Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
E very perfectly coifed head in the room turned to face Joel. If he looked ridiculous taking up the doorway of the women’s washroom, he didn’t care. He was here for one reason and one reason only. His gaze cut through the pageant-style glamour sparkling around him, right to the quiet, subtle beauty sitting in the corner. Lucy was the only woman who’d ever claimed his whole heart.
Seeing her, just breathing the same air as her, took a thousand-pound weight off his soul. And so it had always been. Whenever Lucy was around, he felt peace.
“We’re engaged,” he said again, and this time he noticed her hands twitch in her lap, as if she struggled not to get up and slap him.
What are you doing? she mouthed at him, her dark-brown eyes flashing, and Joel couldn’t help it.
He smiled. God, he’d missed her.
He shoved off the doorframe and entered the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. As comical as walking into a ladies’ bathroom full of Italian women dressed to the nines in every color of the rainbow was, he only had tunnel vision for one—and there was nothing funny about the way his heart raced as he approached Luciana Barone.
He knew she likely chose the neutral-toned dress because she wanted to blend in, be inconspicuous. Muted. He’d seen her do this a lot when it wasn’t just the two of them. But in this case, it had backfired, because the creamy tones shone like gold against her tanned skin, the silk fabric sliding tantalizingly over her legs as she squirmed on her seat. She made the understated outfit look so exquisite she’d taken his breath away. And he was fairly certain she didn’t even realize it.
“I wanted to announce it tonight, but Lucy didn’t want to steal Mariana’s thunder.” His eye contact never wavered as the lie slid from his lips. “I agreed to keep it quiet, but when I saw her dancing with another man, I lost control and my jealousy took over.”Not entirely a fabrication. When he’d seen her with Nico, something snapped inside him, and the curtain fell on the four-year charade he’d been playing. “I’m not sorry, Lucy,” he said as the sea of relatives parted to let him stand in front of her. “I’m tired of the secrets. You’re mine, and I want the world to know.”
A loud sigh rose from somewhere in the room.
He knew his words would ignite her rage. He watched, resigned, as her face transformed into a mask of anger, color infusing her cheeks and darkening her iris’. Four years clearly hadn’t been long enough to stem the flow of raw and volatile emotion in her. Why would it be? It hadn’t been enough for him either. Years couldn’t cool his tension, but there was only minimal satisfaction in knowing she’d suffered the same.
No, she’s suffered more. Much more, he reminded himself. And because he understood that, he made no attempt to stop her when she surged to her feet.
“Maybe I didn’t want the world to know, Joel. Did you ever think of that?” she demanded, raising her voice.
“Luciana…” her aunt, Graziella Barone, hissed from beside her.
Furious blinking, gaping mouths, and indistinct whispering surrounded Lucy like a hive.
Joel didn’t blame her family’s reaction. Lucy didn’t often have outbursts, preferring to assume a more reserved demeanor in public. She’d told him that every member of the Barone family had inherited so much of the drama gene there’d been none left for her. She said she was an afterthought in her family, overlooked or ignored.
That had never been true for him.
He’d noticed Lucy from—the moment he could remember noticing women. It had been that defiance, the not giving into the deafening theatrics that her family was known for, that had made her stand out to him. In a world where everyone wanted to be loud and seen, Lucy had built a life in the quiet, and that made her interesting.
“I didn’t want a scene!” She swept her arm around her, indicating the women who’d crammed themselves into the bathroom.
Okay, so maybe there was some temper left in her . He kind of liked it, too because it mostly came out just for him.
“But you never listen, Joel, because you’re The Fixer. The one who knows what’s best for everyone. You blow into people’s lives and try to make everything better. But sometimes it can’t be made better.” She wasn’t talking about his engagement stunt now, and they both knew it. “There’s a time and a place for something to happen, and this isn’t our time or our place.” She dragged in a desperate breath before continuing. “And maybe you and I need to accept that we’ll never have one.”
Beside her, Ella gasped loudly. “ Luciana, basta , you don’t know what you’re saying.” She whirled to Joel. “She’s upset.” Then she addressed the women in the room. “Why don’t we all leave and give them space to talk, no?” She waved her hands, herding the women toward the door.
“No.” Lucy lifted her hand. “I need my own space. I’m leaving.” She jabbed her finger at Joel. “Do not follow me.”
Without looking back, she strode out of the washroom. Leaving him with a pack of overdressed, overly perfumed, and overly interested women who all stared at him like he was the latest person on the cover of People Magazine . Which he hadn’t been. This edition.
That didn’t go as he’d planned. Not that he really had a plan. With Lucy, he never seemed to have a plan. Life with her just happened, and he went where it called him.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. A wave of lash extensions blinked at him expectantly.
“I should go after her.”
Everyone nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes! Yes, you should go!” Ella flapped her hands again, shooing him out the door. “Go now, before you change your mind.”
Joel opened his mouth to tell her he’d never change his mind when it came to Lucy. She lived in him, day and night, hurt him in the way no other person had ever hurt him, and still, he’d never change his mind about being with her.
But Ella slapped her handbag across his thighs in a sweeping motion, and before he knew it, he was out in the hall, the bathroom door hissing shut behind him.
Not having a clue where she’d gone, Joel followed his instinct, and exited the hotel’s side entrance, which led to a little garden patio with a fountain. He’d seen it on his way in, before he’d realized Lucy was inside the reception. The sound of the fountain triggered a memory of her. She used to love fountains, and apparently, she still did because he found her standing with her back to him, watching the water.
Her arms wrapped protectively around herself, as if she was trying to hold herself together. He could relate to the feeling.Seeing her was like an old wound that had reopened after healing poorly in the first place.It fucking hurt.
There’d been no way of knowing if Lucy would travel from San Francisco to Portland for her cousin’s wedding. He’d taken a chance coming here.
In the back of his mind, he’d hoped to see her, as he did anytime he went to an event where there’d be Barones. He’d mentally prepared himself for the possibility every time. What he hadn’t banked on was seeing her with someone else. Or how he would react. He prided himself on never losing control, but one glimpse of Lucy in the arms of another man and he’d forgotten himself. Now here he was, staring at her gorgeous silhouette in the shimmer of moonlight and water, and he thought maybe losing control every once in a while wasn’t so bad.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward.
“I wish you weren’t here,” she stated, not turning around to look at him.
“Ouch. I wasn’t expecting you to jump into my arms, but considering you’re still my wife, I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm.”
She whirled around and pointed her finger in his face. Her cheeks were flushed with anger, her wavy, chocolate-colored hair a halo. Her dark-brown eyes flared.
“This isn’t funny,” she seethed.“And don’t call me that!”
A smart man would have retreated. But Joel had never been smart when it came to Lucy, and like a moth to a flame, he stepped closer until her finger jabbed his chest. “Wife?” he asked innocently, provoking her. He knew it was unfair to stir her temper, but damn, he had one of his own, and it had been dormant for too long. Seeing her with Nico sparked it to life.
“Yes, that,” she insisted again. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“No!” She flattened her hand against his chest and shoved. When he didn’t budge, she stalked off to the other side of the fountain. “If I were your wife, we wouldn’t have spent the last four years avoiding each other. We wouldn’t have moved on with our lives like the whole world hadn’t just crashed around us. Like we hadn’t just spent months playing house and spending every spare minute we had together. Like we hadn’t made a—” Her voice broke, and the choked sound gutted him.
He’d been there too. He remembered it all in vivid detail.
“Like we hadn’t made a baby together?” He finished for her, even though the words stuck thick in his throat. It had been the single most important thing that had ever been gifted to him, and he’d lost it. They’d lost it. There weren’t words to describe the pain. “Is that what you did, Lucy? Move on?”
She huffed out a breath and plopped down on a bench by some rose bushes, folding her arms across her chest. Her telltale sign that she was feeling vulnerable and didn’t want to show it.
Too bad. Four years of not talking about his deepest regret, likely hers too, and he was done hiding feelings. His or hers.He needed to know .
“Did you move on?”
She turned her face away.
“Did you?” He controlled his voice. There would be no losing his cool tonight. “That man in there.” He pointed back to the hotel. “Did you move on with him?”
The answer was none of his damn business, he knew that. But it had been four long years, and they were still legally married, so the time for answers had come.
If her answer was yes, he’d find a way to live with it, but he needed to know. He’d been living half a life, burying himself in work to avoid feeling the pain that coursed through him now. He’d denied himself every opportunity to be happy in atonement for the way he’d betrayed her. If she chose to move on, it would be her right.
“No,” she whispered toward the rose bushes.
He sighed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t?—”
She cut him off by jumping to her feet and taking several steps away from him. “Joel, don’t. Please, please don’t.” She pressed her fingers against her temples before raking them through her hair. “I didn’t move on with anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I want to move on with you.”
“I figured that one out by the way you’ve been avoiding me for four years,” he murmured.
“You told them we’re engaged,” she shouted incredulously. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” he answered honestly. “I saw you dancing with that guy, and I didn’t like it.”
“Nico is my gross second cousin. It meant nothing.”
Joel shrugged. “I didn’t like it.”
Lucy sighed. “So you told Nico we were married? Then, when you could have let that go, laughed it off, you tell my aunt and cousins we’re engaged? What did you think was going to happen? That they’d just congratulate you, give you a big ole slap on the back, and never wonder what left field that came out of? What am I supposed to do now, go in there and tell them it was a joke? I’d never live that down: Lucy’s fake engagement, the closest she’ll ever get to escaping a life of spinsterhood. ”
“Stop.” He held up his hand and watched her inhale a deep breath. “Of course that’s not what I want, Luciana.”
“Don’t call me that,” she spat out.
“What now? Your name? I’m running out of things to call you.”
“I mean like that . All slow and commanding. You’re ‘business Joel’ when you say my name like that. Luciana .” She dropped her voice a few octaves, mimicking him. “I don’t like business Joel.”
A smile lifted the corner of his lips as he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked closer to her. He couldn’t risk touching her. She wouldn’t accept it right now, but God, he loved her like this. Riled up and alive with temper. He’d only ever seen her like this with him. Like she saved the most fiery parts of herself for him and him alone.
When she was angry or frustrated with him, the truth rolled off her tongue with no inhibition. The good girl was tucked away, and the real Lucy came out to play.
“Lucy,” he offered in a hushed tone, using his voice to touch her instead of his hands.
Her mouth opened on a slight intake of breath. Desire clouded the temper in her eyes. “Shit,” she whispered. “I think that’s worse.”
Joel let his smile pull fully across his mouth, but it wasn’t enough to relieve the weight on his chest. “I’m sorry for telling everyone we’re engaged,” he said, using his tone to soothe the tension that had built around them. “It was inconsiderate, among other things. And I’ll go back right now and make it right.” He owed her that much, at the very least, so he started making his way back down the path to the hotel.
“And say what? That you were joking?” Her words stopped him. “Don’t bother. They’ll never let me hear the end of it if you tell them that. Or anything else. I’ll deal with it tomorrow when I’ve thought of something to say that will minimize their third degree.”
“Lucy—”
“Yep, definitely worse,” she whispered, more to herself than him. Then, after one last lingering moment, she stepped around him to leave.
He didn’t move, just stood where he was, paralyzed by his inability to manipulate the situation in his favor. He thought she was already gone, but then she said, “Tell your sister I said hi.”
By the time he’d turned around to watch her leave, she was gone.