Chapter Four
Mia
I hated being emotional. Tears stung my eyes and my frustration just made them burn hotter. I pressed my hands against the split wood of the rail and tried to focus on the heron viewing point across the water, but something about the perfect serenity of the elegant birds scraped at my soul. Were they even real? So silent and still, they could’ve been plastic models.Fake. An illusion that let people see and assume what suited them.
Like everything else.
Like me.
I’d always been good at perpetuating what suited other people. Swallowing my heartbreak, muting my grief, and walking away from my Paris dreams with my head held high when inside I was screaming. I’d always been fine, even when Luke left me, my mother died in my bed, and my husband hadbankrupted our business and run off with my friend. I was fine. I had to be, because I always was.
“Mia?”
I jumped a mile and whirled around. Luke stood behind me, dressed in scruffy jeans, with a paint splattered T-shirt clinging to his muscular frame, his sandy hair too long and messy, his light brown eyes the perfect contradiction of a lifeline and the last thing on earth I wanted tosee. “What are you doing here?”
“Walking.”
“Walking what? I don’t see a dog anywhere.”
Luke whistled through his teeth. A black flat-coat retriever burst out of the trees with a stick in its mouth and beamed at me the way only dogs could. “He’s Fran’s.”
“Uh-huh.”
If he was trying to make small talk over his mother’s dog, he could fuck right off. I’d prepared myself in recentdays to the possibility of running into him multiple times a week now he was apparently Gus’s BFF, but I wasn’t down for pretending there wasn’t ten years of silence between us. For acting like we were old friends who could do this normal bullshit.
“Mia.”
Why does he have to say my name?His voice had always melted me. Deep and gravelly once puberty had been done with it, just one syllablecould make me wet.
Damn it. I fought the irresistible wave of attraction as it washed over me. Countered it with bitterness and hate. “Listen, Luke, thanks for helping Gus with my roof, but I’m not in the mood to chat. Enjoy your walk.”
I turned back to the lake, willing him to take his adorable dog and get out of my face. For a long moment, I thought he had, then the wooden rail shifted,and I glanced down to see work-hardened hands close to mine. Too close. Scarred, elegant fingers, and blunt nails. God, I’d always loved his hands.
“Mia.” Luke tried again, lower this time, as if he could sneak under my armour with his voice alone. “Come on. We can’t avoid each other forever.”
“No? Maybe I should get a warship and sail to other side of the world. We’d stand a pretty goodchance then, wouldn’t you say?”
The tentative warmth in his liquid gaze faded, replaced by a hardness I didn’t recognise. “All right, mate. I’m gonna leave you to it. I didn’t come over here for you to get lairy with me.”
“Why did you come over here then?”
“To clear the air. You live here now, apparently, and so do I. Gus is important to both of us, and I don’t want to make his lifedifficult.”
“Gus ismybrother.”
“Yeah? So where’ve you been the last five years? Last I heard you were pretty good at fucking off to another country too.”
“Don’t lecture me on giving a shit about little brothers. I saw what you leaving did to yours, remember?” I stepped up to him, jabbing my finger in his face before I could catch myself. Before I could school my emotions and stopmy temper giving my heart away. My hurt. My guilt. I had both in spades. “You don’t get a TED talk on abandonment. Gus understood then, and he understands now. He’s lucky, like that. Some people never know why someone they loved walked away from them.”
Luke stared at me, his full lips curled in a half sneer, a tiny muscle ticking in his chiselled jaw. He was closer to me than I’d realised,the warmth from his hard, masculine body seeping into me. I could smell him—fresh cotton, pine, andman. If I stuck my tongue out, I could probably lick him. Kiss him. Bury my face in his strong neck. Luke’s arms, even when they’d been lanky with youth, had always been my haven. He’d hold me for hours—times whenIshould’ve been comfortinghim—and whisper soft words to me. I wondered if he’d holdme now.
I gazed up at him, lost to the magnetism that had always drawn us together. His hair was longer now, and it suited him. Like me, he was older, but adulthood looked good on him.Everythinglooked good on him. I opened my mouth and took a breath.
Luke’s glare faltered. “Mia—”
A high-pitched bark cut him off. He glanced over his shoulder and when he brought his gaze back, themoment had passed.
He stepped back, widening the distance between us to bearable levels. Unable to watch him leave all over again, I took my chance and walked away.
