Page 34 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Chapter 11
Standing with George and Margo at the same spot at the bar set up in their penthouse as party guests pooled around us, a spin of déjà vu disoriented me. It was only a week ago since the last party happened right here at the same place with the same people. Except for Lucas. This time I wasn’t waiting for Lucas to arrive. I was waiting for Willie Regal.
“And here he is now,” George said, looking over my head toward the entry hall.
I turned, suddenly too aware of the plunging neckline of my black velvet Adrienne Vittadini gown and feeling wobbly on the four-inch stilettos that sparkled through the gap made by the cutaway slit that ran halfway up my thigh. I felt very exposed as Willie’s face lit up and his steps sped up toward me.
When he reached for me, touching my bare back, enveloping me in a hug, I commanded myself not to cringe, not to run the other way, not to be anything less than gracious and grateful to this fine young man. He was a year younger than I was, but I felt much older. I wish I could have claimed to be wiser.
“You look unbelievable, Lissy,” he said when he pulled back from the embrace.
“You too.” I smiled. He did look great in his tux.
He shrugged. “Probably I look like one of the waiters. In fact, if you want a drink, I’ll get you one.” He grinned at Margo and George, and even I laughed at his little joke. But I took him up on the drink.
“I’ll have . . .” I was about to order a martini, but for whatever reason, I felt compelled to stay mostly sober tonight, like I needed all my wits because this night was some kind of test, part two. Getting through the night was like getting past the point of no return with Willie. I either took it to the next level and slept with him tonight, or I ended it.
I shouldn’t even be contemplating ending it. I’d be crazy to end it. But my heart and soul were too full of hesitation for me not to acknowledge it. Plus, the nervous tic in my left eyelid was a clue, too, that something wasn’t right.
Once Willie returned with my drink, he stuck to my side for what seemed like hours with the clock ticking steadily toward midnight. My tolling bell, the moment I had to decide if he would be my exclusive kiss.
I knew what Cinderella felt like, sort of, with the midnight deadline at least. Not so much the Prince Charming part of the story. Although by plenty of wicked step-sisters’ standards, Will would make the perfect Prince Charming. Rich and handsome and birth-certificate-carrying member of the high-society Regal family.
On paper, that was what I thought, wasn’t it? That was the moment I realized that I didn’t think that way anymore. In between stanzas of “New York, New York” on the piano, sandwiched between Willie and Margo, surrounded by women draped in sparkling gowns and even more sparkling jewels and tuxedoed men of all sizes, I knew I’d been all wrong. Until now.
I truly didn’t care if his family was from money or where he worked or that we knew all the same people. I didn’t care about my banking job that was going to begin in two days. I didn’t care about this ridiculous designer gown I was wearing—it could turn to a rag at the stroke of midnight and I would laugh.
Looking toward the front entry, I knew all I cared about was the fact that Lucas was not coming through the door. And that tonight I wished more than anything that he would.
I looked at Will’s laughing face and felt a pang of guilt and regret because I knew what my decision had to be.
“Sure, have another drink,” George said. “You can stay here tonight.” He winked in my direction and Willie slid his arm around my waist and whispered in my ear.
“I’d love to spend the night if it’s all right with you, beautiful.” He kissed my jaw and my earlobe and he hadn’t been asking a question. He already felt like I’d committed, assumed my answer based on my shameful sham, going along with the rapid progression of our relationship as if we were destined. George and Willie were believers, but I glanced at Margo and she had tense lines around her tight smile.
“Excuse me a minute. I need to go to the powder room.” I spoke the words quickly, but I tried not to run as if I were escaping Alcatraz.
“I’ll come with you,” Margo said and followed me.
And there in the powder room with the full Regal family-style celebration of the new year going on just outside the door, I broke down. In between sobs, I confessed everything to my friend, who I considered my sister. I told her about my first night with Lucas and about the drive and how I’d told him everything about my adoption and my fortune and the demise of my business. But the hardest thing to confess was how I’d tossed him aside in the end, how I told him goodbye at the curb, and he told me to call him when I was ready. I told Margo how I’d wavered.
“The thing is, I had no idea what his last name is. I still don’t. I pointed this out to him and asked how I could get in touch with him. And do you know what he told me?”
She shook her head and took me in her arms, ready for my fresh tears even if I wasn’t. But the crying had to stop. This was no time for being a wimpy little girl. So I sniffed and blew my nose and told her.
“He told me to call Uber.”
She gasped, understanding the cruel irony, the impossibility of it all. Whether it was my refusal to accept that I could have blown things so badly, or Margo’s eternal optimism, I wasn’t sure. One or both of us was likely delusional.
“I knew even in that moment that I’d made a mistake.”
“Your pride again?”
I nodded. “My damn pride stopped me from stopping him in his tracks.” I felt calmer now, though I still shook at my core, still felt every nerve in my body tingling.
“I don’t know why I keep trying to live up to some strange man’s legacy, a man whom I never knew, who was supposed to be my birth father but who more importantly had already given up on me the minute I was born. What a miserable, horrible person I am.”
Margo flung her arms around me and spoke adamantly and forthrightly the way only a truly good person could.
