She laughed.
He counted that one. Laugh number 181. This one wasn’t the same as the others. He put this laugh in a category of its own. It was repulsive and punishing and nasty as it poured out of her curved mouth.
“You think we have a future together? I’m dealing with a family crisis and you want to talk about love and babies? For the last time, I went to the cabin for the money. You being there was a convenient bonus. That’s it.”
He slammed his fist against the back of the passenger seat of the taxi. “Fuck that. Don’t you run on me. Don’t you fuckin’ do it.”
The smirk she wore taunted him. Lanced through him. She was killing him. All because she was too scared to admit the truth.
“Silly Luke. Haven’t you learned by now?”
“Kennedy… don’t say something you’ll regret.” The warning was too late.
Dark giggles escaped her lips. “Abuelita is the only family I have left. She’s my rock. My everything. She comes first. My job comes second. And you…”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“You’re not even on my list of priorities. You’re a distraction. Always were.”
The words flung from her mouth at lightning speed with perfect aim for his soul.
Direct hit.
It didn’t matter if she meant it or not. It also didn’t matter if she was lashing out simply because she was hurt or insecure. He didn’t care anymore. His pride wouldn’t let her insult stand.
Luke knew she loved him. He tasted it in every kiss. He felt it in every touch of their fingertips. He heard every time she said his name. That’s what made this all the more perplexing. Her last potshot was the decisive death blow to any chance he had at winning her over.
For a moment, he was quiet.
Tapping the driver seat, Luke managed to get the taxi driver’s attention. “You mind just letting me out here?” he asked, pointing to the street corner.
Nothing looked familiar about this part of town. It didn’t matter. As long as he could escape the woman sitting next to him.
He opened the door, grabbed his bags and was out of the car in a jiff. He crossed the street and made it to the sidewalk without sparing a glance back at the cab.
He wanted off this crazy ass roller coaster.
Suddenly his failed seduction at the cabin was laughable. He had this inane idea that eventually she would realize that what they had was more than just sex. Like one day his dick would magically wake up the oblivious Sleeping Beauty and she’d realize how happy they could be together. The amount of time and energy that went into making her happy was all for naught.
Kennedy was never going to love him back the way he needed her to. From this moment forward, he vowed to erase every trace of her from his mind. Every connection between them was severed. The Jones’ divorce negotiations were the only thing tying them together.
She made going forwards an impossibility. But going backwards wasn’t an option either. He doubted they’d ever be more than cordial again. Not now. He doubted his battered heart would survive.
This was the end.
Of a chapter, or of their book? Luke didn’t know. All he knew was that he had nothing else to give.
Chapter 26
“Kennedy Notyce?” a male doctor called out to her while she held Yelena’s hand. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet.
“Yes?” she answered him.
“Glad to meet you, I’m Doctor Levine. Your grandmother gave us a scare there.” The doctor checked Yelena’s charts and looked over her vitals.
“What happened?” she asked, hands wringing in her lap.
“A stroke. Not too terrible in the grand scheme of things but with her age and the Alzheimer’s…It was a dicey situation.”
“Right. Will she recover?”
The doctor gave a long sigh, like he’d given this speech one too many times to be emotionally invested. “It’s too soon to tell what type of damage she sustained but she should be waking up anytime now.”
He left her with instructions to page him if, and when, Yelena woke up.
“Kennedy?” a sweet, raspy voice called out.
“Si claro, mi amor.” Kennedy answered in Spanish so as not to confuse her grandmother. She brought Yelena’s hands to her cheek, thanking God that she had another chance to talk to her. “I had a fresh beer here with your name on it. But you took so damn long to wake up that I drank it.”
Yelena laughed. Kennedy pressed on, hoping that her mind would anchor her in the present instead of the past.
She stroked her grandmother’s wrinkled caramel skin. “You scared me abuelita.”
“I scared myself, conejito. I’m so glad you’re here. I knew you’d come.” The hospital blankets swallowed Yelena up making her look more delicate than normal.
“Where else would I be? You’re the most important person in my life.”
Her grandmother shooed her hands away. “That can’t be true. As pretty as you are, there must be a strapping young gentleman in your life.”
“Nope. Single and not ready to mingle.” She chuckled at her own joke.
“Oh my. Single and about to turn thirty. That’s terrible, mi conejito.”
Terrible wasn’t the word for it.
She played yesterday’s taxi ride in her mind over and over. The things she said, the way she acted, the despair on Luke’s face.
What gutted her the most was that Luke seemed to almost expect her reaction. He’d anticipated that she would lash out and act up. She’d proven him right.
“How will you give me babies to hold if you’re single?” Yelena was having an excellent day despite coming off of anesthesia. Her recollection of the present and recent past left Kennedy speechless. There’d been so many bad days where Yelena had mistaken Kennedy for a complete stranger.
She wasn’t going to push her luck. “Abuelita, get some rest. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.” She smoothed her hair and walked to the doorway.
Yelena was in good spirits. “Bring beer and babies, please.”
“I’ll put them both on my shopping list.”
“Good girl. I love you,” she blew her a kiss.
Kennedy caught it in her palm. “Love you more,” she said, and tucked the kiss into her pocket. When she exited the room, Yelena was already halfway to the land of sleep.
Just then Kennedy’s cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. She pulled it out of her purse and answered it, hoping against all odds that it was Luke.
“Luke?” She fell into a chair in the hospital hallway.
“No one’s ever called me that before. Kinky.” Kai’s voice came on the line.
“Thought you were someone else. My bad, Kai.”
“You sound horrible. And hey,” she paused, “what are you doing on your cell phone? The trip isn’t over until tomorrow on Christmas Eve.”
She blew out a long breath. “About that. I think I ruined everything.”
“Oh puddin pop! What happened? Start from the beginning and leave nothing out.”
Kennedy heard the crinkling of a snack bag on Kai’s line.
“Are you…eating right now?” she asked. Kennedy had a black hole for a stomach, but she drew the line at snacking during a friend’s crisis.
Kai kept it funky and was honest. “Girl, yes. The best way to listen to spilled tea is with a big bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. Now quit stalling and spill the peas.”
That didn’t sound right. She attempted to correct her friend, “I think you mean beans. Ya know, or maybe it’s tea. I can’t keep up.”
“Kennedy!” Kai exclaimed.
“Okay, okay.”
Quickly, Kennedy caught Kai up on everything. Well, almost everything. She left the sexy bits out but promised to fill Kai in on the details at another time.
Ten minutes later, Kai did not give Kennedy the response she wanted. “Well, the short answer is…you fucked up. Majorly.”
Kennedy whined. “You’r
e supposed to be on my side.”
“Nope. I’m your friend, not a yes-woman. This is a case of classic Kennedy.”
“Huh?” She had no clue what Kai was talking about.
“Every time someone gets too close, you push them away. You self-sabotage your own happiness.”
“That’s not true,” she shook her head. “Not true at all.”
“Your nickname is the barracuda in Balenciaga. You’ve cultivated a façade of permanent bitchiness.”
Kennedy instantly denied it. “Have not.”
Kai was determined to make her see differently. “You’re an ice princess. And not the cute Disney kind.”
“I’d beg to differ. I am definitely cute,” Kennedy said, starting to take offense at her best friend’s words.
“The point is, you pretend that you’re a soulless cadaver. That may work fine in the cutthroat world of law but in love? No one wants to love an emotionally unavailable fish.”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“In the meantime, in between time, you need to figure out what you want. This man has had feelings for you for a long time. He’s been nothing but kind to you. The man loves you, Kenn. Why are you running away?”
She sighed and slumped into the chair. “Luke is perfect. If I could’ve picked him out of a man catalogue, he’d be my number one choice. He’s thoughtful, and sweet, and a stallion in the sack. And then I think about how I treated him. I don’t deserve a shot with him. Not when I fucked him over the first time.”
“Does he love you?”
She tapped the armrest of the chair. “He says he does. But even if he didn’t, his actions tell me all I need to know.”
“And what about your feelings?”
“I love him,” she said a little too quickly.
The truth hit her then. Luke, and his stupid holiday obsession, and his uncanny knack for reciting classic literary works, had wormed his way into her heart. He was the Christmas blessing she would never be worthy of.
She loved him.
The mushy-gushy, ooey-gooey, sappy kind of love that she saw in movies, but thought couldn’t possibly exist. But here she was, head over heels in love with a man whose heart she’d crushed. Again.
“Kenn, I love you. You know that, right?” Kennedy nodded and bit into another donut. “And you remember that matchmaking is my actual job, right?” Another nod, another bite. “Then listen carefully when I tell you that Luke Simon…he’s your match. He’s more than a match, he’s your actual soulmate. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t tell you how insane you are if you let him slip through your fingers.”
Her head fell into her hands. “Luke will never forgive me, Kai. I hurt him bad.”
“The man already forgave you once. He’ll come around.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Have you learned nothing from our Sex and the City bingewatching? Find your skimpiest dress, highest heels and beg for your life, dahling.” Kai chewed more of her snack. “Oh. And use tongue when necessary,” she added.
Thinking of what was in her closest, Kennedy was fresh out of ideas of what to wear. “Skimpy dress is out. Other than that, I’m open to suggestions.”
“When you want to look attractive and feel sexy, what do you put on?” Kai asked.
Kennedy smiled. “That’s easy. I don’t put anything on. I take off.”
“Ah-ha! The classic wear-nothing-but-a-trench-coat strategy. I like it.”
Same ol’ Kai. One track mind. Kennedy rolled her eyes.
“In this freezing cold? That’s highly doubtful but I get what you’re saying. I have the perfect outfit.”
“As my favorite therapist used to say, ‘pour a bourbon and trust the process.’”
“For some reason, I fully believe that your therapist told you to resort to alcohol. Unfortunately, I only have a bottle of water.”
“Well, raise it then. I’m toasting to the fact that Kennedy Notyce will get her man. To success and nothing less.”
“You’re certifiably insane Kai and I love you for it. But a soulless cadaver? That one stung.”
“I don’t always tell you what you want to hear. Instead I tell you what you need to hear because I want you to be happy, babe. You deserve your own slice of happiness. Tonight we plot, tomorrow you plunder.”
Chapter 27
Slumping against the tall bush, Luke waited for his cousin to answer the front door.
Maybe sometime during the day, in an attempt to forget a certain brown goddess, he convinced himself that alcohol had medicinal purposes that he should explore.
And maybe, he decided that gin and tonics were his medicine of choice for the day. Many, many gin and tonics. It was an immature move aptly appropriate for college kids. He didn’t care. All he wanted was the pain to go away. Unfortunately, liquor didn’t bring him the peace he thought it would.
Cade opened the door just as Luke lurched to the side. “Easy there buddy. Had a few too many drinks?”
“Not drunk,” he slurred.
“Definitely not drunk,” Cade deadpanned.
It was Christmas Eve and he was fucking alone. The woman he loved had hacked down to bits and now his favorite fucking holiday was ruined. And did he mention he was drunk?
It was shitshow of massive proportion.
“Come on cousin. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Luke grunted and heaved his weight on to Cade. His legs weren’t working they way they normally did. “Okay,” was the only word that he managed to speak.
“Then your ass is going to tell me exactly what the hell happened.”
And so on Christmas Eve, after five cups of coffee and a cold shower, Luke worked up the nerve to tell Cade every beautiful and horrific detail. If he hadn’t had the souvenir of a bloody heart, Luke wouldn’t have thought any of it was true.
“So, she was scared,” Cade said, after listening to everything Luke had to say.
“Scared and fucking brutally evil.”
Cade scratched his head. “How close was she to her grandmother again?”
“She’s her only family. Her parents abandoned her when she was young.”
“Mmm, got it. And you love her, right?” he asked. Luke nodded, then Cade frowned at him and started pacing.
Luke didn’t like that look. “What’s going on, Cade?”
Cade stopped pacing. “So, um. I, maybe, sorta, kinda, set you and Kennedy up at the Winter Cabin Experience?”
Luke’s brain was still foggy so he wasn’t sure he heard correctly. “You did what?”
“I set the whole thing up. My wife knows Kennedy’s friend and they had the brilliant idea to throw you two together at the cabin.”
“Christ man. I’m not even mad at you. Had this turned out differently, I’d give you a kiss. But I’m just exhausted man.”
“Are you sure there’s no way to make things, right?” Cade asked.
“I can’t be the one to go after her. This wasn’t just a little miscommunication. She gutted me intentionally.”
“Totally understand.”
Did he love her? Obviously. But he was tired of giving and not receiving. Maybe he wanted to be the broken one. Luke couldn’t continue to put her back together without knowing that she’d be there for him.
Cade sat next to him on the couch. “Hey, actually the head steward there wanted me to pass on a message. It’s good news. He said that Kennedy had used a prohibited cell phone to check her voicemails. So her share of the prize goes to you by default.”
“Shit. She was probably checking on her grandmother.”
“Doesn’t matter. You won fair and square. Didn’t get the woman, but cold hard cash isn’t horrible either.”
“You still have Gretzky’s number?” he asked Cade.
Skepticism crept into his voice. “Yeah… why?”
Luke laid down on the couch and closed his eyes.“Tell him that I want Kennedy to have her share of money. Fuck that. She s
hould have every piece of that one hundred thousand dollars. She needs it. I don’t.”
“You sure?”
“Just do it!” he yelled.
He was hurting something awful, but he wouldn’t deprive her of that money since she so desperately needed it. That would never sit well with him. She might not accept, or want, his love but at least he could give her some peace.
She looked ridiculous.
She felt even more stupid.
Her stupid tights were a size too small and her elf hat looked like it had survived World War II. She went over the game plan in her head and tried to feel confident about her mission.
Kennedy was still frowning when a man, who was not Luke, opened the door.
“Can I help you?” the man asked with a smile.
“Hi. Um, yes. I was hoping Luke was here?” She drummed her fingers on her legs.
“Kennedy, right?” She nodded, and his smile grew so large she wasn’t sure his teeth would fit in his mouth. “I’ll get him for you,” the man said then disappeared inside.
Twiddling her thumbs, she rehearsed her speech. It all centered around three little words followed by two shorter words. The door opened, and she forgot how to breathe.
Her sweet, sweet man looked incredibly shattered. His body looked yummy like always, but when she focused on his cloudy blue eyes, she saw the truth. He was hurting like hell and she’d done that to him.
“Hey,” she muttered.
Crickets. He crossed his arms and stood in the door jam while she freezed her tookus off outside.
He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. She should’ve expected that.
She cleared her throat. “So um, you’re probably wondering why I’m wearing this hideous outfit.”
Kennedy could only imagine how she looked from Luke’s point of view.
She was in green tights, bright red elf shoes, with matching striped shirt. Her poor elf hat kept flopping down over her eyes but Kai convinced her that the damn thing was a critical component of the outfit.
“You don’t look hideous,” he muttered.
“Thank you,” she said.
Snow and Seduction (A Holiday Romance) Page 18