Save the Date (20 page)

“We have a very nice couch there.” Lucy did
not
want to be in Clare’s house or hear any more excuses for Steven Deveraux.

“It’s a good solution.” Alex typed something in to his iPhone. “And it’s temporary. Until I can get you a security system installed and some twenty-four–hour protection.”

Morgan stood up and glanced at her watch. “So this is settled?”

“Oh, it’s settled.” Alex’s face dared Lucy to argue.

Morgan gave her friend a light squeeze. “You sure you’re okay? I would stay, but I’ve finally got an appointment for Chuck to try on tuxes.”

“I’m fine. Go. Do your wedding planning.” As Morgan eased out the door, Lucy felt panic slip inside the room in her place. She was alone with two people who wanted things from her that overwhelmed her conscience and addled her brain.

Alex turned to Clare. “She’ll go home with you.”

“I have friends I can stay with.”

“Friends with a security detail in their carriage house?” Clare asked.

“No.” Lucy took a drink of the water beside her. “Though Christina Meyer does have a schnauzer.”

“This will give us a chance to get started on our homework.” Clare was back to using that uppity voice. “And Julian can keep an eye on your injuries. He’s good at that.”

“But—“ Lucy looked to Alex, but he was finishing up a text.

“I’ve got to make a quick call. You two settle this among yourselves.” He disappeared, leaving her in Clare’s clutches.

Clare’s lips thinned as she took Alex’s place beside Lucy on the bed. “Alex tells me you two are serious.”

Seriously insane. “Does he?”

Clare watched her for a few uncomfortable, silent moments. Like she was telepathically scanning Lucy’s brain for all her hidden secrets. Lucy shifted and looked away.

“You need help. It’s time you accepted that,” Clare finally said. “I’ve watched you at recent events. You’re a wreck.”

“My grandma for a matter of weeks and already you’re spoiling me with compliments.”

“But you have enormous potential. Given the fact that you need a large amount of assistance in a short period of time—basically a miracle —I’m your only option.”

“Is this supposed to charm me into agreeing?”

Clare clasped her delicate fingers around Lucy’s. “My dear, the election is two months away. As his girlfriend, you represent a wife-figure. Ring or not, you are important to his campaign.”

Her head was beginning to throb worse than her hand. “Why are you doing this?”

“I would be lying if I said it was simply because you needed me— though you do.” Clare stared at their joined hands, one still pink with lingering youth, and one lined and veined with age. “I need
you
, Lucy.”

Lucy went on alert at the shift in Clare’s tone.

“My recent dip into the Lord’s wading pool has convinced me that I have a lot of amends to make,” Clare continued. “Come and stay with me for a few days. I’ll teach you everything I know about the political life, and when you’re ready, you can ask me about your father. But I won’t push. I shall be content just to have the opportunity to get to know you a little better.”

Lucy chewed the inside of her jaw and prayed the Tylenol would kick in soon. Why was life getting so complicated? This was why she had lived an honest life up until now. Deceit was way too much drama.

“Put your bitterness aside for now,” Clare said. “When this election is over, you can go back to hating me. I don’t blame you. But you might be just the thing to turn the tide for Alex. We can make that happen. Together.”

“Why do you care if he wins or not?”

“We’re old family friends.” Clare smiled wistfully. “And it’s clear that he’s ready for the world to see who he really is. That’s something I relate to.”

“I need some air. I’m going to go find Alex.”

Lucy slipped off the bed and let her feet rest on the floor. Swinging open the door, she marched down the hospital hall in search of her fake boyfriend. She stopped to listen for girly shrieks or purring coos, but hearing neither, she just kept walking.

She finally found him in a waiting room, standing with his back to her, next to a faded blue couch somewhere in the color range of cornflower and ugly.

“Hey, Kat.”

Lucy’s flats halted on the peel-and-stick tile floor.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t return your call right away. I hope I’m not interrupting, but I really needed to talk to you—”

Heat crawled up Lucy’s neck. While she had been getting the guilt trip from Clare on the need to be Alex’s perfect lady, he had been out here. Calling his girlfriend. Or one of them.

“Can we meet?” Alex nodded. “Perfect. Just the two of us.” Like a cheetah aware of its prey, Alex pivoted. And locked his sights on Lucy.

There was no surprise on his face. Only barely concealed annoyance.

“Talk to you later.” He hit a button and slipped the phone in his pocket. “Were you dismissed?”

Lucy advanced on him, trying to decide if he was worth tearing apart. “I have had the
worst
day. First, there’s a water park in my house. Then some shutter-happy boys peek in my window.” She took another step—close enough to smell the spice of his cologne. It probably cost more than her hospital bill. “Then
someone
drags me to the hospital for stitches when a butterfly bandage would have done just as well.
Then
I’m given the command that I’m not allowed to stay in my own apartment.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a rough one.” His voice was whiskey deep as his gaze dipped to her lips.

“And now,” she hissed. “Now I come out here and find you on the phone with a member of your harem, plotting a little late-night meet-and-greet.”

His mouth quirked. “Jealous?”

Lucy chalked it up to a miracle that she didn’t spew dragon fire. “Jealous? Of her? Of you? Of you and her?” The nerve of this man. “I pity that woman, whoever she is. If you can’t even stay faithful to a fake girlfriend, you sure as heck can’t be loyal to a real one.”

Alex glanced over her shoulder. “You should probably keep your voice down.”

“I will not.” The man wasn’t even looking at her! “You can’t just order me about. I don’t want to stay with Clare, for your information. Besides, what good will it do for me to brush up on political trivia when my intended is shacked up with some bimbo at the nearest Motel 6?”

“You know I have better taste in motels than that.”

He drew his eyes away from the hall until they locked on hers.

“Don’t you have
anything
to say for yourself, Alex?”

“Yes.” His gaze wandered to her mouth again.

Then his head lowered as he pulled her close, and his lips covered hers. “This.”

If Alex Sinclair played football as good as he kissed, Lucy knew he’d have an entire treasure chest of Super Bowl rings.

He pressed nearer, cupping her face in those strong hands.

Lucy murmured a protest against his lips, but it was useless.

“Close your eyes,” came his muffled command.

She started to argue, but the day had sucked out all the energy from her body. She leaned into him, hating the way her heart raced in tempo. The way her skin all but sizzled beneath his touch. Sliding her arms around his back, Lucy allowed the most notorious player in the South to kiss her right in the middle of the hospital waiting room.

His hand journeyed across the slope of her neck as Roman candles took flight in her head. While his lips made a feather-light trail across her cheek, Lucy listed all the reasons she should be telling him to stop. And she was going to. Any second now.

This was a complication. This was wrong. This was . . . heaven.

“Okay, they’re gone.”

He stepped away. Brushed a piece of lint off his oxford shirt.

And yawned.

Lucy stood rooted in her spot, her eyes blinking in rapid succession. What had just happened?

He had just—

And then she had just—

She followed the direction of his stare and turned to see the retreating back of two men carrying cameras.

Paparazzi. Of course.

“Nothing like mauling a woman in the ER.” Lucy was impressed at how positively bored her voice sounded.

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

She wanted to wipe that grin right off his face.

“You know, maybe I shouldn’t be the only one getting a tutor here, Alex.” She fluffed her hair, felt the remnants of dried blood and forced a smile. “Because that performance was a little underwhelming.”

She saw the sparks ignite in his eyes before banking to a smolder. “Is that so?” He closed the gap between them and looked down that chiseled, arrogant nose. “Care to call the photographers back and try again?”

Chill bumps danced along the back of her spine. So this was what it was like to play with fire. “I guess your football performance isn’t the only thing that’s diminished in the last year.” She patted his chest. “But don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Part of my job is to protect your reputation.”

“I don’t like to leave anyone unsatisfied.” His hand slid back up her arm.

Unexpected, unwanted desire unfurled in her stomach. She had to get a grip. This was a game she wasn’t prepared to play. She met those bedroom eyes and dropped her voice to a sultry whisper. “Alex?”

He said nothing. Just moved his face closer to hers. “Yes?”

Her lips hovered under his. “I’m not staying with Clare Deveraux.”

He lifted his head and exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “You, Lucy Wiltshire, know how to ruin a perfectly good time.”

“Oh.” She blinked twice. “Is that what we were having?”

“Your only other option is to stay at my house.” His eyebrows lifted in a challenge. “With me.”

Chapter Twenty-one

L
ucy walked down a second-story hall lined with oil paintings of generations of Deveraues. Just beyond a sixth bedroom, she found the image of her father as a young twentysomething. The age he would’ve been when he’d lured her mother into passion and ruin, only to discard her like a worn-out tennis racket.

“You look like him.” Clare stepped out from the doorway behind Lucy, her eyes on the picture.

“Actually I favor my mother.” A woman she didn’t even know anymore.

Clare fingered the brooch at her neck. “Apparently you have Anna’s kind heart. And that’s a blessing.” She wiggled her fingers. “Now come, come.”

Lucy’s bedroom could’ve been taken from the pages of
Traditional Home
. She was surrounded by chic, sophisticated white everywhere she looked. A four-poster bed sat as one focal point, covered in a white matelasse quilt and an abundance of fluffy pillows that made a girl just want to run and jump into them. Opposite the bed, a white fireplace stood, framed by a collection of antique mirrors over the mantel.

“It’s . . . nice,” Lucy said in the stilted silence.

“I know you don’t want to be here. But I think it’s a blessing.”

“Clare, I don’t know what to make of all this yet. My mother
lied
to me”—Lucy sighed—“about my father . . . about who I thought I was. And the funny thing is, I’ve never missed her more. I just want the chance to talk to her—to ask her why she would accept money from you. Why she would allow herself to be bought off. She could’ve told me the truth.”

Clare sat down in the matching chair beside her. “Initially, I’m sure your mother was scared to tell anyone. The agreement she signed was silence in exchange for cash.”

“But I was her daughter. I deserved to know. And after a certain point, she had nothing to lose. She would’ve known you wouldn’t have caused a scandal.”

“Yes, I realize that.” Clare ran her finger over the piping on the arm of the chair. “I think your mother wanted something better for you. My son floated from one scandal to another. Anna probably wanted you to think your father was a hero. A good man. There was little reason to want you connected to my family. No doubt she wanted to cut all ties with the Deverauxes.”

“How could you just throw money at her like she was nothing? My mother was a hard-working, godly woman.” Lucy watched the sun set in the evening sky. It was only six thirty, but she was exhausted and spent.

“It was a long time ago. I was different then—we all were. I had a family and a name to protect. I wasn’t married to just any man—I was married to the governor.” Clare stood up and went to an armoire. “You don’t have to forgive me tonight. You don’t even have to like me. But please at least pray about it.”

Lucy had tried. But the words hadn’t come. All she had been able to utter to the Holy Father was a profound
Are you kidding me?

“Alex had a bag sent over while we were at the pharmacy.” Clare opened the curving door of the cabinet. “He packed some things he thought you might need. I’ll just leave you alone to get settled. And Lucy?” Clare stopped in the doorway, a queen of her manor.

“Yes?”

“No matter what you decide in terms of forgiving me, we shall begin your lessons tomorrow night. I hope you’re mature enough to put aside your feelings for me in order to help Alex.”

Lucy said nothing as Clare let herself out.

Reaching into the armoire, she pulled out a small suitcase and flung it on the bed. There was no telling what had been packed. Probably whatever his assistant could grab.