Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
To Do:
- Win him back
- Soundproof Mindy’s room?
“Thanks for not taking it personally.” Claire lifted one end of a projector screen and handed it to Jeff, her private security officer of the day.
Long shadows intruded into Luke’s backyard. There was a slight chill in the air, and a breeze tugged at the hem of her bright red cocktail dress. She stoked the small flames in the stone fire pit.
Jeff shrugged. “I can understand why you’d want someone you already know to look after you.” A handgun holstered on Jeff’s hip clashed with the tuxedo and bright red cummerbund he wore. “Besides, this is better than sitting in a car holding my piss for eight hours.”
Claire glanced at her watch. Finally, after an exhausting twenty-four hours during which she had saged the entire house twice, Alice had flown home to make the next taping of her show.
Sawyer and Mindy were due to land any minute. Their arrival accomplished two things: first, Sawyer would serve as a 24/7, live-in bodyguard. And second, Mindy and Claire were going to give California one last shot by taking on Darius and Nick as clients. Their final West Coast representative interview was taking place tomorrow, and if Heather Clearwater wasn’t their girl, it was back to the drawing board. And if Luke didn’t want to reconcile, she would be apartment hunting as well. The future of her entire personal and professional life hinged on these next few days.
Would moving Sawyer in be enough to show Luke she was taking the threats against her seriously? And would firing the security team be enough to drag him back to the house? She had been too nervous to outright ask him to talk. Her heart couldn’t take another rejection. If firing SoCal Security didn’t summon Luke, she was going to be forced to set a bush on fire.
“Does that look straight?” Jeff asked from the ladder.
“It’s perfect. Thank you.”
She glanced around the yard. Any time she left the house, the hair on the back of her neck prickled. Was it paranoia, or was it ESA? Any one of these houses could hide a member of ESA, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Jeff stepped heavily down the rungs and waited while Claire pressed a button on her trusty projector—one of the few things that survived the warehouse fire since it had been at Luke’s house. Her laptop hummed, and the title menu of Luke’s favorite movie, The Departed , appeared onscreen. It was a little violent and depressing for her, but Luke could spend hours discussing every shot.
Rosie ran underneath the screen and sniffed it suspiciously. Winston trailed not far behind. Both wore doggie tuxedos.
“Well, shit. He’s mad for sure,” Jeff said, looking up from his phone. “He says not to go anywhere and that he’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“Perfect. Thank you. Do you need time to tune?” Jeff’s true passion, which he had told Claire about the previous day when she brought him some of Alice’s empanadas, was music.
He nodded and disappeared into a corner of the yard. Claire whirled around and re-checked everything for the fifth time. Edison bulbs stretched over a pair of Adirondack chairs. It wasn’t her finest work, but she no longer had a warehouse full of elegant props or generous wiggle room in her budget.
Her apology was intimate and cozy, but would it be good enough? Was it even a small step toward bridging the gaping hole between her and Luke?
Her phone buzzed, and her heart jumped. Was he calling to curse her out? She glanced at the screen. Brad’s name flashed impatiently. What the hell?
Her thumb hesitated over the button. She didn’t owe him anything. He had mercilessly fired her, humiliated her, made her question her entire life’s work. She sent the call to voicemail and set her phone on the picnic table. Suck it, Brad.
Someone knocked on the fence. Jeff jumped up, hand on his gun. He approached the gate and demanded that someone show their ID.
“It’s just pizza, man,” called the voice of the teenager from the restaurant down the street.
“He’s fine, Jeff.” She edged around Jeff’s suspicious stance and handed over a generous tip. “Thanks, Nate. How was your geometry test?”
“Nailed it. Got an A-,” the teen said with a smug smile. Braces peeped through.
Claire offered a high five and took the pie. “You’re killing it.”
“Flash cards. Who knew?”
Claire and the seventy-two blank index cards she always carried in her purse knew. She waved as the teen retreated to his beat-up Volvo. The tantalizing aroma of marinara wafted toward her as she carefully arranged the pizza box on the gingham cloth draped over the picnic table. She lifted the lid and exposed the pizza. It was a near exact replica of the apology Luke had sent her the previous spring—a pepperoni corgi, but this time with a bonus tiny cluster of pepperoni that looked like Winston.
She touched one hand to the recently unplugged crockpot that sat next to it. It was still warm, and full of chili. But not ordinary chili. This was Luke’s dad’s famous recipe, apparently made for many game days in his youth. George had reluctantly handed over the recipe the night before. But would it be enough?
Her phone vibrated. Someone was pulling into the driveway. Shit, he was here.
She climbed up the stairs to the deck and took a second to compose herself. Her stomach rippled with nausea. She was not going to cry. Shouting at him for leaving was also going to have to be off limits. They were going to talk this out like adults, and then maybe, if she was lucky, he would agree to come home.
She pulled the front door open, and he paused with his hand in midair. A pang of longing hit her, and she almost rushed into his arms. He was in a tux, hair slicked back. Damn it. She must have interrupted something important. A studio party, maybe? That wasn’t likely to put him in a great mood.
His eyes were stormy, brows drawn together.
“What the hell are you doing, firing the security team?”
Her hands shook, and she hid them behind her back. Fighting for control over her voice, she spoke. “I hired someone better.”
Good. She hadn’t cried or screamed.
“I did hours of research, checked references. These guys are the best.” He stabbed a finger at the SoCal Security car on the curb. “If this is about money?—”
Claire held up a hand. Her temper was threatening to flare. “It’s not about money. Mindy and Sawyer are moving in with me until I go back to Pennsylvania.”
“You—what?”
“I’m trying to take things seriously. It doesn’t get much more serious than paying a security professional to live with you. I hope you don’t mind. It should just be for a couple weeks while I figure out what to do next.”
He visibly deflated. “That…sounds like a good idea.”
Silence stretched between them. Crickets chirped, and a car door down the street slammed.
“You look like you’re about to pull off a diamond heist,” she observed, then bit her tongue. Dr. Goulding had scolded her about her use of humor to deflect her feelings during their last call.
“Yeah, well, Harry Winston had too many anyway.” Luke stared at the floor and fiddled with the cuff links in his sleeves—his father’s.
“Do you have a second to talk?” Her heart staggered. Yikes. This was like standing in a middle school hallway asking Robbie Yoder to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance all over again.
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. He nodded. She stepped back to let him inside, and the sleeve of his jacket brushed against her. Electricity crackled between them. God, she had missed him.
“I’m surprised you haven’t completely remodeled.” He walked into the foyer, and his eyes immediately zeroed in on the barely visible orange pill bottles on the kitchen island. He turned back to her and glanced up and down, as though expecting to find a gaping head wound or staph infection. The curiosity was clearly killing him, but he didn’t ask.
“It crossed my mind, but I figured you had enough to be upset about.”
Luke frowned but didn’t answer. The glimmer of flames must have caught his eye because he crossed to the door that led to the deck.
“Having a party?” He looked over his shoulder. His jawline was even more defined in the flickering half-light. Bags hung under his eyes.
“Kind of. Will you come with me?” Ugh. Even her voice was hesitant. What had happened to resourceful, don’t-need-a-man Claire? Luke’s douchey entrance into her life had turned her into a puddle of dreamy codependent goo.
“Just for a minute. There’s a party I have to get back to.”
The doorknob was cold in her hand. Her heart fell. Any other Sunday night he would have wrapped up work in time to watch a baking show with her and the dogs in bed. She shouldn’t have counted on him being a creature of habit. That’s what she got for trying to live in the moment.
All she could do was word-vomit her feelings as quickly as possible and hope that he listened. Should be a fun evening.
Claire made eye contact with Jeff through the pane of glass. She nodded, and violin music drifted across the yard.
Luke squinted and stepped out onto the deck. “Is that Jeff?”
“He’s a very accomplished violinist.” She shut the door behind them. “Did you know he was wait-listed for Juilliard?”
Luke cracked a smile, but it vanished immediately. Just then, Rosie and Winston rocketed up the stairs and all but tackled Luke. He dropped to his knees and folded them into his arms, then they all collapsed on the deck in a cuddle puddle. Rosie licked his ears furiously, and Winston crawled inside his jacket.
“They missed you,” she said. “So did I.”
His eyes shifted from the cloud of fur drifting off Rosie. His penetrating gaze cut her to the core, turning her legs to jelly. The night was cool, but her cheeks burned. Something about him transformed her into a stupid schoolgirl. She had never felt this way about anyone before, and she might have lost him forever.
He dusted his pants off and stood, Winston and his makeshift halo tucked under his arm. “Is that The Departed ?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize you’d be in the middle of something. I’ll just take it down.” She reached for the corner of the projector screen, but Luke caught her hand. A rush of adrenaline hit at his touch. She couldn’t see her reflection, but she was almost certainly glowing like she had just climbed out of a vat of radioactive waste.
“Leave it. You wanted to talk?”
She nodded and took a deep breath. Where were her damn notecards? She should have reviewed them before he got here. Her mind was as blank as a fresh Word document.
“Can I say something first?” Luke put Winston down and walked over to the picnic table. He sat and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. It might as well have been the cover of GQ .
“Okay.” She followed and perched on the bench across from him. The wood was probably going to snag the fabric of her cocktail dress. Was he going to yell at her some more? Tell her to move out now instead of later? She deserved some yelling, but her heart could only take so much. It was a good thing she had taken her meds earlier.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She blinked. “For what?”
“For leaving you. Right after you were abducted. I was just upset and so worried about you that I just…lost it. It was really shitty, and I’m sorry.”
Oh, thank god. The shoulders that had been hunched up near her ears all night dropped back to their natural spot. As much as she deserved it, she wasn’t sure she could have handled another fight about how irresponsible she was.
“No, I’m sorry.” She reached across the picnic table. Her hand shook as she laid it on top of his. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone out alone. It’s so hard for me to just sit here and do nothing. They’ve taken so much from me and put everyone I love in danger. I know that’s not an excuse. You were right. It’s not just about me anymore. There are other people in my life who care about what happens to me, and I need to be more careful. If you were gallivanting around while someone tried to murder you, I would be furious. I underestimated them. It won’t happen again.”
Luke ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I was too harsh. You were in such a vulnerable place—barely three hours after getting abducted—and I just fucking left .”
Her phone vibrated, clattering on the wood. Brad was calling again. Luke’s eyes lowered, hardened a bit at the corners when he saw the screen.
Claire picked up her phone and threw it over her shoulder. Something smacked against the vinyl siding of the house and clattered onto the cement. For once, she didn’t care if it was broken. Eat a dick, Brad.
She bit her lip and continued. “That part did suck. But I think your leaving actually helped me. Maybe.”
He tore his eyes away from the possibly destroyed phone and raised his eyebrows. He looked different—lighter, almost amused. “What do you mean?”
Jeff’s violin sang in the background. The Edison bulbs swayed in the breeze. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. The thoughts she had scribbled on flash cards were evading her. Ugh, feelings.
“You get a whole new perspective when you hit rock bottom.” She avoided his gaze, preferring instead to talk to a crack in the concrete. “I finally listened to Dr. Goulding and started anti-anxiety meds. And benzos for the sleepwalking. I can’t really tell if they’re helping yet, but it’s a start. I worked through some feelings with Charlie. We should really go to Bash Bar together sometime, by the way. It’ll do wonders for your stress. And then I called in a serious favor from Sawyer. It’ll give us both some peace and let me figure out how to start over.”
She squared her shoulders.
Luke’s calloused hand closed over hers. “You don’t have to start over.”
She met his eyes. They were soft.
“Does this mean you’ll come home?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“My bag was already in the trunk.” He stood and picked her up before she knew what was happening.
Her heart stuttered, and her cheeks burned. It was like being held by lightning. “What about your party?”
“Screw the party.” He lifted her into the air and twirled her. Her cocktail dress got caught in the wake, spinning around her in a velvety cloud of red. She raised her arms to the sky. The stars blurred overhead like their magical evening in Paris. Violin music bled into the night.
He lowered her, slowly, deliciously until she was pressed against his chest. They simply looked at each other for a moment, locked in a tangle of arms. Finally, for the first time since her abduction, she was home.