Impossible Things

by Alexandra McBrayer

  They were standing, watching the room, and sipping their third glasses of champagne when her mom grabbed her arm and said, “Don’t look now but there’s a man staring very intently at you who makes Rodrigo look ugly.”

  Lucy didn’t look up but her stomach clenched. In her opinion there was only one man in the world that was better looking than Rodrigo and that was Lucas.

  Her mom squeezed her arm. “He’s coming this way.”

  The fear in her belly clenched again and she put her glass to her mouth and downed its contents in one swallow. As she was bringing the glass down her eyes met Lucas’. He had stopped in front of her and her mom and was waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t he smiled at her mom and held out his hand, “Hello, I’m Lucas Antonelli.”

  Lucy didn’t look at her mom but Rosaline was breathless as she introduced herself. Lucy didn’t take her eyes off Lucas’ face as he looked at her and then back at her mom. “Hello, Lucy’s mom. I would have known it anyway. You look very much alike.”

  Rosaline laughed. “Poor Lucy, I’ve always been told that I look like my mother. It’s not always easy to be compared to someone else.”

  Lucas smiled at her mom and Lucy felt her traitorous stomach contract. When his green eyes met hers again she felt a flush start on her face and spread down her chest. She wanted to reach down and cover her bare skin but she didn’t want to draw his attention to it.

  Lucas reached out and grabbed her arm and she flinched. He turned to her mom, “Mrs. Jacobs I hate to take your daughter away but we have some business we need to discuss in private.”

  Lucy watched as her mom backed away, “Of course!”

  Her mom looked at her. There was surprise and confusion in her face, but she didn’t say anything, she just turned and walked away. Before Lucy could turn to Lucas to ask him what he wanted he was pulling her after him, and out of the room.

  They went down a long corridor, passing armed guards who nodded at them and then out through a set of French doors to a balcony. She realized they were overlooking a garden and in order to gather her thoughts she moved forward and put her hands on the railing.

  The air felt so good after so long of being hot that she threw her head back. She had perspiration on her neck and the air cooled it and sent shivers down her body.

  When she turned back to him he looked down at her chest, at the flesh that was exposed, and she felt her nipples harden in response. All it took was one look from him, one touch, one whiff of his scent and her body was ready for him.

  He came closer, pressing her between his hard, hot body and the balcony railing and she felt her mouth go dry. It had only been two days since they had seen each other and yet it felt like a year. She wanted him to pull her skirt up, drop his pants, and thrust inside her but she would never say that to him. She would never let him know how much she wanted him.

  When he spoke his voice was thick with a desire that matched hers. “What are you doing here?”

  Angry at herself for wanting him, for not being able to get over him, she took it out on him. “Am I not allowed to go out? What, did you think I was stalking you? You don’t have to worry about that!”

  He snorted. “I know just how unlikely that is!”

  She pushed her finger into his chest and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled at her and looked down at her finger. “I’m Italian, and this is a party for Italian businesses. I belong here. You don’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I belong anywhere I want to.”

  He leaned down and his tongue touched the corner of her mouth as he said, “You belong in my bed.”

  She lost her voice and her reason as her arms went up around his neck. Her fingers went to his hair and tangled in his thick black locks as his mouth took hers. His mouth was rough as he pressed her up against the railing. She felt as if she was going to fall for a second before his hands came up and his arms went around her. She felt her nipples press into the heat of his tuxedo covered chest and she ground herself against him. She wanted to crawl inside him, to penetrate every inch of him, the way that he had penetrated her mind.

  He pulled back and she groaned in disappointment but he didn’t leave her. He reached down and pealed the black silk from her breasts and bent his head to take her turgid nipple into his mouth. She groaned and felt an orgasm building just from the feel of his mouth on her nipple. “Lucas….”

  She trailed off, lost in a sensual haze created by his hot, wet mouth. She was grinding her pelvis against him when a cough cut through the fog in her brain. She opened her eyes to see Rodrigo standing over Lucas’s shoulder.

  She gasped and pulled back but Lucas stepped forward, so that Rodrigo couldn’t see her bare breast as she quickly fumbled with it, trying to get it back in her dress. When she was safely covered Lucas turned around and said, “Rigo.”

  Rodrigo nodded, “Lucas.”

  Lucy looked from one to the other. “You know each other?” she asked and watched as both men nodded.

  Rodrigo was the one who spoke up. “He’s been my best friend since we were fourteen. We met at boarding school.”

  She looked at Lucas but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She got a sneaking suspicion and she looked back at Rodrigo. “Did you do this? Did you set me up to meet him?”

  Rodrigo jerked back. “No! I would never do that.”

  She turned to look at Lucas, “Did you know who I was the day we met?”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “Answer me!” she screamed.

  He looked up and she felt her stomach drop at the look in his eyes as he nodded.

  “You knew! You knew who I was and you never said a word?”

  He shrugged and she turned back to Rodrigo. “I trusted you! I was beginning to love you! And you set me up. Why? So that I would meet some handsome Italian like you and fall in love and dump poor Sam?”

  Rodrigo shook his head. “I didn’t set you up. I had no idea that you had met until the other day when you showed me the bracelet. I recognized it from a sketch that he had on his coffee table, and then I didn’t know what the hell was going on. When I went to confront him he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No he’s not.”

  Lucy turned to see that Isabella and Rosaline had come out onto the balcony. Isabella was shaking her head as she said again, “No he’s not lying. He had no idea. I was the one who sent Lucas to meet you.”

  “What?” Her voice was low, confused…hurt and she turned to look at Lucas. “It was all a set up?”

  He shook his head. “No of course not. Not all of it.”

  She shook her head. “Not all of it.” Her voice was flat and she turned from his green eyes to confront her grandmother.

  “How could you? How could you do this to me? I knew that you didn’t like Sam but to go to such lengths…”

  Her grandmother stepped forward. “I did it because I love you, because I want the best for you. I lost your mother to a man who took every shred of who she was away. After they married I didn’t even recognize my own daughter. She had once been beautiful and vibrant, full of life and love. She was passionate about everything and interested in everything. The last time I saw her she was dull and lifeless and I was afraid that you were headed down the same path.”

  “So you paid a man to seduce me?”

  Her grandmother shook her head but it was Lucas who spoke up. “What kind of man do you think I am? She didn’t pay me and she sure as hell didn’t tell me to seduce you.”

  Lucy turned to look at him. He was angry and that made her feel better. She wanted to fight with him; she wanted to scream at him and throw things and tear his clothes and pound on his chest. She wanted to hurt him the way that he had hurt her. “You lied to me from the very beginning, you lied about everything.”

  He shook his head and stepped towards her. He was at least six inches taller than her and he stood over her, looking down at her, with anger blazing
in his green eyes. “I didn’t lie. I didn’t tell you that I knew who you were. Your grandmother asked me to meet you; she thought we might hit it off…which we did if you remember correctly.”

  She flushed with shame and she knew that he saw it because his voice became tender as he said, “She just asked that I meet you and I did. What happened after that was just you and I.”

  Angry at her traitorous heart for pounding at his intimate tone she said, “You tried to buy me!”

  He shook his head. “No. I bought you those things because it gave me pleasure to. Because you stood in that street and looked at that ring with pure lust on your face and I knew how you felt because that was how I looked at you. I wanted you to have the object of your desires because I didn’t think I could ever have mine.”

  She looked up at him. His pupils were dilated and his eyes were pleading with her to understand but she was hurt. The two men that she cared about had both been pretending to be someone they weren’t.

  “You followed me.” She said for lack of anything else.

  He nodded. “Yes, I did. I admit that. I was going to your apartment that day and I saw you come out. I followed you to your dress appointment and waited on you. I know it was wrong but I’m not sorry. I was already in love with you.”

  Rosaline gasped and Rodrigo swore as Lucy looked up at Lucas in confusion. “What? You just saw me.”

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’d seen you long before. The day that Isabella and Rodrigo got married I was his best man. We went back to her house for the reception and on the mantle in the library were pictures of you. You were just a kid, but I saw something in those pictures that called to me. I thought…” he took a deep breath and put his hands in his pockets, “I thought I would have liked to have known you when I was young. I thought we might have been friends. Those pictures drew me in every time I went to their house. I was fascinated by you, and I listened eagerly to every story about you that Isabella told. How well you did in school, the time you got caught skipping school, how you had fallen off the back of your boyfriend’s motorcycle in high school. How you graduated with honors from college, your love of architecture. I lived for those stories.”

  Rosaline spoke up, “How in the world did you know all that?”

  Lucy turned to see that her mom was looking at her grandmother, her hands on her hips. Her grandmother was angry as she turned on Rosaline, “I knew because I hired people to watch you! You didn’t really think I’d let you out of my life completely did you? I had to know, I had to.”

  Isabella began crying at that and Rodrigo pulled her to his chest.

  Lucas grabbed Lucy’s arm and she turned back to him. “When she asked me to meet you I was as eager as a young boy. But what sealed it was when she handed me a picture of you. It was taken a few months ago as you left work. Your hair was in a bun with little wisps flying everywhere and you were chewing on your bottom lip. I was a goner. I think I’d already loved you but after that I wanted you. I wanted the grown-up Lucy Jacobs in that picture.”

  She shook her head at him and began to back away.

  He stepped forward quickly and grabbed her arm. “Lucy please. You’re always making me beg you and I’ll do it again but please don’t be mad at me. I love you. Call off the wedding, or just postpone it if you have to. Take some time to get to know me-“

  Isabella cut him off, “The wedding is already off. She left Sam.”

  The look on his face was that of an eager, young boy as he squeezed her arm. “You broke up with him? Why didn’t you tell me? Give us some time Lucy. Please?”

  It was all too much. She’d had enough. She had been lied to by everyone, manipulated and treated as if she wasn’t a person. As if she didn’t have thoughts of her own, feelings of her own. She was so pathetic that her grandmother didn’t even think she could get her own man, so she had found one for her.

  She met Lucas’ eyes for the last time and said, “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  She turned and walked away, brushing off her grandmother’s hand when Isabella reached out for her.

  Chapter Twenty

  She took a cab back to her grandmother’s house intent on getting her things and checking into the cheapest hotel that she could find. Instead, she walked up the pathway to the front door and Sam was sitting there, waiting on her. He looked like hell. He was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot and as she approached he jumped up.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  He came towards her and tried to grab her arm but she backed away from him.

  “I miss you Lucy. Please come home.”

  She snorted. “Why so you can ignore me? So I can live off you? So I can do your laundry and cook your food? You don’t need me you need a maid.”

  She went to pass him but he stepped in front of her. “I love you, I need you.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t love me. You don’t even know me.”

  He grabbed her arm and she tried pulling away but he wouldn’t let her. “I do know you. We’ve been together for nine years, of course I know you.”

  Furiously she shook her head. “No you don’t. You see what you want to see; you think what you want to think. My dad told you something about me and you didn’t even bother to ask me about it.”

  “Lucy please!”

  “No,” she screamed. “No!”

  She moved back and looked at him. She was so angry that she didn’t care that she was screaming and that the entire neighborhood could hear her. “Do you realize that you haven’t told me that I’m pretty in six years?”

  He shook his head.

  “No! You don’t know because you don’t care! As long as I’m taking care of you, you don’t care about anything.”

  “That’s not true babe, I do care.”

  She stomped forward and pointed her finger in his face. “If you ever, and I mean ever, call me babe again I will cut your balls off. I hate it when you call me that. You’re not some stupid surfer and I’m not your babe!”

  He held up his hands and his face was sheepish as he said, “I’m sorry it’s a habit.”

  That cute, little boy expression would have melted her heart before but now it did nothing. She was furious with the world and she wanted to make him pay, “Do you know what’s not a habit?” she asked him.

  He shook his head and she said, “You have never, not once in the nine years that we’ve been together, brought me to orgasm. The only way that I can ever come is after you go to sleep I have to touch myself, and when you caught me at it you were disgusted. I will never forget that look on your face. I should have left you then.”

  His face would have been comical had she not been so angry. His mouth opened and closed like a fish and his eyes were shocked. She walked past him, up the stairs, opened the door, and slammed it behind her.

  “Stupid ass,” she muttered to herself as she made her way up the stairs and to her room. She thought about packing and leaving but decided against it. It was after Midnight and she had no idea where to find a hotel. She would wait until the morning and buy a plane ticket home.

  She had taken her dress off and put on a pair of pajamas that Rodrigo had bought for her when the doorbell rang. Thinking that it was Sam again she ran down the stairs and opened the door, prepared to yell at him, but it wasn’t him. It was Lucas.

  “What do you want?” she asked. “I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”

  He smiled and that pissed her off even more. He said, “I’m Italian that doesn’t deter us, that’s like throwing out a challenge.”

  She went to slam the door in his face and he put his foot in it and asked, “You never once had an orgasm with him in nine years?”

  She jerked the door open all the way. “Now you’re eavesdropping on my conversations? How dare you!”

  He grabbed her hand as she went to hit him. “I was worried about you when you ran out so I came to check on you. I heard you because you were screaming; hell I think the whole nei
ghborhood heard you.”

  She tried jerking her hand away from him but he wouldn’t let her go. “Lucy I know you’re mad. I can understand and even appreciate that but when you calm down will you think about what I said?”

  He pulled her against him and it made her hand bend at an odd angle. When she cried out in pain he released her hand and apologized. His breath was hot on her face as he asked, “I told you that I love you, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head. It meant something, but what that was, other than a jerking sensation in the pit of her stomach, she wasn’t sure.

  “Don’t you have any feelings for me?” he asked, and again there was a plea in his voice.

  She pulled back and grabbed the edge of the door. She looked up at his green eyes and the expression in them made her heart turn over in her chest. “It was sex and nothing more. You heard me. I was desperate. We fucked and now it’s over.”

  His face looked as if she had punched him and he came towards her. She tried to shut the door but he was too fast. He pushed the door back and she went with it. She would have fallen had he not reached out and caught her. He picked her up, put her over his shoulder, and slammed the door behind him.

  He went up the stairs with her thrown over his shoulder and his hard shoulder punched hard in her stomach with every step. She felt as if she might be sick from the pressure of that and from seeing everything upside down.

  She began to fight him then and he tightened his grip on her. He opened one door, looked in and moved on. Three doors later he opened her bedroom door, saw her dress on the floor where she had left it and went in, slamming that door behind him. He threw her on the bed and she bounced so hard that she bit her tongue and tasted blood.