When I come back out the door, Lala has one hand on Cormac’s forearm, and he’s tilting his head close to hers. Magma, lava, volcanoes, boiling hot geysers erupt through me, and I hate it. Lala and I have always been fiercely competitive and fiercely loyal. Maybe that’s what’s upsetting me; if she knew Cormac and I were kind of together, why all this vamping?
“Cormac, doesn’t she look amazing?” Lala sighs, and the heat of my temper morphs into the burn of my shame. “I swear to the holy mother, I could skin that douchebag Damian alive and leave his corpse for the crows to eat.”
It’s an old curse, one I’ve heard Lala’s grandmother use repeatedly and with language that’s ten times fouler, but it jars a shocked cough from Cormac.
“He’d deserve it and so much more,” Lala insists, arms crossed. “You heard what he did? To that beautiful girl?” Cormac nods and Lala pulls me against her for a sweet, perfume-heavy hug.
“I did, uh, hear. The cheating asshole, am I right?”
His face is unreadable when he studies me, and I can’t suppress a nagging let down. I thought seeing me all dolled up would make him feel some of what we felt back on that rock, just before all the wine and regrets he’s obviously struggling with now.
“Yes, you are.” Lala tosses her long blond hair. “He was hot as hell, no doubt, but I warned her he was no good. No good.” She smooshes my cheeks between her fingers. “Look at this gorgeous doll-face Who in their right mind would go after some other girl if he had this one?”
The bright green of Cormac’s eyes is all gray and stony and his mouth hammers flat. “He’d have to be a total lunatic to not realize how amazing Benelli is.”
There’s the same crackle in the air between us as I’ve felt after every heat lightning storm that thundered through my youth. Lala grew up in the hot lowlands of Georgia with me, and the bite of her grip on my hand alerts me to the fact that she knows exactly what she’s seeing.
“Coffee, now, before I fall over,” my childhood friend demands, and Cormac and I follow the determined clack of her leopard-print stilettos with cowed obedience.
Lala doesn’t wobble over a single uneven paver or crack in the sidewalk, and I feel the same way I always feel around her; like a poser shrinking in her much cooler shadow. Cormac links his arm through mine, and I know it’s because he’s afraid I’m going to tumble flat on my face. After a few days of running around in flip flops, sneakers, and my bare feet, the height of these wedges leaves me wobbly.
His arm, strong and solid, offers a nice crutch, but the intensity of his frown makes it clear he isn’t enjoying this physical closeness the way I am. Before I can stew over all of it, Lala slumps into a chair outside the cafe, pulls out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a black package of gum and throws Cormac a sexy smile.
“Would you be the sweetest and get us a pastry plate and some coffees?” She takes out a bill she has no intention of spending, and Cormac waves it away, right on cue.
“It would be criminal for me to accept money from you ladies. I’m already in your debt just for the pleasure of your company. I’ll be back in a flash.”
Cormac strolls into the cafe, and I make sure I don’t even glance in his general direction.
Lala slips a cigarette out of her pack, lights it with her lucky gold lighter, takes a long drag in and blows it away from me. She knows I hate the smell of smoke clinging to my hair.
“So. You wanna tell me what the hell’s going on with Mr. Hotass Professor?” Her tone isn’t jokey or amused. She knows the game I’m supposed to be playing, and Cormac isn’t even in the bylaws.
“How did you know he was a professor?” I stall.
Her frown borders on disgusted. “It took you ten minutes to change. I know everything, and I know that this is a no-good situation for the two of you. Okay? Don’t take it the wrong way, but Damian was your fling. Your dad didn’t know, and that was lucky. But here? In this town? Everyone has eyes everywhere, and if you want to get that husband you keep whining about, you need to stop making sheep eyes at Cormac.”
“He’s just a friend, Lala. That’s it.” I tug down on the hem of my skirt and roll my feet back on my heels, suddenly uncomfortable in my clothes, in my skin, with my best friend. I should be ecstatic that she came earlier than I expected, but all I can think is that I wish I’d had a few more days with him to figure everything out.
“Beni, he’s adorable. And I’m sure he’s super smart and all that. Maybe this is a reaction to the whole thing with Damian? Maybe you want someone opposite, but he’s not the one. Not the one who’s going to help your family out and make all your crazy dreams come true. And your dad is going to freak the fuck out.” She takes another drag and pulls her sunglasses down so she can look over them. “They’re coming earlier than they planned, too, you know.”
The blood seeps out of my face in a long, slow drag, and I pray Lala doesn’t notice. “I thought I’d have another week at least.”
She flicks the ash from her cigarette into the brass ashtray in front of her. “Well, you don’t. How’s the actual man hunt going?”
I nod, my thoughts cycloning in my brain. “Good. I mean, there were a few good dates. A few good guys.”
“Focus on them. Because that boy, sexy as he may be, isn’t going to work, and your dad is pissed enough about Winchester.” My brother’s name rolls off Lala’s tongue with a particular lash.
I slide a hand across the table and take hers, my heart ripping at the seams as she blinks back tears. “I’m sorry, Lala. I know the whole engagement thing is—”
“Forget it.” She waves a hand in front of her face and squeezes my fingers tight before slouching back in the seat. “Obviously she could give Winch something I couldn’t. I don’t even think about it, honestly,” she lies, her eyes blinking so fast her lashes resemble hummingbird wings. “I should be on the manhunt, too, I guess.” She shrugs one reluctant shoulder.
“Is your mom planning anything? Have they talked to any of the local families?” I press, trying to redirect the conversation.
Lala and my brother Winchester dated off and on since middle school. We were all patiently waiting for them to evict their heads from their asses and get engaged when he suddenly met Evan at community service, fell in love, apparently, and got engaged.
I heard a rumor that he and Evan may be coming out here, but I keep that to myself. He’s in the middle of a stonemason apprenticeship and she has an internship at a law office. I doubt either of them will actually show up.
At least I hope they won’t. Lala will be crushed. My best friend comes off as callous and shallow, but that’s all a defense mechanism. Her heart is extremely tender, and I hate seeing her combatting all this pain, especially at the hands of my idiot brother.
“My dad arranged for a date with some tool whose father owns that big paper plant in Charleston.” Her lip curls in a sneer. “He took me out for lobster and, get this? He wore one of those asshole plastic bibs and licked the butter off his fingers after every bite.” She closes her eyes and shudders through another drag, which she exhales with a hacking cough.
“I wish you’d quit.” I pluck the cigarette from her fingers and crush it.
Her frown is fleeting, and when I turn my head to see what made her smile so bright, Cormac is back at the table, a white pastry box and three coffees balanced precariously in his hands.
“You could have told the waiter to bring it out, handsome,” Lala says, not making a single move to help him as he juggles our order.
“That, my dear, would have been quitting. Or sensible. Neither of which I’m known for. Also, my Hungarian is fairly limited, so we got all this by the grace of some complicated sign language and something resembling a rain dance on my part. Not very pretty.”
When Lala laughs, it strips her face of every stuck-up, hard-to-get, cat-like contrivance and shows her pure, true beauty. Cormac notices, the way he notices everything.
“I’ll have to attempt more lame jokes if
I get that response,” he says with a smile and hands her a cup of steaming coffee. She stirs in sugar and cream, and keeps her eyes locked on him as she downs a long sip.
“I like you,” she says bluntly, her smile pure affection.
He blushes and rubs the back of his neck.
I feel a well-deep, freefalling need to scream
Cormac 4
The night I spent out with Benelli was, I realize with a choked gloom, the first and last real date we’ll ever go on. I’m trying to make my peace with the fact, attempting to embrace the reality of going back to my mundane existence without her, but it isn’t easy to do.
Especially when her friend is seemingly attempting every trick in the book to seduce me.
I get the feeling there’s more to it than an honest attraction. You can’t chuck a single stone in this hamlet without hitting some iron-jawed Hungarian Adonis, so there’s no reason for the two most gorgeous women I’ve ever laid eyes on to both have an interest in me.
“So you read old books and translate them?” Lala asks, curls of bluish smoke circling her head like a halo.
“Technically, the professor I work under does the initial translation, and I go through it to finetune the English and work out grammatical kinks, let him know if I’d suggest different phrasing. Not that he ever listens to me, of course.”
Benelli has one hand on her neck, her eyes are unfocused, and she’s tapping her feet. I want to pull her from this awkward threesome and get her alone. I want to know if she still wants to be with me, to have something of her own. Just a few hours before, I turned my idiot nose up at the idea of being with her in a short-term, booty-call way, but I thought I had more time then.
Now that my options are to be her booty-call or nothing, I’ll take anything at all I can get. Apparently, I have no pride, and I could not care less. I want her. And now that we’ve popped out of our insulated bubble and into the reality where I can’t have her, I want her more than ever.
“Maybe you can read me one of your translations,” Lala offers, her voice rife with honey and promises as clear as the lack of clothes on her back. “You know, I always used to fall asleep when the teachers read out loud to us. I hope your room has a comfy bed.”
“Lala!” Benelli cries, her cheeks lit with two red flags of fury. “Just…stop it. Just…”
She gets up and stomps away. I’m on her tail in a second, but Lala’s hand on my wrist stops me.
“Sit down, loverboy.” She takes out what has to be her fifth cigarette. The girl’s lungs must be shriveled bags of ash at this point. She coughs through the lighting while I follow Benelli’s clipped, swaying steps down the street until she isn’t in view anymore.
“I thought you were her friend.” My voice is dry with sarcasm, because the alternative would be whipped-hot with caustic anger, and that’s probably not the best path at this point.
“Her best friend,” she emphasizes, pointing the red-hot cherry of her cigarette my way. “And I’m protecting her. When did you meet? A few days ago?”
I’m not sure exactly where she’s going, but I loathe the general direction already. “Yes,” I answer, my voice clipped.
She nods and picks at the wrapper on her gum. “Listen, all this flirting isn’t a total put-on, okay? You’re adorable. I think you and Beni have a great thing. I can see it. I can feel it. But, here’s the deal; she’s got kind of a crazy family. Love ‘em like my own, but they’re a little nuts. And she’s beyond loyal. So she needs to be with someone who’s going to fit in with them.”
“So you’re a voting member on the Arranged Marriage for Benelli board?” I wrap my fingers around the steaming mug of coffee, appreciative of the burn.
“I know a summer fling will break her heart more. And you’re going to finish your translations and pack up your little school bag and head back to Oxford or wherever you came from.” She twirls her hand around as she speaks, and I feel a conflicted tug of war. Much as what this girl says genuinely irritates me, I realize that she’s laying all her cards on the table for me, as it were.
Her eyes go soft and her lips tremble around her cigarette, a childish pink in the spots where the filter blotted off the siren red.
“I care for her.” I know it’s small comfort.
“I know.” She finishes the last of her coffee and pulls Benelli’s untouched cup her way. “I would have just scratched your eyes to bloody shreds if I didn’t think so. I wish this was last summer, because I’d tell you two to go for it. But she’s had her heartbreak and her family’s been falling apart. She doesn’t need a fling. She needs a proposal. Let her go, Cormac.”
“How long until her parents show up?” The defeat in my own voice is off-putting.
“Probably three days. They were waiting on Mr. Youngblood to finish up some business. But that’s it. You need to not be around when they get here. And I promise you, I will ruin it between you two if I have to. She’ll forgive me. Eventually.” Her smile begs me to accept this twisted apology. “It’s better for everyone this way. And she and I will have husbands and houses and babies, and you can be free to translate as many books as you want and seduce coeds, or whatever professors do.”
“You think that’s what I want?” Hot coffee sloshes over my still-banged-up knuckles, but I ignore the burn.
“Do you want to marry Benelli? Like, soon? Like, this summer soon?” she demands, those hazel eyes piercing me like deftly wielded daggers.
“I’ve known her for a handful of days,” I object, and the objection puddles with a weak plop between us.
“There’s my point. You’re a sweet guy. When she picks her husband, I hope it’s someone like you. I really do.” Her eyes soften, so they’re not daggers anymore. Maybe they’re more like nightsticks. “I know what she’s doing. Running around dressed like she’s fourteen, dragging you to the woods, having sex in the open air…it’s all just Benelli’s cold feet. She is the world’s most responsible person, and she’s obviously having a tiny little mental breakdown. Damian messed her up, and she’s avoiding this whole marriage thing. But avoiding it won’t make it go away.”
“We’re not having sex,” I grit out. “Benelli never has.”
I don’t even think before I tell Lala this private information. Lala obviously loves Benelli, but there’s a part of me that bristles over her possessiveness, and maybe I said it because I knew she didn’t know. Maybe I said it because, if I couldn’t have the claim of being the first guy she’d been with, I could hold on with all my strength to the idea that she wanted me to be the first.
And I’d thrown that away.
“Wait.” Lala narrows her eyes and leans close, the smell of coffee and cigarettes and heady perfume cracking me upside the head. “Benelli told you that?”
“Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.” What kind of guy am I? Taking her most personal secrets and using them as leverage in some asinine attempt to…what? To win her? To hold onto her?
She’s not mine and never will be. As ridiculous as it is to be so upset by that fact when I’ve only just gotten to know her, I am. I am furious and regretful and pissed at the fucking world. If I didn’t get a chance with her, I almost wish she’d never tumbled into my lap that day by the lake.
Almost.
Lala is holding another damn cigarette in her mouth, unlit, and she’s moving it up and down as she mulls over the information I just provided her with.
“What exactly did she say?” She takes the unlit cig and throws it to the side, all her attention stampeding my way.
Now I know saying anything was a colossally bad idea. “Forget it,” I attempt.
I know she’s not going to let this one go so easily.
“Back up, Professor. Benelli never, ever lies to me, but she just might have let me believe that she had sex with Damian. If she hasn’t, I want to know. Now.” Her voice is low and sexy with the delicious scratch of domination.
“Then maybe you should ask her,” I fire back.
“I have sway with her, Cormac,” she says to my back as I get up to leave the table. “I can be an alibi for the two of you if that’s what she wants. I’m still making sure she gets her ass married, but I want to know about the sex.”
It’s an offer I’m in no situation to refuse.
I swallow hard against the self-loathing that’s jammed low in my throat. But she pitched, and, if I don’t take a swing, I may be out of the game entirely.
“She’s a virgin. Last night she told me that she wanted something of her own. Something outside the whole arranged marriage scenario. She asked if I would…consummate…”
“Ugh.” Lala groans, then laughs, all her magnificent white teeth glinting in the early morning light. “I swear you’re the one guy who could ruin a sexy English acccent. Consummate? Jesus Christ on a cracker, Cormac. She wanted to have sex. Just say it.”
I shake my head and walk away with real intent this time. She calls my name twice, but I don’t answer, and I’m shocked when she suddenly grabs my elbow a few hundred yards away.
“Please. I said too much already. Please leave this whole thing be and forget you talked to me about it at all,” I beg.
“Good…lord…Cormac,” she wheezes, bent over at the waist, one manicured hand pressed to her chest. “I smoke two packs a day and I’m running in four inch heels on the damn cobblestones to catch you. You can listen, okay?” She pushes her hair out of her face and stands straight up and catches her breath. “Okay. Listen to me. You can’t say ‘have sex.’”
“Of course I can say it,” I snap.
She shakes her head so hard, all that pretty gold hair falls into her eyes. “No, no, hear me out. You can’t say ‘have sex’ with Benelli because it wouldn’t be that for you, would it?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Lala, please. This is a whole complicated scenario. I never imagined it would be this twisted. I care for her, so the best thing I can do is walk away.”
“You can’t.” She darts in front of me, swaying on her high shoes. “Listen to me. When I saw the way you two looked at each other before, I wanted to get in the way, because I don’t want Benelli to get hurt again. But she’s going to marry whoever makes sense for her family. That’s just who she is. That’s how she works. I thought she had her fun with Damian. And I hated him for breaking her heart, but I thought she had that one thing for herself.”
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