Page 14 of L.O.V.E

“He got stuck with a client,” Victoria answered, drawing her finger up and down the stem of her wine glass. “Should be here any minute. Said we can start without him.”

The next twenty minutes passed with polite conversation. I learned that Ellis had considered being a medical doctor but instead became a pharmacist because he wasn’t too keen on blood and gore. Martin was a pilot for a global distribution company. Victoria had spent the past three years on the East Coast, where she met her fiancé at a fundraiser for at-risk youth. He was a business owner and real estate developer who had recently returned to Seattle to be near his family and to open a gym as well as a women’s shelter in honor of his late sister. He sounded like a good man. Victoria sounded head over heels in love.

“So the three of you grew up together?” Lacey asked, gesturing between Ellis, Martin, and the empty chair next to Victoria.

“Yeah.” Martin nodded. “Grew up on the island.”

“The island?” I asked, knowing damn well what he meant, despite the multiple islands surrounding the area.

“Mercer Island,” Ellis stated.

“So you were a group of rich, entitled kids.” Lacey winked at me. Neither of us had ever wanted for anything, but growing up, there’d always been a clear divide between the middle class and the upper class. More notably, the upper-upper class, those who grew up on the Eastside, which included “the island,” a chunk of land that sat smack-dab in the middle of Lake Washington between Seattle and Bellevue.

Victoria snorted at the jab, then covered her mouth, trying to hide her laugh, throwing me off guard. The woman I’d labeled “monster” almost seemed human. Maybe even likable.

She’d always been pretty. One of the prettiest girls in school. She was no longer simply pleasing to look at. Victoria was downright gorgeous, and dare I say, glowing?

Ugh.

“We were not spoiled rich kids, if that’s what you think.” Ellis gave Lacey’s neck a squeeze.

“Yes, we were,” Martin threw in, shooting me a wink.

“Okay, fine. We were,” Ellis conceded.

I studied Lacey studying Ellis. She was a goner. And she, too, glowed. I wondered if a man would ever make me glow. Then I thought about the man in the hallway. I’d gone nuclear in his presence.

Then, as if I’d conjured him with my lustful musings, he came around the corner, tall and confident, and walking with a lithe grace that was both feral and beautiful all at once.

As he strode straight toward me, I imagined him to be Richard Gere in his Navy duds, and he was coming to scoop me up and carry me off, and we would live happily ever after in his bed for the rest of eternity.

Only, he hadn’t noticed me. He wasn’t giving methe look. Although his expression was warm and endearing, that gaze was not focused on me. Nope. Those thick-lashed beauties were aimed at Victoria.

Of course.

Mean for mean.

He strode to her side, placed a hand at her back, and bent low, his gaze flickering to me, then back to her before dropping a slow, chaste kiss to her lips.

“Cole,” Martin said, pushing to stand. “You made it.”

Cole. My dream man had a name.

The men exchanged a quick embrace.

Martin placed his hand on my shoulder, like he had the right, his fingers grazing the skin beneath my collar. “Cole. This is Natalie, my beautiful date for the evening.”

Cole stood taller. Met my eyes with little-to-no interest, then offered his hand. “Pleasure.”

Then Ellis chimed, “Funny thing, bud. Apparently, Natalie, Lacey, and Victoria went to school together.”

“That so?” he asked his bride-to-be while settling into the empty chair and claiming her hand on top of the table.

Martin’s fingers dusted my collarbone, lingering past the point of comfortable, souring the wine in my stomach.

Envy had no place in that room, and I hated myself for wanting to jump across the table and stab Victoria with my fork.

Victoria was the reason he hadn’t kissed me back that day. Victoria was the reason he shared a table with me. Victoria was the reason I wanted to slink away into a dark corner and cry for a thousand years.

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