by Lauren Layne
“Ooh, personal life,” Elena said, pushing forward into the tiny room, making it feel even smaller. “What are we dealing with here? Women? No, wait…Woman. Singular. Ava?”
Luc growled. “You all know I brought her over for dinner once, right? And only at Nonna’s insistence? I don’t understand how you all have us on the verge of our honeymoon.”
“Rumor has it she’s been at your place most nights this week.”
“Wonder where that started,” Luc said with a pointed glare at Anthony. His oldest brother had the decency to look slightly apologetic.
“That, and you held her hand like a whipped schoolboy,” Vin said, leaning against the doorway with his usual glare.
Luc ground his teeth but didn’t really have a response. The truth was, Ava sometimes did make him feel like a schoolboy.
Except when she made him feel very much like a man, like when she made those breathy gasps…
He shifted awkwardly and his brothers gave him a look that said, our mother is right there, man. Keep your thoughts clean.
“So, are we done here?” Luc said, standing. “Everyone’s said what they need to say about my sex life, and my professional career, and my apparent lack of judgment?”
This last bit he said with a glare at his father, who glared right back, and the mood in the room slipped from jovial to wary in about five seconds.
“More wine,” Elena muttered to herself, scooting out of the room. “Always more wine.”
“What about my homemade limoncello?” Nonna said, half chasing after her. “You said you’d try it.”
“She only said she’d try it because you wouldn’t shut up,” Luc’s mother said, following the other two women out of the room. “If she wanted limoncello, she’d have my limoncello.”
Anth and Vin exchanged a glance. “Scotch?”
“Me too!” Luc called after them. “Make it a double.”
This conversation was over.
He started to follow his brothers, but his father’s hand found his shoulder. “Luca.”
Luc stiffened.
“I…” His father cleared his throat. “I did what I did…I say what I say…I want to protect you.”
“Because I’m the bambino,” Luc said, unable to keep the frustrated hostility out of his voice.
Tony met his eyes unflinchingly. “Because you’re my son. You think I haven’t kept an eye on all my boys? You think it was easy to be police commissioner and father to four cops? You think it’s not a daily struggle, even now, to let you live your lives without wanting to fight for you?”
No, Luc thought, searching his father’s face.
It wouldn’t be easy.
Not for a man who was even more dedicated to being a good dad than he had been to being a world-class cop.
Slowly, Luc nodded. “I get it.”
I forgive you.
Not that his father was expecting, or even wanting forgiveness.
His father nodded back.
As far as communication went, it left a lot to be desired. But for now, it was enough.
Or so Luc thought.
“Luca,” his father said when Luc was about to step into the hallway to seek out a much needed drink.
“Yeah.”
“I like Ava,” his father said after a brief pause. “She’s smart.”
Luc said nothing, bracing for the but.
“Just…be careful. If you’re as confident as you seem that there’s nothing but a short-term fling between you two, there’s also nothing to stop her from prioritizing her career over your non-relationship.”
The tension that had just started to dissipate increased tenfold as Luc took in the truth of what his father was trying to tell him.
He and Ava had made damn sure they both understood their zero-commitment situation.
And his father was right.
Ava wanted to be anchorwoman more than anything.
Hell, he liked that about her.
But if Luc was little more than a fuck-buddy…
What was to stop her from using him as a stepping-stone to her ultimate goal?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I swear to God, Sims, if you’re going to try to put makeup on me again for this interview…”
“Nope,” she said, topping off both of their wineglasses at her tiny kitchen table. “I’ve already told the crew that you’ve insisted on looking blotchy and tired on national television.”
“Blotchy and tired, huh?” Luc asked as he took their Thai food out of the delivery bag. “You didn’t seem to think I was blotchy and tired when you jumped my bones as soon as I entered the door.”
She took a sip of wine. “What can I say? I may be changing my mind about that whole man-in-uniform thing.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Told you. Chicks dig it.”
Ava frowned before she could catch herself.
Chicks dig it.
As in, other women liked Luc in uniform.
Other women probably liked Luc out of uniform too.
Ava’s frown became a full-on scowl, and she moved to the fridge to put the wine away before he could catch her expression.
She had no claim on him. She knew that. Ava didn’t want a claim on Luc Moretti or any other man. Fidelity for as long as they were sleeping together, sure. But they both knew the name of the game:
They’d part ways before things got serious.
He’d see other women. She’d…
Well…
Crap. The thought of other men didn’t appeal.
And the thought of Luc’s hands on another woman…that didn’t appeal either. In fact, Ava was feeling downright stabby just thinking about it.
She slammed the fridge door with more force than necessary. What was going on here?
“Sims, how much pad Thai do you want?” he asked, oblivious to her unfamiliar feelings of possessiveness.
“Surprise me,” she said, pasting a smile on her face and returning to the table.
He gave her a look. “Are you still sulking because I wouldn’t let you order sushi again?”
She plucked a peanut from the top of the pad Thai container. “Considering the fact that you’ve been occasionally throwing Spicy Tuna at me as a nickname, I decided it was time to branch out.”
“Well, as someone that grew up on steadily Italian fare, I’m not one to talk about variety, but I’ve seen you every night this week, and we’ve had sushi for four of them. Is that even healthy?”
“Probably not,” she said as he placed a plate in front of her. “But these spring rolls aren’t exactly a salad with dressing on the side now either, are they?”
In response, he picked up one of the deep-fried rolls, bit it neatly in half, and then turned it to show her the exposed filling. “You seeing what I’m seeing, Sims?”
“Steam?”
“Carrot,” he said before popping the second half in his mouth.
“Three whole tiny shreds of a carrot? Pump the brakes on the health kick there, Moretti. Who says police officers have bad diets?”
Luc paused in his chewing. “Yeah, who does say that?”
She shrugged. “What can I say, the doughnut thing is pervasive.”
“You’re not putting any doughnut references in your story, are you?” he asked skeptically.
Ava fiddled with her fork. Talking with Luc about the news special was unavoidable. It was the entire reason they were even together.
But lately, she tensed whenever it came up “after hours.”
She was too afraid that he’d ask the wrong question—or the right question, depending how you looked at it—and she’d be forced to
(a) lie to him
(b) tell him about her suspicions of a two-year-old cover-up
Either option would mean losing him. Hell, her current path of lying by omission would mean losing him.
She just wanted to put it off for as long as she could.
“Of course I’m mentioning doughnuts,” she said, reaching ov
er to pat his cheek. “It’s part of my intro.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and studied her. “You know, despite the fact that I’m the star of this thing, how is it that I don’t even have the faintest inkling of what the final product will look like?”
Her eyes dropped to her plate. There he went with the questions again. There was nothing suspicious in his tone, but he was right…she’d been very deliberate about not bringing him into the production of the series.
She still dropped by the precinct from time to time, still followed him and Sawyer around once or twice a week in hopes that they’d get some sort of thrilling footage…
But for the most part she tried to separate Officer Moretti, America’s Hero from Luc.
Her Luc.
Ava caught movement out of the corner of her eye and leaned down to see her cat accepting a piece of chicken from Luc’s fingers.
Her mouth dropped open and she used her fork to point at the cat. “What is happening there?”
Luc gave her a guilty expression. “Is he not allowed table scraps?”
“No, that’s not a big deal, but what is he doing out from under the couch?”
Luc reached down to scratch the cat under the chin. “What do you mean? We’re buds.”
“No,” she said shaking her head. “Honky Tonky doesn’t have buds. He doesn’t like people.”
The fat cat leaped into Luc’s lap, making a liar out of her. Traitor she mouthed.
The cat yawned.
“Your kitty likes men in uniform too.” He set the cat back on the floor so he could continue eating, and the cat mewled in protest.
“You’re not even in uniform,” she said, waving a hand over him.
He was wearing a white undershirt and some blue pajama pants left by her brother on the one and only time he’d come to visit her in New York and stayed at her apartment.
Luc sat back in his chair, eating another spring roll, and Ava narrowed her eyes at the speculative way he was watching her.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just trying to figure out what causes that look.”
“I have a look?”
“Babe, you’ve got dozens. But there’s one in particular I don’t like. As though a rancid memory is stuck in your throat.”
“So what, you’re a poet now?” she muttered, grabbing at her wineglass.
Luc shrugged affably. “Fine. Don’t talk about it.”
He reached for a box of some beef dish she’d forgotten the name of, and dumped more onto his plate, the topic apparently forgotten.
He didn’t push.
And unfortunately for both of them, his quiet understanding and no-pressure attitude are exactly what she needed to want to spill her guts.
So she did.
“My family is a bunch of shallow, glory-seeking jerks.”
Luc’s chewing slowed and he got up to fetch the wine bottle. “Okay. I knew they weren’t exactly family of the year, but…what’s that have to do with you?”
Ava shrugged moodily as he topped off her wineglass. “You won’t get this because your family is great. But sometimes I get this feeling that mine has totally messed me up.”
He sat across from her, his expression patient.
She forged on.
“It’s like…” She swirled her glass but didn’t take a sip. “Luc?”
“Sweetie?”
The endearment nearly broke her, but she forged on. “Am I bitchy? You know…cynical, shallow, ambitious, unlikable…you know…a bitch?”
Wordlessly he stood, picking up their wineglasses and jerking her head toward the couch. “We are not having this conversation with cold pad Thai between us.”
Honky Tonky followed at his heels, leaping up to his lap the second he sat down. Ava shook her head at the sight of the broad police officer and spoiled cat lounging on her couch as though they belonged there.
She hesitantly followed after them, sitting beside Luc. It was oddly vulnerable. The cold pad Thai he mentioned may be increasingly unappealing, but it had provided a buffer.
A buffer that was nowhere to be found when he gently pulled her toward him. Ava sighed in contentment as she settled against his chest, earning a glare from her cat, who refused to budge.
His hand found a strand that had escaped her ponytail, and Ava frowned at the confusion rippling through her.
Confusion at the complexity of a hero cop who was long on charm, short on pretense, with a hidden sweet side.
How was a girl supposed to resist a combo like that?
“So,” he said softly. “Who put it in your head that you’re…what word did you use? Bitchy? Do I need to beat someone up?”
She shifted her cheek against his chest, adjusting her glasses slightly. “Don’t you dare. You’ll ruin my whole story if you go vigilante on me.”
“Nah, people love that shit,” he said. “But seriously…talk to me, Sims.”
She shifted her cheek again, this time just for the sheer pleasure of feeling the soft warmth of his shirt.
“I talked to my dad today,” she said, petting the cat, who all but rolled his eyes at her.
“The mayor himself, huh?”
She smiled at that. “Seems he found time in his busy schedule of serving Darrington, Oklahoma, to pep-talk his eldest.”
“Ah, so it was one of those conversations.”
“It’s always one of those conversations,” Ava said.
She heard the bitterness in her voice and hated it. Why couldn’t she be one of those people who could shake off the opinions of those around her? Why couldn’t she be like Beth, who could cheerfully laugh off her mother’s chronic interference on all things wedding, or gently ignore her mother-in-law’s demands to sing at the ceremony?
Why did Ava have to let her family and all of their relentless ambition get under her skin?
“If you hold it all in, you’ll get constipated, Sims,” Luc said, still playing with her hair.
She smiled, in spite of herself. “Is that what they teach you at the police academy?”
“More like street smarts learned from being the youngest in a family of five. You’ve got lots of opportunities to watch your older siblings sulk their way through high school. Also, Sims? You’re stalling.”
“Fine, okay,” she said on a huff, pushing back from his chest to sit up. She reached for her wine. Took a sip, took a breath.
“I told my dad all about my story. About how it had been approved for the prime-time spot. And he was thrilled, of course, and then because I fed off his praise like I’m a pathetic seven-year-old, I kept going. I told him about all the praise I’ve been getting from the boss, and the boss’s boss, and how I think I’m going to get a promotion out of it…”
“Okay,” Luc said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“And then I realized…I don’t even know if I want it. I don’t know why I’m doing it.”
He frowned. “Don’t know why you’re doing what?”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Any of it.”
“You mean, like…this story?”
“That. And all the other crap stories CBC gives me. No offense.”
He grinned. “None taken.”
“It’s just…” She nibbled her fingernail. “I don’t want to just recite facts that are handed to me, I want to find the facts. I want…I want to tell the stories that matter. Not the ones that everyone else is telling because they’re popular. Is this crazy talk?”
Luc’s smile was gentle. “I’m going to ask you something, and promise to think on it for a second before you answer, okay?”
“’Kay,” she said warily.
“Why are you in broadcast journalism instead of investigative journalism? Not that the two have to be mutually exclusive, but I’ve seen the way you latch on to topics. I doubt you’ve ever been satisfied with trying to squeeze a juicy story into two minutes of the evening news.”
Ava looked at him. The question sounded so simp
le rolling off his lips.
The answer, she realized, was alarmingly simple as well.
She’d pursued this path because it’s the path her parents put her on. Starting when she was sixteen and her father had gotten her an internship with the local nightly news. It had continued to her college essay…her college major…her first job…all driven by her parents.
Ava groaned and rested her head on Luc’s shoulder.
“I’m pathetic.”
“You’re not,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Plenty of people get started on the wrong career track for the wrong reason. There’s no shame in it. And you have plenty of time to course-correct.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I know what I have to do, I guess. It’s just…All I’ve ever wanted is for them to be proud of me, you know? And I know that the good parents are proud of their kids for trying their hardest, or pursuing their dreams, or whatever…my parents really will only be proud of me once I’m anchorwoman. And if they’re not proud of me…who will be?”
Luc said nothing, his blue eyes steady. I will.
“Sims, do you want to be anchorwoman?”
“Of course,” was on the tip of her tongue. Even now. As though her brain had just programmed itself to perk up at the word.
She waited for the old burst of anticipation to rush through her. She used to be able to picture her future so clearly. The gorgeous clothes, the cushy chair, the easy banter she’d have with her co-anchor during light stories, and the quiet intensity she’d convey during the heavier stories.
But for the first time since she’d loaded up her used Toyota Corolla and taken a one-way trip from Oklahoma to New York, Ava had a seed of doubt:
What if it wasn’t enough?
What if there was more?
“I think the thing is,” she said, forcing herself to meet Luc’s eyes, “I’m afraid I’m sort of like that villainous career woman you see in the movies. The one that has no husband, no serious boyfriend, no baby, few friends…the one who’s got the good clothes and the perfect hair but is completely hollow.”
He opened his mouth, but she pushed on.
“Luc, if I died tomorrow…if I got hit by one of those annoying tour buses in midtown, what would people say at my funeral?”
