Engaged to the EMT

by Piper Rayne

  “She knows. She agreed to the plan. I just have to tell her it’s over. That we’re not going to play future bride and groom anymore. Laying on the stretcher made me realize I’ve been an idiot for ever coming up with that plan.”

  “Finally, some sense,” Mauro says.

  “Just relax,” Luca bites out.

  “How will she handle that? You two seemed really close lately,” Cristian asks.

  She’ll understand. We get each other. I owe her two more Blackhawks games but…”

  Those three words I was intent on speaking are swept away like dust in the wind.

  “Are you going in, dear?” A nurse touches my elbow startling me from my eavesdropping.

  “No, not anymore.” I start to turn back the way I came and stop.

  Luca was using me as his fiancée…but he slept with me. Was that always part of his plan? All those stupid lines that I fell for… ‘I wasn’t a romantic until I met you.’ He played me, using everything at his disposal, even Briana. Giving me that word priceless to describe her and put in her ornament. He knew exactly what he was doing.

  Mauro’s right, he needs a little lesson of his own. “Actually.” I touch the nurse’s arm who’s about to go into the room. “Could you give me one minute?”

  She smiles. “Sure. Do you want me to kick the other two out?”

  I smile back. “No. I can handle that.”

  She pats my hand where it still rests on her arm. “I’ll give you two some time then.”

  Once she disappears into another room down the hall, I look both ways like I’m about to commit a felony.

  I walk in and all six eyes shift to me.

  Mauro looks hesitant.

  Cristian appears sorrowful.

  Luca… well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not actually looking at him. If I did, I don’t know if I could keep from strangling him.

  “Baby,” he coos.

  I inhale a breath to settle myself before I pick up the chair and throw it at him.

  “You think you fooled me? Joke’s on you, Luca.”

  “What?” His forehead scrunches up.

  “Lauren.” Cristian comes to my side, touching my elbow.

  I wrench it out of his grip. “I heard your little confession to your brothers.” I look at both of them. “Yes, I agreed to play his fiancée and I’m sorry. Mostly to your mom, but I did it and I can’t take it back.” I look toward Luca, but I’m really just looking over his head, still not able to stomach making eye contact with him. “Did you think what was between us was real?” I let a caustic laugh loose. “You were a convenient lay. That’s all. But I’m glad we’re on the same page. It makes our fake break-up easy. Have a nice life, Luca.”

  I turn to leave, praying the tears pricking my eyes don’t fall.

  “Hunt!” he hollers, and my feet stop at the door’s edge. He uses the name he used all through high school. How convenient. “It was really a joke? You didn’t feel anything?” I hear the crack in his voice and he almost has me. Almost. But I know it’s just his ego that’s feeling the sting of my rejection right now.

  “I felt nothing. Have a nice life, Bianco.” I walk out the hospital room, down the hall, push open the doors, and run out of the hospital and into the ice-cold night.

  He doesn’t try to stop me by running after me like it’s a Hallmark movie. Hell, this feels more like a Nicholas Sparks movie.

  I slip into the first cab I come across, finally letting the tears fall down my face. I always knew heartache was inevitable and I curse myself for giving my heart to that man.

  I’ll allow myself one night of regret before I pick myself up and get on with my life, free of Luca Bianco.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Luca

  The morning glow seeps into the front room of the house as I walk in after being discharged. The decorations are still up, the tree bare without a single ornament still stands. Everything is where it’s supposed to be. I half expected my shit to be in a pile at the curb, our tree to be tossed on the front lawn and any decorations I purchased broken into pieces.

  I guess I feel like the space Lauren and I shared should resemble what my hollowed out heart feels like—broken and destroyed.

  I walk up the stairs, hoping she’s still asleep so we can hash out the truth. Lauren can say whatever she wants but I know what she felt for me and it was love. The way her body quivered under my touch and she always leaned into me, we were on our way to a record-breaking start.

  I understand why she did it, turned the tables and tried to play us off like we were nothing to her. She wanted to save face.

  What she didn’t wait around to hear with her eavesdropping in the hallway was me telling my brothers how deeply in love I am with her. That I’ve fallen so hard and fast for her that I don’t want to be without her by my side. How I wanted to come clean because one day I want to ask her to be my wife for real, with a new ring and a new start.

  I never got to that part because Lauren is a reactor. It takes one to know one and I’m sure I would’ve done the exact same thing she did—stormed in and tried to hurt the person who hurt her.

  Hell, I struck back by calling her Hunt before I realized what was really going on.

  So now I have to make her see that she didn’t see the whole picture with what she overheard, just a small part of the canvas. But my girl can be stubborn. This is going to take some work.

  Stepping up to her room, I knock lightly and slowly open the door.

  I’m greeted with a lifeless room and a made bed. Heading to the bathroom, I see that all her toiletries are gone. A squeezing sensation constricts my chest—she’s trying to run from me. From us.

  Limping my way back into her bedroom, I check her closet and see that her clothes are all still hung up which means she plans to come back at some point.

  “Luca!” Ma calls out from downstairs.

  Shit, what the hell are they doing here?

  I walk down the stairs, trying not to put too much pressure on my right leg. The painkillers the hospital gave me are starting to wear off and the burn hurts like a bitch. The only good thing about any of this is that I’ve gotten medical leave through the holidays so there will be plenty of time for make-up sex with Lauren—after we make-up that is.

  When I reach the bottom of the stairs, Ma places her hands on my cheeks, staring at me like I might turn to dust at any moment. After she seems content that I’m alive and well, she wraps her arms around me.

  “Hey, Ma.” You’re never too old to feel safe and loved from one of your mom’s hugs and I sink into her and squeeze her back.

  “I’m so happy you’re okay.”

  “Okay, Maria, let the boy be.” My dad taps her arm and she finally releases her hold.

  “I don’t know why you boys have to pick these jobs. Your cousins are all safe in offices.” She shakes her head and makes her way over to the couch to sit down.

  Little does she know the crazy ass shit those three do outside of those offices, but those aren’t my stories to tell.

  “You good?” my dad asks, shaking my hand, his eyes inspecting every inch of my body.

  “Just a little sore, but okay.”

  “Where’s Lauren?” Ma asks, looking around. She picks up a snow globe of Christkindlmarket I found two days ago and surprised Lauren with.

  “Can I come by your place in a little bit? I have somewhere to go.”

  Ma puts the snow globe down and studies my face. As though she’s a psychic who can sense when I’ve done wrong, her lips tip down.

  “Where’s Lauren, Luca?” This time the question isn’t asked with curiosity, it’s with a finger pointed right at my chest.

  I let out a deep breath which seems like all I’ve been doing recently. “Sit down.”

  My dad’s face grows serious, but he does as I ask.

  I sit as well then pull out my phone, sending Lauren a quick text before this conversation starts. That way by the time my parents disown me, I’ll kno
w where to find her.

  Me: Where are you? (A gif of Superman looking everywhere in the sky)

  “Put the phone away,” my mom says, clasping her two hands in her lap like she’s a priest waiting for my confession. The problem is I could say a million Hail Mary’s and it wouldn’t make this right in Ma’s mind.

  Tucking my phone into my pocket, I’m hoping like hell I feel it vibrate in a second.

  Yeah, I’m totally smoking crack thinking she’ll respond.

  “Talk,” Ma says.

  I worry about Ma. This was all to help her, but now that it’s come down to me confessing I can only hope that I don’t do her more harm.

  “I don’t know where Lauren is.”

  My mom nods, waiting for more.

  “She’s mad at me.”

  “Why?” my dad asks.

  My mom continues to stare at me, her mouth shut. She’s waiting for me to fess up. This has always been her way and although I haven’t had to experience it since high school, I forgot how intimidating she is when she does this.

  “She overheard me talking to Cris and Mauro…”

  “What did you say?” my dad asks. He’s still calm. Maybe this will go smoother than I thought.

  “Just that…”

  “Spit it out, Luca!” my dad yells.

  My mom smacks his leg. “Give him a minute, Tony.”

  My dad springs to his feet, walking over to the window. I think about the figure eights Lauren does when she’s upset. A small smile almost comes to my lips until I see my mom. Sitting and waiting.

  It’s now or never. “Ma, our engagement was a fake.” I rush out the words and there’s a certain amount of freedom now that I’ve said them out loud, but I also feel sick waiting for her reaction.

  And then…she doesn’t react. I half expected her to pass out and I’d be doing CPR while my dad called nine-one-one.

  “Did you hear me?” I ask.

  “I did.” Her face is blank.

  “Did your brothers get all the brains? What the hell did we do wrong, Maria?” My dad looks at my mom, completely bewildered. Though I’m mildly offended about him calling me stupid, I can’t argue with him because right now because I’ve lost the only woman I want to spend my life with.

  Ma holds up her hand for my dad to stop his ranting, her eyes poised on me, waiting for me to continue.

  “Before your surgery I wanted you to know that all your boys were happy and would be taken care of, so I asked Lauren to pretend to be my fiancée.”

  A low grumble floats over from my dad.

  “She agreed to do it because I convinced her it was what was best for you and it helped her solve an issue she was having at work.”

  She nods.

  “What did you think would happen? Did you think you’d marry her just to save face? When are you ever going to grow up? I’ve let you off too easy. This is all because he was the baby, Maria.”

  Ma raises her hand again and my dad stops. I take nothing he says seriously, it’s the Italian temper and I can hardly deny that this wasn’t my brightest plan.

  “We announced the engagement and I bought her the ring, but she was never my girlfriend,” I continue.

  Well, she kind of was for the blink of an eye.

  My mom’s hand falls to my knee. “She was.”

  “No Mom, it was all an act.”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  My dad takes a few steps closer to us. “Maria, he’s admitting it. She was like those girls who call the deli.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Ma’s voice holds the conviction that she’s right.

  My head swivels to my dad. “She wasn’t, Dad. She was never one of those.”

  “Did you sleep with her?” he asks.

  I really don’t want to answer that in front of my Catholic mother. But I do. I nod, hoping my confession doesn’t make my mom go to church asking for my forgiveness.

  “Then?”

  “Lauren was never like those other girls.”

  “You both deceived us. You slept with her with no intention of being her boyfriend or marrying her. How is she any different Luca?” My dad steps even closer.

  “Because she’s my everything,” I whisper. My chin falls to my chest in shame as the realization dawns on me—she really is everything good in me. She finds everything that is right with me and draws it out.

  “Then why the hell are you here?” He grips my shoulder and squeezes.

  “Because she heard me say she was nothing.”

  Ma’s squeezes my hand between both of hers. “Then you go convince her she’s your everything.” Ma’s hand moves to my cheek. “Time for you to grow up, Luca.”

  “I love her, Ma.” She pats my cheek once more.

  “I know that, but I’m not the one who needs to hear it.”

  I spring up off the couch and grab my coat before I realize that I have another problem. “I can’t drive.” I stare down at my injured leg.

  “Come on, Maria, let’s help our boy get his girl.” My dad takes his keys out of his pocket.

  I’m locking up the door when a hand whips me across the back of my head.

  My hand covers the injured spot. “Ma?”

  She shakes her head and walks down the stairs to my dad’s car.

  I guess I deserved that one.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Lauren

  “I think you should answer his text.” Maddie sits next to me on my parents’ couch, pretending to flip through a magazine.

  I’ve confessed my sins to everyone—my two best friends, my parents—everyone now knows what an idiot I am. Thankfully, they’ve decided to take the approach of being a support system to the down and out rather than lecturing me on my wrongdoings. I think they all feel sorry for me, which is probably pretty easy given my state of being at the moment.

  I spoon myself up another heap of cookie dough. Somehow the gooey chocolate doesn’t taste nearly as good as it did the last time I had it.

  “I don’t care to hear his rehearsed bullshit excuse.”

  Van sits down in the chair by the door, crossing her legs. “I’m not sure that when it comes to Luca, anything’s rehearsed.”

  “Van!” The magazine drops into Maddie’s lap.

  “What? You know it’s true. He isn’t one to talk it out before he says whatever’s going through his mind. If he was, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “Why’s that?” Maddie asks.

  “Because he would’ve started by telling his brothers how in love with Lauren he was. Not how the whole thing was fake.”

  “Why are you so insistent to believe we have some special bond?” I ask around my spoon. “He admitted to his brothers that it was all a game.”

  Vanessa remains quiet, her eyes on mine. For the first time in a while, I can’t figure out what’s behind those blue eyes.

  “What?” I ask, spooning another cookie’s worth of dough into my mouth.

  “Okay, I’m just going to pull the plug on the dough.” Maddie takes the bowl, but I steal it right back.

  “I’m afforded twenty-four hours to eat whatever I want.” Spooning another extra big helping into my mouth, I mumble. “I still have at least ten hours left.”

  “I’m making your favorite.” My mom rushes in from the kitchen, picking up the candy wrappers from the glass table by my feet. “Chicken and dumplings.” She squeezes my ankle. “After that night here, I never would’ve thought he’d break your heart.”

  “He didn’t break my heart.”

  My mom stops cleaning, Maddie stops reading, and Vanessa stops fidgeting.

  “You guys think he broke me? He didn’t break me. I knew the score when I signed on.”

  It’s bullshit and they know it, but how can I admit that I fell for the biggest playboy in Chicago and actually thought I meant something to him? I believed the lies he spewed. I invited him into my bed and unfortunately, my heart.

  God, he did break me.

 
Twenty-four hours is a joke. I wouldn’t be over him if I ate ten bowls of cookie dough.

  “So, maybe I kind of liked him.”

  Maddie’s hand covers my knee. “Maybe even love?”

  I point the spoon at her. “That’s taking it too far, Mad.”

  I’m lying, and they all know it, but I need to save a little face here. Pride has long been one of my downfalls.

  The doorbell rings and I tense up and still like it’s Michael Myers and he’s about to murder us all. I want to whisper, tell them not to answer the door, there’s nothing good on the other side.

  But Vanessa stands, and her hand covers the doorknob before I can speak.

  “Well, look who we have here.” Vanessa slips through the door and shuts it behind her.

  I glance over to Maddie. She bites her lip.

  My mom disappears into the kitchen, hopefully, to bake a pie we can throw in Luca’s face.

  Vanessa is the worst bouncer ever because when the door opens again, it’s Luca himself walking through it. He scours the room until he finds me on the couch.

  I’m regretting the fact that I’m wallowing while wearing sweats and a sweatshirt with my hair piled on top of my head and my face stripped of any makeup. Way to let him see what he’s leaving behind.

  Maddie stands up, the magazine long forgotten. Surely, she won’t let him get to me. She’ll shove him out the door and kick him in the nuts for me.

  All that angry energy she had earlier dissolves when Mr. and Mrs. Bianco walk through the door.

  He brought his parents? Dumb move, I’ll still annihilate him.

  “Ma. Pa?” Maddie asks, confused as I am as to what they’re doing here.

  I unhook my ponytail, my dark hair falling down my shoulders.

  My mom walks into the room. “Maria? Anthony?” She hugs each one of them, placing a kiss on their cheeks. “FRED!”

  Luca cringes when my mom calls my dad.

  Good because the tables are about to turn. Luca might have helped my dad see the light, as proven by my team picture now on the Hunt wall of fame, but he hurt me, and my dad is going to nail him to the wall for it.