Page 2 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“What?”
“I’ve never seen a person as proud as you. It’s your strength and your Achilles’ heel.”
“What do you know about Achilles’ heels? You’re the perfect man. If you weren’t older than my uncle and married to a saint, I’d have run away with you and forgotten all about the debt.”
He laughed and pushed the door open.
When the cold air rushed at me, my smile faded. Roy looked at me and put the bags on the pavement under the awning.
“I’ll call you a taxi. You make sure you visit. You make sure when you’re back you come here first.”
“I will.” I hugged him then, with a real hug, not the obligatory hug I had given his cohorts. I would miss Roy. I didn’t want to have to miss him.
I was really bad at this, I decided. Bad at saying goodbye to my life, and especially bad at saying goodbye to my people. I slipped the envelope inside his jacket without him knowing. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken it. The gift was different this year, but I’d managed something special for Roy and his wife by calling in a favor from a manager I know at the Ritz. Roy and his wife would enjoy a luxury weekend stay there with services at La Prairie Spa and dinner at the Auden Bistro. I patted his arm, reluctant to lose contact with him.
“Don’t call me a taxi. I’m not a taxi kind of girl any more. I’ll get an Uber.”
He raised a brow and smiled. This time I recognized the approval.
“No one and nothing is going to keep you down. You mark my words.”
“Glad someone has confidence in me.” I spoke while I tapped at my phone, arranging for my ride.
Roy stood shoulder to shoulder with me in his heavy red uniform coat while we waited at the curb for my low budget ride with a dude named Lucas. I’d have to get used to this. I had only a few lonely hundreds left in the bank.Hundreds. Not even thousands.
“It’ll be a few minutes. Why don’t you go inside, Roy?”
“And leave you out here alone?”
I nodded. He didn’t argue. Probably due to the pride telegraphing from me like a warning sign not to get schmaltzy on me.
He turned and bent down to kiss me on the forehead.
“Merry Christmas, Missy.”
I smiled. Anyone else would have meant that ironically, but not Roy. I watched him go inside and shivered once.Christmas.
The thought of the struggle I had had finding Christmas gifts without money—and the anxiety about whether my friends and family who’d been used to my usual generosity, would be miffed, or worse, worried, sent me into a mini panic. Standing there in the cold, I calmed as I watched the New York City traffic and took some giant breaths of the distinctive city air. Sooty with car fumes, updraft from sewer grates, aromas from thousands of restaurants and street vendors, the air seethed with smells and life. Checking my phone, I saw it wasn’t yet five p.m., but the streets teamed with cars, mostly taxis.
I’d dealt with the Christmas gift dilemma. I was resourceful. I was competent. I was always prepared. I’d sworn to myself that every single person that I always gave Christmas gifts to would get one from me this year and they did. That was something. It was done and I had nothing left.
I took another big reviving breath of the wonderfully filthy city air.
Within a minute, my ride came in a small car with an NYU bumper sticker. The driver got out and my usual expression filter must have been turned off, because I felt my eyes go wide. He was thirty-ish and looked more like an art school grad student than a driver. A hunky grad student with dark stubble punctuated by a dimple, a sensual mouth that immediately made me want to kiss him, and his eyes . . . devilish, intense, and stormy blue. I shivered with beastly attraction.As if.
“You’re Melissa?”
I nodded, unable to tear myself from my speculation and admiration.
He flashed a holiday smile, spoke with a not-quite New York accent, and gestured to his tiny little car, one of those trendy things that looked like a Mini Cooper or Fiat, but sleeker. Uber must pay better than I thought.
Mr. Hunky Art Student hefted two bags into the trunk and one into the back seat. I imagined his bulging muscles under the leather jacket. He was tall and not so lanky as the art students of my imagination and experience. I’d need to rethink his speculative background.
Or maybe I could talk to him.Or not. What the hell was I dwelling on this strange man for anyhow? The last thing I needed now was an affair. I needed a plan. Abusinessplan. Not a meaningless tryst with some hunky possible art student who drove for Uber. He opened my door and I breathed in the heady scent of him as I got inside his car. The cologne was subtle and mixed with the scent of Christmas tree as if he’d just had one stuffed in the back seat a minute ago.
My next deep breath sent a different kind of revival through me. It was the kind where I remembered my lately neglected lady parts who perked up with tingling attention. As he slid into his seat, filling up and dominating the small space with impossible-to-ignore maleness, I felt a tell-tale flutter in my gut, a neon sign of attraction lighting me up. I tried not to stare at his tautly covered thigh, the muscles bulging as he pressed his foot on the gas or break, or whatever, but it was no use.
Stop salivating, Melissa. It’s unseemly. You have pressing problems to think about.
