I was equal parts ashamed and proud.
“Now boarding zone A for flight 2810 to Charlotte.”
I stared down at my ticket. That was me. I gathered up all of my crap—my purse, carry-on, the giant bag of mint Aero bubbles that served as my breakfast, along with the issue of British Glamour with the headline, Will He Still Respect You in the Morning?
Apparently not.
I shuffled through the boarding queue, ready to settle into my seat on the plane and fall right asleep. I made it to my seat with little fanfare, squeezing in between two older guys.
I was asleep before we even taxied down the runway.
* * *
When I woke the flight attendants were handing out landing cards. I blinked, staring at the little map screen on the seat in front of me. I’d slept the whole way to Charlotte.
“Were you in London for vacation?”
I turned to face the guy next to me. He had a slight Southern accent, his hair peppered with gray.
“No. I go to school there. University,” I added.
He smiled. “What year are you?”
“I just finished my first year.”
He nodded. “You must be excited to get home. The first year is the worst. College gets better afterward.”
Did it? I wasn’t so sure. What could I say about my freshman year? Parts of it hadn’t been great—Fleur’s overdose, my breakup with Hugh, my dad’s impromptu marriage. But then I thought about the rest of it. My trip to Paris. My friends. Samir. Last night. Everything felt jumbled somehow, all of my carefully ordered plans, the things I thought I knew about myself a scattered mess. But in its wake I saw possibilities.
That was enough for now.
We landed smoothly. When we touched down, a beeping noise started from the direction of my purse. Shit. Of course I had forgotten to turn my cell off. I stared down at my phone. The screen blinked back at me. Two new messages.
My heart raced even as I told myself to calm down. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. This was Samir we were talking about. He was probably too cool to call a girl after he hooked up with her. I knew better than to have expectations. But that was the thing about hope—it was sneaky and unexpected, winding its way through you, tying you up in knots before you even realized it.
The first text was from Fleur: My flight sucked but I’m here. They wouldn’t give me alcohol and I forgot to take a Valium. If you get bored in the U.S., come visit me in France. Miss you!
I grinned. Classic Fleur.
The next message left my mouth dry as the name flickered across the screen.
Last night was amazing. We should do it again. Often. See you next year. Xxxx.
A grin spread across my face. I couldn’t wait for summer to be over.
* * * * *
Maggie and Samir’s story has only just begun.
Look for LONDON FALLING,
coming soon from Chanel Cleeton
and Harlequin HQN.
Chapter 1
Maggie
I wasn’t looking for Samir. At least that’s what I told myself.
I shouldn’t be looking for Samir.
“We spent most of the summer in St. Tropez. You should have seen the guys. There was this one guy…” Fleur took a sip of her soda, brown eyes sparkling. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “He was so fine. You would have died.”
I flashed her an easy smile, my gaze glued to the door behind her. Classes started tomorrow. Where the hell was he?
“How was the U.S.?”
I tore my gaze away from the cafeteria door, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Which I pretty much was, come to think of it.
“It was fine.” Boring. Frustrating. Agonizing.
I turned my head to the side, the cafeteria door just barely visible out of the corner of my eye. Come on. Three more students walked in, laughing and talking about their summer break. My heart sank. One boy was tan, his skin more yellow than the caramel color I’d come to love. Like. Whatever.
“Are you listening?” Fleur’s voice was impatient, two shades away from pissed off, as she nudged my plate. “You seem like you’re somewhere else.”
“I’m paying attention,” I lied with ease, turning my body towards the open doorway. I glanced at the clock against the wall. The dining hall closed in fifteen minutes. If he was going to make our first family dinner back at school, time was running out.
I shouldn’t have cared. I should be better than this. I shouldn’t be sitting here, waiting, my stomach in knots, my nerves frayed. I’d already made it through four months with only two one-line texts from him. What was another day?
Everything.
I tore my attention from the empty doorway, the gaping hole taunting me. “Is anyone else going to join us?” I asked Fleur, my voice deceptively casual. I couldn’t say his name, but I was desperate to hear it. He was a secret I both wanted to keep and needed to spill.
I’d spent the whole summer talking about him to my friends back home, until even Jo was sick of hearing about my boy woes. Sadly that was saying a lot, considering how boy-crazy Jo could be.
“No idea where Mya is. You know how she is. She’s been MIA practically all summer. I think her parents’ divorce is hitting her hard. Michael said something about going out to dinner with other friends.”
Mya’s dad’s infidelity had apparently led him to ask for a divorce. Mya was spending most of her time with her mom and not speaking to her dad. She seemed to be handling it pretty well, all things considered. But still, Mya’s priority right now was her family.
I waited for Fleur to continue, to say the one name that had been flooding my head all summer long. But in classic Fleur fashion, it appeared she was going to make me work for it.
“And Samir?” I kept my gaze trained on my plate, memorizing the china’s webbed pattern, hoping she hadn’t heard the hitch in my voice.
Fleur shrugged in that wonderfully French way that reminded me of him. A wave of nostalgia crashed over me. It had been four months, after all.
“No idea. You know how Samir is, you can’t exactly predict what he’s going to do next.”
No kidding. Not being able to predict what Samir would do was exactly what had gotten me into this mess. Not that I regretted our one night together. I just wished to hell that he’d given me more to go on than a text the morning after, followed by one in July consisting of three little words. Even worse?
There hadn’t even been any chances for me to casually interact with him online. Trust me to hook up with the one guy who seemed allergic to social media. Maybe it was a Lebanese thing? Or more likely a Samir thing. He wouldn’t deign to do what everyone else did. He was a giant pain in my ass. Too bad I sort of liked it.
I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, not bothering to resist the urge to smooth down any stray flyaways. My hair was just the tip of the iceberg; brand new black sandals adorned my feet, their heel height more aptly suited to a nightclub rather than a university cafeteria. Relentless hours at the gym, combined with endless hours working overtime, had squeezed my curvy five-four frame into a pair of designer jeans so expensive, I’d been too afraid to eat for fear of spilling. A new black halter-top completed the look in what an hour ago I thought screamed I-look-good-without-trying-to but now felt more like I’m-desperate-over-here.
Losing my virginity was making me crazy.
“Maggie!”
I jerked my head up. Fleur stared back at me, an annoyed expression on her face.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, my cheeks heating.
“What is up with you?” Her tone was a mix of concern and petulance. Classic Fleur.
For the millionth time I wanted to tell her. Last semester, on my last night in London, I lost my virginity to your cousin and I can’t stop thinking about it. Or him. I wanted to confide in Fleur. But if I did, I wasn’t just admitting to a one-night stand. It was so much worse. Yeah, he was still with his girlfriend when it happened. No, I don’t know if t
hey’re still together. No, I don’t know if he likes me. Or if he regrets it. Or if he thinks about that night at all. No, we haven’t talked in 124 days save for one text, but who’s counting?
“I’m sorry, I think I’m just jet lagged.” That, at least, wasn’t completely a lie. My flight from Charlotte to London had been particularly brutal. I stared back at the clock. Five minutes left.
Unfuckingbelievable.
I’d been camped out here for like four hours. No way I’d missed him. Was he avoiding me?
I sighed, pushing back my chair slightly. I knew when to admit defeat. “I’m going to head up to the room and lie in bed.”
“Can I join you?”
I froze, my entire body prickling with awareness. I knew that voice. It had been haunting me for months.
“Samir!” Fleur shrieked, jumping up from the table and launching herself at her cousin.
I turned, time moving in slow motion. Fragmented images and thoughts flew at me. Flashes back to that night—his body pressing into me, his hands molding my curves, his lips devouring mine—mixed with the reality of Samir in the flesh. My gaze ran over his body, greedily drinking in the sight of him.
He’d cut his hair. The black curls I’d once run my fingers through, were shorter now. The skin I’d kissed, tasted on my tongue, was a deeper color. Whatever he’d done this summer, clearly he’d spent time in the sun. Impossibly, he looked better than I remembered. His shoulders looked broader, his body toned and hard. The memory of his naked flesh, his muscled chest, his abs…
I flushed.
Would I always look at Samir and see him naked?
It was an excellent trick and exquisite torture all rolled into one. Just being here, a foot away from him, was enough to tempt me. I ached to reach out, brush my fingers against his skin, and curl into that warmth.
And then I heard that voice again—sexy and sultry, the husky tone winding its way through my body, sending a shiver in its wake. I could drown in that voice.
“Hi, Maggie.”
* * *
Samir
It was like being punched in the chest. Fuck me.
She sat there, inches away. All I could do was stare, like a man lost in the desert, faced with a mirage. I could smell her perfume; the memory of that subtle scent had been driving me crazy for months. I remembered exactly what it smelled like on her bare skin. Remembered kissing every inch of that gorgeous skin, nibbling on her, my tongue tracing patterns across her flesh. Kissing, licking down her body…
The rush of arousal hit me like another punch.
“Samir? Are you paying attention?”
I jerked my gaze away from Maggie, taking one last look before turning to face my cousin. I slid a smile on my face, struggling to get my body under control. I knew it would be weird seeing Maggie after…well, after seeing all of her. But this?
Somehow I missed the memo that seeing her under the harsh cafeteria lights, surrounded by the aroma of crappy food and the presence of other students, would make me want to take her back to my room and strip her bare. Hell, at this point a cafeteria table would do.
I wanted to bury myself in her body.
“Samir!”
I rolled my eyes. “Give me a minute, Fleur. Can you chill?”
I needed a moment. A moment of quiet before I had to look back at her. I needed a moment to get my shit under control.
“There’s no need to be pissy,” Fleur snapped, dark eyes flashing.
God, she could be a bitch when she wanted to be.
“I’m tired, Fleur. I just flew in from Beirut. Give me a second.”
Fleur rolled her eyes. “There seems to be a lot of jet lag going around.”
My gaze jerked to Maggie. Her head was turned, her gaze focused on the plate in front of her, her face partially hidden by the curtain of her hair. I remembered all too well having that hair wrapped around my fist, pulling her head back, exposing that delicate, pale neck—
“Samir! Are you going to sit or are you just going to stand there staring?”
“Chill,” I muttered through gritted teeth, sliding into the chair next to Fleur so that I could have a perfect, uninterrupted view of Maggie. If only she’d look at me.
“So how was Lebanon?”
“Fine.” I needed to get Fleur on another subject fast. Lebanon was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now.
“How’s your girlfriend?”
The word girlfriend passed so easily from Fleur’s lips, sending a wave of dread through me.
My head filled with curse words—in English, French, and Arabic. I couldn’t look at her now. This wasn’t how I imagined this going down. I need a chance to talk to her—to explain everything in private, without Fleur and the rest of the damned school listening in.
But Fleur had said the word I’d been dreading, the word I never wanted Maggie to hear from anyone but me. Hell, let’s be real, I would have rather eaten glass than told her what Fleur casually mentioned now.
I didn’t want to look at Maggie. I couldn’t look at Maggie. I owed her an explanation—an apology—so much more than what I could give her. But I felt frozen, unable to move, unable to think of anything I could do that would save this moment.
Her head jerked up from the plate and the anger flashing across her face was a knife slashing me open. But it was nothing compared to the hurt that followed, clouding her beautiful brown eyes. Shame filled me. Not for the first time, I wished I could go back and undo everything that happened this summer. I wished things were different. I wished I was different. I’d never been one for regrets. Until now.
This girl brought me to my fucking knees.
Copyright © 2014 by Chanel Cleeton
Originally a Florida girl, at seventeen CHANEL CLEETON moved to London to attend an international university. In the four years that followed, she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, learned how to dance, traveled through Europe, and made lifelong friendships. Chanel fell in love with London and planned to stay there forever. But fate intervened on a Caribbean cruise, when an American fighter pilot with smooth dance moves swept her off her feet.
Now, a happily ever after later, Chanel is living her next adventure in South Korea. An avid reader and hopeless romantic, she is happiest curled up with a book. She has a weakness for handbags, puppy cuddles, and her fighter pilot husband.
For more on Chanel’s books, visit www.chanelcleeton.com, follow her on Twitter @ChanelCleeton or become a fan on Facebook and Goodreads.
ISBN-13: 9781459255470
I SEE LONDON
Copyright © 2014 by Chanel Cleeton
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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I See London Page 29
