Chapter 1 Emery
THREE YEARS LATER
I can’t find my keys.” I limp down the hall in one shoe, and with my favorite navy pin-striped dress only halfway zipped. “Or my blazer.” I peek in the bathroom for my lost items. Nope. “Or my other shoe.”
Wordlessly, Luca hands me a steaming mug. Despite the missing keys, blazer, and shoe, my husband knows the priorities well in this moment: I am barely functional before nine in the morning and multiple cups of coffee.
Which is unfortunate, frankly, given that the biggest presentation of my life is happening at six o’clock on this hellfire day, a time that works for the executive team and investors in San Diego, Chicago, New York, London, and Basel, but definitely not for my stubborn circadian rhythm.
“Keys are near the microwave,” Luca says, trailing behind and zipping me up. As a scientist, I believe in probability, not luck, and this dress has yet to let me down: I have never had a bad day while wearing it.
My husband’s eyes are also glued to my boobs, still more evidence of the dress’s power.
“The blazer is in the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the dining room chair,” he says. “And did you check under your side of the bed for the shoe?”
Luca has a seemingly endless well of patience, and I peck his stubbled cheek in thanks before jogging into each room to collect my things. The clock on the microwave reads 5:00 a.m., which feels like a time suitable only for owls and infants and people with a sunrise kink like Luca to be awake.
For as long as I’ve known him, Luca has always been a morning person, up for a run before sunrise, well into his workday by the time I’m barely climbing out of bed.
Because my brain doesn’t fully turn on until after lunch, my best work is always done after midnight, fueled by coffee and adrenaline and whatever scraps of junk food I can find in the break room at the office.
In fact, I was up until only a couple of hours ago putting the finishing touches on my presentation when Luca shuffled sleepily in and made me get at least an hour or two of rest before my big day.
It’s been three years, but Luca and I still don’t make much sense to people.
I’m not unattractive, but Luca is absolutely gorgeous.
Like, golden skin and muscles and toothpaste-commercial-smile kind of gorgeous.
You may think I’m biased, but I once watched a grown man ride his bike into a tree because my husband was working in the front yard shirtless.
Our sleep schedules are still totally different, our jobs are worlds apart, and our temperaments opposite—I can be intense and driven, occasionally lost in a silent brainstorm related to work even when surrounded by people, while Luca is social and playful and always smiling—but I love that about us.
I like that Luca is everything that I’m not.
And, also, because without my happy, easygoing, early-riser husband I would have overslept and arrived half dressed, shoeless, and via Uber to the most important day of my career.
Luca stands, holding the front door open for me, wearing his running shorts and socks, a fitted T-shirt and baseball cap, looking tanned and relaxed, ready to leave for his run after he sees me off.
Catching me around the waist, he bends, pressing his lips just beneath my ear. “You’re not leaving until I get a proper kiss.”
I tilt my face up, happy to indulge, and for just a breath, work slips away and it’s only the quiet pull of Luca filling my mind and body. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, bringing one big hand up my neck, cupping my jaw.
As it always does, our chemistry takes over, flushing heat down my limbs, electricity pulsing between my legs. Until the quiet voice in the back of my head presses forward, becoming loud and shrill: You don’t have time for this.
But I want to. I want to have more time for Luca.
Pulling away, I press my face to his neck, soaking his sweetness and hotness up with one deep breath, making the same silent promise I make nearly every morning—Starting next week, I will be more present; I will be home before he’s asleep; I will not take his steadiness or sunshine for granted; I will be a better partner—before stretching to peck him just one more time.
“Good luck, Em,” he says, smiling against my lips.
“Thank you. I’m so nervous I want to barf.”
“You’re going to be great.” He steps back, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and letting his gaze roam over my face.
I’m wearing makeup today, something I don’t always do for work, but I knew this presentation—with some of the biggest of bigwigs—called for a bit of physical polishing.
Luca has always maintained he likes my freckles, but I can see in his eyes that he notices the way a touch of blush brings them out, how my lipstick accentuates my mouth, that I could cut a man with the point of my winged eyeliner. “And you look beautiful.”
“So do you.”
He grins. “See you tonight. I assume you’ll go straight to the restaurant?”
I frown, momentarily thrown. “Restaurant?”
Luca’s smile falters, barely long enough for me to catch it, but I do. He rescues it with a laugh. “Yeah. For—”
My stomach sinks as my brain hooks on the date. “Oh, right, yes, yes,” I say, attempting to cover. “I was thinking I would come home before—”
“You forgot.” His blue eyes glimmer with teasing, but it’s tight. There’s a shadow there.
“I did not!” I try to keep my voice light.
It’s not a complete lie. I did remember the date was coming up and had every intention of planning something spectacular, but then Tom discovered a batch of incorrectly time-stamped samples, there were a series of random mix-ups and lost vials in the lab, and our already dwindling timeline was robbed of a whole week.
Just one of a dozen small-scale catastrophes recently, but any one of them could have tanked the whole project if not caught.
Put them together and my best intentions just…
slipped my mind. “I want to come home and change before dinner.”
“Sounds good.” Luca leans in, pressing one last kiss to my forehead. “Happy anniversary, Emery. Hope it goes perfectly today. You’ve got this. See you here at seven.”
“Seven,” I repeat, heart positively hammering behind my sternum. I step outside, laptop bag in hand, legs rubbery with nerves. I wave one last time before climbing into my car and driving off, to the meeting that will change not only my life but the entire world.