Can't Help Falling (24 page)

She didn't even get why this mattered so much. She'd been fine without a mom. Sort of fine. Managed to pave her own way in the world. Then suddenly she'd gotten exposed to a stupid ordinary Peter story about his mother
and all she wanted to do was curl up and cry for years.

“Are you okay?” He leaned a little closer but not enough to touch. She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“I'm fine. I'm sorry. I feel like such a dork.” Emelia swiped at her cheeks, mortified to find them damp. The poor guy must have been wondering what kind of drama queen she was.

“There's nothing to be sorry for.”

“It's so stupid. That story about your mom. I guess I just suddenly really missed mine.” She picked up a couple of blades of grass and rolled them together between her fingers. “Most of the time I don't even think about it. And then sometimes, like today, it just kind of sneaks up on me that I don't have one. I just wonder what she would have been like.”

“Can you tell me about her?”

Emelia sneaked a glance sideways to find him looking right at her. She didn't know what to say. Most of the time when people found out she was motherless, they hurried to change the subject, move the conversation along, as if somehow her bad familial luck might rub off on them. No one, not ever, had asked about her.

And now that someone had, it was like a balloon had blown up in her chest, ready to burst if she tried to squash it. “She was very beautiful. But then I guess all six-year-old girls think their mom is the most beautiful woman they've ever seen. She loved Narnia more than anything in the world.” More than the world itself, in the end.

Emelia drew in a breath. “I used to come home from school and we'd
play our favorite parts in the books. We would pretend that the dining room table was the
Dawn Treader
and we were sailing for the Eastern Islands. Or that our garden was the woods in between and we'd jump in the puddles and move between the worlds.” Where play ended and the mental illness began, Emelia would never know. She hadn't even realized until she was a teenager that most kids didn't have mothers who forgot about things like dinner and homework because they were too busy living in a land of make-believe.

“So you got your love of Narnia from her.”

“I did.” She cracked a smile. “She's also to blame for why I can't even microwave popcorn. She was a terrible cook. Couldn't even boil an egg. But for some weird reason, she could make the best waffles in the world. That was it. We probably would have lived on waffles if it wasn't for cereal and takeout. And she had a heart as big as the Atlantic. She hated to see anyone in need.”

“She sounds like a great woman.”

Peter was close enough that she could smell his musky scent. It was an act of will not to reach up and run her hand along his jaw, which hadn't seen a razor in a few days. She forced her gaze to go over his shoulder. “She wasn't perfect, but she was mine.”

“What about your father?”

The perfect topic to ruin the moment. Emelia huffed out a breath of air as she tore up some more grass. “He might as well be dead.”

He might as well be dead.
A gust of wind caught Emelia's caustic words and threw them back in her face. It wasn't true.
A live, but uninterested, parent was definitely better than two dead ones.

“I'm sorry, that's a horrible thing to say.” Emelia dropped her decimated blades of grass onto the ground between her feet and kept her focus there, not wanting to see the judgment that she was sure had to be written across his face. “I'm sure he did his best.”

“But it wasn't enough?”

She chanced a look up. Searched his gaze for condemnation but found only concern. Emelia shrugged her shoulders. “We'd been close. At least I feel like we had. Then, when my mom died, it was like he couldn't be around me. I look a lot like her. Maybe I reminded him of too much. So, I became the ward of after-school programs and summer camps. The occasional trips to see his parents, who had no idea what to do with me either. They'd had children quite late, and so they were already older by the time I was born. My aunt did her best to help but she had her own family and didn't live close.”

“What about your mother's family?”

She tucked a piece of wayward hair behind her ear and looked anywhere except at him. “My mom was an only child. My grandfather died of a heart attack when I was a baby and then my grandmother died not long after my mom from cancer.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Great set of genes I've got.”

Peter didn't say anything for a few seconds, no rushing to fill the void with pointless platitudes. It made her like him even more.

She forced her gaze away again. Focused on his gray flip-flops,
which showcased feet so white today had to be the first time they'd been let out in public this summer. His second toes were longer than his big toes. She'd finally discovered a part of him that wasn't attractive. If she could hold every conversation looking at those for the next few months she'd be fine.

The silence stretched until eventually she couldn't stand it anymore. “What are you thinking?”

He sighed. “I was thinking about how I felt like I'd been robbed when I had to give up my dream of rowing at Rio. But that doesn't even come close to being robbed of a parent. Feeling like you've lost two. Then I was thinking what a terrible human being I was that I could even compare rowing to what you've been through.”

“You're not a horrible human being. Far from it.” She should know. She'd crossed paths with more than a few of them. Become one herself.

Peter's fingers brushed against hers and she sucked in a breath. Let herself look up and be captured by his intent gaze. “I'm sorry your father doesn't realize what an amazing daughter he's missing out on.”

How could he know that her fear was her father knew exactly what he was missing out on? Emelia swallowed. “Thanks.” She just managed to get the word out. Time to get this conversation back onto neutral ground.

Peter nodded toward the field, like he knew what she was thinking. “So, this looks like it's all going pretty much perfectly. Hopefully we'll make a decent chunk of change off it.”

The university had kindly donated the use of the grounds, so SpringBoard's
biggest expenses were in printing tickets, advertising, and hosting a reception after the event. That had been her idea after seeing at the ball how some girls totally lost their heads around Boat Race rowers. Host a reception for both teams and charge a hundred quid a head for a select number of groupies to get to be in the same room as their idols. Though she was going to hazard a guess, from the perfect hair, sultry gazes, and skimpy sundresses she'd seen around, that most of them would be gunning for far more than that.

Emelia stretched out her legs in front of her. “Well, I guess that's the upside of it being the most boring game in the world. The opportunities for it all to go badly are very limited. If all goes well we should make almost twenty thousand pounds off this.”

Not even close to what they needed to save the charity, but it was still something. And since the row-off there had also been a slight uptick in potential donor interest, reversing the trend of the last six months.

“You're doing a great job.”

“Thanks. I couldn't do it without you.” Emelia smiled up at him, the late-afternoon summer sun setting a halo behind his hair. The green of his eyes seemed to darken as his gaze held hers. Emelia caught her bottom lip in her teeth. You couldn't deny the chemistry between them any more than you could deny gravity.

“So—”

“I—”

Whatever they were both about to say was cut short by shouts from the field. Jerking her head toward the commotion,
Emelia gasped as she registered what she was seeing. On the field the teams looked to be slugging it out, while spectators wearing the two universities' blues were streaming onto the pitch, some fists already flying.

A brawl. She was pretty sure this would count as going very badly.

E
MELIA SHRANK BACK INTO THE
comfort of darkness. All the better to not see the papers she held in her hands, resting between her torso and wedged-up legs.

She pushed some clothes away from her face, the hangers scratching along the rail, and breathed in the smell of laundry detergent and her own fear.

Peter was right. She never should have taken this job. Because of her, SpringBoard was worse off than it had been six months ago. Not only wasn't she going to save it, she was going to be the final nail in the coffin.

A tear meandered down her cheek and she swiped it away. She deserved no one's pity. Not even her own.

Voices echoed from outside on the landing. Allie's New Zealand accent came first, then a deeper one. English. Her pulse kicked up a notch. She hadn't seen Peter since he'd bolted into the fray of the brawl. Hadn't responded to any of the messages he'd left in the ten days since.

It had all been over ten minutes later, the appearance of the police enough to calm even the most rabid of spectators down. But ten minutes was all it took to destroy everything she was trying to save.

“I don't think she's
home from the office yet.” Allie's voice. A knock at her door.

“I've tried the office. She's not there.”

The click of her door opening. Them peering into her empty room with its perfectly made bed. “Well, she's not here either.”

“I have an idea. Just give me a second.”

Sure enough, a few moments later there came a tapping on the wardrobe door. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? Hadn't she already done enough damage? And that was just the stuff he knew about.

She shrank back into her corner, pressed her lips together, hoped he would just go away.

No such luck. The door creaked open and Peter, crouching down, stared right at her.

“Leave me alone.” Her words whispered out. “Please. Just go away.”

“I don't think so.” He peered inside. “I'd ask if I could join you in there but I'm pretty sure there isn't enough room.”

The thought of Peter trying to fold his huge frame into her small wardrobe was enough to cause one side of her mouth to lift.

“That's better.” He stood, holding out his hand to help her out, and she pushed her way through her clothes to standing, the papers clutched tightly in her hands. Behind him Allie stood in the doorway.

Great. Now her roommate knew she was a weirdo who hid in wardrobes. She opened her mouth, trying to find some words to explain her particular brand of crazy.

Allie held a hand up to stop her and smiled. “You don't need to explain. Everyone needs a hiding place. I've got some
engagement-party planning to do so I'll leave you guys to it.” She disappeared, leaving Peter looking at her with concerned eyes.

“You didn't go to work today. Elizabeth is worried.”

“Actually I did.” Long enough to open what sent her scrambling for her hiding place. “I just had to leave. I left Elizabeth a message.”

“This is not your fault, Emelia. This is not on you. No one blames you for the brawl.”

The rational part of her knew that. In all the discussions about risk and contingencies not once had anyone raised the possibility of a bunch of tree-sized rowers turning the so-called gentlemen's game into a fistfight. The worst-case scenario had been the match getting rained out.

“Do you know who threw the first punch?”

She didn't know. She didn't even care. “Who?”

“Victor.”

Of course he did. “Why?”

“Well, neither him nor the other guy are saying but best anyone can work out the Cambridge guy made some slur about Anita.”

The whole debacle had been on the front page of the paper for the first three days. The reception had been canceled. All the tickets had to be refunded but all the associated bills still had to be paid.

She had failed. The only reason she was here was to save Anita's charity and after two events they were back to square one. She should just walk away now. Walk away from SpringBoard. Walk away from Peter. Walk away from all of it. Except she had nowhere else to go. All her eggs were in this one messed-up basket.

“This came today.”
She held out the sheaf of papers to Peter.

“What is it?”

“Estimated costs to repair the damage. Because the university didn't charge us to use the grounds, their insurer is saying the damage isn't covered by their rental insurance policy.”

Peter scanned the document, turning the pages until he got to the figure on the final page. Then he let out a low whistle. “Eighteen thousand pounds?”

“Once we refund the reception tickets and pay all the costs, that's pretty much everything we've made from the row-off and the cricket match.” Emelia felt tears building in the back of her eyes and blinked them away, but she didn't prevent one from spilling over.

Peter looked at her, pulled a pressed white handkerchief out of his pocket, and handed it to her. Only the English. “Why does this matter so much? I mean, I'm personally invested because Anita was my cousin. But this feels like this is much more than a job to you.”

This was it. This was the moment when she should just tell him the truth, the whole sordid truth, and let the chips fall as they might. But the fear of the unknown clogged the words in her throat. “I just need to do something right.”

Peter studied her, as if wanting to ask more. More than she was able to give. “Okay. Well then, I guess we're just going to have to put on the best charity ball that Oxfordshire has ever seen.”

She had to give him points for sheer optimism but she just couldn't see it. “How are we ever going to put on a ball that will make a million pounds? With pretty much no money? Let's be honest. It's no more likely to happen than me getting to Narnia through my wardrobe.”