Page 90 of Angel In Armani

“I won’t let them,” Lucas said fiercely.

“How are you going to stop them? That’s the way the world works.”

“Not for everyone,” Lucas said. “Not for people who are decent.” His eyes were dark, the blue glinting in the reflection of the fairy lights. He took a deep breath. “It doesn’t have to be like that. It doesn’t have to end badly. You’re not your brother.”

The words hit her like a slap. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad told me about Jamie,” Lucas said. “About what happened. That was shitty. Tragic and shitty. But I’m not a scared nineteen-year-old girl. I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice softened. “Can’t you trust me? What have I done that you can’t trust me?”

He sounded so right. Solid and true. She wanted to believe it. But she didn’t know if she could. “I want to trust you … it’s just…”

“Then how about this, how about we just take this a day at a time for now? I want this to work, Sara. I want to be with you.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I want you, too.”

“Then let’s just hang on to that, okay? We can make this work, I promise.” He leaned down and kissed her. Softly. Hands cradling her face. His touch was enough to make the doubts fade away. For now.

And because she wasn’t ready to let the doubts win—not just yet—she kissed him back. And tried to ignore the fact that deep in the back of her mind she could hear a clock starting to chime midnight.

The week that followed was fractured and difficult. The Saints lost their game on Saturday and followed it up with another loss—to the Mets, which only made it worse—on Tuesday.

Lucas was doing his best to pretend that nothing was wrong, but Sara couldn’t shake the feeling of doom. He might not care about his family, but she didn’t know if she could brush off that icy fury in his mother’s eyes so easily. After all, what would happen if she and Lucas kept going? If they got married? Flavia didn’t seem to be the type who would thaw easily. Did she want to spend time with people who thought she wasn’t worthy of their son?

It didn’t sound appealing. A lifetime of cold-war family gatherings and events. Of what she assumed, having met Flavia, would be not-so-subtle insults and dismissal.

But the alternative meant no Lucas.

And that wasn’t a future something she was ready to choose.

The only highlight was Lucas deciding that he could fix her dad’s leg, or at least improve the current situation. Even better, Sean had agreed to another surgery. Which Sara thought was testament to just how painful his leg had gotten, given how much he’d hated being laid up the first time around.

Other than that, she was on edge and stressed.

She tried to tell herself she was just getting tired from the endless travel. But that wasn’t going to change if she stayed with Lucas and the Saints, either. Baseball teams traveled, and so did their owners. If she wanted Lucas, that was part of the package.

By the time they made it back to Manhattan on Wednesday, she was exhausted and chased Lucas off to his apartment to sleep alone. Alex and Mal were going to Florida the next day, when the Saints were playing the Yankees back in Florida. But one of Lucas’s patients had gotten an infection that had to be treated before the surgery could go ahead and he’d slotted her dad’s operation into the resulting gap in his schedule.

She wanted him to sleep the night before he operated on her dad, not spend the night with her. Their nights were full of frantic, hungry, sex, both of them trying to chase their demons away, maybe, with the feel of the other. Hardly restful. She needed a good night’s sleep, too.

But despite the comforting weight of Dougal beside her, filling the space where she was used to Lucas being, it took her a long time to fall asleep.

The next morning Sara was gritty-eyed and nervous. She drove to her parents’ house to pick them up, and their trip from Staten into the city was largely silent. Her mom made a few attempts at chattiness before she gave up and subsided into quiet. Sean stared out the window, and Sara tried to concentrate on the early-morning traffic and getting them there in one piece.

Once Sean was settled in his room, Sara left in search of coffee.

Caffeine would only make her more jittery, but given a choice between jittery and facedown on the floor through lack of sleep, she was going to take jittery.

When she got back to the room, Lucas was with her dad. He looked grim and her dad was looking irritated.

“What’s up?” she asked, hurrying.

“Wonder boy here has to reschedule,” Sean said grumpily.

Her hand tightened abruptly around the takeout cup. “What? Why? Lucas?”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said. “But something else has come up.”

“But Dad needs his surgery,” Sara said.

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