Chapter 22
KENDRA
“No more men!” Eva raised her mug.
“At least, no more commitment-phobic men,” Annalise amended, raising her mug as well.
Kendra was sitting with her three best friends in the private garden of a local artisanal coffee shop.
They all held mugs of coffee, Kendra’s sweetened with milk and sugar as always, and there was a selection of pastries in the middle to be shared.
The October day was the perfect temperature — in LA, October was one of Kendra’s favorite months — and a gentle, warm breeze blew across the table.
“How about this?” Kendra suggested, lifting her own mug. “No more arranged marriages.”
“I hear that.” Eva smiled at her, and they all sipped their coffee.
It wasn’t the first time Kendra had seen her friends since getting back to LA.
They’d met up at Kendra’s house the day after she’d returned.
Jenny had brought two pints of ice cream, Annalise had brought wine, and Eva had brought pictures of Aaron and a ten-pack of scissors.
She’d never liked Aaron, and Kendra couldn’t blame her, not after the way Aaron had run off.
What her friends didn’t understand, and Kendra hadn’t told them, was that she wasn’t heartbroken over Aaron or the failed wedding.
She was heartbroken over a different man entirely.
“So, have you heard from Aaron at all?” Jenny asked delicately as she tore off a bit of pistachio croissant from one of the shared plates.
“Actually, yes.” Kendra paused to sip her coffee, partially because she was thirsty and partially because her friends all leaning forward in unison made her smile. “He and I met up for coffee a few days ago.”
“Really?” Eva shook her head. “I can’t believe you saw that jerk.”
“You know, I don’t really blame him.” Kendra shrugged. “Neither of us wanted to get married. He was just brave enough to actually walk away. Sure, I would have appreciated it if he’d told me sooner, but still. All’s well that ends well.”
“But it didn’t end well,” Annalise pointed out. “You had to go on your honeymoon all by yourself. That must have been awful.”
Kendra hesitated. She’d avoided telling her friends about Lucas. The thought of him was still too fresh, and her heart ached when she remembered the way he’d left. When her friends had asked about the honeymoon, she’d glossed things over.
“Actually…”
Again, all three friends leaned forward, and Kendra chuckled.
“Actually, I met someone there.”
“What?”
“Who?”
“How?”
Kendra laughed again at their enthusiasm. “Well, his name is Lucas Chambers.”
“Wait.” Eva held up one hand. “The Lucas Chambers? CEO of Omegron Lucas Chambers?”
“That’s the one. You see, the resort has a strict couples-only policy, and I didn’t want to end up stranded in Mexico…
” Piece by piece, with her friends urging her on, Kendra told the whole story.
She explained how she’d bumped into Lucas at the airport, how they’d ended up sitting together, and how she’d asked him to pretend to be her husband at the resort.
She told them about falling into the water off the kayak (“It was mostly Lucas’s fault,” she said with a smile).
She told them how, slowly, over time, they’d begun to really fall for each other.
“So, what happened?” Jenny asked, bouncing slightly in her chair. “Are you dating now?”
“No.” Kendra bit her lip. “He had to leave suddenly to go back to work. I don’t even have his number.
” Thinking about the way Lucas had told her he needed to get back to “the important things” still made her twist her hands beneath the table, but the ache in her heart had faded. She missed him, but she was okay.
“But you were clearly head over heels for him, right?” Annalise propped her head on her hands and leaned forward. “Weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Kendra blushed. “I was, I think. So, it’s a good thing that I didn’t marry Aaron, because now I see that our relationship was missing something important — chemistry.”
“I think everyone could see that but you,” Eva said.
“Eva!” Jenny tried to kick her under the table but missed, kicking Kendra instead.
“Hey!” Kendra laughed at her friend.
“Aren’t you going to try to reach out to him, though?” Annalise asked, leaning forward with her hands wrapped around her coffee mug.
“No.” Kendra sighed. “His work is the most important thing to him, so I don’t think it would have worked out.”
“But you wanted it to?” Jenny asked.
“Yeah.” Kendra smiled, a little sadly. “I guess I did.”
Her friends gathered her into a hug, and she relaxed in their arms. It felt good to talk to them about Lucas.
It reminded her that he’d been real, not a hunky guy conjured up by her subconscious.
For the first time in her life, Kendra had felt the butterflies that were supposed to be there in a relationship.
Like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, though, not every love story had a happy ending.
She would find a way to be okay with that.
After coffee, Kendra headed home by herself.
Her apartment was spacious and decorated with pictures she’d taken — the most recent an image of herself and Lucas on their hike that she’d taken using a stand and a delay timer.
In the picture, they were looking at each other and laughing.
Kendra remembered that Lucas had been joking about whether there was any way to know that the picture had been taken, or if they were going to have to stand there forever.
Kendra smiled fondly at the picture. She missed Lucas. She really did. Even though their brief relationship had ended in heartbreak, she didn’t want to forget him. She wanted to remember what it was like to fall in love.
Kendra grabbed her laptop and sat down. She’d started taking wedding bookings again a few days ago, so she went first to her email.
There was a message from a couple planning a wedding in LA in about six months, which Kendra responded to.
The next message made her frown. The heading read, simply, Milady?
Kendra’s heart began to race, but she forced herself to stay calm. Just because Lucas had jokingly called her that a few times didn’t mean that this message was from him. She took a deep breath and clicked on it.
Kendra, the email read.
I hope this is you. I found your photography website online. Those pictures from the Alaskan wedding are breathtaking.
Anyway, I wondered if you’d be willing to do me a favor. At three o’clock today, will you come to the spot where we first started arguing?
Lucas
Kendra reread the email three times as though it contained a hidden code, but there was nothing to give away what Lucas was thinking. She smiled at his mention of her Alaskan wedding photos — and at the fact that she was hearing from him at all.
Plus, the last line with the invitation sparked her curiosity. Glancing at the clock, she realized that she had about two hours to get to LAX, if she was going.
It only took a moment to decide. She was going.
And with traffic, she’d better get a move on.
There was every chance she’d be hurt again, but Kendra was tired of planning everything and avoiding risks.
She was going to see Lucas and find out what he wanted.
At the very least, she could show him what he was missing.
Kendra hurried into her bedroom, where she changed her clothes three times before sternly reminding herself that this wasn’t a date. Maybe Lucas just had something of hers that he wanted to return. She settled on a blue and white sundress, pulled her hair back in a clip, and headed out.
It took a while to get to LAX and park, and by the time she arrived, Kendra was worried she was going to be late.
She hurried inside, her head racing as she scanned the crowds of travelers.
There was no sign of Lucas anywhere, only couples holding hands, little kids riding on luggage carts, and college students with big backpacks…
Then she spotted him. He was standing at the check-in desk where they’d first run into each other, a bouquet of jasmine in his hands.
Her heart lifted. He’d remembered the scent of her perfume.
He wore a button-up shirt and a pair of slacks, and he looked nervous in a way that she found deeply endearing.
Taking a deep breath, Kendra threaded between the other travelers until she was standing in front of him. He looked up, spotted her, and his eyes lit up.
“You came.” The statement was full of pleasure and wonderment.
“I did.” Kendra looked around. “May I ask why you invited me? Not that I don’t love a spontaneous trip to one of the country’s busiest airports…”
Lucas smiled and held out the flowers. “These are for you.”
“Thanks.” Kendra inhaled the scent of the flowers. Then her gaze fell to his wrist, where he was wearing the cheap gift-shop bracelet she’d bought in Cabo. Hope surged as she lifted her eyes to meet his again.
“I invited you here so that I could apologize,” Lucas said. He gestured for her to follow him away from the crowds to a large window overlooking the runways, where it was a little more private. “I shouldn’t have left like that, not so suddenly and not without talking to you first.”
Kendra began to twist the stem of one of the flowers. “I understand. I’ve seen the news about Omegron, and I know how hard you’ve been working since you got back. It looks like it paid off.”
“If you mean that my company is back on its feet, yes, it paid off. But I was missing something else.” His blue eyes locked on hers. “You.”
Immediately, Kendra’s knees went weak. Her heart hammered even harder in her chest, and her cheeks bypassed pink and went straight to red.
“Me?”