasn’t the answer now. It was everything else that needed fixing.
So he carefully trapped Becky’s hands then stepped back, putting enough distance between them that he was no longer tempted.
Or rather, less tempted.
“Your turn,” he told her and shoved an ax into those palms.
Then considered himself lucky that she didn’t cut off his hard, hard blade and instead slowly moved to the starting line and threw.
Bull's-eye.
He stared over at his Becky and knew he was in big, big trouble.
But it was trouble of the best damned kind.
“You know what I don’t get?” Becky asked an hour later, as they sat at a nearby restaurant chowing down on quintessential bar food. She held a half-eaten French fry between her fingers and dipped it in a pile of ketchup on her plate—or rather, she used it as a vessel to get the maximum amount of ketchup into her mouth.
She might as well just drink it straight from the bottle.
“What?” he asked when she’d swallowed, reaching for his own fry and scooping up what he considered a reasonable amount of ketchup, though Becky had already teased him more than once about his “dainty dipping.”
“Why come back now?”
A reasonable question.
Though one he’d avoided discussing with any depth because he didn’t really have a great answer.
How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?
How could he explain the relentless urge to make things different between them, that Becky was the piece that had been missing in his life?
“And silence,” she said, picking up her beer.
Luke was aware enough to sense the edge of hurt under the droll tone.
“It would have been easier to stay away,” he told her. “To have my lawyer contact you and get officially divorced, to marry Tiffani and just move on.”
Bec plunked the glass down on the table. “Wow.”
He snagged her wrist when she would have turned away. “I’m not going to lie. I considered doing just that.” His thumb brushed lightly against
her skin. “But I knew I couldn’t.”
She yanked her arm free, signaled their waiter for the check. “Well, you should have saved yourself the trouble and stayed away.”
“Becky,” he began.
“It’s. Bec.” She leaned close and hissed, “It would have been better if you stayed away. Instead, you waltzed back into my life on your terms, demanding my attention, and disrupting everything. I was fine, dammit. Totally fine a-and—”
Luke froze, the slight hitch in her tone telling him more than anything else could.
She might be putting on a good front, but his Becky was rattled and, honestly, he couldn’t blame her. He’d shown up out of nowhere and had spent the last two weeks pressing her buttons.
“I’m sorry.”
“—And you don’t get to—” She froze. “You’re what?”
One corner of his mouth ticked up. “I know they’re words I haven’t said nearly often enough, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such an ass then . . . now.” Her eyes softened, so he pressed on. “I’m sorry I didn’t know what a good thing I had. I’m sorry I stormed back into your life without warning.” He cupped her cheek. “But I’m not sorry that I’m trying to get you to give me a second chance. I spent the last decade searching for something, trying to prove myself to my bosses, my family, myself . . . and you want to know what I learned?”
A shrug.
“That the person I should have been proving myself to was you.”
She shook her head. “Luke—”
“I had all this anger inside me—fury that my parents sent me away to school in the first place, that my father didn’t think I was smart enough to succeed on my own and the only avenue my dumb ass had was the family business.”
“You’re not dumb, Pearson.”
He scoffed. “You’re brilliant, sweetheart. Always have been, and I was so fucking jealous of that, of how proud my parents were of your success. I was resentful when my father kept telling me that I should marry you because you were the best a fuck-up like me was going to get—”
“What?”
He released her hand, pushed his plate away. “When we moved away to school, he reinforced that. Strongly.” Luke forced down the old frustration. “After he reminded me that the only reason I got into business school at all was because he’d donated five million for the new tech building.”
“That’s—”
Her sentence was cut off when the waiter deposited their check.
Eyes deliberately not meeting hers, Luke reached for his wallet to pay. When he went to drop his credit card on the bill, she covered his hands with her own. “Luke.”
He pulled back.
“Look at me.”
Unable to deny her, he met her gaze.
She studied him for a long time, gray eyes penetrating. Then finally she nodded, as though she’d judged what he’d said as truth.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
A soft question. One with a shitty answer.
“I was a twenty-five-year-old man.” A beat. “I was an idiot.”
Her mouth curved up. “Well, that was a given.”
“I’m not twenty-five anymore.” Luke touched her cheek. “After you left, I started a company. It did well, and in the end, it was my Dad who needed me.”
“I heard about Breeze”—the company he’d sold when he’d moved back to Pearson Energy—“it did a lot more than well.”
He shrugged. “Its success had a lot less to do with me and a lot more to do with having been lucky enough to find the right people.” Breeze focused on wind technology and their R&D department had revolutionized the way batteries stored extra power on windy days, partitioning it up so it could be used on days where the weather didn’t cooperate. The process was now used in most wind farms throughout the world.
“You’re being modest.”
Luke grinned. “Another thing I’ve learned over the years.”
“What happened with your father?”
The urge to immediately close down was intense, but Luke knew he couldn’t do that anymore. He’d wounded Becky in the past by refusing to talk about things, by shutting her down when she did ask . . . and then being resentful when she played the role of a glutton for punishment and pushed harder.
“Without getting into all the gritty details,” Luke said, “let’s just say my father made some bad investments.”
“Your tone makes it seem like he made a lot of bad investments.”
He nodded. “Enough that Pearson Energy was six months from folding.”
Becky gasped.
“I know. Breeze licensed technology and partnered with them until they were back in the black.” He turned his palms up, laced their fingers together. “Dad never forgave me. That’s the irony of it all. For once, I was the savior, the one who’d been smart enough to make a difference, and he resented me for it.”
“Asshole.”
He squeezed her hands. “I won’t disagree with you.” He sighed. “Especially because he made me running Pearson a contingency of my mom and sister receiving their inheritance. Not that he asked me to step in and help him with things while he was alive. I only found out at the reading that if I didn’t step in as CEO, the estate would be donated to charity.”
Becky’s brows pulled together. “I’m not sure that was legal.”
Luke smiled. “My lawyer didn’t think so either, but I was worried about what a legal fight would do to my sister and mom, and Breeze was ready for a new direction. I’m still on the board, but the new president is incredibly brilliant.”
She pulled one hand free, dunked another fry. “Why do you sound so . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “I mean, that’s a lot for anyone to compartmentalize. How are you so normal?”
“Therapy.”
Her eyebrows pulled down and together.
“I’m serious. Actual therapy. Well, that and five years of chasing my father’s demons down the halls at Pearson. Therapy. Hallways. Both of those things helped me come to terms with a lot of stuff.” He grinned. “I’m semi-well-adjusted now.”
“Semi, I think is the key word,” Becky said, but she left her hand in his and then changed the subject to one of her latest cases, relating a funny tale about her intern freaking out because he’d spilled coffee on an important brief. “. . . I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I waited until he came back in with a blow dryer he’d procured from somewhere and started blasting the sheets to tell him that I had an electronic copy on the cloud.”
Luke had shifted closer as she spoke, until their sides pressed together, until he could almost pretend this was a real date, one he hadn’t tricked, cajoled, forced her to come on.
The only thing he held on to was that she didn’t push him away.
Maybe there was hope yet.
Eleven
Bec
Luke wasn’t out of her life.
Not at all.
He’d somehow talked her into letting him walk her back to her apartment, and even though she’d licked her lips and sidled close to him on the ride up, he hadn’t kissed her. Just punched the code on her elevator—which she’d changed again after the last time they’d ridden up together and which he’d guessed . . . again.
Bec sighed. She really shouldn’t have picked the day she’d passed the bar.
Especially when memories of that night swarmed her. Of Luke struggling to open a bottle of champagne, of them giggling as they sipped the frothy beverage. He’d also brought her a chocolate cake, and because their apartment was almost completely packed up, they’d searched through the filled boxes for plates and cups—only managing to find one plastic fork—then had taken turns feeding each other bites in between drinking straight from the bottle.
Such a different time. She’d been such a different woman.
So sweet.
Both the cake and Luke Pearson.
Not her. Never her.
But she couldn’t deny that Luke had always managed to bring out a softness in her.
He’d always been able to cut through the barriers, the distance between her and everyone else.
Only Abby and Sera and Luke had been able to penetrate her defenses.
Bec didn’t resent her armor. She’d needed it growing up after losing her mom in childbirth with her baby brother. Left alone with a dad who didn’t really want her . . . or maybe that wasn’t quite true, but she’d definitely been a poor substitute for his lost wife and son.
They’d moved from the Bay Area to New York for a few years—long enough that Bec no longer sounded purely Californian, long enough that she had a wide streak of New York in her voice. But then her father had moved back to California and . . . he’d left her at school.
Ten years old and stashed in an all-girls boarding school in Upstate New York.
It had been four long years before Sera and Abby had shown up for freshman year and another before Luke had been enrolled in the neighboring all-boys school.
Sera and Abby had basically friended her to death, hadn’t left her alone, had pestered and bugged and bothered Bec until she’d relented and become part of a trio instead of a lonely single.
Luke, well, he’d been gorgeous with just a hint of a sexy Southern accent and piercing green eyes her heart hadn’t been able to ignore.
No matter the armor and barbed wire.
He’d army-crawled his ass through, wedged himself deep inside.
It had been easier to pretend she’d evicted him from her heart all those years before, but as Sera pointed out, if Bec really didn’t care about Luke, she never would have agreed to the deal in the first place. He’d only been able to goad her into the agreement because she felt something.
And it was time to stop lying to herself.
“How many times did it take you to figure the code out?” she asked as they stepped off of the elevator.
Lips curved. “Three.”
She tilted her head. “What were the other dates you tried?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She would. She really would. But obviously, he wanted her to ask, and she couldn’t make it that easy on him. So, instead of pressing him further, she turned for her door.
