Can't Help Falling (34 page)

They stared at each other, the air between them charged. He wouldn't have been surprised if he'd lifted his hand and received an electric shock.

He'd done it. He'd gone and fallen in love with the one girl he shouldn't. Every direction from here just held hurt. But when she stood in front of him and looked at him like that, he wanted to ignore everything and be one of those crazy fools who hoped their fundamental differences would just magically sort themselves out.

“I just . . .”

“I thought . . .”

“We should . . .”

Their words clashed together, neither of them quite able to get out anything coherent.

“There you are, Emelia.” A voice came from beyond them. Kat stopped a few feet away, and her head turned from one of them to the other. “Oops, sorry. I've clearly interrupted a moment. That's kind of my specialty. Just ask Allie.” Striding up, she grabbed Emelia's wrist and tugged. “Don't worry. I'm sure you two will be able to pick it up again later. This is a wedding after all. Can you go let Jackson know we're ready? He's in room two oh eight.” Kat looked at Peter.

“Um, sure.”
The words were barely out of Peter's mouth before the girls had disappeared into a room just a few doors down.

Peter shook his head as he turned to find Jackson's room. At least two people would be getting their happy ending today. Emelia's “I love you” changed everything. Except the one thing that really mattered.

“L
ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE WELCOME
Mr. and Mrs. Gregory for their first dance.”

Peter forced his eyes up from his dessert plate and onto the married couple. He had to at least pretend to be interested, even though the thought of watching Jackson and Allie all wrapped around each other in their little love cocoon was more than he could stand.

Jackson led his bride onto the floor, unable to keep his eyes off her as the band opened with a Michael Bublé song.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose as Jackson took Allie in his arms. He'd had it all under control. Had managed to force all his feelings for Emelia into a box. Then she'd said she loved him. Followed by Jackson's springing a reading on him; he'd found himself standing in front of two hundred people reading the Song of Solomon, staring right at her.

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.

The verses were branded in his mind. Emelia had been shanghaied into a reading too. A haunting poem by Tolkien. They had been allocated seats next to each other for the ceremony. The whole time his hand itching with his wanting to take hers.

Not fair, God.

The only good thing about their sitting next to each other was that it had prevented him from spending the entire time ogling her like a thirteen-year-old boy at his first mixed dance.

He'd managed to avoid her for the rest of the evening. During the mingling after the service, the canapés and cocktails, he was aware of where she was at every moment.

Like right now. She was standing on the other side of the room, talking to an elegant blonde. He couldn't have stopped himself from noticing the way Emelia's red gown hugged her curves in all the right places if his life depended on it.

His avoidance was all well and good, but he owed her a dance. Had claimed one earlier in the day. And he might have been many things, but someone who went back on his word wasn't one of them. The only way he was going to manage a dance without his defenses crumbling would be major divine intervention.

“Seriously, go talk to her already.”

“Excuse me?” He turned toward the voice and saw Kat dropping into the chair beside him. Her full skirt billowed around her like she'd parachuted in.

Kat pointed a well-manicured nail across the room. “Emelia. For the sake of all of us in this room, stop looking at her like a bereft puppy and go talk to her.”

“That bad, huh?”

Kat rolled her eyes. “Dude, you read the Song of Solomon to
her. The entire congregation would have had to be blind not to have noticed. So, yeah, that bad.”

“It's . . . complicated.”

“Why? Are you already married?”

“What? No.”

“Excellent. I'm pretty sure she isn't, which makes you streets ahead of where Allie and Jackson started. Don't make me tip you out of your chair.”

“Anyone ever told you you're bossy?”

She smiled serenely. “All the time.”

Peter ran his hand through his hair. What was he even nervous about? This was Emelia. The girl who had fallen out of a wardrobe on him. Who'd snotted all over his favorite T-shirt. Who'd curtsied to his mother. Whom he'd drawn very clear lines with. Though that line kept getting more than a little blurred. And he was to blame.

He forced himself out of his chair. Wiping his palms on his trousers, he checked around for something, anything that he could use as an excuse to talk to her. Except the dance. That required music that was upbeat and partyish. Definitely not the slow and sultry stuff that was currently crooning out of the speakers.

Emelia didn't have a drink. Grabbing a couple of flutes off a passing tray, he headed in her direction. He had to go now, before his courage failed him.

Emelia caught his eye when he was just a few feet away and gave him the kind of smile that almost made him drop the glassware.

“Hi. Um, you looked like you could use a refill.” He held out one of the glasses.

“Thanks.” She took it and gestured to the woman next to
her. It had to be Allie's sister. Blond, perfectly coiffed. She was the younger version of Veronica. Except she actually looked happy to be here. Unlike her mother, who had spent the entire ceremony with the face of the funeral goer.

“Peter, this is Allie's sister, Susannah.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“You too.” Susannah's gaze flickered between the two of them, and she gave a knowing smile. “Sorry to be rude, but I need to go and track down my children.”

Apparently Kat was right. His mooning over Emelia from a distance had all the subtlety of a bathing suit at a black-tie ball.

Emelia looked around the room at people laughing and dancing. “I can't believe they pulled it off.”

“I'm sorry I haven't spoken to you since the ceremony. I just . . . you look so beautiful, I wasn't sure I'd be able to string a sentence together.”

So much for playing it cool.

“Thanks.” Emelia tilted her head, a wavy lock of hair dangling across her collarbone. “I think.”

She smelled good too. Like citrus and flowers and fresh sheets. He slammed the door shut in his mind before it could go there.

“So—” They both spoke at once.

“You go.” Both of them again.

A moment of silence followed. Her all big eyes and open face. “It was for you.”

“What was?”

“I wanted to look beautiful for you. Which is crazy, because there can't be anything between us, but . . . wow, I can't believe I said that. I feel so stupid.”

He had never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his entire life. But all that would do was make everything worse. She loved him. You didn't kiss girls who loved you when you couldn't love them back. “Well, it worked.”

She looked around them. “You know, sometimes, on nights like tonight, I think it might even be true.”

“What?”

“The whole God thing.” She gestured to where Jackson and Allie were wrapped around each other on the dance floor. “When you think about their story. Could it really just be coincidence? It all just feels too perfect, too impossible, for there not to be someone bigger behind it all.”

“I know they believe that.”

“But then I can't believe in a God. Because if there's a God, then He also made my mom sick and let her die. What kind of God leaves a six-year-old girl without her mother? Leaves any children without their mothers?”

Clearly not the moment to launch into a treatise on the original sin and fallen creation.

“I want to believe it all. I really do. But I don't know if I can. And I can't fake it for you.”

Without his permission, his hand reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, lingering on her face. “I know. Come with me for a minute . . .”

Without allowing himself to think through what he was doing, he grabbed her hand and started walking toward the ballroom exit. He had the overwhelming urge to show her the stars, to ask her if she thought they stood there as the result of a cosmic accident.

He whisked her out a set of French doors, and they found
themselves on a side patio. The still night was broken by the sound of her heels clattering across the cobblestones beside him.

“Peter, can you slo— Oh!” A sudden jerk pulled at his arm, and he reached out instinctively as Emelia stumbled. Grabbing her around the waist, he managed to take a step to anchor himself and stop her from hitting the ground.

Her fingers grasped his upper arms. Anyone watching from inside would've thought he was doing some kind of extra-low dip.

She blinked up at him, hair dislodged and tumbling behind her. “Sorry.”

“You're welcome.” You're welcome? This girl was causing him to lose his grasp on his faculties. There was no recovering. He couldn't even try.

Straightening, he pulled her back to her feet. “You okay?”

“Fine. Just embarrassed. I'm really not a klutz.” She peeked up from where she had ended up cradled against his chest. The stilettos that had been responsible for her fall now placed her at the perfect kissable height.

The electricity between them could have lit up Times Square. He groaned and burrowed his fingers in her wavy hair. “Em—”

“Sorry for interrupting, little brother.” From out of the shadows, Victor stumbled. Peter hadn't seen him since the ceremony. Had forgotten he was even there. Emelia stepped back and turned toward the intruder. “Hi, Mia.” Victor had his drunken gaze on Emelia.

The hairs on the back of Peter's neck prickled. “Her name's Emelia.”

Victor shook his head in the slow, deliberate way that drunks
did when they were trying to pretend they were sober. “Maybe to you, Bunny. Not to the rest of the world.” Beside Peter, Emelia's whole body tensed, as if waiting for a blow. “You going to tell him, Mia, or should I?”

“I—”

Victor cut her off with a smirk. “She's Mia Caldwell, little bro. You've been duped.”

His brother really was drunk. The photo Peter had seen of the tabloid reporter looked nothing like Emelia. Mia Caldwell was blond, with a know-it-all smirk.

“You're out of your mind.” Just like any other Saturday night. Not even the raft of charges he had pending against him had curbed his drinking.

He turned to Emelia to apologize. But the expression on her face stopped him cold. It wasn't confusion. Or pity. Or even repulsion. But one of someone who had been cornered. Found out. Her gaze locked on his.

“I'm so sorry.” The words whispered from her lips. The same ones that just a few seconds before he'd been considering kissing.

“No.” He shook his head. “You can't be. It's not possible.”

He must have misunderstood. She was apologizing for something else. He waited for her denial, for her to say she had no idea what Victor was talking about.

“I-I . . . ,” Emelia sputtered, her beautiful eyes glowing with tears that betrayed the truth. She straightened her shoulders and looked at him unblinking. “He's right. But you have to know that I—”

“That you're a tabloid fop.” Victor slurred his accusation with a drunken grin, as if the whole scenario were funny.

“But
Mia Caldwell is in LA. Still working for that paper. I get the newsfeeds.” His stilted sentences splintered in the cool evening air.

Emelia closed her eyes for a second. “It's a different reporter using my old byline. Has been since I left. I had no idea until that day on your porch.”

Peter stepped away from her. From Victor. The cold truth set like a block of ice in his stomach.

“You killed Anita. She's dead because of you.”

She flinched but didn't deny it. “I'm sorry.”

That was it. Two lone words. No explanation. No real apology. “How dare you.” Repulsion surged through him, wiping away whatever he'd felt a few seconds before. “Is anything about you true? Or is it all just a cover? What do you want? Get close to Anita's grieving family? Do some kind of exposé on them?” Had all of it been a lie? Had he spent the last seven months being played for a fool?

“No.” Her face was panicked. Her hands gripped the front of her dress, scrunching it in between her fingers. “I'm not a reporter. I quit right after her death. I swear someone else has been using my byline. Just look at the photos. It's not me.”

Peter stepped back. Put even more distance between them. “Like I'm going to believe anything you say. You make me sick.”

“I'm so, so sorry.” A sheen slicked her eyes. No doubt that was fake too.

“ ‘Sorry' doesn't raise someone from the dead. ‘Sorry' doesn't give my aunt and uncle their daughter back.” He said the last few words so violently, they flew out and splattered across her face. She flinched.

“Sorry” didn't
take away the guilt he'd been carrying for the last ten months.

“Steady on.” A hand clamped over his shoulder. He saw Jackson out of the corner of his eye. Allie stood just behind him, her eyes wide. At some point in the last few minutes, they'd gained an audience.

“She killed Anita.”

“Anita killed herself.” Allie's words were soft and did nothing to pierce through his fury.

“Because of her.” Peter stabbed a finger at Emelia, Mia, whatever her name was, before storming away into the darkness.