Page 17 of All’s Well that Friends Well (Lucky in Love #2)

LUCA

Sometimes I wish my work desk was enclosed so that I could hide underneath and nap.

The space under there isn’t big enough, of course. I’m taller than your average man. I’d be a sardine in a tin. But the idea is still tempting—especially because I’ve been on hold for the last fifteen minutes, and the elevator music wafting down the line is soft and soothing.

I bet they do that to make it less frustrating. But being put on hold is one of my biggest pet peeves. Sitting around, waiting, doing nothing? I can’t stand it.

I reach forward and press the speaker button on my desk phone, and the sound of the hold music starts playing faintly through my office.

I may as well get a few other things done while I wait, things that require less brainpower.

Check for any new listings on the real estate website, for example, because my loan is only approved for sixty days, and I’d like to find something before I have to reapply.

I need to send out an internal memo, too, because I’ve noticed that most of my employees are taking longer lunch breaks than they’re supposed to, which cuts out a good half hour to hour of work time.

Before I do any of that, though…I lean back in my chair, letting my head drop back against the headrest.

I really could fall asleep like this. Just like this.

Unfortunately, if I’m going to tell my employees not to spend unnecessary time on their lunch breaks, I can’t justify napping on the job. So I reluctantly pry my eyes open and?—

My body jerks when I’m startled by a light knock on the office door. I sit up straighter and clear my throat.

“Come in,” I say, taking the phone off speaker and putting it back to my ear. I can avoid lengthy conversation this way.

To my surprise, it’s no one from the office floor who enters; it’s Juliet Marigold. She slips inside and closes the door behind her, a thin plastic bag rustling in her hands.

“I’m here to change your trash can liner,” she whispers, pointing at the trash bin by my desk.

And good grief. I can actually smell her from here. She’s barely taken two steps inside.

I’m not fashionable enough to be able to tell if she’s wearing any of the clothes I retrieved from the bedroom closets, but her black pants fit her well.

They’re much more appropriate than the pink skirt, anyway.

Her blouse is silky and white with ruffles, and—I slump with exhaustion—she’s still wearing sky-high heels, a bright blue color that matches the chunky necklace she’s got on.

Her hair is long and gorgeous and perfectly curled and why are her lips so pink? She’s not here to be a model .

I growl as my eyes trail over her, and then I slam the phone down in the cradle, giving up on the call.

“Oh,” she says, startling as her eyes widen. She glances at the phone. “Was that not important?” Her voice is a normal volume now, but it’s still pleasant and—and—intimate.

She makes everything sound like a secret, something she’s telling you and you alone.

“I was on hold,” I say. “Why are you in here?”

“I told you,” she says as she approaches the desk. She holds up the bag again. “I’m changing your trash can liner.”

“Right,” I say, pulling off my glasses and pinching the bridge of my nose. “What I meant was why are you doing that now instead of earlier this morning?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to do it earlier this morning.”

“You were,” I say shortly. “Before anyone enters their offices or cubicles, preferably. You have about twenty minutes before the people on the work floor arrive. Do it then.” A thought hits me as I’m speaking, and I go on, “Hang on—did you come in my office yesterday too?”

I would have smelled her, wouldn’t I?

Sure enough, she shakes her head. “Nope,” she says with a smile as she glances around the small room. “This is my first time, but I’ll be here from now on.” She leans forward, her expression more conspiratorial now. “I requested this section of the floor.”

Of course she did.

“Well, do your job, then,” I say, jerking my chin toward the trash bin.

Then I turn my gaze to my computer and pull up my email.

Rod’s admonitions to be friendly echo in my mind as I begin drafting.

I read through the short message once and then twice, but I can’t see anything wrong with it, and I think he’d approve?—

Until I hear a little gasp over my shoulder.

“You can’t say that!” Juliet says, her voice scandalized.

I whip around without thinking, only to find my face inches from hers. Her eyes widen, and for just a second I can feel her breath on my lips, something intoxicating and sweet and?—

“Gah!” I say, rearing back so fast I’ll have a crick in my neck.

She stumbles backward too, her arms flailing as she loses her balance in those stupid heels, and I—I?—

I let her fall. I let her fall right to the floor, except it’s not a clumsy landing; somehow she manages to make the crash into more of a graceful topple.

How does she do that? Is her body not subject to the same laws of physics mine is? She’s less sprawled than vaguely posed , nothing haphazard about her position.

“Luca!” she hisses a split second later, her eyes narrowing at me when they swing up to find mine.

I blink in surprise. It’s one of the first less-than-pleasant expressions I’ve seen from her, one of the first that’s not tinged with any sort of flirtation or playfulness.

“You—you—” She breaks off and climbs to her feet—once again, impossibly gracefully—before saying, “What was that? You could have pulled me upright!” She dusts herself off, although I know my office to be very clean.

Then she runs her hands over her hair, her irritation fading into nothing more than a little frown. “That was rude,” she says.

“I—sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” she says with a sniff .

I blink at her. “I—well.” Then I clear my throat. “I am a little.”

She bends over at the waist—no bent knees—and picks the bag up where it fell, and I find my brow furrowing. Even in monstrously high heels she’s flexible enough to lean down that far; she’s unnaturally graceful too.

“A gymnast,” I say, snapping my fingers as it comes to me. I was wondering what she was doing before she came to work here—it clearly must have been something like gymnastics, right?

She straightens up slowly, and it’s only when I see the look on her face that I realize how weird I must sound. Like a creep. My cheeks heat as I try to figure out what to say, but then she shrugs.

“Ballet,” she says lightly. “That’s what I did before I lost my job and had to find something else. I was a ballet teacher. Look—see?”

Then, standing on one heel-clad foot, she lifts her leg up, up, up, grabs her ankle, and straightens her leg —all the way over her head, like it’s nothing. Like she does this every day.

My mouth goes dry, and I don’t even know why. “Put that down,” I say gruffly, swiveling my head to look at my computer screen again. I blink a few times as I register my email draft; then I frown. “And what did you mean earlier?” I nod at the screen. “What’s wrong with this?”

I don’t even hear her returning to her normal, feet-on-the-floor position. I don’t hear her approach from behind me, coming to lean down at my side.

“That,” she says, pointing at the email. “You can’t say that. Aren’t you trying to get people to like you? You can’t be so mean.”

“I’m not mean,” I say, bristling .

“You’re regularly mean,” she says, but the words aren’t hurt or offended. “You have a kind heart, but your execution is very poor. You push people away to avoid getting hurt.” She says the words matter-of-factly, like she’s barely even thinking about them, and yet my whole body freezes.

How can she possibly know that?

“What makes you think you know anything about me?” I bite the question out, and she straightens up, looking down at me.

And it’s the strangest feeling—because right now, in this very moment, I truly feel looked down on . Or maybe that’s not the right term. Pitied, maybe, or like between the two of us, I’m the one who’s lacking. It’s in the gentle smile she gives me, and her soft, sad eyes.

Then I find myself wondering what it says about me that I expect to be the one looking down on her. Something sick and full of disgust sinks into my gut, because my parents raised me better than that. Rodney taught me better than that.

“It’s my superpower,” she explains, almost apologetic now and completely unaware of my secret shame. “I’m good with reading people. I know it the same way I know Susan in HR is a big softie, or the way I know my supervisor is kind of gross, or the way I know Marianne and that guy Josh are dating.”

“I—what?” I say, distracted by this. I turn to look out the windows toward the back set of cubicles where Marianne and Josh work, but the blinds are closed.

She nods. “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t trying to pry. I was just saying that you come off rude and abrasive sometimes. I don’t mean it as an insult. It’s just true.”

“Then what do you see in me?” I say. I don’t mean it to sound as bitter as it does. But Juliet Marigold is sweet and kind—bright and sparkling. And I’m…

Well. I’m a man who broke up with his fiancée right before she died. A man who accepted endless condolences and pity, all while knowing he’d been leaving.

I’m a man who has lost all rights to love anyone.

“Oh, I see plenty of things in you,” Juliet says as my mind replays its nightmares, over and over in a loop. “But we don’t need to talk about that right now, I don’t think.”

There’s a hesitance in her voice now, something discerning, and when I pull myself back to the present, I find her looking at me with concern. I snap my gaze away from hers, gratitude rushing through me when she doesn’t push, doesn’t pry.