Break (8 page)

His arm was snaking around my waist and suddenly all the air left the room. Remembering that I was supposed to act like his girlfriend, I fell against his chest, and his lips pressed against my head.

I had no memory of being held as though I was cherished. I got lost in the moment for a while before Luke walked me all the way to the cars outside, where dozens of people were getting ready to leave the winery. He gave a small wave to some of them, who waved back and did a double take. I could almost hear their thoughts:
Who’s that girl with Mr. Pardini?

“My co-workers are still here. Perfect.”

His hand slid from my shoulder to grasp my hand. The path of his touch blazed such a trail, my desire for him flared up like a torch. I squeezed his hand, stunned by the way my body responded to him.

My hand tensed inside his as Luke made a beeline straight for a couple of older men in suits standing near the curb.
Oh, no.

“Mr. Blackwell, Mr. Brown. I hope you enjoyed today.”

The portly Mr. Blackwell smacked his purpled lips. “Oh, it was wonderful!”

“Yes, quite,” Brown agreed. “And who is the lovely young lady?”

Luke’s admiring grin flashed towards me. “This is Jessica, my girlfriend.”

My cheeks probably looked as though they were on fire.

This is Jessica, my girlfriend.

Hopefully, they would think I was cold. Their rosy, smiling faces nodded at me as I shook their hands.

“I’ssa pleasure.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Are you ready to return to London?

Mr. Blackwell’s face fell comically as he addressed me. “Am I ready to return to forecasts of endless, freezing rain? You Californians are spoiled rotten.”

“Jessica will accompany us to London. She’s never been outside the country.”

I never told him that, but he guessed right. He smiled at me and I hugged my “boyfriend’s” chest, beaming.

The two men were pleasantly shocked. “Is that so?”

“Yes, I’m very excited.” That wasn’t a lie; I couldn’t wait to go. It would be a blast, and looking up things to do on TripAdvisor was the first thing I would do when I got home.

Luke glanced at the town car pulling up. “Well, Jessica’s ride is here. I will see you both next week.”

Completely out of my element, I was eager to leave the company of the two men. They acted perfectly fine, but it was nerve wracking to be around them. What if I said something wrong? “It was nice meeting you both.”

Both men smiled courteously as we walked away from them. Luke ducked his head close to mine.

“They’re old friends of my father.”

Ah, so that’s why he dragged me over to them.
Would they report my presence to Mr. Pardini?

We stopped in front of the town car and the driver got out to open the passenger door.

“I’ll see you next week.”

I felt a jolt of anxiety as I turned in his arm to tell him good-bye.
If I’m really his girlfriend, I should probably kiss him.
Blackwell and Brown peered at us. Luke’s gentle hands pulled me closer until I could see the golden flecks circling his pupils. My heart beat so furiously against my ribcage that I knew Luke could feel it pounding against his chest. Then his lips crashed against mine and I felt myself soaring.
Holy shit.
I had never felt anything like it. So much heat, everywhere. I kissed him back eagerly, completely lost in the feeling of his lips against mine and his hands wrapped around my waist. When he pulled away, I was surprised to see a smoldering look on his face.

Overwhelmed, I stepped back as he tried to give me that loving smile men always reserved for their girlfriends. The lack of warmth behind his effort punched my gut.

“Bye,” I croaked.

I ducked into the car and the driver closed the door. As the car rolled away, I saw his face drop into a look of bored indifference.

My heart wrenched.

He almost made me believe that it was real.

Chapter 5

“I still can’t believe you’re going to London before I am.”

Natalie watched me pack for my trip to Europe with a look of mingled jealousy and disbelief. I still couldn’t believe it myself.

“Me too.”

When I got home from the winery, I couldn’t take holding it all back, and wound up telling Natalie everything. I made her swear a hundred oaths not to divulge anything to anyone ever on pain of death. She would find out soon enough because Luke made it clear the tabloids would print pictures of us together. Sure enough, I found a blurry photo of us leaving Opus One hand in hand, with the caption underneath:
Luke Pardini leaving Opus One with blonde bombshell.
I laughed at that.
Blonde bombshell? Me? Yeah, right.

“So long as you keep your feelings in check, you’ll be fine.” It was clear from Natalie’s tone that she didn’t expect me to. “I really wish you weren’t leaving before Thanksgiving. Won’t your friends miss you?”

My cheeks flushed at the mention of the lie I told Natalie about finding a group of people I celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with. I crammed a few socks into my suitcase and refused to look at her.

“I lied about the friends. I spend every year at the soup kitchen and then I go home alone. This will probably be the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. Don’t worry about me.”

A hollow silence followed my words. When I finally gathered enough courage to look at her, Natalie’s stricken face made me feel guilty.

“Why did you lie to me? I asked you a hundred times and you always said no. D’you know how that makes me feel?”

I sputtered. “What? I didn’t want to go because I thought you and Ben needed time alone. I just feel weird being the third wheel.”

Natalie opened her mouth but I changed tact with lightning speed. “I’ll be able to wire you rent money from abroad, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“I know you’re really excited about this, but I don’t know. I hope nothing bad happens.”

I wished that she would give it a rest with the whole prostitution thing. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not going to trade sexual favors for money.”

“I’m not talking about that. What if you legitimately fall in love with this guy? He’ll break your heart. You’re already smitten.”

Who cares? I’m making ten thousand dollars a month.
“We have chemistry,” I shrugged. “I’m not going to avoid this amazing experience just because something bad
might
happen. I’ll probably never have this opportunity again.”

Natalie relented. “Well, I hope it’s worth it.”

The doorbell rang. “Who’s that?”

Flustered, she ran to answer the door. “Ben. We wanted to have dinner—” she opened the door. “Hi, honey!”

Ben’s voice boomed through the apartment, and I abandoned my packing with a sigh. A plastic smile on my face, I went to greet Natalie’s boyfriend.

“Hey, Ben. How’s life?”

“Good!”

Tall with Norwegian features like fair skin and blonde hair, Ben’s blue eyes sparked as he swept me into a hug.

“So, I heard that you’re dating a billionaire?”

He cackled as I glared at Natalie. “How’s the law firm?”

Lucky for me, he happily seized on the topic and talked about it for a while. Still filled with anxiety over the trip, I tried my best enjoy the rest of the night. Tomorrow, Luke’s driver would bring me to SFO. He also paid for my passport’s rush processing, and it arrived on Monday. Until a courier dropped off the one-way ticket from San Francisco International to Heathrow, it was hard to really believe I was leaving.

I’ve never been on a plane.
It was going to be awesome.

After Ben left, I finished packing and double triple checked everything. Unsure about the length of the trip, I filled two suitcases and a backpack. I was ready to leave hours before the driver came to pick me up the next morning, and Natalie worked from home acting as anxious as I felt. She didn’t help matters by constantly fussing over me.

“Where’s your ticket? Did you pack your passport?”

I quadruple-checked my backpack. “They’re both here.” It was ten o’clock, the time Luke said he would pick me up. What if he had changed his mind?

“Did you pack Chapstick?”

My stomach lurched.
Crap.
“I don’t know.” I sprinted to the bathroom and skidded to a halt as I heard the doorbell ring.

Natalie bolted to the door and wrenched it open.

A pleasant, deep voice filled the room. “Hello, you must be Natalie. It’s a pleasure.”

I heard Luke’s voice down the hallway and jumped, feeling close to laughter. I rummaged through my drawer and seized a tiny tube, and then I walked towards them both, my heart hammering my ribs.

I could tell that Natalie was taken aback. She replied back a few seconds later than she should have. “Nice to meet you.”

He was looking hot, as usual. I had never seen him wear jeans, but he wore a fitted pair that showed off his long, muscled legs and a shirt that made me want to run my hands all over his body. He smiled at me over Natalie’s shoulder. “Ready to go?”

Mute, Natalie turned around with her face frozen in impolite shock.

He’s a dreamboat.
I nodded at him.

He smiled at both of us, bemused by our mute voices. “Um, I’ll just get your bags.” He stepped in and grabbed one of the suitcases. Lifting it easily, he turned around to reveal a perfectly carved ass.

“God,” I moaned as I watched him load the suitcase in the car.

“You weren’t kidding,” she commented in a breathless, dreamy sigh as she watched Luke.

The driver took my suitcase from my hands and hurried down the steps to help Luke.

“I guess this is it,” I said as Natalie’s eyes misted over, and a lump formed in my throat in response. “If you cry, I’ll cry.”

She seized my neck painfully and pulled me into a fierce hug. “I’m not crying,” she said in a thick voice. “Call me when you get there, and be safe for God’s sake.”

Luke climbed back up the steps with the same smile. “She’ll be safe with me. It was nice meeting you, Natalie.”

I gently disengaged myself from Natalie’s death grip and shouldered my backpack. “I hope you have a good holiday. I’ll be back soon.”

I took Luke’s outstretched hand and descended the steps, turning back to smile and wave at Natalie’s panicked face. Once inside, I moved over the smooth leather interior for Luke.

Instead of the town car, Luke had arrived in a limousine. It looked wildly out of place in this shitty neighborhood. Across the street, a woman smoking in her plastic lawn chair stared at us, the cigarette burning in her fingertips. I shook my head and gazed at the interior. A dark glass partition separated the driver from us. There was a champagne bottle on ice in the limo, TV screens, and blinking yellow lights on the ceiling.
This is so cool.

The ugly streets of Concord rolled by the long window. I couldn’t believe I was leaving it all behind. I looked around at Luke, whose arm was stretched over the leather. He was studying me quietly, perhaps regretting the whole thing. I couldn’t imagine a more unlikely couple.

“We should think of a backstory for ourselves. People are bound to ask.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Before we do that, I want to make something clear.” Any hint of humor dropped from his face. “This will never be anything more than a business relationship.”

“I know that.” I raised my eyebrow. Where was this coming from? Was my attraction to him that obvious? “What makes you think I would want to be with you?”

Now he looked like he had been punched in the gut.

Yeah, serves you right, you pompous jerk.

He quickly recovered and a smug grin flashed on his face. “Don’t you?”

Electricity shot up my spine; I was in dangerous territory.
“Maybe I wouldn’t want to be talked down to all the time by your old boy network, boarding school buddies. Or your family.”

He looked stung. I was joking, but perhaps there was a little bit too much truth to what I said.

“No one would do that while you were with me.”

“Of course not,” I shot back. “They’d do it when you weren’t around.” I turned away from his face and wished there was something to drink.
It’s ten in the morning
, I reminded myself.

Silence stretched between us as I cringed, waiting for him to reprimand me or do whatever it was billionaires did to their inferiors.
You shouldn’t talk to him like this. He’s not your buddy.

“You’re very blunt.”

An apology was already falling from my lips, but Luke silenced me with a reassuring nod. “I like it, even though it might be a little hurtful. I’m usually surrounded by sycophants. I expected you to be one of them.”

It was strange to feel unpleasantness in my gut and pride glowing in my heart at the same time. “Do you want me to be a sycophant in front of other people?”

He shook his head and laughed. “Just be yourself.”

Be myself?
Was he crazy? “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Jessica, I picked you because I like the way you are. They’ll understand that. The only thing is we need to come up with a background.”

I tried to bury the glowing feeling in my chest. “Well, I could just use Natalie’s background. It would be easy to remember. Her parents are both dentists. Their names are Rita and Tom.”

Luke nodded as he typed something in his smartphone. “My father’s name is Giacomo.”

Giacomo Pardini.
I committed it to memory. “What about your mom?”

“Mary,” he said stiffly.

A shadow crossed over his face and I was afraid to ask more.
Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t like talking about myself,
I thought as Luke’s frown became even more pronounced.

I looked outside and was startled to discover that we were already driving over the new Bay Bridge.
Soon, I’ll be sitting on a jet with nothing between me and the ground but thousands of feet.

“What airline are we taking? It didn’t say on the ticket.”

He looked at me as though I had made a poor joke. “It’s my private jet.”