I want to speak to him. I want to thank him for protecting Mia. I know it’s weird to thank him, seeing as he’s her brother, but I love her with all my heart, and anyone who is there for her is a quality guy—be it family member or not. I want to tell him I will always protect her. I want to tell him I understand why he’s been cold and nervous and that I have nothing but the best intentions for her. I want to become real friends with him. It’s important to me that he and I become like brothers because I hope we will be one day. Though that’s not anything I dare to voice out loud.
“So, Luke, what does Mia have to say about your potential move to England?”
I freeze at Talia’s words as I see Mia’s expression change.
Fuck.
I haven’t had the opportunity to tell her anything about the developments at work. I haven’t had the opportunity to say the offer I was given by my boss to lead a new branch in England for the company.
“I—”
“Are you going to go as well, Mia? It seems to me like you never want to leave Coconut Beach.”
“Yeah, well, that’s something Luke and I have to discuss,” Mia says, looking at me with murder in her eyes.
I know I’m in trouble, which sucks because I was already in trouble with her, and even more trouble means that this relationship is going deeper and deeper into the hole.
“Can I speak to you, Luke?” Mia says suddenly, grabbing my arm. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.” She drags me away from the group hastily to the side of the room.
“You’re fucking moving to England?” she says through gritted teeth under her breath.
“No, I’m not—I mean, I might. Andhow does Talia know?”
“I just—what the fuck is going on, Luke? You’ve got so many secrets from me and I?—”
“Mia, please. I obviously didn’t tell Talia anything. I didn’t tell you because the only times work has come up, you’ve been angry at me because I’ve been working.”
“So, how does she know?”
“It was probably talked about inTheWall Street Journalor something like that.”
“TheWall Street Journal?” Mia’s jaw drops.
“What? I told you the deal I was working on was really big. The hedge fund company I work for is the number one hedge fund company in New York City, and my boss offered me a position to go to England to start up a branch there. I haven’t accepted it, and I haven’t had time to tell you about it because we’ve kind of had other stuff going on. I know you don’t really care about my job, and I assumed you wouldn’t care about this offer.”
“You assumed I wouldn’t care that you were moving to fucking England, Luke?” Her voice rises.
I can see that people are looking at us, but I know she doesn’t care, and I can’t really say anything to her. I don’t want to make her even angrier.
“I didn’t tell you, Mia, because I just thought there were more important things for us to discuss before that even came up.”
“Wow, thanks for trusting me and sharing with me and thinking about me before you decided to move to England.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, you’re already far enough away in New York City, and I don’t see you. I’ll never see you in England, and there’s going to be a time difference, so we won’t even get to speak on the phone. But what does that matter, right?”
“Maybe you can come to England too,” I suggest.
“What do you mean, I can come to England? I don’t have money to live in England. What am I going to do—have Juniper move the bookmobile over to London? Where would we even put it? That’s not even something that can happen.”
“I could take care of you. I want to give you security so you can follow your dreams.”
“You can—I don’t need you to take care of me, Luke. I’m not justsome sad sack that is sitting here, waiting for some man to take care of me.”
“I was just going based upon the emails, when you said we should get married if we were both single at forty.”
“That was a joke, Luke. You really thought I wanted to marry you because you were rich and you could take care of me?”
