Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (23 page)

He moaned against her mouth. “You taste so good.” He pulled back and peered down into her face. “Now, shall we find out why there’s a porn star in this movie?”

He flung open the doors. The house was quiet as they padded down the hall and into the foyer. Emily went to the front door and pulled it open. Sunlight streamed into the house when she stooped to pick up the newspaper.

“People still read those?” Luke asked as she shut the door and followed him into the dining room.

“I think so. Don’t they?”

She laid the paper on the dining table and pushed open the kitchen swing door.

Voices bombarded them.

“Did you guys see the beach? Holy shit. Max, man, tell me there are going to be lots of beach scenes.”

Bodies packed around the kitchen table, the box of doughnuts opened between them and already half-empty.

Luke gave her a small shove in the back and she tumbled forward into the room.

At her entrance, Max turned. “Guys, this is Emily. She owns the house. And this is Luke.” A light came into his dark eyes. “The cook, was it?”

Luke bared his teeth. “Chef.”

“Right.” Max gestured to the group seated at the table.

“H-how did y-you get in?”

“Honey let us in.”

“Only because you called my cell phone at 6 a.m.”

“This is the crew. Ian and Jared handle the camera and lighting. Will, here, is in the lead role, along with Honey, who I hear you’ve already met.” Max’s brow wrinkled when he considered Drew sitting beside Honey. “I have no idea who this guy is.”

Honey’s mouth lifted in a coy smile. “Don’t worry about him. He’s mine.”

“You’re, uh, early,” Emily said.

Max’s brow pulled into a frown. “Am I?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

Color touched his cheekbones and he shifted his weight to one foot. “Details are a little lost on me sometimes. Hope it’s okay.”

“The rooms aren’t ready. I need some time…”

“That’s cool. We’ve got enough to keep us busy for a while.” He passed a stack of papers around the table. “Here’s the first scene. We shoot tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp.”

“Sure would have been nice to get these sooner.” Honey sipped coffee. “Hard to memorize your lines in twenty-four hours.”

“I’m working on it.” A hard edge crept into Max’s tone.

Honey’s dark eyes studied his face. “You haven’t finished writing it yet, have you?”

A scruffy guy with a man bun—was he Ian or Jared?—rocked back in his chair. “Is she shitting us, Max?”

Max rubbed his nape. “Don’t worry about the script. I got it under control.”

“Those pesky details,” Honey murmured.

“Wait, does that mean I didn’t have to memorize those pages you sent?” Will asked around a mouthful of doughnut.

“Yes, you did.”

Will’s despondency was short-lived. “As long as it’s a beach scene, I don’t care.” He flipped through the pages Max had set in front of him.

“Not gonna happen,” Max said. “The permit won’t allow it. I’m appealing, but for now, it’s a no-go.”

“How about we have a look at that permit?”

All eyes in the room turned to Luke.

Max straightened and eased back in his chair. “It’s a painfully dull document, I can assure you.”

“Nonetheless, I’ll take a look at it.”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

Luke lifted a shoulder. “I just want to verify everything’s in order. Thief Island has some interesting ordinances that most other places don’t have. Isn’t that right, Mayor?”

Drew raised his coffee cup. “We’re a bastion of quirks and oddities, it’s true.”

Max’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You know an awful lot about ordinances.”

Luke shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Emily pays me to keep her out of trouble.”

“A chef and a bodyguard?” Max’s dark eyes shimmered. “You’re a handy guy to have around.”

“I try to be.”

With a swift movement, Luke turned to Emily. “Why don’t you go check and see if any of the guests have started to stir while I make breakfast.” He spoke in a low voice and the conversation around the table resumed without them.

“You sure you’re okay in here by yourself?”

“I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“I’m officially worried.”

After a quick change out of her bridesmaid dress and into a pair of blue jeans and a sweatshirt, Emily wandered upstairs where guests had in fact begun to rouse. She made sure they all knew food awaited them in the dining room and then she rushed back downstairs to help Luke in the kitchen.

He put her to work manning the toaster and the coffee station—he didn’t trust her with anything else—while he kept platters of eggs and pancakes replenished.

When the food consumption slowed, she headed upstairs to strip beds and remake them with clean linens.

She dumped the used sheets and towels down the laundry chute to collect beside the washer and dryer in the mudroom. As she passed through the dining room, Luke stood poised before the rapt audience seated around the table, endeavoring to juggle a spatula, an orange, and a teacup.

Vivian’s tinkling laughter rose above the merriment and exposed her as yet another victim to Luke’s charm.

Emily was still smiling when she closed the lid to the washing machine and pushed the button to start the items washing.

She didn’t hear him sneak up behind her. He captured her around the waist and hauled her in to his side. “When can you meet me in the library?”

He eased her back against the wall and she tilted her face up to his. His mouth brushed over hers in a whisper-soft kiss. One hand came up to touch the side of her face while he savored her mouth.

He pulled up abruptly. “What was that?”

She blinked away the languid warmth settling over her. “What was what?”

A loud thump sounded when something hit the other side of the wall at her back. They stilled.

Heavy panting carried to her. “I’ve never met a woman quite like you,” Drew said thickly.

Honey’s soft laugh carried a hard edge. “I’m a little different from the spoiled rich girls I’m sure you’re used to.”

“Sweetheart, you’re as different as different can possibly be.”

“Is that so?” A ring of disappointment tinged Honey’s voice.

“For one thing, you’re smarter. The smartest, I’d wager.”

A beat of silence followed before Honey asked, “And easier?”

“You turned me down last night.”

“Maybe I’m not the whore you’ve imagined me to be?”

“I know a whore when I see one,” Drew said. “That’s not you.”

The soft slippery sounds of their kiss went on for some time, until finally, they gasped for air.

“You’re going to be bad for reelection,” Drew said, his voice thick.

A few more thumps on the wall, and the door to her suite closed.

“Y-you don’t think they’re going to have sex in my bed, do y-you?”

Luke shrugged. “At least someone gets to.”

She smacked his arm and slipped out from the prison of his arms. He pinched her butt as she darted away.

Whenever she was near him, her heart lifted, becoming light and buoyant.

After a decade-long enslavement to creeping death, when she’d known only the panic of helplessness and the despair of hopelessness, she hadn’t recognized the light, airy feeling for what it was.

Happiness.

A
few days into filming, Emily contracted a flu bug. She barricaded herself in her suite and stayed in bed for two days. On the third day, she woke with a throbbing in her head, but no queasiness.

With a groan, she rolled to her side. Her cell phone blinked with a waiting message and she opened the text from Luke.

At work. Call or text my cell if you need me.

He’d checked in on her both days she lay in bed, managing to find ways to make her smile even through her misery.

She typed a reply.
Feeling better today.

His response came immediately.
Excellent! Let me know if you’re up for dinner later. I’ll cook. For both our sakes.

She slept on and off throughout the morning. In the afternoon, she soaked in a warm bath and as dinnertime neared, the first rumblings of hunger stirred in her belly. Excited flurries joined the mix when she sent Luke a text about dinner. His reply came right away. He was delayed at work, and if she didn’t mind waiting, he could swing by to pick her up in an hour so they could head to the pub for a quick dinner.

She told him she could wait.

Though exhaustion dragged at her body, she put on the skinny jeans and corduroy blazer outfit she’d purchased at the boutique downtown. Before the mirror, she tried to mimic Kate’s eye makeup application, but it came out looking more smudgy than smoky and didn’t conceal the dark circles under her eyes. With a blow dryer and a round brush, she worked at detangling her hair for a time, but eventually gave up and fastened the strawberry-blonde mass in a ponytail at the back of her head.

When she padded into the foyer to collect her coat, a loud voice carried to her from the front room.

“Will, you’re supposed to look afraid, not aroused.” Barely constrained anger polluted Max’s tone.

“I can’t help it. Honey’s nipples are poking me in the arm.”

Emily peered into the room to see Will before the front window. Honey, wearing a thin cotton tank top, stood at his elbow.

“Honey,” Max barked. “Dim the headlights.”

“It’s, like, twenty degrees in here.” Honey sounded bored. “Unless you let me put on an actual shirt, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The cloying scent of men’s cologne hung in the air and Emily’s stomach gave an ominous wrench.

Just then, the beam of headlights moved across the wall. Her heart jumped.

Luke.

She snatched her coat off the newel post and scurried to the front door. Not thrilled by her visceral response to him, Emily reminded herself it was just a fling between them, but she hadn’t seen him in days and her body craved the nearness of his.

She flung open the door. A small gasp slipped through her lips.

Large snowflakes fell lazily from the sky and a mantle of pristine white blanketed the earth. Snow clung to the trees and brightened the darkening sky.

Closeted away in her suite with the curtains drawn the past two days, she hadn’t been aware of the heavy snowfall.

Luke climbed the porch stairs, all dark beauty against the backdrop of pure soft white.

She stepped onto the stoop and pulled the door closed behind her. “It’s so beautiful.”

A faint smile teased at the corners of his pink lips. “Have you ever seen so much snow?”

She shook her head.

He bent, and scooping up a handful of snow, packed it into a tight ball in his hands. Green eyes flashed bright above the standing collar of his black wool coat. “So you’ve never been in a snowball fight?”

She eyed the snowball in his hands. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He tossed the white ball in the air and caught it. “Wouldn’t I?”

She shuffled down the porch stairs. “W-we should go. It’s freezing out here.”

The snowball hit her in the butt.

With a gasp, she packed a ball of snow as he had and let it fly. More snowballs whipped through the air between them, until she collapsed in the fluffy powder in the front yard, breathing hard from exertion and laughter.

Luke dropped down on the ground beside her. “Let me know when you’re ready for your next lesson.”

Her deep breaths formed puffy clouds over her face. “I need to rest.”

“You don’t have to get up.” He started waving his arms and legs.

Laughing, she mimicked him. She liked herself better when she laughed.

There hadn’t been much to laugh about when her mom grew sick. Then, when she got really sick, Emily thought she’d never so much as smile again.

Luke stood over her and pulled her to her feet. She looked down at the two angel impressions in the snow.

He packed another snowball and, laying it on the ground, started to roll. He pushed the ball around the front yard until it’d grown to ten times its original size. He rolled it to a stop in front of her. “Last lesson for today.”

She arched an eyebrow. “A giant snowball fight?”

“How to build a proper snowman.”

Delighted laughter spilled out of her. Under his tutelage, she rolled a torso and a head. Luke snapped two twigs from an oak tree and inserted them into the snowman’s sides as arms, while Emily dug up two rocks from the driveway for eyes.

They stepped back to survey their creation.

“Not bad for my first time, is it?”

“You’re a quick study.” His voice sounded gruff and sexy. “Guess I should reward you.”