Can't Help Falling (15 page)

“W
ell, that's that, then.” Emelia slumped into the passenger seat after they left the twelfth, and final, venue for the day.

“What was wrong with that one?”

Never before had Peter imagined how hard it could possibly be to find a ball venue. Over the last twelve hours, Emelia had knocked off every place they'd visited. For reasons Peter would have never even thought to consider. This was why guys had as little as possible to do with planning things like this.

“I thought it was fine.” It had been nice enough. A ballroom at one of the big hotels. Maybe not exactly unique, but nice, with staff who clearly did the big-event thing all the time.

“Fine isn't enough. To save SpringBoard we need spectacular.” Emelia blinked rapidly.

Wait, was she . . . Peter stepped a bit closer. She was close to tears.

“Hey.” He rested his hand lightly on hers. “It's okay. We'll find something.”

Emelia blinked some more and swiped her hands across her eyes. “I know we will. I just thought . . . I just wish . . .”

“What?”

She was silent for a second, then she sucked in a breath.

“I just wish I'd never seen Rhodes House.”

It was like a kick to his solar plexus. “I'm sorry. That was all my fault. I shouldn't have let us go there. I just didn't want to be the one to tell you your perfect spreadsheet had a critical error.”

That got half a smile out of her. “No, it was mine. I don't know why I thought something so great would cost so little. I guess I just thought that maybe, if there was a God, this was His way of making some magic happen.”

He'd thought it wasn't possible but at that, he felt even worse.

“I just saw it there, you know. We walked in and I could imagine a huge ball. The kind that would get people writing
the huge checks we need. I just felt like it was it. And I know I'm being super picky about all the other ones we've seen. It's just that once I saw that one, nothing else has measured up since.”

Which pretty much summed up how he felt about her.

“I'm sorry.” She ran her hands through her hair. “You have more important things to do than this. Look at you. You've been slammed with Boat Race stuff the last few months and now you've spent the day driving me around ball venues. Plus everything you've been doing for the row-off.” She sucked in a breath and straightened her shoulders. “It's okay. We'll find something even better than Rhodes House. I just need to broaden the parameters. We can reconvene after the row-off. I need to focus on that now anyway.”

The combination of disappointment and determination did him in. If he'd had eight and a half grand, he would have handed it over there and then.

So he offered up the only thing he did have. The one thing that was going to force him to reveal to her what he'd been avoiding. “I might know somewhere else we can look at.”

“A
ND
C
AMBRIDGE TAKES THIS ONE
by four point seven seconds!” Emelia could barely hear the announcer's words over the sound of people yelling, clapping, and stomping. An hour into the row-off and her ears were ringing. Apparently the passing of the Boat Race had done nothing to dull the competitive spirit between the Oxford and Cambridge crews.

Peter had really been the one who had pulled off the event. Somehow between him and Sabine they'd managed to get almost every single crew member to agree to be part of the fund-raiser, as well as the two coxes. All Emelia had to do was organize ticketing and logistics.

Like Peter had suggested, the crew members from the same seat in the Boat Race were pitted against each other in a head-to-head battle over one mile. Not only had it meant all they'd had to do was relocate four ergs—two for racing and two for warm-up—onto the gymnasium floor, but with the big screens they'd put up, the place was packed full of spectators. Family members, friends, rowing groupies—they'd all somehow been convinced to part with twenty pounds each to watch.

And that was before Sabine had pulled a rabbit out of her hat. She'd somehow gotten some BBC sports commentator—whom
Emelia didn't know from a piece of pine but everyone else was giddy over—to commentate the event, with highlights screening on some sports show later in the week.

It still wouldn't be close to the kind of money they needed to be pulling in, but hopefully it would create momentum. And that was what the first event was about.

“This next one is going to be a dead heat. John and James are pretty much identical in height and weight.” Sabine made the observation from where she stood a few feet away on the sidelines. Emelia had been exactly right about Peter's ex-girlfriend. Blond, petite, and gorgeous. She'd walked into the gym at six a.m. and immediately taken charge of all the things Emelia had no clue about and Peter hadn't thought of. The only thing she couldn't get her head around was whether Sabine was the coolest ex-girlfriend in the world or making a play to get her man back. If it was the second, she was one of the best players Emelia had ever seen. Not so much as a hint of neediness or desperation.

Even in a pair of jeans and T-shirt, there was no hiding Sabine was a top-class athlete. From her perfect posture, to the muscles that rippled under the denim, to the determined set of her jaw, it oozed from her. It wasn't difficult to see why she was an elite-level cox. Or why Peter had once dated her. Or that pretty much any other guy in the room would have jumped at the chance. Emelia felt like a pudgy Amazon next to her. “I understand you're a cox for the Olympic team. That's impressive.”

“Thanks.” Sabine kept her eyes on the two rowers next up as they finished their warm-up. The roar in the room had dulled to the buzz of conversation as people waited for the next race.

“Thanks so much for your help. I'm sure it's obvious I'm
way out of my depth when it comes to anything to do with rowing.” For some reason Emelia felt the need to fill the conversational void.

“If you don't know rowing, you can never know Peter. Not really.” Sabine didn't so much as glance Emelia's way.

Her pointed delivery hit Emelia like a barb in the side. Left her breathless for a moment. “I think you underestimate him. He's more than rowing.” She delivered her own sting back.

Sabine swung around, ponytail bouncing. “Of course he is. But what have the last ten years of his life been about? Rowing. It's what he ate, slept, and breathed. It was what he dreamed about. It was why he trained twelve times a week for years. It's what he would still be doing if he hadn't been sidelined by injury. The fact that he can't is what breaks him every day. Have you even Googled him? Do you have the faintest clue how great he was? How far he could've gone?”

Emelia just stared at her.

“No. Well, let me enlighten you. He was a shoo-in Team GB for the eight. He would've been competing at Rio. And I would have bet everything I had that the question wasn't if he got his team to the podium, it was just where. He was
that
good.”

“But he's not.” Emelia wasn't even sure what she was doing. It wasn't like she and Peter were dating. It wasn't like they were
anything
. So what was she fighting for exactly? “I may not know much about his injury, but I'm guessing that it's bad to have taken him out of rowing this long. Maybe he will never row at that level again. That's reality. No matter how much any of us may want it to be different, it's just not. So you're right. I haven't lived in your little rowing bubble. I don't get it all. But he doesn't live there anymore either.”

Sabine jammed her hands in her pockets and sucked in a breath. “Look, I'm sure you're very nice. You have a cute accent and you seem smart enough. I'm sure you're very refreshing with your naivety about rowing because he's hurting. At some point, when he starts his comeback, the fact that you don't know anything about what he loves isn't going to be cute, it's going to be irritating. The fact that you have no insight into what drives someone to train that brutally for so long will mean you can never really get him. So I have nothing against you, but you are not right for him.”

Emelia tried to keep her face impassive, not let Sabine see how much her words were shaking her. “And you are?”

Sabine summoned up a regret-filled smile. “I was.”

They watched as the next two rowers slid their feet into the footplates on the ergs and adjusted the straps.

“Look, I made a mistake when he was injured. I let him push me away. I thought that maybe space was what he needed. It was the wrong move. And I'm sorry that I'm the inconvenient ex-girlfriend showing up and throwing a spanner in your little fledgling romance, or whatever it is. But I've never quit on something I've wanted in my entire life, and until the day he can look me in the eyes and tell me there's no hope for us, I'm not going to quit on him.”

“Sounds like you already did.”

Sabine flinched like Emelia had struck her.

“I'm sorry. I . . .” Emelia floundered for words. “Look, we're not even dating. So it's not like I'm in your way. He's free for the taking.”

Sabine studied her for a second, her gaze softening. “I know competition when I see it. I'm not sneaky. I fight fair. I just want you to know that I'm in this.”

In what?
Emelia ran her hands through her hair. This was an insane conversation. “Fine. Thanks for the heads-up. Notice received.”

Someone called Sabine's name from across the room and she gave them a wave as she turned toward them. Allie appeared on Emelia's other side, watching Sabine as she stalked away. “She doesn't look happy. What was that about?”

“I think it was the English version of throwing down the gauntlet.”

Allie raised her eyebrows. “For Peter?”

“For Peter.”

Allie gave her a look that Emelia couldn't quite decipher. “I didn't know there was a gauntlet for Peter.”

“You and me both.” Emelia had only spoken to the guy in passing all day. She had no idea what it was Sabine had seen that had made her think they were in some kind of competition for him. Time to change the subject. “Speaking of gauntlets, have you guys set a date yet?” Emelia regretted the question as soon as she asked it. Something crossed Allie's face that wasn't the smile most brides-to-be seemed unable to restrain. Which made no sense given Emelia's observation that their relationship was one of the most functional she'd ever seen.

“No.”

Hadn't they been engaged for like seven months? Not that she could talk. She avoided relationships like someone with a peanut allergy avoided a Snickers. “I'm sorry. It's none of my business.”

Her roommate let out a sigh. “It's complicated.” Allie dropped to the bench behind them, pulled her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them.

“Visa stuff?” Emelia settled in beside her, keeping her
gaze on the guys in front of them taking a few warm-up rows. Through the windows tree leaves were a lush green. Summer was definitely in the air.

“Sort of. I'm from New Zealand. He's from America. We live in England. But only temporarily. I might get an offer to stay at Oxford. I might not. It's all just uncertain.”

Emelia shifted her focus to her roommate. “Is that the real reason?” It was only a guess, but Emelia had a strong suspicion that there had to be more than that to it. The couple she knew wouldn't let something like a little uncertainty stop them from getting hitched. People from different countries faced the same thing all the time.

“Yes . . . no.” Allie ran her hands through her hair and blinked rapidly. Allie sucked in a breath, looking like she was trying to get her emotions under control. “I guess I thought the fear would go away. I'm thirty-two years old and I foolishly believed when we got engaged that everything would magically be okay. How stupid is that?”

This was definitely a side of her bubbly, confident friend she hadn't met. “What are you afraid of?”

“Getting married.”

“As in . . .” Emelia was clearly missing a connection here, but she wasn't sure what it was.

“The wedding.” Allie's fingers were twisting over themselves. Again and again. Emelia wanted to reach out and make them stop. “Every time I think about it, I freak out. I walk into a dress shop and start hyperventilating just looking at them. We start talking about where and when and I just feel this vise in my chest. The last time I got married was the worst day of my life. I just didn't know it. And now when I think about getting married that's all
I remember. I don't get excited. I want to throw up.”

Wow. Emelia never would have guessed that underneath Allie's bubbly exterior sat all this angst. Or that she'd been married before. “So elope. Go stand in front of a judge, or whatever it is here, and just get married.” Emelia shoved aside the selfish thought that Allie's marriage would leave her homeless. No way was she living with newlyweds.

Allie looked at her, eyes wet. “I can't do that to Jackson. He wants the real wedding. He deserves a proper one. His family, they're amazing, and he's the only son. I can't take that away from them. Not because of my stupid mistakes. I know that once I'm walking down the aisle and he's waiting for me, I'll be fine. I just don't know how to get there.”

“Does Jackson know this?” She raised her voice as the announcer started counting down to the beginning of the next race.

“Some of it. I don't want to hurt him. And every time I mention Derek, he gets this set in his jaw like he wants to go and hunt him down and beat him.” A wry smile played on Allie's lips as she traced something on the wooden bench with her pointer finger.

“Have you tried . . .” Emelia couldn't believe the words that were about to come out of her mouth. “Praying about it?” That was what church people did, right? Prayed about stuff? If there was a God, surely He would listen to Allie. She studied the big screen for a few seconds. The guys had started rowing; the crowd's roar was low but it would grow exponentially over the next few minutes.