Page 44

Between Nora being plastered to my side at school and my phone dying after the emergency meeting, I haven’t been able to talk to Luke all day.

Last time I checked before my phone went black, I had eight missed calls from him and three voice mails.

I normally abide by the speed limit, but I drove over to his house as fast as I could, only to find that there was not a single parking spot on his entire street… or the next.

Luke’s front light flickers on as soon as I hit the walkway to his house. He swings the door open and his large body fills his doorway. I was already moving fast, but I speed up the moment I see him.

“Are you okay?” He meets me on the porch, and as soon as his arms wrap around me, all of the stress that’s built up over the course of the day melts away. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

“I know, I’m so sorry.” I loosen my hold on him just long enough for us to walk inside, latching back on to him the minute the door closes behind us. “I’m not sure if you heard or not, but a certain article came out today and things were a little nuts. Today was wild.”

“They told me it was going to publish on Friday. If I knew it was coming out today, I would’ve warned you before you went in.” The stress is evident in his voice, and I hate that he’s been so worried. “I was beginning to panic when your phone started going to voice mail.”

“I figured it had to be something like that happened.” He’s been filling me in on every update, and I knew he wouldn’t not tell me something like this on purpose. “I wanted to call you, but Nora was on me like white on rice all day long and then my stupid phone died.”

I used to have a phone charger in my car like a responsible adult, but I brought it into work one day and it’s lived in my desk ever since. Something I’ll be sure to remedy tomorrow.

“Nora was on you?” The worry that had started to die down picks back up again. “I went through all of the documents again, your name isn’t listed anywhere.”

“Oh no, it wasn’t anything like that.” I kick off my shoes inside of his door before plopping myself in the spot I claimed on his very comfy couch. “She was just freaking out about the article, and I think she needed someone to vent to. But…never mind.”

I stop myself mid-sentence. This man just published an article that he’s spent months working on. Today is for celebrating and drinking champagne, not listening to me moan about Nora.

“Oh no,” he says. “What were you going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” The lie slips effortlessly out of my mouth thanks to all the undercover work I’ve done with Petunia Lemon. “I just want to hear about your day. Have you heard from the Pulitzer people yet?”

“Yeah, okay.” A humorless laugh falls from his lips. “You know you’re a terrible liar, right? It’s one of the best things about you.”

Okay…so I guess it wasn’t so effortless after all.

“Excuse me, sir. You weren’t saying I was a bad liar when I was getting dirt on Petunia Lemon.” I feign offense. “And also, you’re wrong. Obviously my top traits are my ass, hair, and fantastic sense of humor.”

I mean really. My honesty? How dare he!

“I can’t argue with that.” His hands find my ass, and he pulls me off of the couch and onto his lap. “Why don’t we call it a four-way tie?”

I touch my mouth to his, physically unable to be this close to him without kissing him. “I guess I can agree to that.”

“Good.” He leans back just enough so he can look into my eyes without having to break contact. It’s the perfect position, and I’d be the happiest girl in the world if we could have every conversation exactly like this. “Now tell me what you were going to say.”

Okay. I take it back.

Maybe not every conversation.

“Nothing. I was just—” I start to come up with another excuse when a timer goes off in his kitchen. “Is that dinner? Did you cook for me?”

“Depends.” He shrugs, not giving away a thing. “Are you going to actually tell me what happened with Nora and the rest of the Petunia Lemon women today or am I going to have to pull it out of you somehow?”

My insides quiver thinking of all the ways he could go about getting the information out of me, and I consider going that route until my other insides, aka my stomach, begins to growl.

It’s a hard decision, sex or food, but I left Nora’s before taking advantage of the pizza and cannoli she ordered from Lechugas and I’m starving.

“Fine, I’ll tell you.” I give in to the infuriating, gorgeous, wonderful man beneath me. “But first, I want you to know you’re very frustrating and stubborn.”

“I can live with that.”

Annoying.

Cute, but annoying.

“There wasn’t much that was unexpected. I don’t know exactly what time the article came out, but Nora came into my room while the kids were in art.

I could tell the second she walked in what happened.

Even when Nora is stressed, she still has this innate poise to her.

But not today. She was losing it, Luke.” I know it’s not funny, but I almost laugh thinking of the way she looked when we walked to our cars after school.

Her shirt was untucked, her hair was falling out of her bun, and her perfect makeup was smeared to oblivion.

It was like she went to war, only the war was with herself.

“She told me she was on the phone with legal all day and then after school, she hosted an emergency meeting. She only invited the consultants she trusts the most and I would’ve felt guilty if the meeting didn’t take place in the million-dollar house she absolutely did not purchase with her principal’s salary. ”

“She invited Jacqueline and I over for dinner a long time ago,” he says, and I instantly want to know every detail about this story he’s held out on me. “You know I’m not her biggest fan, but even I can’t lie about that house. It’s really nice.”

“Eh. It’s alright.” I sound bitter, but it’s less because of how much I know she spent and more because of the design choices.

Houses like that are supposed to have charm.

Why buy an old house if you’re just going to tear down what makes it special?

“But anyways, she was really just working overtime to defend Petunia Lemon. She said the accusations you lodged against them were baseless, just another example of the patriarchy trying to bring women down. And then, you know,” I say, dropping my voice to a whisper, “she said you wrote it out of revenge because you’re still in love with Jacqueline. ”

“Can you please speak up a little bit?” His eyes narrow on my mouth, and his body tightens under me. “Because it sounded like you said I was still in love with Jacqueline and there’s no way I heard that right.”

“To be fair, I’m not actually the one who said it, Nora did, and also, if you think back to a few minutes ago, I didn’t want to tell you in the first place.

I wanted to eat.” I remind him of the reason we’re still sitting on his couch.

“I knew it would make you mad and I didn’t want any of their crap getting in the way of you having an amazing day. ”

It’s not that I think I’m always right, but I am correct approximately 98 percent of the time (Petunia Lemon excluded), and it will probably be best for all of us if he just accepts that now.

“You know that’s bullshit, right?” His voice rumbles through my body like a bass through an amp, and there’s a sense of urgency in his words that wasn’t there only moments ago.

“Of course I loved Jacqueline once upon a time, but that’s been over for a long time.

I would not be here with you if I still had feelings for her. ”

Even when I didn’t like Luke, I trusted him. No part of me ever thought he was just dragging me along for this story.

“I know, I never thought you would,” I try to reassure him. “Plus, once you found out I was Isla’s teacher, you had to at least pretend to love me.”

“You’re wrong.” He tilts my chin so I’m looking directly at him and can’t miss the sincerity pouring out of his emerald eyes.

“There’s no pretending to it. The moment I sat across from you and you smiled across that table, you made the entire goddamn world fall away.

Everything Jacqueline ever did to me disappeared right then and there and I saw the promise of a life sweeter than anything I could’ve imagined.

A love bigger than I ever knew possible. ”

“It hasn’t been long enough. You’re a parent in my classroom.” My hands shake and my body trembles as I try to think of all the reasons he shouldn’t be saying this. “You can’t love me.”

Not yet. Not like this.

Too bad Luke doesn’t agree.

“I can and I do,” he says. “And you can try to deny it, but I know you love me too.”

I know I should argue with him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We’ve been in this bubble, sneaking around and seeing each other in secret. Everything is so exciting, but we can’t know if this is real, not until we wait. I need to convince him that he’s wrong.

He doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him either.

Except when I try to tell him, nothing comes out.

Because as much as I want to tell him otherwise, I know he’s absolutely right.

“You love me?”

“Even when I didn’t want to.”

“Well then.” I twist in his lap, straddling his hips as I stare into the green eyes that captivated me from the moment he first looked my way.

His words flow through my veins, and the rightness fills my body with so much warmth that not even the snowiest Colorado day could ever make me cold again. “I’m glad you want to now.”

“Not just now.” He touches his lips to mine. “I want to forever.”

When I walked in his door tonight, I didn’t know what to expect.

In all of the scenarios I had run through my head, not a single one ended up with me in his lap and his lips on mine after he told me he loved me.

Never in a million years did I ever think reality could far surpass anything I could dream up.

His mouth is pressed against mine, his strong hands splayed across my back as his fingers make easy work of my bra clasp. We’re so focused on each other that we don’t notice Mister Bubbles hopping off of the couch or the sound of his front door opening.

We don’t notice anything until it’s too late.

“I can’t believe you would stoop so low, Lucas.” Jacqueline’s voice cuts through our silent moans. “If you wanted to get back at me so bad, you could’ve called me instead of—oh fuck! Lucas!”

She shouts when she sees the scene playing out in front of her. I jump off of Luke, and my hands frantically try to reclasp my bra as Luke springs off of the couch and tries to shield me from her view.

“What the fuck, Jacqueline?” I’ve heard Luke mad before, but never like this. “How did you even get in here?”

She stares down at his hardwood floors and holds up a key. “You still keep it above the door.”

He grabs the throw blanket folded over the back of the couch and even though he’s so pissed that he’s practically shaking, he opens the blanket and gently drapes it over my shoulders to cover me up before marching across the room.

“This doesn’t belong to you.” He snatches the key out of her long, manicured fingers. “You have no right to barge in here like this.”

“I needed to talk to you about the article. I didn’t know…” She finally looks up, and when her eyes land on me, I watch in abject horror as the confusion on her face quickly transforms to hurt before finally landing on anger. “You? Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not doing this with you tonight. You need to leave.” Luke tries to move her toward the door, but she’s finished listening to him. Now that she’s focused on me, it’s like he’s ceased to exist.

“I can’t believe this! You’re my daughter’s teacher.

” Icy daggers shoot from her blue eyes, and the cold I thought vanished seeps deep into my bones.

The expression on her face is chilling, and if looks could kill, I’d already be six feet under.

“You’re my daughter’s teacher and you’re fucking my husband! ”

“Ex-husband,” Luke interjects. “Remember? You filed for divorce? I haven’t been your husband for more than a year.”

“Oh my god.” She doesn’t even acknowledge that he spoke. Her eyes go wide, and I see the exact moment the final puzzle piece falls into place and she realizes I was the person who has been working with Luke. “This was all you, wasn’t it?”

“Jacqueline, it’s not what—” I don’t know what I’m going to say, but she cuts me off before I can figure it out.

“Don’t you even fucking try. I told Nora there was something about you, I told her!

” She waves her hands around like they’re knives and poison-laced laughter spills out of her over-plumped lips.

“But sleeping with my husband and trying to bring down Petunia Lemon? This is beyond. Wait until I tell her.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Jacqueline.” Anger rolls off of Luke like waves crashing onto an obliterated shoreline. “I swear to god, if you don’t get out of my house, I’ll report you for breaking and entering.”

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving.” She spits the words at Luke, but they sound more like a threat than a regretful farewell.

And when she looks back at me it’s not the hatred, but the unveiled glee, that turns my blood to ice.

“When Nora and I are finished with you, not only will you not see my daughter anymore but you’ll be lucky if you step foot inside of Nester Fox ever again. ”

I watch her back as she storms out of the front door and try to cling on to the dwindling hope that her threats are empty.

But when Luke turns to me after he locks the door behind her, I know without a shadow of a doubt that Hurricane Jacqueline has just started and when it comes to the devastation she’s going to leave in her wake, my battered body will be the first thing found in the wreckage.

“So…” I look at Luke, fighting back the stupid tears that really want to fall. “I think that went pretty well, don’t you?”