Page 34 of Getting Lucky in London

Surprise widened his eyes. “You got the job?”

“I got the job.”

He scooped me up in a hug. “That’s so great.”

Dominic’s ringtone filtered down the stairs. He dumped me on the sofa, and I laughed as he took them two at a time to answer. Shaking my head, I followed him up to shower and change into something that didn’t smell ripe.

I’d have just enough time to swing by Michael’s place before my flight. Hopefully, I could convince him to forgive me and give me another chance before I said goodbye for a couple of weeks.

I only hoped Dominic was right about Michael. Either way, when I flew home today, I’d be leaving my heart in London.

****

Michael

Warmth sliced across my face as light snuck through the cracks in the blinds. I reached for Danielle, but the sheets beside me were cold. Levering up on one elbow, I looked at the clock. Seven a.m. I scanned the room. Her clothes were on the floor beside mine.

I flopped back down on the bed. She’d probably stolen my T-shirt. She seemed to like wearing my shirts. I certainly liked seeing her in them…and taking them off her.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I sat up and stretched. I rose, did my business in the bathroom, and brushed my teeth to avoid offending her with a morning kiss. More than a kiss if I had anything to do with it.

I slid into a pair of shorts, gathered up our clothes, and headed downstairs.

“It’s your turn to cook breakfast,” I called out as I rounded the newel post.

I stopped at the opening to the kitchen. The emptiness of the space reached out to punch me in the gut. The bag she’d left on the island was gone. I turned around to check the entryway. The shoes she’d purchased yesterday were gone. “Goddammit.”

I dropped the clothes and ran up the stairs to make sure I hadn’t missed her. A search of the empty rooms told me what I feared most but what I already knew. She was gone, too.

Just like that. No note. No goodbye. Nothing. But why? Why wouldn’t she give me at least that? She’d given me fucking little else besides the best sex of my life.

Wrong. In the brief time I had with her, she’d awakened a part of me I feared I’d never find, much less feel—love.

Oh, I loved my mum and begrudgingly my father. I loved Robert as a surrogate father. And Dom as a friend. And a few other relatives I couldn’t remember. But loving another person with my whole heart, mind, body, and soul…

Yeah, and then she’d fucking walked away as if our time together meant nothing. She obviously didn’t feel the same way I did.

You can’t make her love you.

No, I couldn’t. And I’d done all I could to convince her to stay…and to tell me the truth. And still, she’d left.

My mind went blank as reality truly sank in. I sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and the scent of her perfume and our lovemaking drifted from the sheets to envelop me. But rather than soothe me, it pissed me off.

I stood and ripped the sheets from the bed, only to sink onto the mattress and bury my face in them, trying to suffocate the hurt and anger raging inside me.

I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Numbness would be preferable to this indescribable and foreign ache in my chest. It was like treading water during a storm and being dragged under.

“Fuck.” Tossing the sheets back on the bed, I stood and crossed to the dresser for a T-shirt. I shoved my feet into my sneakers. I couldn’t be in the house. I needed to move…do something. A run would help drive her from my mind.

Like that’s possible.

Better than fucking sitting around, wallowing in self-pity and this feeling of desolation.

You could go after her.

If she’d wanted me to go after her, she’d have told me who she was, where to find her, and that she wanted to explore this thing between us, whether she got the bloody job and moved to England or not. But no, she’d run off like a child.

As I passed the table in the entryway, I saw the jar of lotion she’d wanted my mother to have. I stuffed it in my pocket and hesitated, my hand on the doorknob. I looked back at the house that I thought I’d made a home. I’d been wrong.

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