Imagine my surprise when I found that I was not alone.
I gasped. “Tucker, what the hell are you doing here? You scared me half to death!” The door slammed behind me and I moved deeper into the room, one hand over my knocking heart.
Shirtless, Tucker rose from where he was sitting at the desk, and I panicked for a second, wondering if there was any evidence of my fling with Lucas in the room.
For one second. Then I remembered that I didn’t have to care. Fuck him. What the hell is this?
“Hello to you too.” Tucker came toward me, and took my suitcase from my hand, moving it to the side before giving me a hug. “It’s nice to see you. Are you all right?”
I was so stunned, I let myself be hugged and half-hugged him back before I could stop myself. I forgot how tall he is. His embrace pulled me up on tiptoe. His bare, muscular chest should have turned me on, but it didn’t.
I backed out of his arms. “Nice to see me? Are you kidding? What the hell is this, Tucker?” Stepping around him, I went to the desk and set down my purse. My heart was knocking hard on my ribs, and not in a good way. Something caught my eye to my left, and I noticed for the first time the huge bouquet of red roses on the coffee table. Those hadn’t been there when I left. I spun around and looked at him. “What’s going on?”
Tucker went over to a black garment bag on the bed, unzipped it and pulled out a white dress shirt, which he slipped on but didn’t button. “I know you’re surprised to see me,” he said, “and probably not all that happy, but I can explain.”
“I hope so.” I went into the bathroom for some tissue, dried my eyes and blew my nose. Ugh, I was a mess. In the mirror, I saw Tucker appear in the bathroom doorway.
“What’s wrong? Why the tears?”
I scowled. “As if you care.”
“I do, Mia. Come here, please.” He took my arm and led me out of the bathroom and over to the couch, where he gestured for me to sit. In addition to the flowers on the table were chocolates and a black box with a white ribbon. The box said Chanel. Holy shit. What the fuck is going on? Tucker sat next to me, but I commandeered my arm back and stuck both hands between my knees.
“Hear me out, Mia. I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be, but please give me a chance to speak.” I’d never heard this kind of pleading tone from Tucker before, but it only made me angrier.
“Why should I? I don’t want anything from you, Tucker. Not these flowers, not gifts, not an apology.” But I kept my eyes on the Chanel box. Damn if I wasn’t curious what was inside.
“I know you don’t want anything, and I don’t blame you. What I did was unforgivable. Mia, can you at least look at me?”
I refused. In fact, I crossed my arms and swiveled away from him. He sighed and got off the couch, walked around the table, and dropped to his knees at my feet. To the best of my recollection, he hadn’t been on his knees in front of me since his proposal. And there’s not even an audience here.
“I panicked.” He closed his eyes and held up his hands. “I know that’s no excuse, but it’s the truth. I panicked at the thought of such a permanent commitment, and I didn’t think I was mature enough to handle it.”
“And how long had you known you couldn’t handle it? The doubt must have been lurking there for a while, yet you waited until we had one week to go before jetting off to Vegas and leaving me, alone and humiliated, to tell everyone!” I gestured wildly in the air between us. “We could have come to this decision together, you know! I had doubts too!”
He blinked, surprise evident on his handsome face. “You did?”
“Yes, I did. But I was too caught up in planning the wedding to stop and think about them.”
“We should have just eloped. Got married on the beach in Tahiti or something.” Tucker reached out and rubbed my knee.
“What? No!” I jumped off the couch and skirted around him. “It wasn’t the wedding that was the problem. It was us—you and me. We weren’t right together, Tucker. I can see that now. And as much as it pains me to say this, you were right to call off the wedding. The way you did it sucked, but it was the right decision.”
“What if it wasn’t?” Tucker got to his feet, brushing off his charcoal pants. They looked very wrinkled for him—had he just gotten off the plane? “What if I was wrong to call it off?”
“You weren’t. God, Tucker, we weren’t even that in love! I mean, maybe we were once, but if you’re going to marry someone, you should feel like—” I stopped. I knew how a person should feel, because I was head over heels in love with Lucas.
“Like what?” Tucker asked.
“Like you can’t breathe when that person’s in the room. Like you can’t get close enough to them, no matter how hard you try. Like you’re going to burst if you can’t show that person how much you feel for them, and then you do burst—together.”
“Burst?” Tucker arched a well-groomed brow.
“Burst,” I confirmed. “It’s called an orgasm. It happens to women too, you know, and sometimes it even happens to men and women at the same time.”
“We burst.” Tucker stuck his hands on his hips and looked indignant. “We burst every time.”
“No. You burst.” I pointed at his chest. “I was lucky to get an occasional rupture, but it never happened together. It didn’t even feel like you cared.”
Tucker’s jaw protruded. “That’s not fair, Mia. I had no idea you weren’t being satisfied. You never said anything about it.”
“How could I? As soon as you were done, you went running for the bathroom to clean up!”
“Why didn’t you bring it up when we weren’t actually in bed?” Tucker’s face was actually going a little red.
Good, he should feel shame. “God, I don’t know! It just seemed like we had a routine and you were happy with it. I didn’t want to rock the boat.” I put my hands on my head. “Ugh, it doesn’t matter anyway, Tucker. It’s over.”
He reached for me, but I backed up. “Don’t say that, Mia. Let me try again. I love you, and I can do better.”
I threw my hands up and moaned to the ceiling. “No! This is so frustrating! We could have had this conversation two weeks ago, Tucker. But you left.”
“I’m sorry about that, I really am. And I came all the way here to beg you for another chance.” He even clasped his hands together. I wanted to slap him.
“When did you get here, anyway? Today?”
“Yes, about ten AM. Where were you?”
I looked him right in the eye. “I took a short trip to the country.”
He dropped his hands. “Oh. Alone?”
I lifted my chin. That was none of his business. “Yes.”
“That wasn’t on your itinerary, was it?”
I almost laughed. “No. I made some…adjustments to the itinerary once I realized I’d be here by myself.”
“Well, now I’m here.” He came toward me as if he might embrace me again, and I put my hands up.
“No. If you want to stay here, that’s fine. I’ll go somewhere else. Or I’ll go home. But we’re not on this trip together, Tucker.” I moved my hands back and forth between us. “Because we’re not together anymore.”
“Please. Please give me one more chance, Mia.” He dropped to his knees again, right in front of me, and took my hips in his hands. “I’ll do anything you want. You want to go to counseling? Fine, I’ll go. I’ll be more adventurous with you in bed. I only treated you carefully because I knew I wanted you to be my wife—I thought you’d like that. I put you on a pedestal, where you belong. I see the way guys treat their women in porn, and I don’t want to be that way.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s a big middle ground between pedestal and porn.”
“We’ll figure it out, Mia. Just say we can try again, please. I want you to be my wife. I want to marry you. I want the family we talked about.”
I crossed my arms. “And why will this time be different, huh? What’s happened that makes now so different from two
weeks ago?”
“I realized what life would be like without you. And I hated it.” He looked up at me with wide blue eyes and I almost felt my foundation cracking. Then he tipped his forehead to my stomach. “I’m so sorry, baby. Please give me one more chance.”
The pounding on the door startled us both.
Tucker picked his head up and looked at me funny. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
“Mia?” shouted a male voice through the door. My breath hitched. It sounded like Lucas, but what would he be doing here? And holy fuck, how awkward! I knew I better go answer it before Tucker did. “Just give me a second. Stay here.”
I hurried over to the door, my nerves rattling. When I pulled it open, there was Lucas, looking anxious and adorable. Before I had a chance to say anything, he started in.
“OK, here’s the thing. I’m not letting you go.”
My heart stopped beating for a second. “What?”
He grabbed my hand. “I’m not letting you go. I’m not letting you walk out of my life without giving me a chance to make you happy.”
“Lucas, I—”
“Just listen. I got all the way to my apartment on the most miserable train ride ever. I just kept thinking how you should have been beside me. The flea market’s open today, and I thought, Oh, I should take her. Or I’d think, she wanted to see a castle, I need to take her to Versailles before she leaves. But then I’d realize I can’t, because you won’t let me. And I felt it like a punch in the gut. I couldn’t breathe.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Lucas,” I whispered. Actually it was more like a whimper.
“I’m not done. Because then I got home to my apartment, and it sucked. There’s nothing in there that doesn’t remind me of you—not my kitchen, not my couch, not my bed, not my shower. Nothing. And I realized something else—I can’t let you go. I don’t want to. And—”
“Mia, what’s going on? Who’s at the door?”
It was another one of those moments where things seemed to happen in slow motion—I knew Tucker was walking up behind me, and I bet that peacock hadn’t even bothered to button his shirt—because I watched Lucas’s eyes go from warm and earnest to wide and shocked. He dropped my hand, and a second later I felt another one on my shoulder.
“Babe? Who’s this?”
“Uh…” Fuck! What should I say? I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the trainwreck that was Lucas realizing who was in my hotel room and piecing together why. He was jumping to all the wrong conclusions, but my tongue was stuck in the same sludge my brain was. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak.
“I’m nobody,” Lucas answered, his eyes sweeping back to me. “Just a friend. Mia, I thought you might like to have coffee but I can see you’re busy. This must be Tucker?”
Jesus, he was covering for me. The sludge thickened with shame.
“Yes, I am. Tucker Branch. And you are?” Tucker, a note of reservation in his voice, held out a hand toward Lucas.
“Lucas Fournier. Mia has talked a lot about you.”
Gulp.
“Well.” I could hear the pleasure in Tucker’s tone. “Good things, I hope. Although I can’t imagine why. I haven’t done much to be proud of lately. But I’m going to remedy that.” And the bastard put an arm around me. “How did you meet her?”
Get out! Get out of his arms! You’re giving Lucas the wrong impression! But I was stuck inside Tucker’s iron grasp, and all I could do was plead with Lucas with my eyes to go away and let me explain later.
“Uh, I’m a bartender. Mia came into my bar the first night she was here and I recommended some sights to her.” Lucas’s voice was wooden and hollow.
“Nice. Which sights?”
“Père LaChaise cemetery. Notre-Dame.” He looked at me as he said it, and all the flirty, romantic tension that had simmered while we spent that first day together hit me full force. My stomach muscles clenched, and I wanted nothing more than to throw Tucker’s arms off me and hurl myself into Lucas’s arms. “The Rodin Museum.”
The Rodin Museum.
The memory of the afternoon we spent there was enough to snap me into action. I lifted Tucker’s arm off me. “Yes, and I loved all of them.”
“Oh, you went already? Good, that means I won’t have to go to a museum with her.” Tucker laughed and ruffled my hair. “She loves that moldy old stuff, but I don’t. Well, thanks for being kind to her. Mia, do you want to open your gift now? It’s from Chanel,” Tucker singsonged.
I’d never been more annoyed with him. My face was burning with indignation. “No. Tucker, just wait, please. Lucas—”
But he was already backing away from the door. “No problem, Mia. I can see you’re fine now. I’ll let you go.” And he turned away from me and stormed down the hall toward the elevators.
No! Don’t go!
I put my hands to my head and breathed deeply, furious at myself, at Tucker, at the universe for the poor timing of everything that just happened—Tucker’s fucking apology, Lucas showing up at my door, Tucker deciding to play the role of concerned fiancé all of a sudden. I slammed the door and whirled on him.
“You can’t just come in here and expect to have me back!” I yelled. “You don’t deserve a second chance!”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Mia.” His face darkened. “Who was that, anyway? Did something happen between you two?”
“He’s just a friend,” I said miserably. “He was here for me when you weren’t.” And he’d come back for me. He said he couldn’t breathe without me, and he wasn’t going to let me go.
But he had.
Because he thought you were back with Tucker! screamed the inner voice, which suddenly seemed to be on Lucas’s side.
“Well, I’m here now.” Tucker came to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “And I promise I’m going to make up for all the time I wasn’t.” He put his lips on mine, and it kind of repulsed me. I turned my cheek.
“Don’t.”
Tucker sighed. “How about opening your gift?” He went over to the table and picked up the Chanel box. “I went straight to the store, didn’t even come to the hotel first. I thought you’d be here, and I wanted to have it to surprise you with.” He brought the box to me. “I know it can’t make up for what I put you through, but I just wanted to show you that I’m thinking of you and I’m going to work hard to win you back.”
I sighed. Backing up, I sat on the bench at the foot of the bed. He set the box on my lap and I opened it to find a darling rectangular handbag in pale pink with darker pink metallic cross-stitching and Chanel’s signature interlocking C’s on the flap and gold chain strap. It was beautiful.
But I didn’t want it.
“Tucker, it’s very pretty, and it’s a nice gift. But I can’t accept it.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not getting back together.”
“Don’t say that, Mia. Please.” He dropped down in front of me again. “We had so many things planned. I still want them all. It was just cold feet, I swear. I was a fool, and I’ll never take you for granted again. I can make you happy, Mia.”
I looked into his face, the one that only weeks ago had still set my heart aflutter. The one I thought I’d want to look at every morning, every night, because it was so handsome. But the blue eyes just looked cool to me, and the neatly trimmed hair was all wrong. The perfect symmetry of his face seemed uninteresting, and even the tall, muscular body held no allure. I glanced down at his bare chest and felt only sadness—for Lucas, for myself, and even for Tucker, with this misguided attempt at winning me back.
He was doing it the best way he knew how, with flowers and money and expensive gifts, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to say, Of course I’ll go to a museum with you, of course I’ll take you to the flea market, and here’s that book I was telling you about…
I wanted Lucas.
“Tucker, the answer is still no. You were right to call off the wedding. We wo
n’t make each other happy.”
“You’re not even giving me a chance,” he whined. “I came all the way here for you.”
“I’m sorry about that, but the answer is still no.” Now that I’d found my voice, it was firm. “You can stay here if you want, but I’ll find another room to stay in.”
“How will you afford that?” he snapped, popping to his feet.
“I’ll stay somewhere else, then.” Suddenly I was scared he’d stick me with the bill for this suite so far. How the hell would I pay for it?
“Fine.” Tucker finally began buttoning his shirt. “But I think you’ll change your mind. You’ll realize that no one can treat you better than I can, Mia. You’ll miss everything that my money can buy. You could have a great life, an easy life.”
God, had I really given him that crass an impression of me? That I cared so much about wealth?
“I don’t want an easy life. I want a happy life. And it’s not with you.” Rising, I glanced around the suite. “I need some time to pack.”
He dropped his arms from the buttons. “Don’t go,” he said, his approach changing again. “Take some time. Think it over.”
“I’ll be doing plenty of thinking, Tucker. You can bet on that.”
He looked pleased, probably because he figured no woman would actually turn a life with him down once she pondered it some more. “Good.”
“Can I ask you to leave me alone while I pack?”
“Oh, uh…I guess so. I’ll go down to the restaurant. How will I know if—I mean when—you’ve changed you mind?” He flashed his Millionaire Heartbreaker smile at me.
Give it a rest, Tucker. I’m not that girl anymore.
“If I don’t come back here tonight, then I’ll get in touch back in Detroit.”
He paled for a moment. “You’re going home?”
“I don’t know yet, Tucker. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Damn, that was the truth. Once I packed my bags, I had no clue where to go. Try to find Lucas? Just fly home? Find a new (cheaper) hotel?
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