Page 122 of Happily Never After

“You look like you’re about to pull off a diamond heist,” she observed, then bit her tongue. Dr. Goulding had scolded her about her use of humor to deflect her feelings during their last call.

“Yeah, well, Harry Winston had too many anyway.” Luke stared at the floor and fiddled with the cuff links in his sleeves—his father’s.

“Do you have a second to talk?” Her heart staggered. Yikes. This was like standing in a middle school hallway asking Robbie Yoder to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance all over again.

His eyes snapped up to meet hers. He nodded. She stepped back to let him inside, and the sleeve of his jacket brushed against her. Electricity crackled between them. God, she had missed him.

“I’m surprised you haven’t completely remodeled.” He walked into the foyer, and his eyes immediately zeroed in on the barely visible orange pill bottles on the kitchen island. He turned back to her and glanced up and down, as though expecting tofind a gaping head wound or staph infection. The curiosity was clearly killing him, but he didn’t ask.

“It crossed my mind, but I figured you had enough to be upset about.”

Luke frowned but didn’t answer. The glimmer of flames must have caught his eye because he crossed to the door that led to the deck.

“Having a party?” He looked over his shoulder. His jawline was even more defined in the flickering half-light. Bags hung under his eyes.

“Kind of. Will you come with me?” Ugh. Even her voice was hesitant. What had happened to resourceful, don’t-need-a-man Claire? Luke’s douchey entrance into her life had turned her into a puddle of dreamy codependent goo.

“Just for a minute. There’s a party I have to get back to.”

The doorknob was cold in her hand. Her heart fell. Any other Sunday night he would have wrapped up work in time to watch a baking show with her and the dogs in bed. She shouldn’t have counted on him being a creature of habit. That’s what she got for trying to live in the moment.

All she could do was word-vomit her feelings as quickly as possible and hope that he listened. Should be a fun evening.

Claire made eye contact with Jeff through the pane of glass. She nodded, and violin music drifted across the yard.

Luke squinted and stepped out onto the deck. “Is that Jeff?”

“He’s a very accomplished violinist.” She shut the door behind them. “Did you know he was wait-listed for Juilliard?”

Luke cracked a smile, but it vanished immediately. Just then, Rosie and Winston rocketed up the stairs and all but tackled Luke. He dropped to his knees and folded them into his arms, then they all collapsed on the deck in a cuddle puddle. Rosie licked his ears furiously, and Winston crawled inside his jacket.

“They missed you,” she said. “So did I.”

His eyes shifted from the cloud of fur drifting off Rosie. His penetrating gaze cut her to the core, turning her legs to jelly. The night was cool, but her cheeks burned. Something about him transformed her into a stupid schoolgirl. She had never felt this way about anyone before, and she might have lost him forever.

He dusted his pants off and stood, Winston and his makeshift halo tucked under his arm. “Is thatThe Departed?”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize you’d be in the middle of something. I’ll just take it down.” She reached for the corner of the projector screen, but Luke caught her hand. A rush of adrenaline hit at his touch. She couldn’t see her reflection, but she was almost certainly glowing like she had just climbed out of a vat of radioactive waste.

“Leave it. You wanted to talk?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. Where were her damn notecards? She should have reviewed them before he got here. Her mind was as blank as a fresh Word document.

“Can I say something first?” Luke put Winston down and walked over to the picnic table. He sat and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. It might as well have been the cover ofGQ.

“Okay.” She followed and perched on the bench across from him. The wood was probably going to snag the fabric of her cocktail dress. Was he going to yell at her some more? Tell her to move out now instead of later? She deserved some yelling, but her heart could only take so much. It was a good thing she had taken her meds earlier.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She blinked. “For what?”

“For leaving you. Right after you were abducted. I was just upset and so worried about you that I just…lost it. It was really shitty, and I’m sorry.”

Oh, thank god. The shoulders that had been hunched up near her ears all night dropped back to their natural spot. As much asshe deserved it, she wasn’t sure she could have handled another fight about how irresponsible she was.

“No, I’m sorry.” She reached across the picnic table. Her hand shook as she laid it on top of his. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone out alone. It’s so hard for me to just sit here and do nothing. They’ve taken so much from me and put everyone I love in danger. I know that’s not an excuse. You were right. It’s not just about me anymore. There are other people in my life who care about what happens to me, and I need to be more careful. If you were gallivanting around while someone tried to murder you, I would be furious. I underestimated them. It won’t happen again.”

Luke ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I was too harsh. You were in such a vulnerable place—barely three hours after getting abducted—and I just fuckingleft.”

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