Page 28 of If You Could Only Believe
The snorts, laughs, eye rolls, huffs and ‘yeah right’s threw me for a loop. I looked back over at Michael. “Is the insanity hereditary and then somehow contagious?”
Everyone went back to setting their plates of lunch, but conversation was being thrown about all over the place. “That whole ‘love at first sight’ thing, that’s real,” Aiden informed me while studying the variety of salsas.
Gabriel waved a hand over his head and said, “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Buffoons,” Denise muttered. “Absolute buffoons.” She shook her head and said, “What they’re trying to say is that the odds of you becoming a Buchanan before the month is out is pretty high, Sophia.”
I could feel my eyes bug out.“What?”
“It’s like the Bermuda Triangle,” Justice Buchanan added. “It exists but there’s no explanation for it. The Buchanan Insanity is the same thing.”
“Are you calling me crazy, babe?” Gabriel asked.
“No,” she retorted. “I’m callingallof you crazy.”
“Amen,” Shane Buchanan muttered.
I looked back down at Michael and he just shrugged a shoulder, not denying the accusation. I was calculating the odds of me escaping out the door before Michael could reach me when Mason Buchanan’s voice joined in. “Sophia, the rumor is that you’re smarter than everyone in this building combined,” he stated. “Is that true?”
I hated questions like that. I didn’t want to come across as arrogant, because I wasn’t. But I also wasn’t going to lie. “Something like that,” I muttered. I was doing my best to keep his gaze, but Mason Buchanan was super intimidating.
I’m not sure, but it looked like he was taking pity on me, because he gave me the smallest of smiles and I didn’t think Mason Buchanan smiled.At all.“Well, then it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out that, seeing as how Michael waited all this time to…share himself, there’s no way it’s not love, and there’s no way he’ll ever let you go, Sophia.”
This was too much.
This was crazy.
Like not just crazy, but institutionalized kind of crazy.
Like shock therapy crazy.
Love at first sight doesn’t exist.
And it sure as hell doesn’t exist for someone like me. There’s no way a man like Michael could look at me and fall instantly in love.
No. Damn. Way.
I scanned the faces of people who were sitting themselves down to have lunch, completely ignoring my look of shock. “And all you…you people are okay with this?” I asked, gob smacked. Gob-fucking-smacked. “You have no issue with Michael introducing a woman he’s just met to the family?”
Gabriel let out a chuckle. “The Family,” he snorted. “This isn’t the Godfather, Sophia.”
I saw Mason still looking over at me. “It might as well be,” I said, flapping a hand in Mason’s direction. “If that man isn’t the definition of a modern-day mafia don, then I don’t know who is.” I totally face palmed myself when I realized what just left my mouth.
“She’s got a point,” Aiden chirped, and it made me feel like an even bigger fool.
I turned to Michael, and I found he was looking at me and not his crazy family. For some reason, my eyes started to water, looking at this beautiful man. When I spent the weekend with him, it was because I wasn’t proud. I’d take whatever I could get. The odds of another man being interested in me enough to sleep with me were super low. If I hadn’t taken Michael up on his offer of sex that Friday night, I probably would have died a virgin. But now, here he was, calling me hisrealgirlfriend and introducing me to his family;to freaking Mason Buchanan.
“Michael, I don’t belong here,” I whispered, honestly and as seriously as I’ve ever been in my life. Michael’s entire demeanor changed right before my eyes. His smile and carefree banter with his family, suddenly, in the past.
He looked livid.
“What the fuck does that mean?” he snapped, not caring that his entire family could hear. And hear they did, because all conversation ceased.
I glanced over at the table and everyone was frozen in random states of activity. The girls were looking at me, while the men were all looking at Michael. So much for privacy.
I blinked the wetness in my eyes away and gathered some gumption. “It means that…it means you can do so much better than me for a girlfriend, Michael,” I told him. My eyes shifted to his family really quickly before returning to his burning, green gaze. “You need someone who looks like them.” I jerked my head towards the eavesdropping group. “You need someone who looks likeyou.” My voice caught, but I was okay with the truth. The truth never scared me. “I’ll only embarrass you if you date me.”
“Michael…” Mason Buchanan’s voice reached us, but Michael wasn’t looking anywhere but at me.
