LUCI (The Naughty Ones Book 2) (66 page)

Peter grinned at me, and I shook myself, realizing, with horror, that I’d been staring at him unabashedly over the course of that last daydream. I looked away just as the officiant told our parents to kiss, then looked back, my eyes dragged by some irresistible force. Peter looked softly at me. My heart swelled in my chest painfully. I wanted him, but I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to feel like this, in his thrall, unable to control my impulses. We had hurt each other purposefully. Surely love didn’t have a place for us anymore.

It was the most difficult thing in the world to take his arm again and walk back through all those cheering people. The cheers were almost pushing us to get back together. I was having such a hard time resisting him.

“Tell me what would be so bad about us being together,” he said in my ear, leaning down, his lips making contact.

“Everything,” I said, refusing to make eye contact with him. “Everything would be bad.”

“Be specific.”

“You have too much control.”

“What’s so bad about that? You never complained.”

“Because I didn’t understand.”

“What I understand now is that I want you,” he said. “You have to want me. I can feel it. The way you look at me. The way you try not to look at me. You bit your lip through the entire ceremony, did you realize that? You smiled. What were you thinking about?” My hand flew to my mouth, and I tried to distract myself by digging through my purse to find some lipstick to apply.

“Gemma, answer me.”

“All I want to do is get through this,” I said savagely. “Because after tonight, I never have to see you again. It will be like getting out of jail.”

I shoved my way through the crowd, out the doors to the chapel. It was evening, now, all the lights in the buildings on, traffic moving down the streets, headlights illuminating the way before them. Everyone had somewhere to be except me. I was rudderless, floating, unsure of myself. Would I ever have direction? Could I ever learn to do things for myself? To do only the things I wanted to do?

I couldn’t stand around and wait for everyone else, couldn’t stand the thought of riding in the same car as Peter — even if my mother and Frank were going to be in there — to the reception hall. I made a snap decision to walk. My shoes were comfortable. My dress wasn’t that fancy. And it wasn’t that far away. A lot of the guests would probably be walking, too, I knew. It would be fine. The fresh air would clear my head.

“Gemma, we’re not done talking.” Peter had found me through the crowd, but I ducked away. I didn’t care how childish it was to run away from him, so that’s what I was doing, dodging around, hoping that he’d be too concerned with his pride to chase me. I couldn’t face him right now. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to get to the reception, sit with some strangers, eat my dinner, and drink myself away.

“Gemma!”

I didn’t bother turning around, didn’t care to hear what Peter had to say. I was done with him, done with this. I had endured about all I could handle. He had pushed me the entire ceremony, and I was through. I wasn’t even sure I could last through the reception anymore. There wasn’t a single thing he or anyone else could say to make me feel differently. I wanted to go back to my hotel room and have maybe a cocktail or five and forget about this entire evening.

“Gemma, stop, you bloody idiot!”

Oh, and now he was resorting to name calling? That really wasn’t going to work for me. It was as if Peter had exhausted all of his attempts at trying to win me back and had settled on being vulgar and annoying. It was as if all this effort had boiled him down to his most essential self. I was glad I wasn’t with him anymore. He was just a spoiled little boy. It didn’t matter that he was older than me. The moment he discovered that he wasn’t going to get what he so badly wanted, he showed his true colors.

“Gemma, look where you’re going!”

I looked up suddenly at the honking of a taxi and felt a hard shove from behind. The pavement rose up to meet me, too fast, and then there was a flash of pain, and then, almost coming as a relief, there was nothing.

It was a long dream that occasionally unwound into a nightmare — plaster and pulleys and pain, oh my — and doctors at the ready, at my elbow, shining lights into my eyes. The beep of monitors punctuated my breaths, and people came and went: my mother, still in her wedding dress; Frank, his bowtie hanging loose around his neck; nurses upon nurses, cooing things, changing bandages, trying to get me to eat pudding when all I wanted was pizza. Wasn’t I supposed to be eating pizza?

Reality gradually reasserted itself, and I came to realize that I was in the hospital, my entire right leg encased in a cast, a bandage around my head. I looked to the side and saw my mother sitting in one of the chairs, leafing listlessly through a magazine. She was out of her wedding dress. That was good. But what was she doing here?

“Aren’t you supposed to be in India by now?” I croaked.

“Oh, Gemma!” She flung the magazine aside and flew at me, covering my cheeks with kisses, her hands grabbing at my arms. I had some abrasions on my hands, but besides that, everything else seemed to be in working order as long as it wasn’t wrapped in gauze or plaster. It registered that things should hurt, but they didn’t. I figured it had a lot to do with the fact that I felt I was wrapped up in a cloud. The pain medication was doing wonders.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You charged into traffic like a lunatic and got hit by a taxi!” my mother exclaimed. “It’s a miracle you’re alive at all.”

I frowned, wracking my brain. “I wasn’t hit. I was pushed.”

“That was Peter,” she said impatiently. “He pushed you.”

“He pushed me into the path of the taxi?” I was confused again. “Is he in jail?”

“No, of course he isn’t, and he didn’t push you in to the path of the taxi,” my mother said, rolling her eyes. “That was the miracle. He saw you leaving, saw that you weren’t paying attention, and pushed you away just in time to make sure your injuries weren’t any worse than they are now. If he hadn’t acted as quickly as he did, the taxi would’ve hit you head on, and not the glancing blow. It was going so fast, Gemma. You didn’t wait for the light to change.”

That was because I’d been trying to escape. I hadn’t wanted to be there anymore. I was at war with myself, fighting my own attraction to him, repulsion ruling as he leered at me all night, alcohol fueling his attempt at making a pass at me. It was his fault I’d fled, his fault I’d gotten hit by the damn taxi in the first place.

“I was in a hurry,” I muttered.

“Stubborn girl.” My mother had apparently gotten over her joy at seeing me sentient and was ready to start fussing at me. “I asked you if everything was all right between you and Peter, and you said yes.”

“I told you we were adults,” I corrected her. “I was only half right.”

She sighed. “Gemma, don’t you realize that he’s hopelessly in love with you? Devoted to you? Frank says he’s just been pining away. Broke his arm in that incident, too, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” My stomach twisted, inexplicably. “Is he all right?”

“Better than you,” my mother said sharply. “Though I’m sure you’ll be out in a few days. You had a nasty concussion from hitting your head on the pavement.”

“I’m ruining your honeymoon, aren’t I?” I asked suddenly. “You and Frank were supposed to be on a plane to India as soon as the wedding was over. You’ve missed it, haven’t you?”

“That plane departed three days ago,” she said gently. “I wasn’t about to get on it with my daughter in such a state, and even if I’d wanted to, Frank wouldn’t have let me. We need to stay here until the two of you are sorted out.”

“Aren’t you tired of me messing everything up?” I demanded. “You were about to start traveling the world, and now you’re stuck in a hospital. You were happily planning your wedding, and then it was called off. You took years of physical abuse in an attempt to fool me into thinking my life was normal. Aren’t you tired of it? Aren’t you tired of me?”

My voice had risen during my entire diatribe, tears glittering in my eyes and obscuring my vision, but when my mother answered me, her voice was mild, resigned.

“I told you once, and I’ll tell you again. It’s a thing you can’t possibly understand until you have children of your own. You’ll do crazy things for your children. Things you didn’t realize you were capable of. But in the end, it’s all worth it. You are a piece of me, Gemma. You are a physical part of me that I grew inside of my own body. I would never just leave you in a hospital. I don’t care where that plane was going. Frank and I will have our honeymoon. We have the rest of our lives. But right now, you need me, and that’s the most important thing.”

I was crying by then, my mother’s arms wrapped around me, crying for my pain, crying for her suffering, crying that I could seem to get over Peter, and nor was I sure I wanted to. What was I supposed to do when everything was upside down?

My mother was right. I was released from the hospital just a couple of days later. Frank insisted — and wouldn’t take no for an answer — that I make myself comfortable in the penthouse he stayed in. Its views of the surrounding city reminded me of the one I used to live in, made me homesick for it, but it was something of a relief to be somewhere different. I was hobbled by crutches — the doctor tried to get me to accept the services of a wheelchair, but I refused. At least the place was comfortable, full of soft chairs I could sit on and ottomans I could prop my leg up on. They’d taken the bandages from my head, and the stitches on the back of it would dissolve by themselves. All I had to do was lie low and wait for my leg to heal. Two whole months in a cast. That eliminated any chances of me pounding the pavement and looking for a job.

“Don’t worry about a job right now, Gemma,” my mother urged as she and Frank followed a porter who was pushing a rolling cart with all of their various luggage out of the room. My mother had been adamant about the fact that they were coming back to New York City after their stint in India to check up on me, but I had a pretty good feeling that Frank would be able to persuade her to continue their travels.

“Don’t worry about me,” I told her, waving my hand. “I have everything I need right here. I’ll search for openings on the computer. You focus on having a good time. See the world.”

“We’ll be back in a month,” my mother said firmly, but Frank shook his head and winked at me.

“Hold the fort down, Gem,” he said, giving me a brief and brilliant grin that reminded me all too well of his son, and they left.

At first, it was good to be alone. My mother had been hovering around me ever since I’d gotten out of the hospital, waiting on me hand and foot. I needed to learn how to maneuver with the crutches, and I needed to be able to take care of myself.

That was the biggest thing I needed to relearn. How to do things on my own.

Even if it wasn’t the best time — I had a broken leg, after all, and I was staying in a penthouse again — I had to try and embrace independence. Do things for myself. Rely on my own skills to move forward. I was in danger, I recognized, of slipping backward. I could stay in this penthouse indefinitely. Frank had set up a food service to deliver meals to me so I didn’t have to worry about shopping or cooking, and he’d already floated the idea that I would man the penthouse while he was away from it. As easy as it might be to simply accept that as my life, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want it. I wanted something I could be proud of. I wanted to achieve something instead of just accepting it from someone.

I was attempting to settle into my routine — bathing myself while avoiding getting the cast wet, eating my meals, doing the exercises my doctor had told me to try, using my crutches, applying to jobs online — when one day, the door rattled open. It was Peter, fumbling with a key card, cursing up a blue streak. His right hand was in a cast, the one he was used to using, and his left hand was apparently not cutting it for him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, suspicious even though it was the first time I’d seen him since the wedding.

“Your mother asked me to check up on you,” he said. “So that’s what I’m doing. Checking. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “And a phone call or text message would’ve sufficed.”

“I tried that,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Seems you have my number blocked.”

“Ah.” I felt a small stab of guilt, but ignored it. “Well, now you’ve seen me. You can report back to her that all is well.”

“Is everything well?” he countered. “Aren’t you lonely up here by yourself? Wouldn’t you like some company?”

“I’m pretty occupied right now, Peter, thanks,” I said, pointing at the computer on my lap. “I’m applying for jobs.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “You’re in a cast.”

“And one day I won’t be. Then I’d like to have a way to earn some money.”

“You don’t have to do that. You have access to all the money you need.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“I’m talking about what your mother will be able to give you now, what my father will insist on giving you, just like he insisted on you staying here,” Peter said, making me flush. “And if you want a job, he’ll find you something.”

“I’ll find it myself.”

“You know, a thank you would be nice,” Peter said with sudden anger. “I’ve got this ruddy thing on my arm, ruining my life. This is the hand I wank with, you know, and I can’t. I haven’t been able to since the accident.” He did an exaggerated pantomime with it and winced.

“I am so sorry that I’ve deprived you of your primary partner,” I said sarcastically. “I have to give myself sponge baths every day, so I guess I feel your pain.”

“We could help each other out,” he said suggestively. “Form a sort of crippled partnership.”

“In your dreams.”

His blue eyes twinkled, but then he got sad. Contentious ribbing turned serious, and I wasn’t ready for it.

“Can’t we try again, Gemma?” Peter lifted his eyes to meet mine, and I quickly looked away. “What would be so wrong about that?”

“I don’t think we’re good for each other.”

“How could you say that? You mean — you meant — everything to me.”

“And what did you mean to me?” I asked. “You controlled everything. You were my landlord and my banker and my boss and my boyfriend, and those were just too many hats for you to wear.”

“I wanted to help you. You needed help.”

“I did, but I also needed to do some things by myself.” I gestured uselessly, not sure how to explain it to him. “Maybe I didn’t want to fall the way I did, or suffer the way I did, but I did want to pick myself back up. It was stupid for me to put all of my trust and hope in you. It was like a free ride, Peter, and I shouldn’t have taken it. I should’ve done some things myself.”

“Gemma, no one needs to suffer the way that you did,” he said. “You worked so hard. Why shouldn’t you have expected a living wage?”

“I wanted a living wage. I didn’t want a penthouse, or closets full of clothes and shoes and jewelry and purses. I didn’t have ownership over any of it because I could never take ownership. You were always there. Always so eager for me not to suffer that I suffered anyway. None of it was mine.”

“It was all yours.” Peter’s eyebrows drew together. “Everything was always yours. The things we said to each other when we were fighting…those were just words.”

“Yes, but we said them.” My eyes welled up. “You told me I was a charity case. You typed it up and sent it to me.”

“I was angry. It wasn’t right.”

“It was valid.” I looked up at the ceiling, unwilling to let the tears fall. “You were an escape from my suffering. You weren’t a solution.”

“What can I do?” He spread his hands. “Tell me what to do, Gemma, to prove to you that I love you. To prove to you that we should be together.”

“I just want some space.” I gestured at my cast. “And to heal.”

“I’ve got eight weeks in this stupid thing,” Peter said, waving his arm around glumly. “What kind of time are you looking at?”

“The same.”

He heaved a sigh. “Who’s taking you to your appointment?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Eight weeks is a long time from now. I figured I’d just take a taxi.”

“In eight weeks,” Peter said, walking to the door, “we have a date.”

And then he walked out.

Part of me didn’t believe that he’d be able to exercise the self-control it took to know where I was in the city, to know I was more or less helpless and alone, and to stay away, but he impressed me. I conducted my hermitage in peace and quiet, getting stronger every day, getting more capable, getting more confident that when my exile was over, everything was going to be okay.

I corresponded with my mother via email, marveling at the pictures she was taking, the sights she was seeing. I smiled at the guilty message, right at the one-month mark, that they were going to continue on through Asia, and would I be all right?

“Of course I’ll be all right,” I typed back. “I’m thriving and looking forward to getting this cast off soon.”

I was happy for her, and then happy for me — a job application for an insurance company pinged back, and offered me an interview via video chat, given my physical limitations at the moment. It went well, and then another email came, and another, and I was soon in a position of being able to choose which job I wanted instead of snatching at whichever job I could get.