Frenched Series Bundle (50 page)

I listened to it three times, just to make sure I heard right. Then I called her. Maybe she was just being dramatic.

“Hello?”

“Angelina, it’s Coco.”

“Hi. The wedding’s still off.” She sounded stuffed up, like she’d been crying.

I bit my lip. “I heard your message. Are you OK?”

“No. I found out that he’s been cheating on me with my slut cousin Christa. For months he’s been fucking her!”

Damn you, Lorenzo.
“So you broke up?”

“Hell yes, we did. And I’m not taking him back, neither. He can go fuck Christa if he wants to. Actually he can go fuck himself.”

In the anise
, I thought. “OK, well…are you sure?

I mean, I don’t think I’ll be able to get deposits back from those vendors. It’s less than a week away.”

“I don’t care. No party. I can’t face anyone, I’m too humiliated.”

Closing my eyes, I nodded slowly.
Goodbye, house.
“I’m sorry, Angelina. If you need any events planned in the future, I’d love to work with you again.” Not true, but what else could I say?

“All right. Thanks. Sorry about this.” She sniffed.

“It’s OK. You’ll find someone better.”

“Damn right, I will. Hey, is Nick Lupo available?”

“No.”
Rolling my eyes, I ended the call and put my head in my hands. What the hell else could go wrong?

Back in my car, I called Nick, but it went straight to voicemail. I didn’t want to leave the test results in a message, so I hung up and figured I’d try again later. At home, I brushed my teeth and curled up in bed, my phone next to me in case he called back. It was crazy how much I missed him sleeping beside me, when he’d only been there for the last two nights. I reached for my phone and texted him.
I miss you. Call me.

But I fell asleep still waiting for the phone to ring.

#

The next morning I got ready for work, looking at my phone way more than usual. Normally I’m not someone who’s glued to it, but my job makes it necessary to be available to clients and vendors even when I’m not at the office. By noon, I still had no call from Nick, and I figured with the late flight and time change, maybe he was sleeping.

Hey sleepyhead. Wake up. Let’s talk.

After lunch, I tried calling again, and this time I left a message. “Hey, it’s Coco. Just trying to reach you, so give me a call. The party this weekend is off, so don’t worry about that. Thanks for saying you’d help out, though. And I’m glad we got to spend time together. Hope you arrived safely and that you’re having a good time. Bye.” That last part was kind of a lie—I didn’t really want him to have a good time there. I wanted him to miss me the way I missed him.

By three in the afternoon, I was a little annoyed.

By five, I was angry

By six, I saw the pictures.

I was still at the office, and even though I’d managed to slay the dragon urge to Google him before, today was a different story. The dragon won.

I typed his name, hit enter, and sucked my lips between my teeth. In the news, it said at the top, and underneath the words was a photo of Nick with his arm around a pretty brunette, his lips pressed to her cheek. Gasping, I clicked on it. According to the gossip site that posted the photo, it had been taken two hours ago. And there were more.

Trying to remain calm, I clicked through a bunch of photos from the event, some kind of fundraiser with celebrity chefs cooking the food. I was hoping to see him with a bevy of different beauties, but it was always the same one. Apparently she was a chef too, a contestant on the current season of Lick My Plate.

And his ex-girlfriend.

My breaths came harder and faster, making my dress feel too tight in the chest. The photo captions did nothing to set my mind at ease.

Season One winner Nick Lupo cozies up to former flame and Season Two fan favorite Alex Rigler.

Sexy exes Nick Lupo and Alex Rigler turn up the heat in the kitchen.

Nick Lupo and Alex Rigler still sizzle. “She can lick my plate any time,” he said.

My stomach twisted and churned—I felt the familiar old sickness I used to experience when Nick would flirt with other girls at parties and later I’d look through his texts to see if they were contacting him.

Horrible, juvenile behavior that I never wanted to repeat. I knew gossip sites exaggerated things. But why hadn’t he called?

Disgusted with him and myself, I closed the window and packed up to go home. On the way, I called Mia and told her I’d been an idiot to think Nick was serious about me. After hearing everything that had happened since I left her house the night before, she said not to panic until I talked to him. And though she didn’t say how glad she was that Angelina’s party had been canceled, I could hear it in her voice.

By dinner that night, he still hadn’t called, and I found myself stabbing my chicken breast with a fork instead of eating it.

“Something wrong?” Sitty asked, one eyebrow arched.

“No.” I cut a bite and ate it, staring at my plate like a sullen teenager. Sitty said nothing further.

On Tuesday, Mia left for France, and Erin and I went out for a drink. Nick still hadn’t called. She listened to me gripe about trusting him and being disappointed all over again, but told me not to jump to conclusions or overreact, which pissed me off. I wasn’t overreacting! I was being fucking smart. Protective.

That night, I got my period.

When Wednesday came and went without a call, I deleted his number from my phone. I also emailed my real estate agent that I couldn’t afford the house on Iroquois but I wanted to keep looking at things in my price range. Then I got out my Grass Widow Bourbon and took a shot before pressing Send.

Well, that’s that. Goodbye, house. Goodbye, Nick. Goodbye crazy, stupid dreams.

Of course, on Thursday, he called.

I didn’t answer.

I deleted his voicemails without listening.

I deleted his texts without reading.

More sickening familiarity.

On Friday, I didn’t go to work, scared that he might try to find me there. He wouldn’t dare show up at my parents’ house, I figured, not after everything in our past. But I spent the weekend at Erin’s apartment just in case.

Good thing.

When I got home on Sunday night, Sitty told me that not only had he come by on Saturday, but he’d stayed to have a little whiskey and water with her, and he’d told her a few things she thought I should know.

“He lost that phone, those things you’re all attached to so much. He say it fell out on the plane to California and he never found it. He has a new one with a new number. I wrote it for you.” She held out a yellow post-it with a phone number written on it.

“Not. Interested.” I tried to bypass her and head up the stairs but she blocked my way.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not good for me, Sitty.” The lost phone might explain why he hadn’t called me from that number, but he could have found a way to reach me. And I’d made up my mind. Seeing those pictures and waiting around for him to call left me with a bad feeling. As far as I was concerned, I’d dodged a bullet.

“He loves you,” Sitty declared.

“He said that?”

“What boy sits with someone’s grandmother for two hours if he doesn’t love her?”

True. Trying to think of an argument, I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

“You look like baby bird,” she said. “And why do you dress like a painter?” She gestured to my sweats. “Last weekend you go with Erin with fancy underwear but this weekend it’s rags.”

I looked her in the eye. “I wasn’t with Erin last weekend. I was with Nick.”

She looked smug. “I know this.”

“He told you?”

Her shoulders rose. “He did, but I already knew there was a boy involved.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, not anymore. We’re done.”

“Why? You don’t like him?”

“I do like him. I love that asshole, in fact. But I’ll have to get over it. He’s never fought hard enough for me, Sitty. It’s not enough for him to tell me or you that he loves me. I want him to show it. I want proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I’d know it if I saw it.

I’d feel it. Now can I please get by?”

She stepped aside and I passed her, but not before I saw her stick the yellow post-it in her pocket.

Christ, was she going to meddle in this? That’s all I needed. I stomped up the stairs, changed into running clothes, and laced up my Nikes. “I’m going out for a run,” I called from where I sat on the stairs.

“OK.” Sitty’s voice came from the kitchen. “You’ll be back for supper?”

“Yes. In about thirty minutes.” I stood up and stretched for a minute, then headed out the front door, ready for a good, hard sweat.

Three miles later, I came home exhausted and dripping to find a strange car in the driveway, an SUV I’d never seen before. It made sense when I found Nick Lupo standing on my front porch steps.

“Gotcha.” He looked so good in his fitted black Burger Bar t-shirt I wanted to punch him with my newly corrected fist.

“Sitty,” I muttered through clenched teeth before blowing a sweaty strand of hair out of my face. “She called you?”

He nodded. “She did. So can we please talk?”

“No.” I narrowed my eyes, trying not to think evil thoughts about my grandmother. “Why would she do this?”

“I think she hopes I’ll marry you. She kept asking me if I wanted a wife.” He didn’t even try not to smile.

“Oh, Jesus. I’m going to kill her.” I attempted to get around him to the front door but he came off the steps and took my by the shoulders.

“Coco, please.” His voice was low. “I don’t even know if you’re pregnant or not.”

“You’d know if you bothered to call me this week.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It was a rushed trip and I lost my phone and forgot my iPad at home. But I missed you like crazy. It’s been hell wondering about the test results. Are you pregnant or not?”

I waited a beat, just to drag out the torture a little. “Not.”

He registered the news, nodding slowly. “Well, that’s good.”

“Yes, it is. Now go away.” I tried to shrug his hands off me and move around him, but he held on tight.

“No. You’re going to stand here and listen to me.”

“I already heard, Nick. You lost your phone while you were off on your rendezvous with your little hottie chef girlfriend. I saw the pictures online. She lick your plate?”

His dark eyes clouded with confusion for a moment, and he let go of me. “You mean Alex? She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a classmate from the Culinary Institute that’s on the show now. She’s dating another friend of mine, a chef I worked with in New York.”

“Oh yeah? Well, why wasn’t
he
her date for that event?”

“Because his name isn’t associated with the show. I have to do a certain number of press events for the network, Coco, even if I don’t want to. And she wasn’t my date. We went as friends.”

“Then why’d you say that, about how she can lick your plate anytime?”

“I never said that.”

“I saw it as a photo caption!” Even I had to admit that sounded a bit silly, but I couldn’t let it go. It hurt to see those things written about him.

“Come on, Coco.” He rolled his eyes. “Those people just make shit up when the truth isn’t juicy enough. Yes, we dated a little in the past, but it wasn’t serious, and we certainly are not dating now. I support her on the show, that’s all. Look, I hate that stuff too.

But my contract is up at the end of the year, and I’ll be done with it.”

“Fine,” I snapped, annoyed that he appeared to have a decent excuse for all those photos. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you up and left in a heartbeat and didn’t call me all week long! I get that you lost your phone, but
friends
have phones, Nick. And there are Internet cafes. Post offices. Fucking messenger pigeons.”

“I’m sorry…I don’t know what else to say. You’re right, I should have tried harder.”

“And you said you were going to be home Wednesday.”

His cheeks colored slightly. “I had to do something else, and I didn’t end up getting home until Thursday. I just figured I’d see you when I got back, but now I realize that’s not good enough.”

“Hell no, it’s not. You don’t fight hard enough for me, Nick. You never have.” I tried to get around him again, but he grabbed my upper arms.

“Listen to me. I’m not perfect, and I don’t claim to be. I’m going to make mistakes, and you will too. But I love you. And I know you love me. Give me another chance, Coco. Let me make things right.”

I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. “It’s too late for that.”

He stared hard at me. And then, unbelievably enough, he smiled. “No. It isn’t.”

I blinked. “What?”

The grin widened. “It isn’t. You’re going to give me another chance. Maybe not right now, maybe not even tomorrow, but you will. Because we are good together, Coco. This is it for me,
and
for you. You’ll see.” He planted his lips on mine, and I was too stunned to resist, not that I’d ever resisted Nick’s kiss before. And this one was different somehow—I felt it from my scalp to my toes, a new charge in the air between us.