Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (30 page)

The day before her wedding, Emily learned a new snow word: lake effect.

She and Luke had agreed to meet at his place for dinner, and she set off early so that she’d have time to stop at the grocery store on the way to pick up supplies for their meal. But while she was inside the store, the storm worsened.

Winds lashed at her skin with a biting cold, and thick, sticky snowflakes dropped from the sky in a frenzied blur. In her newly leased sedan, her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as her visibility through the windshield shrunk to a few feet in front of the car’s nose. The roads grew treacherous and, as a girl from the desert, she struggled to handle the car in such conditions.

At Luke’s apartment, she saw no signs of his SUV. She sent him a text, and he quickly responded. He’d been held up at work dealing with a surge of road spin-offs and other weather-related crises. He directed her to the loft’s spare key.

For the next few hours, she watched the snow piling up.

Her cell phone buzzed and she moved away from the slider to retrieve it off the dining table. Luke’s number lit up her display screen and she accepted his call.

He gave her a quick update of the conditions. “Did Haven’s flight make it?”

“Her flight is delayed. She’s stuck at the airport in Chicago.”

“We’re supposed to get six more inches tonight, but it should slow down near midnight. You hunkered down there for a while?”

“I am. Mina’s going to keep an eye on the inn for me.” No way would she attempt the drive home tonight. “What about you?”

“It’s gonna be another few hours before I can get away. Don’t wait up.”

She stirred when he slipped into the bed, and started to get up, but he clamped an arm around her and pulled her back down. He buried his face in her neck and soon the soft, rhythmic sound of his breathing lulled her back to sleep.

When she next opened her eyes, the storm had passed, and through the patio doors, sunlight danced over the mantle of snow, setting off a twinkling display of diamond flecks amidst the snowdrifts.

She turned when Luke moved over her. The sunlight caught in his green eyes, turning them brilliant, and the playful messiness of his dark hair pinched her heart.

“Maybe we should w-wait until we’re married,” she teased.

In answer, he shoved her T-shirt up around her waist and dropped a kiss on her stomach, near her belly button. She pulled the shirt over her head and his hungry gaze devoured her body. While she reveled in his open admiration of her, his mouth brushed over her ribcage, and then, moved lower. The tip of his finger trailed along her slit and liquid warmth sloped through her.

His mouth pressed against her core and he tasted her with his tongue. She gasped with the shot of sensation and her awareness narrowed to the exquisite torture each lick of his tongue lashed.

She rocked against his mouth, moaning, while waves of arousal whipped through her. She dug her hands into his hair and held him to her, greedily taking all he gave.

A noise sounded in the far-off distance, but she was too far gone to the feel of his hot mouth to take heed.

His hands gripped her waist, rendering her hips immobile while his tongue massaged and teased. Each soft slide coaxed more sensation, more whimpers.

Just then, a woman’s voice punctured the quiet. “Honey, I’m home.”

Emily’s eyes flew open.

A curse shot from Luke, and in one fluid motion, he rolled off Emily and tossed the sheets over her naked body.

Emily thrashed to a sitting position to find a beautiful woman standing in the doorway of Luke’s loft.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” Luke yanked a pair of boxers over his hips.

The woman’s chestnut hair shimmered about her shoulders when she flipped it. “I couldn’t miss the big day. My invitation must’ve been lost.”

A man appeared in the doorway and stepped past the woman.

Luke drew up. “
You
did this?” His voice held an edge of barely contained fury.

Even in her frantic state, Emily pegged the newcomer as a Nolan. The youngest brother, Leo, maybe? Though his dark hair was cut short to his scalp, his deep-set, thickly lashed eyes, straight nose, and swarthy skin gave him a marked resemblance to the brothers.

He staggered into the room and collapsed in one of Luke’s armchairs. “Help, I’ve been kidnapped.” His head dropped onto the chair back and his eyes fell shut.

“Oh, Lukie, I love what you’ve done with the place.” A gasp slipped from the woman’s painted mouth. “You kept our bed?”

Emily’s patience ran out. “Luke, wh-who is she?”

The woman turned heavy-lashed, wide-set eyes on Emily. “I’m his wife.”

“
E
x
-wife.” Luke’s hands balled into tight fists at his sides.

A pout turned down the corners of the woman’s mouth. “You make it sound so ugly.”

“You were m-m-married?” Emily couldn’t keep the waver, or the weakness, from her voice any more than she could control the blasted stutter. “Wh-why didn’t y-you tell m-m-me?”

With a frustrated growl, Luke shoved a hand through his hair. “There was nothing to tell.”

A chill passed through Emily and she turned her head to find Luke’s brother watching her with changeable green-gold eyes. Like Jack’s eyes, except cold.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” he murmured.

She clutched the sheet tight to her chest and scooted toward the edge of the mattress.

Vicious lines formed on either side of Luke’s mouth. “You brought her here?”

The man showed Luke his palms. “Other way around. Last thing I remember I was boarding a flight to this godforsaken state, and the next thing I know, I wake up in the backseat of her car. She brought me here against my will.”

“You must’ve blacked out.” A dry smile twisted the woman’s mouth. “I can’t believe they let you board the plane when you were that drunk. You sure made the flight interesting, I’ll say that much.”

Luke swore. “Jesus, Leo, I thought you were smarter than this.”

“And I thought you were a cop. What the hell are you doing leaving the damn door unlocked?”

“Oh, he locked it.” The woman held up a gold metal object. “I know where he hides the spare key.”

Emily’s heart ached and her head followed suit. She pushed up off the bed, but her feet tangled in the sheets and she stumbled.

Luke caught her elbow. “Where are you going?”

His touch burned her skin and she jerked her arm free. “To get dressed.”

The woman clicked her tongue. “Oh, dear, I haven’t upset you, have I? Believe me, you have no reason to be jealous. Luke didn’t love me.” Her cold blue eyes speared Luke. “He isn’t capable of love. It was only great sex between us.”

The wrench of nausea stole Emily’s breath.

Luke’s grip tightened on Emily’s arm and his jaw clenched. “Get her out of here. Now.”

Leo hoisted himself to his feet. “All right, let’s go. You’ve had your fun.”

“Leave the key,” Luke said.

The woman quickly concealed the flash of disappointment on her face with a devious smile. “Call me later. We can hook up, like the old days.”

Leo hustled her through the door and yanked it shut behind them.

Silence dropped like an anvil between Luke and Emily.

He’d been married.

Had he lived here, with his wife? Had he really slept here, with her, in the same bed where Emily had been sleeping with him? Emily rubbed her forehead.

He’d been married, and he didn’t tell her.

She’d told him about the guy she slept with three times in college, more than ten years ago, and he didn’t bother to mention he’d had a wife? A wedding, a marriage, presumably a divorce. Any one of those things might’ve warranted a mention.

Whatever happened to no lying?

Guess that only applied to her.

Sick with humiliation, she fumbled through the bedsheets with shaking hands, searching for her discarded clothing.

“Let me explain,” he said, an unsettling soberness in his voice.

Words piled in the back of her throat. Angry, ugly words she stood no chance of getting out. She yanked on her T-shirt and jeggings and careened toward the front door.

He hounded her steps. “Please, don’t go.”

She stepped into her winter boots, but didn’t bother lacing them, and threw open the door.

He caught her arm. “Emily, please.” He peered into her face a moment, and then brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. “Stay. Talk to me.”

A lifetime of frustration and impotence welled up, closing the back of her throat. With the torment, a choked sob broke from her and she plunged out into the frigid morning.

She drove home in a haze while cruel memories snuck up on her. She recalled the time her mom bought her a play-pretend princess gown. Her heart filled with joy, Emily had twirled so that the gown’s skirts billowed out around her. She rushed to show her dad, pointing out to him all the things she loved about the dress and sharing her secret plan to one day marry a prince.

Harrison had frowned down at her. “No man’s going to want you as long as you chatter like a dimwit.”

His words had etched on her heart, never to be forgotten, and echoed around inside her head as she struggled to make sense of Luke’s treachery.

When she tripped through the back door, Noah looked up from the kitchen table.

“What are you doing up?” he asked. “We can fend for ourselves for a day.”

All she wanted to do was hide away in her bedroom and cry and scream and throw things. “I, uh, couldn’t sleep.”

“Mina was the same way on our wedding day.”

Emily snatched up the box of muffins and tossed them on the dining table with a heavy thud. She returned to the kitchen just as the back door banged open, shattering the quiet.

Luke loomed in the doorway. He wore ancient blue jeans and a black fleece and his chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, as though he’d run to get to her.

Max appeared through the kitchen door, a crumbling doughnut in his hand. “Where are the pancakes?”

Noah plucked a plate off the stack at his elbow and passed it to him. “No pancakes today.”

“It’s Saturday,” Max argued. “Luke makes banana pancakes on Saturdays.”

Luke’s eyes burned like live coals.

She scrambled around to the far side of the island. “I don’t w-want to talk.” Her gaze darted to the table. “Not right n-now.”

“Too damn bad.” He stalked toward her.

Noah’s eyebrows inched upward. “Everything all right, you two?”

Drew slipped through the kitchen door carrying the box of doughnuts and settled at the table beside Max. “These were in the dining room for some reason.”

Emily snapped. “Because that’s wh-where you’re all supposed to be eating. In the dining room. Not the kitchen. M-my kitchen.”

Three pairs of eyes blinked at her.

“Everything beyond that door is my house. M-my p-p-private house.” She whirled on Luke. “Y-you should have told me y-you were m-m-married.”

A utensil clattered against a plate.

“You’re married?” Noah said. “Jesus, a guy leaves town for a decade and a half and he misses everything.”

“Divorced.” Luke pressed his palms to the countertop and peered into her face. That ripple of vulnerability disturbed the emerald pools of his eyes. “And you’re right, I should’ve told you. But it was a long time ago and I don’t think about her. Ever. I’m an awful person, but there you have it. I didn’t tell you because she isn’t worth mentioning. She was just a mistake.”

Emily flinched, his words stinging like a slap to the face. “And here I thought I was your only mistake.”

“Dammit, Emily—wait—”

She slammed the door to the half-bath behind her. The intensity of the emotions whipping through her choked her, and when he looked at her with those wounded eyes, she couldn’t think. So she fled.

She withdrew her cell phone from the butt pocket of her jeggings and opened a new text.

His fists pounded on the door at her back. “Emily, let me in.”

Her fingers hammered out a message.
Did you love her?

The pounding stopped and Luke’s voice carried through the door. “We have a problem. Leo’s home.”

She hit Send.

“He’s here now?” The alarm in Noah’s tone carried even through the door. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He left—” Luke’s cell phone buzzed.

A short pause followed, and then he erupted. “Oh, hell no.” His pounding fist thundered. “Emily, open the goddamn door, or so help me, I’m going to break it down.”

Her terror pushed sudden tears to the surface. She flung open the door and bolted past him, scurrying well out of arms’ reach. “How long w-w-were y-you married?”

Tension radiated off him as he circled toward her. “One month.”

“H-how long ago?” She put the kitchen island between them.