Epilogue 2
L uca
Unedited and subject to change
The wood planks of the steps leading from our private beach up to our Martha’s Vineyard home dig into the soles of my bare feet.
But it’s got nothing on my shoulder that’s twinging and kicking up like a bull at a rodeo.
I’ve been so miserable since I got here, I hardly recognize my own reflection and the pain isn’t helping to improve my mood.
Neither is how weak I still feel.
They talked about this in med school.
Patients going into depression after a major injury or illness.
I have no illusions that’s what this is. I just never considered it would happen to me. On either of those accounts.
My shoes dangle from two fingers. My other hand brushes back the windswept strands of my chestnut hair that cling to my face. It’s too long, but finding the energy to do something about it isn’t high on my priority list. At least not until I can get the greenlight to go back to Minnesota.
Tonight was fun, though. Kinda monotonous, same old shit as it always is, but fun.
My brothers and baby sister all flew out to the island, and I would be a fool to believe it wasn’t because I’m here for the foreseeable future.
They’re worried about me. I’m worried about myself, and it shines through.
What will I do if I never fully recover? If I can’t go back? If I can’t continue and finish my residency?
If I can never operate again?
And as if fate enjoys the kick to my ass, my shirt sleeve catches on a random nail that’s sticking out of the wood railing and my shoulder jerks.
“Fuck,” I hiss as I rub over the barely healed scar, aggravated with just how tender the wound and the surrounding tissue still are. “Heal. I command you to heal.”
I snicker, a little buzzed and a lot annoyed that I’m still hurting despite the joint I smoked and the two strong drinks I nursed tonight.
Carter stayed at the bar. So did Kaplan and Oliver.
Landon didn’t even attempt it, having gone to bed likely when his nine-year-old princess Miss Stella—my favorite girl on the planet—sacked out for the night.
He doesn’t know how to leave her and that’s an entirely different matter.
So different from my reason for being banished to our parents’ estate on The Vineyard in the middle of my goddamn neurosurgery residency at The Mayo Clinic.
Which brings me back to my aching shoulder.
And the music I hear, a lulling distraction luring me away from the break in the path where it diverges between the main house and the pool, tennis courts, garages, and staff residences. For a moment, I freeze, unsure exactly what I’m hearing. A violin? Cello maybe?
But from where and from whom?
I amble toward the music, too depressed to go to bed with my thoughts and too bored to bother trying to fuck one of the local chicks.
Boring. So boring. It’s not even their fault. It’s purely mine.
But that sound. That achingly, mournful, exquisite sound.
It rattles my bones in the best of ways. It calls attention to my muscles, urging, begging them to follow it. To capture it. To listen more intently. I’ve never heard this song before—though far from a classical music expert. This feels more modern.
The sound leads me to the garage. All five bays are closed, but there is a light glowing through the upper windows and no matter how high I jump, I can’t quite make out who is there.
Trying the side door, I find it unlocked and as quietly as possible, I turn the handle, slipping inside and shutting it behind me with a soft click.
The air in the garage is thick, heavy with humidity, and I roll my sleeves up to my elbows.
The music is coming from the other side of the garage, and I weave my way around the large Jeep, Tesla, and Mercedes convertible only to stop dead in my tracks for a second time, my breath stalling in my lungs at the sight before me.
Hot damn .
A woman is sitting on a folding chair, her black-as-night hair hanging over the back of it, her face flushed and tacky with sweat.
From this angle, I’d swear the only thing she’s wearing is the large cello sitting between her spread thighs, but as I edge closer, I notice a paper-thin, gauzy white, flowy top that stops just below her ample breasts and matching tiny shorts.
Her eyes are closed, her head bowed as one hand moves swiftly and fluidly up the long neck of the instrument while the other gracefully drags the bow along the strings.
Carefully, I keep to the shadows along the doors, angling for a better position to watch her.
She hasn’t heard me yet and though I feel as though I should know her, that I’ve seen her before somewhere, I’m coming up at a loss.
Another step and then I stop, standing here like a creeper as she plays the cello in a way I’ve never heard or seen any instrument played before. The way she draws each note from it, coaxing its exquisite moans like a lover, has me entranced.
Or maybe that’s the woman.
Because just looking at her has my dick hard as steel when it hasn’t shown interest in anything or anyone in over a month. Calling her simply beautiful is practically an insult. Words haven’t yet been invented to describe her and she hasn’t even opened her eyes yet.
Or looked up.
But I need her to. The urge to see her face and what she looks like when she discovers me here is oddly compelling.
Then I might need to fuck her. Work whatever bizarre magic she’s weaving out of my body.
Unless she’s Rina’s friend or something.
Shit. She is at my parents’ estate and judging by the way she’s dressed and her comfort playing cello here, she belongs.
I clear my throat, but she doesn’t catch it. In fact, she’s so lost in her music she doesn’t notice me until I grab a random old deck chair and drag it over to sit beside her. Then she starts. Almost violently, she practically falls off her chair as her head flies up and her gaze snaps over to me.
Startling blue-green eyes land on mine and something strange and foreign stirs in my chest, squeezing ever so slightly. She blinks rapidly—her eyelashes a thick, black fan across her creamy cheeks—as she adjusts herself on her chair and licks her pillowy lips nervously.
“Luca.”
Now it’s my turn to blink. “You know me?”
A flush of crimson creeps up from the top of her cleavage to the roots of her hair. “Well, yes, sir. I mean, it’s been a while, but I… of course. That is to say, I knew you weren’t Dr. Landon.” She shakes her head, flustered. Clears her throat. “Did I wake you with my playing?”
Sir. She called me sir. And Dr. Landon? The fuck?
I study her closer. Raven hair. Caribbean ocean eyes. Knock-out body.
Shit. Raven hair. Raven. How could I have not recognized our house manager’s daughter?
Double shit. Morgan Fairchild has been with our family since around the time Kaplan was born.
He and his wife both, but she died shortly after Raven was born.
If he knew the thoughts I was just having about his daughter, he’d kill me. Literally since the man is former MI6.
“Raven.”
If possible, her blush deepens.
“It’s been…”
A long time. I swear, she was all braces and big glasses and looked nothing like this the last time I saw her. She was also—
“Four years,” she answers for me, gently setting her large black cello down along with her bow into an open case beside her chair.
“Since you and Mister Landon graduated medical school. At least, that was the last time we spoke.” Embarrassment consumes her features, and she looks down.
But I’m caught on that four years ago thing.
“Raven, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
Her answer rocks something inside me and I lean forward, my elbows hitting my thighs as I pin her with a stare I can’t explain.
“And how long have you been eighteen?”
Her head tilts at my odd question, but I wait her out, needing to know just what level of depraved son of a bitch I’m hitting.
“Three months.”
My gut sinks.
“I turn twenty-nine in two weeks.”
Why am I telling her that? I’m nearly eleven years older than her. She’s a teenager. Essentially part of our staff, who are more like extended family. I shouldn’t feel this sort of… disappointment? Is that what that is?
“I know when your birthday is, Luca, and I know how old you are.”
A smirk hits my lips at the ‘duh’ way she says that. “Is that right?”
She stares innocently at me, but there is something else there. A glimmer in her eyes. Something that tells me she likes how thrown off I am by our age difference. Almost as if she can see my ill-placed desire for her and wants to play with it, twirl it around her fingers.
I’m Luca, but Landon is Dr. Landon. I lean back in my chair, rubbing a hand over my mouth as I consider her. If she’s at all embarrassed about her blatant lack of clothing, she’s not showing it as she cautiously waits for my next move while not removing her gaze from mine.
Such a gorgeous contradiction—shy and brave—I find my smirk growing against my better judgment.
“You’re a lot younger than I am. Does our age difference bother you?” The way it bothers me.
She laughs now, the sound a sexy rasp. Her voice is like those sea salt caramels Rina made me eat earlier with her. Smooth and creamy, yet with a zinging coarseness on the end.
“Should it?” She laughs harder at my expression.
“I’ve been told being eighteen is considered a legal adult.
I can vote and fight for our country and…
” She leans forward, cupping her hand around her mouth as if she’s about to tell me a secret.
“I don’t even have to ask my daddy’s permission before I want to go do something I shouldn’t. ”