by Kim Loraine
Setting the paper bag and drink carrier in front of him, she cleared her throat. “Hey, firefighter.” She tried to keep her tone light and teasing, but when his hazel eyes rose to meet hers she knew something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong?”
His fingers only stopped tracing the marred table when she took his hand. Shaking his head, he brushed her question off. “Tough call earlier.” His voice was rougher than normal. It held an edge she’d never heard before.
“Anything I can do?” she asked, the discomfort in her chest abating when he squeezed her hand.
“I’ll be fine.” His gaze slid from her to the bag in front of him. “You brought burgers?”
“And chili cheese fries.”
“You’re an angel.” He pulled out the paper-wrapped grease bombs and handed one to her. His eyes rolled back in his head as he took a bite and moaned. “Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff.”
Laughing, she opened the Styrofoam box of fries and snagged one. “You have a weirdly sensual relationship with food.”
“Food was my first love. No one will take her place in my heart. You might be able to share though.” He winked and took another bite.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. Love? What was he saying? Nerves getting the better of her, she compulsively tore at her napkin.
“I’m off duty at eight tomorrow morning. You free? Maybe we could go surfing. I’ve always wanted to learn, and having a hot teacher is a fantasy of mine.” He was completely oblivious to her distress.
She almost laughed, but her voice caught in her throat. Nodding, instead, she took a sip of her Coke. “Sure.”
“You seem spooked. Everything okay?” His large hand slid up her neck to rest on one cheek, fingers softly caressing.
“I love you.” The words spilled out in a tumble without permission. She’d never said that to anyone before, and now, here she was, baring her soul over a romantic dinner of greasy fast food.
She expected his eyes to soften, a smile to turn up his lips, and maybe a little relief to flood his features. Instead, she watched in humiliation as he closed off, pulling his hand away. A sorrowful expression crept over him.
“I’m . . . I’m not . . . uh—” he stammered.
Oh, God. She’d completely misread him. As she sat there, willing him to pull it together and go back to the Michael she’d fallen for, her heart sank. Mortified, she snagged her purse from the floor and raced from the room. Praying the alarm would go off and save her just like it had the last time she’d fled the firehouse.
It didn’t.
As the warm night air hit her face, his hand wrapped around her arm.
“Wait, Goddammit!” he barked as he gently pulled her back against his chest.
She refused to face him, further embarrassed by the hot tears pooling in her eyes.
“Will you look at me, Lena?”
Forcibly turning her in his arms, she stared up at his intense gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s too soon.” She hated the way her voice wobbled with unshed tears.
That sad look spread over his face again, but the pity in his eyes set an angry flame burning in her. All his talk of her being it for him, his relentless pursuit, everything, had gotten her to this point. She’d trusted him enough to let herself fall, and now he wasn’t there to catch her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . react very well to what you said.” He looked away, as if he were ashamed of something—of her.
Before she could say anything, Klipper’s voice rang out from the open garage, getting louder the closer he got. “Hey, Lieutenant. Kate’s on the phone for you . . . again. What is that, like the fourth freaking time this week? How do you manage to keep them all on such short leashes, man?” As Klipper stepped into view, his face paled and his eyes darted from Michael to Lena and back again. “Shit. Oh, shit, man. I’m sorry.”
Righteous anger took over. Not again. She was not going to be played by another firefighter. “You know what, Michael? I’m not sorry I said it. I’m only sorry I was stupid enough to believe you weren’t the asshole I originally thought you were.” Staring hard at him, she waited for some sort of response. “You and Kate have a nice time. We are done.”
His expression turned stony, surprising her. She expected him to try and stop her as she walked away.
He didn’t.
Five days post-Michael. Lena had baked everything she could think of and Valerie was begging her to stop, citing her expanding ass and constant sugar comas. Lena hadn’t heard a word from Michael. Well, that wasn’t totally true. She’d heard plenty through Donovan, who didn’t have a clue how loud of a talker he was. The walls in the apartment were paper-thin and she’d caught more than her share of gossip during Valerie and Donovan’s sleepover tonight. Up until now, it had been all about the station, how Michael was busting everyone’s balls and being a general pain in the ass. Not news to her.
She was about to put on her noise canceling headphones and settle in for a date with Photoshop when she heard her name.
“Lena doesn’t want to see him. That’s why I told him she was going to Barbados.” Valerie’s voice was high and tense. Lena could picture the protective stance her friend would undoubtedly be posed in. Arms crossed over her chest, stern expression creasing her brow.
“He’s miserable,” Donovan countered, making Lena snort in disbelief.
“He’s been seeing other women. Klipper said some woman named Kate had been calling all week.”
“Trust me, Kate is not a problem. He never shuts up about Lena. I don’t know why Kate’s been calling, but it has nothing to do with them screwing around.”
Valerie was silent, and must have sat down, because Lena heard the bed squeak.
“Sweetheart, just put in a good word for him, okay?” Donovan pleaded.
The springs on the bed groaned as more weight must’ve been added, sending Lena scrambling for her headphones and turning up the music. She didn’t want to admit how much she missed Michael, how much she wished he’d try to call. Pushing through her distraction, she poured all her energy into editing her latest session, working until her eyes burned with fatigue. With her headphones blasting Panic Station’s demo album, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
A few days later, the email Lena had been waiting for arrived in her inbox as she was sending a set of proofs to her latest client. Confirmation of her contract in Japan. It was officially happening. She’d be heading to Tokyo in November and staying for at least three months. Her heart felt like it might explode. This assignment would be filled with so many opportunities for building her portfolio—high fashion, travel, culture—and she’d be getting a chance to see where her mother came from.
Breaking the news to Valerie had gone over easier than she’d thought it would. Now all that was left was Michael. Just the thought of talking to him made her heart race. But they needed to talk, especially after what she’d overheard between Valerie and Donovan the other night.
Pulling out her phone, she took a calming breath and dialed Michael’s number. She half-hoped he wouldn’t answer, that the call would be lost in the ether and she wouldn’t have to hear his voice. The moment he answered, the deep rumble of his timbre covered her like a warm blanket. God, how she missed him. Overcome with emotion, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“Lena? Are you there?”
Shaking her head to clear her senses, she croaked out a response. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”
“Everything okay? You sound . . . shit, you sound amazing. I’ve missed you. I’m so sorry about how I handled everything.”
That caught her off guard. She’d been planning on being the one to apologize. She’d done much worse than him. Going off half-cocked and thinking the worst of him, running off without giving him a chance to process the bomb she’d dropped. A
ll he’d been guilty of was not giving her the response she’d wanted.
“I . . . I overreacted. I heard Klipper teasing you about Kate and didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.”
He grunted and she heard the slam of a car door. “Can I come to you? I need to see you. I need to explain.”
She held back her knee-jerk reaction and bit her tongue. She wanted him to explain now, not twenty minutes from now. Nodding her head, she murmured an affirmative reply and his answering sigh sent shivers through her. The line clicked silent, leaving her trying to control the rapid beating of her heart. Glancing around her messy room, she blew out a breath and began frantically tidying up, needing at least one thing in her life to fit into a neat little box.
The knock on her door came exactly twenty minutes later, causing her breath to catch in her throat. With a quick glance in the mirror and a deep breath, she opened the door, more eager to see Michael than she’d thought.
His broad shoulders relaxed the minute her eyes met his and a spark ignited deep in her core. God, he looked good. Lips quirked up in a slight smirk, hands tucked in his front pockets. She wanted to forget everything else around her and get lost in him.
“Can I come in?” His words were a rough, deep rumble.
“Yeah.” She winced when her voice cracked on the word.
Turning, she walked to the kitchen and pulled two beers from the fridge, cracked them open, and shoved one into his hand without asking if he wanted one.
An amused expression colored his features. “Uh, thanks. It’s a little early, don’t you think?” Gesturing to the clock, which read eleven-thirty AM, he chuckled but took a swig anyway.
“I could order a pizza,” she offered.
Sitting on the couch, he placed his bottle on the coffee table and took her hand, pulling her down next to him. “We’ll get there. I’ve got so much I need to say to you.”
He seemed uneasy as she turned her gaze on him, so different from the light-hearted man he’d appeared to be just moments earlier. Running his hands through his short hair, he sighed. “Fuck, I don’t even know where to start.”
Unable to resist her urge to touch him, she rested a hand on his knee. The answering spark burned between them but she held onto her control, deciding to start the conversation with the one topic that bothered her the most. “Can we talk about Kate? I’ve heard her name twice from Klipper. Who is she to you?”
He gritted his teeth and downed the contents of his bottle in one long swallow. Her eyebrows raised as she realized this was more serious than she’d thought. Letting out a groan, he dropped his head into his hands and stared at the floor.
For a moment, she worried he might not answer. But after a brief pause, he began to speak.
“Kate . . . uh, Kate was my fiancée. We’d been together since college. I, uh, I proposed five years ago. I thought she was the one. Turns out, she didn’t feel the same way. Didn’t tell me until two days before the wedding.” He let out a harsh bark of laughter and reached for his empty beer bottle, trying to take a sip and frowning as he remembered it was empty. She pushed her nearly full bottle toward him, and waited as he took a pull and continued. “She didn’t really tell me much. Just texted me she was sorry and . . . left me.”
Her chest ached as he raised his head and looked into her eyes. His face was raw with a deep pain she couldn’t come close to comprehending. It hurt to see how deeply he still felt for another woman. “So, now she’s calling you? Have you been in contact with her before this?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s never reached out before. She just disappeared. I even hired Donovan’s PI brother to try and find her after John died. There was no trace. And now . . . now she just comes out of the freaking woodwork.”
“What does she want?”
“I have no clue. I haven’t called her back. I don’t want to.”
A big part of her heaved a sigh of relief. This woman, a woman he’d almost married, wanted back in his life and he wouldn’t let her come near him.
“So, when I said . . . what I said,” she started.
“You mean, that you love me?”
A hot blush flooded her cheeks. “Yes. That. You were in the middle of dealing with her?”
“Lena, you don’t understand how destroyed I was when she left me. My entire world came crashing down. I had just started to pick myself up and put myself back together when John died. I’m broken. Damaged goods. There are parts of me that will never be whole again, no matter what. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel deeply for you. I just . . . that’s something I’ll never be able to say to anyone again.”
Tears filled her eyes, stinging as they threatened to spill down her cheeks. Before she could wipe them away, Michael’s warm palm was cupping her cheek, his thumb catching her tears as they fell.
“Please give me another chance? I didn’t handle it the right way when you told me, but knowing how you feel made me even more sure that we are meant to be together,” he whispered, bringing his lips a breath away from hers. “Come away with me this weekend. Let me show you just how much you mean to me.”
Fire raced through her veins as his mouth connected with her own. Everything in her screamed, Yes! This is it! He’s the one.
All she wanted was to keep this feeling forever.
Chapter 10
“I’m pretty sure we made a mistake.” Lena stared at the diamond and matching band which adorned the third finger of her left hand. The stone caught the light and sparkled, throwing rainbow prisms against the walls.
Michael—her new husband—shifted under the bedclothes, soundly sleeping and unaware of her worries. She watched him, bronzed back, strong and toned, bare to the waist. The sight of him never failed to make her sigh with want. He was gorgeous, there was no denying that.
Her gaze drifted to the top of the white hotel sheet. It sat, barely covering the top of his ass, leaving the deep line of his spine in view. She fought the urge to lean down and drop kisses on the dimples at the base of his back. She needed to remember the reason they were here—in a hotel in Vegas.
They’d gotten married. After dating on and off for less than six months—they were legally bound together.
It seemed to her that a situation like this should accompany the worst hangover of her life, but no. They’d been stone sober. Drunk on each other and the idea of happily ever after, maybe, but aside from that, they had no excuse.
Panic clawed at her chest. She needed coffee . . . or a Bloody Mary. Maybe both.
Careful not to wake him, she pulled on some clothes and grabbed her plastic key card. She’d feel better with some fresh air and perspective.
As her hand turned the knob on the door, her damn cell phone rang, a blaring version of “Turning Japanese” that made her jump.
“Moshi, moshi,” she whispered, hoping Michael would keep sleeping.
“Lena-Chan, what are you doing?” Her mother’s soft voice came out in a stern tone.
“Mama, I’m on vacation. You remember? I told you.”
“No. You texted me yesterday. Not the same.”
Before Lena could escape the room in order to have a real conversation with her mother, a warm arm wrapped around her waist.
“Morning, gorgeous. Sneaking off?”
She winced as Michael’s deep baritone seemed to bounce off the walls and back through the phone.
Her mother’s sharp intake of breath sent a chill up her spine. “Lena? Is that Michael with you?”
Slipping out of Michael’s hold, she hurried into the bathroom and shut the door. “Mama, I can explain.”
Her answer came in the form of angry, rapid-fire Japanese. She didn’t understand much, but what she did get was bad.
Looking down at her ring once again, she groaned as the line clicked and her m
other hung up on her.
“Definitely a mistake.”
Michael watched his wife of twenty-four-hours from across the dinner table. He’d scored them a reservation at a high-end restaurant in the Bellagio hotel. The view was awe-inspiring and for anyone else, the lights of the strip and choreographed fountain would be the sole point of focus. Not for him. He couldn’t stop looking at Lena. Her long curtain of black hair fell over one shoulder, making his fingers ache to feel the silky strands.
Watching her as she pushed the last of the food around on her plate, he fought a wave of unease. She was different now. And not just in an I’m-married kind of way. Since he’d woken this morning, she’d been distant. Closed off. Cold.
“What’s going on with you today?” He had to push the words through the lump in his throat.
Tilted, almond eyes met his and his heart sank at the sadness he saw there.
“I . . . what are we doing? We can’t be married. We’ve spent more time broken up than we have as a couple.”
He fought the rush of desperation that coated his skin. He couldn’t fail at this again. “But something keeps bringing us back together.”
As she spoke, the fountain started its show in the background. Sprays of swirling water danced to a schmaltzy romantic ballad.
Perfect. Just what I needed. A fucking chick flick moment.
Her gaze dropped to the ring on her finger. “I don’t know. Remind me why we thought this was a good idea.”
His chest tightened as he reached out for her hand. “We’re right for each other. I promise.”
Her dark eyes widened as he brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“What about love?” she whispered.
His head spun and his vision blurred as her question sank in. Hadn’t they already talked about this? He let out a sigh. “I want to be with you forever. Isn’t that enough?”
