by Sofia Tate
Crazy for Him
A Novella
Sofia Tate
New York Boston
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Table of Contents
An Excerpt from Breathless for Him
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Copyright Page
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For Megha Parekh
Because you are my rock star editor extraordinaire.
Because you get me.
Because of your boundless support, patience, and guidance.
Because you are also my friend.
CHAPTER ONE
Northern Italy
Present day
Give it to me!”
“I’m playing with it now!”
“You had your turn!”
“MOMMY!”
I look over at Tomas at the wheel of our jet-black Volvo station wagon. “Remember what I said during my C-section about being excited to have more babies?”
“Yes,” he replies with a warm smile.
“Yeah, I think I’m good.”
Tomas laughs to himself as I turn around to reprimand my five-year-old daughters. “Mimi, you had your time with the iPad. It’s Marika’s turn now.”
“You know, Mommy, it would be much easier if you bought us another iPad so we wouldn’t have to share this one,” Mimi remarks in exasperation.
“Yes, it would.”
I turn back around with a smug grin. “Yay! She’s getting us another iPad!” I hear Mimi exclaim.
Marika sighs in reply. “Oh, dear, you don’t know anything, do you?”
“Be nice, Marika,” Tomas admonishes her from the driver’s seat.
God, I love my girls. They may be twins with matching blonde hair, but they’re so different. Mimi is named for her godmother Allegra’s signature role from La Bohème. She’s a dreamer who worships Disney princesses. Marika, a realist whose nose is always in a book, is named after Tomas’s mother.
We’re on the autostrada on our way back home to Geneva, where we’ll spend a week before flying to the Czech Republic to enjoy the last of our summer vacation with Tomas’s family. Then he’ll fly to London to start rehearsals for his lead role in Aïda at Covent Garden, and we’ll join him for opening night as we always do for all his performances.
“They’re fighting because it’s late,” Tomas points out.
I check on the girls. The iPad is now with Marika, and Mimi is pouting as she watches the Italian countryside rush by. Peace is restored for the moment. “Thank you, Captain Obvious. The girls wanted more time in the pool with Serena. I didn’t want to put an end to their fun. They only see Serena in the summer when we visit Allegra and Davison.”
“Well, it’s getting dark and we have another three-hour drive ahead of us. I say we find a motel and just start fresh in the morning.”
I let out a long yawn. “I agree, baby. Let’s keep an eye out.”
Tomas quickly glances over at me, mindful of the road. “I have an idea to keep us awake until we find something.”
“Tell me, Prague Boy. I’ll try anything at this point.”
“You’ve told me before how much you love my accent.”
I give him a quizzical look. “Hmm, I don’t recall ever saying that.”
He raises his eyebrow at me. “Yes, it must’ve been my imagination,” he teases me. “Maybe we could tell each other our story. You know… how we met, how we fell in love.”
I take a deep breath. “Hmm, that might be kind of nice.”
He nods with a smile. “Shall we start with the day we first met?”
I grin widely and nod. “The day I met The Wall.”
* * *
Lucy
The Gotham Conservatory
New York, NY
Six years ago
“Will you hurry up, Lucy? You know how Waltz hates it when we’re late!”
I’m rushing with Alli down the hallway to our Wagner seminar at our grad school, the Gotham Conservatory near Gramercy Park, trying to juggle my coffee travel mug in one hand while checking my phone with the other. I frown at the email that just popped up, shoving the phone into my coat pocket. “Correction. He hates it when I’m late. Everyone loves Allegra. And by the way, you still haven’t told me what happened with Money Boy after I left you in front of Lincoln Center.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You’re such a drama queen. He only picks on you because your German is flawless and he’s trying to challenge you. And we’ll talk about Davison later.”
I turn to look at her with a knowing grin. “Bet your ass we will. And yes, this is true. My German is—”
Oof!
Without looking where I was going, which I could’ve sworn was down an open hallway, I bump into a wall. But a wall doesn’t grab you by your upper arms, holding them with a vise-like grip.
And a wall doesn’t have a broad chest, solid with muscle.
And a wall really doesn’t have a face with brilliant sapphire eyes, an aquiline nose, full lips that smile back at you wickedly, and a mop of dark blond hair falling across its forehead.
Then The Wall speaks to me in a deep European accent. “Are you all right?”
And that’s when I lose all train of thought.
Alli clears her throat to snap me out of my trance. “Oh, hi, Tomas. We’re just on our way to Waltz’s class.”
“Hallo, Allegra,” The Wall replies to my best friend without taking his eyes from mine, still grinning like a damn fox about to dive into its catch of the day. “Do you speak?” he directs to me.
What an asshole.
That’s it.
“Yeah, I bloody do speak. And you were in my fucking way, so how about you step aside so I can get to class?”
“Are you British?”
I shake my head in confusion. “What?”
“You said ‘bloody.’ When I learned English back in the Czech Republic, we were taught using British textbooks.”
Oh my God.
Disarmed.
That’s what I am right now. Disarmed. I can’t think, and I’ve lost my ability to speak. And I’ve never been disarmed in my life. I’ve always been in control of myself, my environment, what’s going on around me. I have to be because of my size. At the first slightest sense of discomfort, of any type of mocking or insult, my defenses go up and I wield my shield of armor like the fierce warrior maiden Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre, my favorite role to sing.
But with this guy, the steel inside me that I usually arm myself with has melted. It pours like molten lava out of my brain, leaving me without the ability to speak. The absence of the armor causes me to turn inwardly with my shoulders instead of ramrod straight with my back as it usually does to prepare myself for battle. My brain has turned to mush. Words escape me. And it’s all because of him. This Tomas guy, whose blue eyes appear to have softened as they roam over my body, a slight grin forming at the corner of his mouth. And that accent….I’ve always had a thing for guys with accents, but this one…it doesn’t hint at a man who considers himself a Lothario or ladies’ man, but someone who knows himself, is confident, and doesn’t pretend to be someone he’s not, someone who doesn’t spew bullshit just to get a woman to like him, and, God help me, someone who is genuinely a nice guy.
And then there’s that chest of his. When I bumped into him, I felt every corded muscle, every hard ab p
ress against my curves. I imagine his nipples to be mere pebbles on top of his well-developed pecs. I envision myself running my mouth over them, teasing him with my tongue as I take them into my mouth and suck on them until I hear him grunt back at me, telling me not to stop in Czech with that smooth accent of his. Holding on to his biceps was akin to clinging onto a pair of rounded boulders inside his flesh. I could barely hang on to them, and yet, I knew I was safe with him because his hold on me was so assured that I knew he wouldn’t have let any harm come to me. I’m disarmed because a man like that has never shown any interest in me. That hasn’t been my experience.
And suddenly it returns, the shield of armor, heavy in my hands, ready to defend myself against empty words and promises, words that tell me how beautiful I am that will turn hollow at the sight of me naked in front of this man and make me want to cry and loathe myself for thinking for one second that any man would see past my size and want to know me instead of just wanting to be able to brag to his Wall Street buddies that he nailed the fat chick.
I’m now prepared for battle, shield in place.
I stare at him directly in the eye. “Yeah, that’s fascinating. Now move it, jerk!”
He pauses for a second, then takes a step to let me pass.
I don’t even bother giving him the satisfaction of a thank you. He’s the one who bumped into me, after all. He needs to look where he’s going. I thunder past him, hearing Alli behind me saying to him, “See you later, Tomas.”
We rush into class just as Professor Waltz steps up to the lectern. “Ah, Fräulein Orsini and Fräulein Gibbons. Lovely of you to join us.”
“So sorry, professor,” I hear Allegra reply in apology to him. I don’t say anything, instead zeroing in on the last two empty seats in the back of the room.
Alli and I collapse into them, pulling out our notebooks and pens from our bags. I flip mine open to a blank page, quickly jotting a note to her.
I nudge her elbow with mine, pointing with my pen to the page. “Who was that?”
She quickly writes back, checking to make sure Waltz isn’t looking our way. “Tomas Novotny, transfer student from outside of Prague. I met him in the bursar’s office. Nice guy. He’s a tenor.”
“Like I fucking care what kind of singer he is.”
No reply. I look over at her. She’s giving me the “Yeah, right. Give me a break” look. “Of course you don’t,” she writes back.
Suddenly, Professor Waltz’s voice grows louder. When I turn my head, he’s standing closer to us, only a few feet away, still lecturing, but his eyes sear into mine pointedly.
I nod and focus on the lesson.
I start to write down what Professor Waltz is saying about Wagner and where he got the inspiration for Der Ring des Nibelungen. When I look down at my notebook, I see what I’ve written.
One word. Tomas.
I clench my teeth together, scribbling out his name. I shut my eyes, inhaling and exhaling a cleansing breath.
I don’t understand what’s happened. Guys come and go, and in my case, there’s a revolving door when it comes to my dating life. So why the hell am I scribbling down this guy’s name unconsciously?
You know why.
Because this guy is the first one in a long time who’s ever affected me like this.
But I meant what I wrote.
I don’t care that he’s a tenor.
I don’t care that Tomas Novotny’s voice enraptured me, as I silently begged him to say something else just so I could hear it.
I don’t care that I imagined what Tomas Novotny’s lips would feel like on mine as I accepted his tongue into my mouth.
I don’t care that the tight black Henley shirt he was wearing stretched out across his broad chest, accentuating every chiseled muscle on his body.
And I don’t care that my core clenched just from being in the presence of Tomas Novotny. Or that my heart beat a pulse faster, my breath caught, and I lost all train of thought. Or that I imagined what it would be like if I were Tomas Novotny’s girlfriend, how he would brag to his friends, “Hey, have you met my girlfriend, Luciana Gibbons? Isn’t she gorgeous? And she sings like an angel.” And he would never call me Lucy, because I know “Luciana” would roll off his tongue so seamlessly, so smoothly in that lush accent of his.
Nope, I don’t care. Not one iota.
CHAPTER TWO
Northern Italy
Present day
A twinkle appears in Tomas’s eyes when he glances over at me. “I knew you noticed all that.”
“How did you know?”
He shakes his head and smiles amusedly at me. “How? Well, let’s see. You didn’t say anything at first. The way you yelled at me and looked at me. But even more, it was your eyes.” His voice softens. “Your beautiful light blue eyes that look like a cloudless sky.”
I give him a quick smile, then burst into laughter. “Where do you come up with this stuff? ‘A cloudless sky.’ Seriously?”
Suddenly, Tomas’s mouth drops into a frown. “Why would you laugh? I mean it. You have beautiful eyes. And how you looked at me, it stirred me. I knew you were attracted to me, but I wanted to treat you properly and not make you think I was going to use you and throw you away. I just had the sense that had happened to you before, and I wanted to prove that I wouldn’t ever do that to you.”
The tender tone in his voice sends shivers up and down my skin.
God, I’m such a bitch sometimes.
“Baby, I’m sorry. After all these years, I’m still shocked by how much you put up with when it comes to me.”
Tomas leans in, grabbing my hand. “Luciana, if I don’t put up with it, then I don’t get you. Very simple.”
Ugh, this man just kills me. Too fucking sweet for words. I totally don’t deserve him.
I cough to clear my choked-up throat. “So, going back to us. Remember the first time we truly talked in the cafeteria at school?”
“You were so nervous,” Tomas reminds me.
“I was not!” I counter.
Busted. How did he know? Because I totally was.
* * *
Lucy
The Gotham Conservatory
Six years ago
I step into the familiar space of the cafeteria of our school, rummaging around in my purse for my wallet when I look up…
Shit.
Tomas Novotny is sitting at a table reading a book.
This time he’s wearing a tight white T-shirt that stretches across The Wall, as I’ve now come to refer to his broad chest. The fabric accentuates every muscle on the front of his body. A chunk of his dark blond hair falls softly over his forehead into his eyes, and I watch as he pushes it away with his long fingers. Fingers that I imagine running through my own hair as he pulls my face to his…
Fucking hell.
I shut my eyes and shake my head to clear it, taking a deep breath to calm myself.
It had been about a week since my first encounter with him. I thought since seven days had passed that those initial feelings I had for him would have dissipated by now.
Fat fucking chance, judging by the reaction I just had.
I inhale another shot of fresh oxygen. These feelings I’m having for him…I’m not used to them. And yet again, I’m feeling disarmed. I don’t like it because it’s not who I am. I’m tough and I always have my guard up waiting for the moment when a person’s ulterior motives reveal themselves, despite all evidence of good intentions to the contrary.
It’s not even that. Deep down, I know what scares me about him. That a guy as good-looking as Tomas Novotny would be interested in someone like me.
Without warning, my feet become a separate entity from my body as I unconsciously begin to walk toward him. His eyes are still focused on the book, even though he knows I’m standing right next to him.
Fine, if that’s how he wants to play it. I noisily clear my throat. “Ahem!”
He finally looks up at me, his mouth curling into a slow grin as his
eyes begin roaming over my body. Again, just like the first time.
What the hell? Is he seriously checking me out?
“Luciana, lovely to see you.”
Oh fuck me, that accent…
I clear my throat to regain my voice, which seemed to have disappeared. “Hello, Tomas. How are you?”
God, that sounded so formal.
I hate myself so hard right now.
“I’m well, thank you. And you?”
Those gorgeous lips just said something to me.
Focus, dammit.
“I’m good.”
He keeps staring at me.
Say something…
“Oh, umm…Allegra told me what you’d be singing at the benefit. “Nessun dorma,” “O sole mio,” and the signature aria from Pagliacci. Basically, all of the Pavarotti hits.”
“Yes, that’s true. I’m glad I can help.”
He smiles at me, and this time, it’s a sweet smile, one that makes me want to smile in return because it seems so sincere and even more, it makes me want to sit down and just be in his presence, but I just can’t…I’m just too scared of getting hurt.
“Okay…well then. I gotta go—”
I turn to walk away when Tomas’s strong hand grips my wrist, the one that held my left upper arm so steadily when I’d walked right into him.
“Stay, Luciana,” he whispers roughly and deeply.
I try to remove my wrist from his tight hold, my heart racing. “I…I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Please.”
The low rumble in his voice captures my attention. I instantly stop pulling away from his hold. “Okay.”
He releases my arm and gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit. Please.”
I do as he asks, planting myself down. When I look over at him, he’s leaning back in his chair, his eyes searing into me. “I haven’t seen you since you bumped into me last week.”
My eyebrows raise at his comment. “Umm, I think you’ve got that all wrong. You bumped into me.”
