Page 66 of Luka

“Let’s just get this the fuck over with,” I growl under my breath.

It’s Mila on the other side of the door. She looks as sick as I feel.

“Hi.” She forces a smile, her eyes drawing to my hold on Lucia’s arm. I let go and tuck my sweaty hands into my pockets.

“Sorry to intrude, but Mama’s getting impatient.”

“She’s here?” I ask, feeling like I’m burning alive in this fucking suit.

Mila taps her wrist and nods. I don’t bother pulling out my phone to check the time, and I’m not posh enough to accessorize my wrist with a watch. Obviously, we’re late.

“Is Leo here yet?” I ask, hating myself when my voice rises too many octaves. I cringe and resist fanning myself with this ridiculous jacket.

Mila looks at Lucia and frowns sympathetically for a moment before coming back to me. “I told him the dinner is tomorrow night.”

I’m slow to register her words, afraid to get too hopeful.

“He isn’t coming?”

Mila shakes her head. “Just the five of us.”

Lucia

I’mthankful Luka doesn’t hold my hand as his sister leads us to the dining room. If he did, he would feel how sweaty my palms are, how fast my heart thumps in the pulsing vein of my wrist.

I’m terrified.

But outwardly, I look like my father taught me to look. I do know how to do these dinners, although Luka obviously doesn’t. Just when it seems like we grew up in similar worlds, he proves to me how incapable he is of living in mine.

It’s cute. Seeing him flustered gives me a sick sort of satisfaction, but right now, it’s unwanted. I’d rather he pull himself together.

I suck in through my nose and lift my shoulders as I enter the dining room before Luka. A woman’s high tone filtered outside,but at our arrival, she stops talking. Our eyes find each other as Luka pulls out a chair for me.

“Nice of you to join us,” the woman says, her hands steepling together. I glance around in search of another woman in the room, confused at her voice. It sounds flatter than it did outside.

“It takes time to look this good, Mother,” Luka says, all trace of nervousness in his voice gone. I stare at him through slitted eyes as he sits down beside me. He sits tall, and his face becomes a blank mask I recognize well but haven’t seen in over a week. I search for the sweat I saw coating his forehead, but it’s disappeared. There’s no sign of the nervous wreck I spoke to upstairs.

Good. This is good, but … strange. Maybe his acting is better than I thought.

“It’s nice to see you again, Lucia,” Vitaly says, pulling my attention to him.

I force a smile and nod. “You too. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Have you met Aly?” Vitaly extends his hand to the woman, forcing me to turn her way again. There’s something unsettling about her eyes the same shade of blue as Luka’s. They have a deep coldness to them that makes me want to shiver. Her blonde hair is pulled back except for two curled strands she lets frame her oval face. She’s pretty, but it’s hard to fully say so with her current blank expression. It’s hard to picture what she looks like smiling.

“No, I haven’t.” I smile wider and dip my chin. “I’m Lucia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Aly just stares at me, so long I take it as a challenge and force myself not to look away. Finally, she turns to Luka just as the kind woman who showed me the garden today pushes a cart of food into the dining room. “Where did you meet?”

“Cooligan’s Pub, right?” Mila asks, leaning on the table next to her mother. She turns to Aly instead of waiting for an answer.“Luka bet her a beer she couldn’t do a handstand, and they talked until the sun rose.Adorable. I thought I told you this, Mama?”

Aly turns to Mila with a straight face. “You tell memanylies, dear. It’s hard to remember them all.”

Mila’s face falls.

“Lucia is an illegal immigrant,” Luka says, making my eyes widen as I turn toward him. He leans back as a covered dish of food is placed in front of him, then me. The scent of braised lamb hits my senses, but I don’t take my eyes off Luka. “She was drowning in the Rio Grande, and I swam out to get her. One taste of those lips while I was giving mouth-to-mouth, and I was,” he clucks his tongue and presses his thumb and finger together. “Hooked.”

His mother says nothing.

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