Chapter 2
T he sun is not even up when I hear the knock on my door. I groan, squinting my eyes open a millimeter, only to snap them shut again just as quickly. “Dad, I practiced all last night. I’m not behind.”
“Well, that’s good because I was thinking I’d take you for a run and then breakfast.”
I shoot up, half falling out of bed before I catch myself with a hand on the hardwood. Righting myself, I search all around my room. “You’re not in my room, are you?”
He laughs and that laugh…
“Is that an invitation?”
“My father will crush your balls in a vise until they pop.”
“Now that’s some imagery to wake up to.”
My eyes collide with my nightstand, with the alarm clock I have on there.
Fuck, it’s five a.m. Too early. Way, way too early.
Oh, and the smell. That’s obviously me. I should have showered last night after I came back here.
I cup my hand over my mouth and breathe out, only to immediately inhale. And wince.
Dammit.
“Luca, what are you doing here?”
“How do you know I’m not Landon?”
Because Landon knows I exist, and you didn’t until last night. Hell, I babysit his daughter Stella three days a week when we’re not here on the island. And Landon Fritz would never come knocking on my door before dawn. If at all.
“I’m rolling my eyes at you for that question.”
“Very childish. Now get up. It’s nearly dawn and as you know, I don’t like to run when the sun is already up.”
“I’m not a runner. Go find someone else to torture.”
Truth. I roll over onto my side, yanking the blankets over my head.
“No.”
“I’ll only slow you down.”
“I don’t care about that. I’m not up to form anyway. Come with me. Spend the day with me. Before I can talk myself out of it.”
Oh. That gets me. My eyes snap open beneath the blanket and before I can stop it, I’m smiling. Like a giddy schoolgirl, I’m smiling. I’d do a spastic dance in my bed if I wasn’t positive he’d hear it.
Luca Fritz— Luca freaking Fritz! —is here against his better judgment and he’s right on that.
If I wasn’t so determined to be different from the women he takes to his bed, I would have jumped him like a Vegas streetwalker jumps a drunk high roller.
Accidental marriage and all. But, yeah, I don’t want to be every other girl to him and I’m already at a disadvantage.
Hello, could he have brought up the age gap a few more times?
But he’s here and I’m… fuck it.
Clamoring out of bed, I swing the door open and faint to the floor in a pile of mush.
Or more accurately, I drool. A lot. Luca Fritz is standing here, hovering in my doorframe, his hands gripping the top edge, making his biceps bulge and his triceps pop as he angles in.
He’s wearing blue gym shorts, a gray sports shirt, and sneakers that likely cost more than my performance cello, and I want to drop to my knees and take him in my mouth.
A compulsion I’ve never had before, but there it is, folks.
“You’re not dressed.”
“Huh?”
A smirk curls deviously up his lips as he gives me a slow once-over that makes my toes curl with the dark look in his eyes. “Little Bird, you’re as naked as a baby jaybird.”
“What?”
I glance down. I’m not naked. I mean, I’m sorta naked. I’m wearing the white linen crop tank top I was wearing last night and my panties, which are boy shorts so, not a thong or anything.
My head snaps back up. “I wasn’t exactly expecting you.”
Certainly not after I brought up his injury. Something that had me up for more than a few hours after I said good night to him.
“I’m going to wait outside for everyone’s safety. Change into workout stuff and let’s go run—”
I slam the door in his face before he can finish that thought.
I wasn’t lying. I haven’t been running in forever.
I do HIIT (high intensity interval training), yoga, and more yoga.
Sometimes ballet and Pilates too. It’s good for my posture and back muscles, which I need in order to play cello for hours a day.
But running?
“I hope this means you’re changing?”
“You said you were going outside.”
He laughs and then I hear his heavy footsteps head down the stairs and oh my God, this is actually happening.
Luca motherfucking Fritz wants to run with me and then take me to breakfast. After I made him frown like he just watched The Patriots get smoked in the Super Bowl.
And before you go all rolling your eyes, try being a Boston sports fan and then talk to me.
Still, I do the squeal and jump up and down about ten times before I get my shit together and put on my hottest yoga pants—the ones that make my butt look like a Kardashians’—and a sports bra that shows an awesome amount of cleavage—not difficult with my girls. No shirt because why would I do that?
I have no shame.
I know who he is, okay? I’m not stupid or delusional.
He’s an Abbot-Fritz. Luca Abbot-Fritz at that.
Billionaire playboy who charms and swoons a new girl off her feet every week.
And I’m the daughter of his father’s house manager and head of security.
I’m staff. And nearly eleven years younger as we established last night.
He’s not interested. Not really anyway, and I know that.
But when you’ve wanted something your whole life and you’re presented with a chance, you take that chance.
You don’t squander it and you don’t second-guess it.
I put on deodorant to hide the stink and brush my teeth using the small bathroom I have in here.
I give myself a once-over in the mirror, staring at my reflection as I try to pump myself up while talking myself down.
“No regrets. Even if all he wants is to be friends.”
Ugh.
“You’re going to get your heart broken.”
I flip myself off and leave the smarter half of me behind, heading outside into the freaking blackness of no dawn in sight.
“You’re crazy, right?”
“I haven’t run in the five days I’ve been on this island.
Not the five days I was in the hospital before that because I was unconscious and intubated in the ICU and sure as hell not in the weeks prior to that after my injury or my surgery.
We’re talking about over a month here, baby girl.
You reminded me last night that this is my thing and now you’re beholden to follow through on rehabbing me. ”
My hands hit my hips. “Don’t you pay people for that?”
“I do. But they’re not nearly as fucking hot as you are. Damn. Are you trying to make running beside you painful?”
“It’s going to be painful for me. Might as well be for you too.”
He chuckles, running his hand through his hair as he almost begrudgingly takes me in. “You look different than when I saw you last at fourteen.”
“Thank God for braces, contacts, and puberty.”
More laughter, a head shake, and then he waves me to go ahead of him, only I have no clue how to start this. Do people just start running? Feels almost silly. I should pay attention more.
“Come on, Little Bird. Let’s hit the sand.”
“How many nicknames do you have for me? Or is this just what you call all your girls so you don’t have to remember their names?”
I get an ass swat that has me grinning like a psycho but start off anyway, jogging like I have a clue what I’m doing.
An hour later, I think I’ve died a thousand deaths. I had to stop no less than five times because of the excruciating splint in my side. I nearly collapsed twice. Tripped over my own feet at least eight.
But Luca is all light bouncing feet and adorable smiles and damn… childhood crushes suck sometimes.
“I haven’t felt this good in so long. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to run but look at me. Not as weak as I thought.” He fist pumps and I flip him off, my hands on my knees as I try to drag in air, sweating like a sinner in church.
We’ve somehow managed to make it to the outskirts of Edgartown.
Martha’s Vineyard if you don’t know where the Abbot-Fritz summer home is.
Well, the one they visit the most frequently.
Dr. Fritz senior volunteers his time at the local hospital here on the island and also on The Cape during the summer months.
And for my entire life, I’ve spent my summers here while he does that and his wife, Octavia Abbot-Fritz—she insists I call her Octavia—does whatever billionaire mothers of six children do. She runs charities and the Abbot Foundation and chases after her little monsters.
Only her monsters are very grown now.
One in particular turning into a predator who stalks women with their eyes.
“You’re staring at my ass. Again,” I wheeze.
I bend down to pick up a seashell that’s not all that impressive, if only to drive and encourage that point home further.
“I’m not.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Only when I don’t care about getting caught.”
I grin stupidly, knowing he can’t see it. Then I give my ass a shake and he laughs, reaching out and swatting it. Again. That’s two ass spanks before dawn.
I flip around, cocking an eyebrow, but his eyes are already locked on the turbulent sea, his expression matching its wrath. Unsettled. Disturbed. All playfulness evaporated.
“Yet another miserable, gray, sunless day,” he declares, his tone flat and all wrong.
I stop, frowning at his suddenly sullen tone. I had heard the rumor. The mentioning under breaths of depression, only seeing it now for the first time on him. Maybe a bit last night, but this is different.
His gaze now casts heavenward at the dull, gray sky.
“You sound like you’re quoting The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”
He doesn’t reply, but a quote from the poem hits me. ‘Bestill,sadheart!andceaserepining;
Behindthecloudsisthesunstillshining…’ I look up too. “The sun is always there, Luca. Always shining down. Even when it’s hidden behind the clouds.”
He cuts sharply to me. “But how do you know that if you can’t see it?”
I shrug. “Faith. Science.”
“Such an easy bullshit answer that offers no reassurance and zero help.”