Page 37 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Part Two - Lucas
Chapter 12
Ishouldn’t have deceived Melissa.
I’d known from the instant I looked into her complicated brown eyes that she was special, that there was something between us.
These are the thoughts rolling through my mind as I drive toward Central Park West. A glance in my rearview at my passenger confirms that he’s past buzzed.
“Wait till I tell them,” Bert Dillon slurs, then snickers.
I wonder what Melissa ever saw in him. When I saw Bert’s name pop up on my screen with Margo and George’s address, I knew I had to pick him up, that I had to crash their New Year’s Eve party to see Melissa. I know she’ll be there.
Dancing around the facts of my background has become second nature to me since I arrived in New York City. I’ve enjoyed the anonymity these past years. But she’s too important for pretense. We have too much to lose.
She believes I’m a grad student and an Uber driver, but that identity is flimsy window dressing covering who I really am. It’s time I admit it to her.
Perpetuating the deception was stupid. It was wrong of me to pretend that’s who I am. Or rather, that’s all I am. Making up my mind in that split second, I pull my car up to the valet at the curb outside the archetypal Central-Park-South-swank building.
Bert says, “What the hell are you doing, Lucas?”
“I’m crashing the party.”
He snorts and then laughs. “Why not? Two weeks in a row. This should be a hoot. I can’t wait to see the look on Melissa’s face when I tell her you’re an Uber driver.”
I smile at the irony. Melissa’s expression when she finds out I’mnotjust an Uber driver is going to be far more interesting.
A zip of hesitation hits me. She might be upset, angry at me. I mentally shrug the thought off. I’ll handle it. No choice.
Bert opens the passenger door and gets out and waits for me with a half-drunk grin on his face. I know I’m going to have to deal with him—Melissa’s not-so-decent ex.
Even if I hadn’t run into Bert, I would have come here tonight. It’s New Year’s Eve, exactly one week since I met Melissa. It feels like I’ve known her forever, in my dreams. She’s been there in my imagination—in mysoul—all along.
She didn’t see it the same way.
She broke off our affair after only two days. Or tried to. I told her I’d give her space, give her time to change her mind. But I can’t wait any longer to see her, to try to persuade her that we’re worth taking a chance.
Now as I step inside Margo and George’s penthouse behind Bert, sidestepping their butler, Walter, I do my best to calm the frenzy of pounding in my chest. I zero in on Melissa, catching her in my sights as if I had some sensing device tuned to her essence, her frequency. Maybe I do.
She stands ten feet away, looking at me like I’m a ghost. Ignoring the stuttering of my heartbeat, and leaving Bert with the butler shedding his coat, I walk toward her. The rise of heat—and the rise of my most sensitive body part—is automatic as I take her in.
When I reach her in a few steps, I don’t touch her. I have to let her come the last inches to me.
“Lucas,” she says. I can see the confused emotion in her eyes.
“Melissa.” I nod.
Standing there staring at each other for two heart-stopping seconds, knowing all eyes are on me thanks to the fool Bert, I feel alone. Silent and tense and begging prayers to the deity I hadn’t prayed to in far too long, I wait.
And then she’s in my arms.
“Sei il mio incantesimo. Sono pazzo di te.” I whisper, knowing she will understand the sentiment even if she doesn’t know the words. Squeezing her tight, reassured that she’s mine, at least for the moment, I know I have so much to explain to her and I really don’t know where to begin. I translate my whispered words instead.
“It means, youare my enchantment. I am crazy for you.”
She looks up at me. Her troubled brown eyes are fringed in impossibly thick lashes. I’d been taken with her enigmatic eyes from the first minute I saw her, found myself connected inexplicably. But I didn’t care about logical explanations then and I don’t care about them now.
I see everything in her eyes, in her face. The soul-deep hope, the need, the pride, the longing most of all. I squeeze her closer and she lays her face against my chest. I hear her muffled voice, whether she means me to or not.
“I’m the one enchanted with you. Against all reason.”
A shock of well-being blasts through me, but right on the back of the pleasant tide rides the unavoidable acknowledgment that I hear doubt in her voice, lingering and stubborn, as determined as everything else about her.
There is also the pocket of doubt inside me that I have to admit to. Because I’ve lied to her by omission and I can feel the guilt suppressing the joy I should feel.
