28. Lucius
CHAPTER 28
LUCIUS
“How is that cat doing?” I ask Juno as my limo drives to the private airport where my plane is parked. We’ve been chatting all through my packing, and I’m still not ready to get off the phone.
She laughs—a sound I find strikingly pleasant, especially as of late. “Are you really inquiring about the fluffy would-be-murderer? Clearly, we’ve run out of things to talk about.”
I yawn, glancing out the window at the darkness outside. “You’ve got a point.”
“Stop yawning,” she says, then yawns loudly. “The cat is doing great, but her mom is going to murder me, thanks to the NDA you made me sign. If gossip were a person, it would be Pearl.”
I frown. For some reason, I get annoyed whenever I’m reminded of the NDA, or other details that highlight the true nature of our arrangement.
“Speaking of the NDA,” Juno says. “You have to tell me what I can and can’t speak about when we visit my parents tomorrow.”
My limo stops, and I exit it as Elijah gets the bags. “If in doubt, you can look at me,” I say. “I’ll blink if it’s okay to share whatever you’ve started to talk about.”
“If you blink too much, they’ll think you’ve got conjunctivitis.”
I ascend the stairs to the plane and take my seat. “How about you sit next to me at your parents’ table,” I say to Juno as I activate the massage feature. “If I want you to stop speaking, I’ll step on your foot.”
“Gently,” she warns.
I grin. “I’ll make it feather light.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now I have to hang up. We’re taking off in a minute.”
“I can’t believe I’ll finally see you tomorrow,” she says, and something in her voice makes my chest go tight yet light at the same time.
I also feel a pang of guilt. There’s a tiny chance I stayed longer in Florida because I was dreading what might happen when I see her again.
What biology might make me do.
“Anyway, go,” she says, but I don’t hear the line disconnecting.
“Well, hang up,” I say, reluctant to do so myself.
“No, you hang up.”
Seriously? “No, ladies first.”
“Age before beauty,” she says.
I don’t know what’s more ridiculous, this back-and-forth or my strange stubbornness.
The plane’s engines come to life with a roar.
“You hear that?” I ask. “It’s going to be too noisy to talk in a second.”
“So… hang up,” she says.
I almost insist that she do it first, but I decide to be the grownup. “See you tomorrow,” I say and reluctantly end the call.
The next day, as Elijah drives me through the gorgeous snowy peaks surrounding the calm waters of Big Bear Lake, I try to imagine what it was like for Juno to grow up here, in all this serenity.
Speaking of serenity, I’m anything but calm. In fact, I feel almost jittery, like I’m about to close on a billion-dollar deal. In part, it’s because I want Juno’s family to like me, but mainly, it’s because I’m going to see Juno face to face after all this time. I’m honest enough with myself to admit that.
The limo stops, and Elijah opens the door for me.
The house in front of me is small but nice, with a brand-new red tile roof and a fresh coat of white paint that makes it stand out among its neighbors. The snowboarding company her parents own is clearly doing well.
I grab the gifts and step onto the porch to ring the doorbell.
An attractive middle-aged woman with Juno’s honey-colored eyes and bright smile opens the door.
“Hello,” I say. “Juno didn’t warn me she had a sister.”
Corny, I know, but Elijah assured me this would win me some brownie points with the mom. Given the even brighter smile on her face, Elijah was right.
“You must be Lucius.” She extends her hand.
Instead of shaking it, I kiss it—another Elijah suggestion that is spot on, at least as far as generating a blush on her face goes.
“I’m Lily,” she says. “Come on in. I can see why Juno is so smitten.”
More like acting smitten, but that’s something Juno’s mom can’t know.
“This is for you, Lily.” I hand her a bouquet of gloriosa lilies freshly delivered from Zimbabwe as I follow her into the house.
She sniffs the flowers with an ecstatic expression on her face just as a tall, silver-haired man comes up behind her and extends his hand to me. “I’m John,” he says good-naturedly. “Am I interrupting your attempts to charm my wife?”
I give him a bottle of Hennessy Paradis. “If you’re a fan of cognac, I think I have a better chance of charming you.”
I know he is, thanks to a little homework—which pays off, given how wide John’s eyes get when he realizes what he’s got. “For this, I just might let you take my wife on a date,” he says with apparent seriousness.
I smile. “Juno is the only one I’ll be taking out.”
“Taking me where?” Juno asks, appearing from behind a corner.
Time seems to slow momentarily, like in a teen movie when the heroine dolls up for the prom and descends a staircase (even if her house is one story tall).
The urge to go up to her and pull her into my arms is beyond strong, but her parents are here. In the end, I merely give her a chaste kiss on the cheek, but even that makes me hard—an awkward position to be in with her family all around us. Seems like that business about distance making the heart grow fonder should be extrapolated to other body parts.
To get my biology under control, I quickly think of unsexy things, like dirt under fingernails, eye gunk, and politicians. Just as it’s beginning to work, someone rings the doorbell.
It’s an elderly couple, and they both carry trays with food.
I lean down to whisper to Juno—and end up almost licking her ear in the process. “Is this a potluck?”
“No.” She darts a guilty glance at her mom. “My grandparents just like to help out.”
I take out my phone and text Elijah to bring in whatever we’ve got in the limo fridge. If other guests are bringing food, so will I.
By the time I’m introduced to the first set of grandparents, another elderly couple arrives—also with food.
“Should we go to the table?” John asks.
The doorbell rings.
Lily frowns. “Everyone is already here.”
“That’s my butler,” I say.
A lot of eyebrows go up, and Juno chuckles. “Didn’t I tell you he’s got a butler?”
Lily looks very curious as she opens the door, revealing Elijah with a big tray.
Thanking him, she accepts the offering and says, “Why don’t you join us?”
Elijah takes a step back. “Oh, I don’t think it would be proper.”
More eyebrows go up, probably in response to the British accent.
“Nonsense,” Lily says. “You brought food; therefore, you have to come in.”
Elijah looks aghast. “This is the master’s food. I merely brought it.”
Lily makes puppy eyes at him. “Please? I wouldn’t enjoy dinner knowing you’re sitting alone in the car.”
Elijah throws me a questioning glance, and I nod as imperceptibly as possible. His joining us just might save me from committing a social faux pas that would otherwise jeopardize my intent to charm this family. He, being a butler, is much better at these things. Then again, most people are better at these things than I am.
“If you so insist, it would be my honor,” Elijah says stiffly. He reaches over and takes the tray from Lily. “Where would you like me to place this?”
Lily leads him through the living room, and the rest of the family follow, except Juno.
She steps up to me and whispers conspiratorially, “Just a heads up, my mom’s cooking is bad.”
I look down at her, eyebrows raised. “That’s not a nice thing to say.”
She sighs. “I know, but once you taste her so-called cooking, you’ll realize that ‘bad’ was the nicest word I could’ve used. ‘Beyond atrocious,’ ‘unimaginably horrendous,’ or ‘crime against humanity’ are more fitting, but because I love her, I showed restraint.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Your restraint is legendary.”
She narrows her eyes. “You’ve been warned. Just please take a sampling of her dishes and eat some, or if you can’t stomach it, at least smear the food around your plate so she can’t tell. And compliment her, of course.”
I peer into her gaze and instantly crave honey. “What kind of a monster do you think I am?”
She scoffs. “You know you can be blunt.”
“Me, blunt? You wound me.”
“It’s an unwritten rule in our family to let Mom think she can cook. If her dishes are the only ones uneaten, she might figure out the truth.”
Something occurs to me. “Is that why your grandparents brought food?”
She nods. “The official story is that they want to help out. That’s also why my dad makes a few dishes of his own for each event. In fact, when it’s not a big get-together, Dad is the one to cook.”
I chuckle. “Your mom doesn’t realize she’s bad at it?”
Juno looks horrified at the very idea. “She thinks her food is amazing. Dad has convinced her that it’s too good, and that he’d overeat and get fat if she made it all the time. So, ‘for his health,’ he cooks his ‘inferior’ dishes.”
“Very cute,” I say, my eyes roaming over Juno’s animated features. Without meaning to, I find myself leaning toward her, my voice deepening as I murmur, “No. Beautiful.”
She moistens her lips and steps a fraction closer as she whispers, “If I had a flaw, I think I’d want to know.”
Should I tell her about her many flaws? Like how her lips are too tempting for my comfort? How her intelligence made it impossible not to call her this week and keep my distance as I originally wanted? Or how her heaving chest is too fucking arousing, making me?—
“Juno?” her father yells from somewhere, saving me from doing something crazy, like attacking her here and now, in this hallway.
“Coming!” she yells back, then looks at me apologetically. “Ready?”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I say, my voice a bit hoarse.
She tells me where the bathroom is if I need it, then sashays away.
At first, I follow her, but then I decide that a stop in the bathroom would be worth it—to splash some cold water on my face.
When that move fails, I’m forced to once again think the un-sexiest thoughts in my arsenal because even if earwax and boogers aren’t great for my appetite, they’re better than the alternative: for Juno’s parents to witness how my biology reacts to their daughter.