Game On (34 page)

Blood roared in his ears; useless adrenaline coursed through his body. He’d felt angry, pissed right the hell off, and a bit crazed with disbelief since he found the note in her prim handwriting, left on his pillow. There was no
Dear Luc
, just:

Charlie called to say he had a new assignment waiting, so I had to dash to catch a flight. My apologies for not sticking around for a final meal, but I have a very tight connection. I’m headed to Istanbul!! Can you imagine how wonderfully smelly it’ll be? If not for that lucky puck…

It’s been a brilliant few weeks—thanks for introducing me to your country and your game of ice hockey. I’ll be out of England, probably for ages, but if you’re ever over my way, do pop in for a cup of tea.

Best regards, Bean

He read and reread the note, looking for clues, anything that would make him feel better, give him some idea as to how she could have left without a goodbye. The impersonal tone, the implication she wouldn’t be there if he called, the fact she reverted to calling it ice hockey, left him feeling cut. And she knew he despised tea!

His jaw hurt, the muscles around his mouth refusing to relax from the tight frown. It’s like he didn’t know her, this “Best regards, Bean” person, like she didn’t know him.

Maybe he drank up every detail about her because he was completely smitten. Maybe to her, he was just that one-night stand that lasted a month and she had absolutely no emotional investment. She was clearly excited about visiting Turkey and didn’t seem at all regretful about her departure. Maybe that was her nature. What did he really know about her? She travelled from country to country, like a nomad, just her and her dog. She probably didn’t allow herself to become attached. Did she have other men, lovers in every country she visited? She admitted to Franco in Italy. Was he just her American fling?

Best regards.
She’d signed it “best regards,” not even “love, Clara” or “cheers,” that charming little word she used to end a telephone conversation.

He slunk into his cave and collapsed onto the leather sofa.

Surely he didn’t imagine the gut-rightness every time they connected. And last night was fucking magic! She was insatiable and so…so…so fucking amazing. There was this buzz when they came together, when he was inside her, a bond that ran so deep it was like… like… fuck! It was love. He looked at the letter one more time before crumpling it in his fist.

He loved her.

And she left him.

Chapter 38

“B
ean!” Luc pounded on the
door, not caring that it was after midnight. The neighbourhood was otherwise quiet—no traffic, no people, no sirens or music—so different than his Miami neighbourhood. He was sure by the light of day, her English town would be described as quaint, maybe colloquial, but at the moment, he could have cared less. “Bean!” he shouted, again. A light went on in an upper window. “Open up!”

She came to the door tightly wrapped in a flannel robe.

“Luc?” Clara shook her head, rubbed her reddened, puffy eyes. God, was it only a week since he’d seen her? It felt like a lifetime, an eternity spent pacing the length of his cave, pretending to be interested in hockey games and pretending he could taste the food he chewed.

“
Bean,
” he said and pushed a loose bouquet of roses at her. He hadn’t intended to buy her flowers, but when he saw the woman outside of the airport selling them by the stem, saw that the pale, peachy-pink petals matched Clara’s skin tone exactly, he grabbed a handful. And with a sliver of hope, they might remind her of the last time he’d given her a rose.

“What are you doing here?” she said, taking the flowers before they fell to the ground. “Ouch!”

“Careful,
Bean
,” he said. “Thorns. I made the same mistake.”

She stuck her pricked finger in her mouth “Why do you keep calling me Bean like that?”

“That’s how you signed your note,
Bean,
” he said, not bothering to cushion the barbs. “Figured you preferred it.”

This was not how he envisioned it. This was not playing to the fantasy he had of her throwing herself into his arms in pure, unadulterated joy. He was tired, pissy, and feeling a bit of fool. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Yes, no, yes.” She was flustered. She looked over her shoulder, then back at him again. “Can you come back in the morning?”

“What? No!” Luc said. “I’ve been up for thirty-two hours. I was halfway to fucking Turkey before I realized you weren’t there.”

“Oh.” She looked down. “Well, can you wait here for a moment? I’ll just, um… I’ll just be five minutes.”

She started to close the door, but Luc stuck his foot in the jamb before it shut all the way. “Oh no. Uhn-uh. We are not doing this again.”

She swung the door open and shrugged one shoulder. “I need to put these in water.”

Luc expected her cottage to be a mess, figuring she’d tried to buy five minutes to tidy up, but aside from a packed suitcase by the door, her little home was neat and tidy. No dust on the Queen Anne tables, no discarded socks on the floral print sofa, no stacks of newspapers in the magazine rack. Not even a cup of tea with a lipstick mark. It was like nobody lived here.

“Coffee?” she called from beyond. Luc followed the sound of her voice, down the hall, past the staircase, and found himself in a generous kitchen that took up the entire back of the house. Completely out of character with the rest of the ivy-covered stone cottage, the kitchen sported butcher-block countertops, modern stainless steel appliances, and a double-wide fridge. Then he remembered Clara’s aunt was a chef.

Clara, at the sink filling the kettle, repeated her question. “Coffee?”

“How ’bout a
cuppa tea
?” he said.

She clutched the neck of her flannel robe, the antithesis of Val. “I thought you despised tea.”

She
did
know.

“You’re right. Coffee would be nice. And if you’ve got anything to eat, I haven’t had anything since breakfast in Rome.”

“I…uh…not really. I haven’t been to the shops. I’ve got some day-old bread if you’d like some toast.”

“That’ll do.”

He sat at the table, a long, functional, solid-topped piece that looked as if it had been around for hundreds of years, fed generations of families. She’d put the vase of roses in the center, the waterline just below the tissue he’d wrapped around it, still spotted with his own blood. Strange that she hadn’t bothered to remove it.

Luc watched as she silently cut the bread, focusing her attention on the task as if nothing was more important. Her knuckles turned white around the handle, as though she was gripping it too hard, and the resulting slices were thick and uneven.

He was restless, uncomfortable, and didn’t know what to say or what to do. His knee throbbed from being bent in coach class, the only thing he could get at the last minute, so he stood and paced. The air felt heavy, thick, and hard to breathe. He was about to ask her to open a window when she turned her back, dropped the bread into the toaster and said, “I’m just going to pop upstairs for a few minutes while we wait for the water to boil.”

“No,” he said, leaping up to block her way. He felt like a bully, but she could have easily slipped past if she tried. Could have put her hand against his chest and pushed him aside, but she didn’t. In fact, she stepped back, seemed to want as much distance between them as the room would allow.

“I need to freshen up. It’s not proper to meet company in one’s bathrobe,” she said, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other at her throat.

“Bullshit, Clara. We spent weeks naked together.”

She looked away.

“What’s happening, Clara? Why can’t you stand to be in the same room with me?”

He watched a series of emotion cross her drawn, pale face, from confusion to disbelief, and finally it settled on what could only be anger. Her jaw was so tight when she spoke, every word seemed an effort to form. “You went to her, to that blackmailing, sash-wearing beauty bitch. You went to her, in the middle of the night, while I lay ignorantly asleep.
You went to her!
”

Merde.
The mysterious phone call. “Yes, I did,” he said with a slow nod.

“Well aren’t I the bloody fool!”

“Look at me, Clara.” He waited until her gaze drifted back to him. “Whatever nonsense Val said, you know damn well nothing of a sexual nature went on.”

“Sure,” she said, clearly not believing a word he said.

Luc drove his fingers through his hair. “I went to make sure she didn’t bother you again.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It was the only time you wouldn’t notice me gone,” he said.

“And why didn’t you tell me?”

“You told me not to interfere! You said you’d handle it on your own. You made it very clear that I wasn’t to get involved, and that’s the only reason I didn’t say anything.”

“Really? Or did you not say anything because then you’d have to explain her de-robing?”

Luc’s heart dropped as Clara’s eyes narrowed. “Oh yes, she explained that part in vivid detail, I’m afraid.”

“
Tabernac,
I’m going to kill that woman,” he muttered. “It wasn’t like that, Clara. She was being difficult and I grabbed her arm, caught her sleeve, and her robe slipped. And it wasn’t even a real robe, it was a short flimsy…Oh never mind. But I didn’t take it off in the way she led you to believe.”

Clara’s chest rose and fell with every huffy breath.

“For heaven’s sake, Clara. I’m not what’s-his-face…Scott, who cheated on you. You
know
nothing happened. Please tell me you trust me enough to know I’d never hurt you like that.”

“No. Instead, you let her humiliate me.”

“Because I wasn’t about to sit idly by while she upset you!”

“You kissed her!”

“Is that how she put it?” Did that bitch have to give up every detail? “Because that’s not what happened. Valentina kissed
me
, as I was leaving. I did
not
kiss her back and though I’d like to say I felt absolutely nothing, I can’t honestly say that.” Clara braced as though he was about to strike her. “What I felt was sick to my stomach. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

The pinched expression softened, but only a smidgeon.

“And I did want to tell you, very badly, because I found out that Val knew nothing about your lost sense of smell, but I didn’t know how to tell you without confessing that I’d snuck out while you were sleeping. And I know that sounds lame, but it’s the God-honest truth.”

Clara had a shocked look on her face, so he continued babbling, “I mean, she knew you were in an accident, that you had some sort of brain trauma, but she didn’t have a clue what the nature of the permanent damage was. She tried to get me to tell her.”

Clara’s jaw unhinged. “But how did—why did she—you mean she was bluffing?”

“Yup. Just like she bluffed you into believing something more went on at her place. She’s very good at lying without lying.”

“But Charlie—”

“Charlie didn’t mention specifics, he just begged her not to mention the accident to Bartel, that he would handle the situation from there.”

“
Oh my God!
She knew nothing? I let her blackmail me, manipulate me, I got Lydia involved, and it was all for nothing?”

“Nothing,” Luc said. “I had to make up some story about you getting seizures to get her from digging any deeper.”

“Bloody hell! Wait ’til I tell Lyds. I’m not sure if she’ll laugh, cry, or oil up her shotgun.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t want you angry at me.”

Clara shook her head, as if the information was all too much to handle. “Right, well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

“Great,” he said, a spark of hope igniting in his chest. “So we’re good? Me and you? We can go back to normal?”

She laughed. Not the funny kind but the ha-ha-you-must-be-joking way. “There is no
normal
for us, Luc. We had a thing, a fling, and now it’s over.”

“A thing? Are you fucking kidding me?” Luc began to pace, a short path between the escape route through the hallway and the butcher-block island.

“Not in the slightest.” Her nonchalant tone felt like pricks beneath his skin. “It was great while it lasted but frankly, I can’t keep up the pretence.”

“Pretence?”

“Yes. Pretence.”

Luc placed both hands firmly against the countertop in an effort to stop the falling feeling. His stomach had turned inside out, and the aroma of the toasting bread made it worse. When he spoke, he made sure to look straight at her. “There was
nothing
make believe about our relationship.”

A glimmer of fear appeared around her eyes, almost like she was afraid. But of what? He watched her swallow and when she blinked, the trepidation was gone. In its place was a hardness, a humorless woman he’d never seen before.

“Perhaps it’s on my part then. I simply can’t abide your
perfectness
, your…your
flawlessness
.” Her words came like curses. “I could never live up to all that. I’m horribly selfish. Ask anyone.”

“Perfect, flawless? Where is this coming from? I just went from being an accused cheater to flawless. Clara, you’re not making any sense. And I’m the most fucked-up person I know!” Luc pushed away from the counter and growled in frustration. “Since the shooting, I’ve barely existed. I struggle to get from day to day without losing my fucking mind. Two years I’ve been in my own kind of hell, pretending to be fine, fronting like I’m okay with what happened, okay with my shit job, and you know what? I’m not perfect.
I’m not even fine
. I barely leave my goddamn house for fear of having a panic attack in public. I sit in my cave and resentfully watch a game I’m beginning to hate, over and over until I want to kill myself because I’m scared to let it go. Because if I don’t have hockey,
I’m nothing
.”

He stopped to catch his breath, scrub the fear and frustration from his face.