Chapter 18

Polly

I n my mind, I’d fallen, crashed face-first into the filthy concrete of the drive-thru, and was bleeding out before the hottest guy on the planet.

In reality, I was leaning against the cracked laminate counter Dad kept forgetting to upgrade, trying my hardest to show a smug nonchalance I didn’t feel. Luca wanted to hear my story. For a normal person wanting to get to know another normal person, nothing about that should be especially alarming. But I was not normal, and neither was he, which made it a big, huge, massive deal.

“Something Evie said has been stuck in my mind, and to get rid of it, I need to know …” His voice faded, and his eyes darted from mine to the wheels of the bike he’d dropped to his feet when I hinted at him to sit.

“You need to know what? If I’m truly that much of a slut?”

Anger crossed Luca’s face as his jaw did the ridiculously hot clenchy thing hot guys all seem to do. “No, Princess. No. I would never say or think that, and you shouldn’t either.”

“Ooh. Hit a sore point, did I, Cowboy?”

“No, no, you didn’t ….” His anger switched to cute confusion. “Why do you keep calling me cowboy? You know I’m from Brooklyn. I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.”

I shrugged, picked up the damp cloth sitting beside me, and began to wipe whatever I could find.

“I just find it particularly cute. Why do you keep calling me Princess?”

With a coy smile, those killer dimples appeared “Same reason, I guess.”

Hot. I was suddenly very, very hot, and the air was very, very thin. Luca seemed to be feeling it, too, as his chest was rising and falling as rapidly as mine. “Thirsty? Can I get you a drink?” Pushing off the counter, I took the five paces to the closest fridge, opened the door, and shoved my face inside. Ahh. Sweet relief. Grabbing two beers, I opened them with practiced ease. I took a long pull from one, while handing him the other. Our fingers brushed as the cold glass shifted between us, and I swore the damn thing sizzled.

Luca’s whole body tensed and then shivered. “Iwanttolickyourneck.”

“What?” I coughed, sending beer dribbling down my chin.

“Fuck,” he blushed. “Ahh … I mean, I want to drink this long neck … this beer. Nate said they call beer bottles long necks.”

“Yeah, we do, but that’s just a middie, and that’s not what you said.” Before Luca could spit out the excuse he was scrambling to come up with, his phone began to ring. “Saved by the bell, eh?”

Clearly relieved, he wriggled in his seat and pulled the phone from his pocket. “Hey, Eves.”

The familiarity in his greeting, the affection in his voice made me want to gag. It was Luke and Nate choosing her over me all over again and whatever spark I thought I felt between us was instantly snuffed out.

The bitch was back … if she ever left.

Without thinking I snatched the phone from Luca’s hand and plastered on my fakest smile. “Evie, darling. How is it you always seem to call at the worst possible time?”

“What. The. Fuck?” It was shrill. A hiss almost. And I loved it. “That’s right. We were about to fuck, so why don’t you fuck off so I can get off.”

“Polly, what the hell?” Luca was up on his feet, swiping the phone back from me. “Evie. That’s not what happened. I just came here to get beer. There was no fucking. Only sitting.”

“Yeah, on his face!” I yelled, leaning in as close as I could, internally scolding myself at the same time. Though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, I could hear how pissed she was. Funnily enough, it failed to bring the satisfaction it once would have. Maybe because Luca was staring at me like I just ripped his heart from his chest and shoved it in the ice fridge.

With a head shake, he backed away, the hurt in his stare affecting much more than I cared to admit. “I know. You’re right. I should have stayed away. No. No. You don’t need to pick me up. I’m coming home now.” Shoving the phone back onto his pocket and pulling out a fifty, he tossed it at my feet, then grabbed a slab of beer from the stack beside him. Trapping it under his arm like it was a feather, he grabbed the handlebar of his bike with the other, gave me one more disgusted look, then turned and walked away.

Should self-sabotage be a marketable trait, I would have been a millionaire. There I was—a beautiful woman who should have been in the prime of her life—trying to dodge an arranged marriage with a Greek schmuck while simultaneously being pursued by a charming, semi-famous American hockey player. The latter being yet another person I’d so royally fucked over, there was no way I could ever repair it.

Not unless the guy was a complete moron, anyway. Despite a constant toll of self-deprecating, “I’m dumb” jibes, I very much doubted he was.

Because of Luca, the “I don’t care, it was a one-time thing, I have no heart” bullshit I’d been feeding myself for years was becoming harder and harder to swallow.

Training my brain to stop constantly repeating, “If you’re willing to share your story, I’m willing to listen” proved even harder.

How dare he roll in and be so kind and sexy and willing to hear me out? Who the fuck even does that?

“Who does what?”

“What?” Shit. I’d said that out loud. In front of my mum. Shit. I was sitting beside her in the hospital gardens after her first walk of the grounds with the rehabilitation physiotherapist, who was totally hot. The me of a few weeks ago would have been hitting her up. But it didn’t even cross my mind until she left, and I realized I didn’t. And why.

Cowboy was under my skin.

“Ahh.” Think Polly, think. “The bakery delivery guy.” I lied. “He dropped the dinner rolls off this morning and hit on me.”

“Francis? You think Francis Dinkle is sexy … and he hit on you? He’s married, Polly. I hope you didn’t encourage him.”

Of course, she knew the bread guy’s name. And his marital status. “I didn’t encourage him.”

“Hmm. First time for everything, I guess.” It was the first little slut jab she’d handed me in days, and I knew it was because of my boring, obsequious cousin, Elias. Mum was on the phone with him when I arrived, practically giddy that he’d found an earlier flight and was on his way.

“Be a nice girl and speak with him,” she’d insisted, shoving the phone in my face as I broke out into a cold sweat, panicked, and ran from the room claiming an urgent case of diarrhea. Normally, I could have come up with something less humiliating, but Luca had thrown me off my game, reducing me to a liar who couldn’t lie to save herself.

Mum dropped the rose she’d plucked on her wander and pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the bakery right now to cancel our order. I will not have our customers chewing on bread handled by an adulterer.” Fuck. Without thinking, I snatched the phone from her hand and piffed it over my shoulder. “Polly Constantine Hart! What the devil has gotten into you?” she chided while leaning around me to see where it had landed.

“Sorry, Mum. Nervous tic.”

“A nervous tic you’ve suddenly developed made you toss my phone into the dewy couch?”

Frozen with stupidity, I just smiled, showing every tooth in my mouth before turning and skipping away to find it. I hadn’t skipped in twenty years. I’d lost my freaking mind. And Mum’s phone, which was probably a good thing because it had caused nothing but grief since I showed up. By the time I found it wedged between a rose bush and a discarded, half-eaten muffin, a light drizzle had set in, and I had to help Mum back to her room. The rain, though not good for my freshly straightened hair, was at least another distraction, and Mum seemed to forget all about poor, innocent Francis.

Elias was another matter.

“Now that your bowels have settled, your tics have calmed, and you’ve stopped smiling at me like an idiot, I’d like you to call Elias. He is very much looking forward to speaking with you. The more I get to know him the more determined I am for you to marry him. His mother is the same. I think he could make you truly happy, Plop.”

Happy. Like a movie montage, the memory of Luca’s eyes, the way he smiled as we lay on the floor of Dad’s office filled my mind. His affection had been contagious, my own grin irrepressible under its weight. But there was no time to bask in its glory before the scene shifted, fast forwarding to the contemptuous frown he wore as he left me at the drive-thru. The night and day of Luca’s expressions, the shadows they left behind, sent my stomach lurching into my rib cage. Why was I twisted over a guy I barely knew? Why were my eyes misting over? This had to stop. “Okay, Mum. If it makes you happy, I’ll call him.”

She coughed in disbelief, patted my hand, and passed me a pair of knitting needles. “That’s a good girl. See? You do as I say, and we’ll have you happily married with beautiful babies before you know it.”

The dagger that fate plunged into me twisted. “Mum, you know I can’t—” I stopped, bit my lip, and considered my words. This was something new for me. She was never going to get it, and I was never going to be happy. By marrying Elias, at least maybe one of us would be. “I can’t wait.”