Her Name Is Trouble: A small-town contemporary romance (The Daimsbury Chronicles Book 2) (6 page)

But not with Luke. This was the man who’d made everything right, even for just a few hours one starry evening in the Hamptons.

“I...I used to cut myself,” she said in a whisper.

At her confession, he slouched his back and lowered his frame so he could peer into her face. “Why?”

She bit her lip hard. “Because sometimes, when everything’s running like a script around you, it’s only when you bleed that you know you’re alive.”

“I don’t understand.”

She shrugged. How could she explain this? No one would get it, unless they’d been there, too.

“Missy, talk to me. I just want to figure out...”

“Figure out what?” she said softly. “What pushed me to grab a blade and then go all Edward Scissorhands on myself?”

He winced; her words had been callous, and he didn’t deserve that.

“What does it feel like when you hurt physically, Luke?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Pain?”

“Like, you just know it’s there. You can sense it, grab onto it if needed.”

Silence followed her explanation.

“Is that what each cut felt like?” he finally asked.

She nodded, no sound able to pass through around the lump in her throat and the weight expanding in her chest.

“Why couldn’t you feel anything else?”

“Because...” she croaked. “My life wasn’t my own.”

His grip tightened on her wrist. “Was somebody hurting you?”

“It wasn’t abuse, if that’s what you mean.” She grimaced. “Let’s just say I was like those pretty baubles on the Christmas tree. Brought out when needed, forgotten and stowed away the rest of the time.”

“So you would cut yourself... To feel.”

“And then I ran.”

“And then you ran, yes.”

She risked a glance at his face. Darkness had shadowed the angular planes, both from the day easing into night as from the emotions that must be rumbling on inside him. His eyes had narrowed, no longer looking moss-green but stormy, like a tempestuous ocean.

“There are other ways to feel, Missy,” he said in a soft tone.

Her lower lip trembled. Did he mean...

“How?” The word came out on an expelled breath.

“Like this.”

He released her hand, and before she knew it, he had cradled her face in his big palms. The heat from his skin spread into her, warming her up where nothing but cold had thrived before. She closed her eyes as his lips touched hers. Not a gentle kiss but a hungry one, which led her to the insane thought that maybe, he wanted—or even needed— to feel this as bad as she did.

Missy opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue in. His hands left her face and seconds later, his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to his chest.

Dang, exactly like on that
Sinners&Saints
poster! But the exhilaration combusted into a puff of smoke as he inched his fingers under the hem of her sweater to touch her skin. Fire wrapped itself around her, into her, bursting from every cell of her being. The blaze caught her and she gave in to it.

Luke kissed her, divested her of her clothing as she did his, and before she knew it, they were on her bed, scattering the cushions every which way so they’d get the wide, flat expanse all to themselves.

And then, a while later—blissful heaven later—he was taking her, and she was giving in for all she was worth. The universe came together and then shattered into another Big Bang when completion flooded through her, and the sound of her name on his lips when he joined her wrapped her in the arms of ecstasy, a place she didn’t want to leave ever now that she had finally found it...

Long after, as Luke slept next to her, Missy propped herself on an elbow and watched him with reverent awe. The steady rise and fall of his glorious chest told her he lay in deep slumber; he wouldn’t hear her next words, and that would be just as well.

She would come the closest to Heaven only with him, and she never wanted to go home, or anywhere, right then.

“
This
is home,” she whispered. “Here, with you, because you’re the only one who can feel me somehow.”

Finally, for the first time in the past eight years, Iris Ann ‘Missy’ Taylor allowed herself to recognize the truth for what it was—she loved Luke Morelli.

Chapter Six

He’d stayed the night.

Missy awoke with a smile the next morning. From where she lay propped amid the downy pillows and soft bedding, she could glimpse him in the kitchen. Buck-naked. What a sight to wake up to. Those abs looked even more defined in real life; so it hadn’t been Photoshop on those posters. Delicious smells like butter and herbs tickled her nostrils. He was making breakfast?
Swoon...

The realization the past night had brought slithered in, but she pushed the notion away. Nothing would come of that, and she’d take what she’d gotten with him and treasure it for the rest of her life. The memory would carry her through.

Did he feel her avid gaze on him? He turned and grinned at her, waving the whisk in his hand.

“’Morning,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied, the sound like a purr. She felt boneless in that bed, and wished for that moment to never shatter into drab reality. So she stayed put and kept on watching him putter around the Aga.

A few moments later, he joined her on the mattress, two plates in his hands.

“Get up, sleepyhead. The food’s gonna grow cold.”

She propped herself against the pillows and smiled at him. “I’m the one who invited you over for a meal. That didn’t imply you had to cook, too.”

“It’s nice to make breakfast for a girl.”

A flare of jealousy burst in her chest. So he cooked for all his bed mates...

“I don’t get that chance very often, you know,” he continued.

Relief flooded through her and she crashed back into the soft down.

He handed her a fork, and she took a swipe at the omelette in front of her. An explosion of taste erupted on her tongue—butter, eggs, cheese, mushrooms, thyme, and was that nutmeg?

“Oh my, this is divine,” she said around a bite.

He laughed. “You have a very well-stocked pantry.”

She waved the fork in the air. “Courtesy of Ben. I hardly get the chance to cook, though, because he’s always using me as his guinea pig at the restaurant.”

Before she knew it, she’d polished off her plate.

Luke watched her with a pensive expression on his face, his omelette only half-eaten.

“What?” she asked. Did she maybe have egg on her nose? To wipe it now would look too obvious.

“It’s good to see you eat.”

“Oh.” Missy frowned. What was he getting at?

He must’ve seen the confusion on her face, because he grabbed both plates and placed them on the bedside table. Then he scooted closer to her and picked up her hands.

“I’m gonna tell you something, but please listen to me all the way through, okay?”

Uh-oh.
This sounded bad... She nodded.

He took a deep breath. “You know about me and Mary Beth, innit?”

She forced on a smile.

Great; just peachy.
He was still hung up on his ex-girlfriend.

Luke continued. “I guess you know how she came out as an anorexic a little while ago.”

She’d heard about that through Jenny—the supermodel had caused a media furore when she’d announced her sickness and subsequent retirement from modelling during an online live press conference in New York.

What was he getting at with that news?

He rubbed his thumbs onto her knuckles, head bent. “I...I never saw it. I lived with her for five years, yet I never saw what she put herself through.”

Wait a second
; did he blame himself for anything there?

“Luke, it’s not your fault—”

“No! I should’ve noticed... Just like with you.”

He turned her hands around so her wrists faced up. His thumbs now caressed the raised, crisscrossing marks on these spots.

Overwhelming love for him filled her heart to burst from every cell in her body. How precious could this man be?

“Luke, look at me.”

When he kept his head bent, she wrangled one hand free from his grip and touched his chin so he’d peer up at her.

“You didn’t know me.” She pressed a finger onto his lips when he started to say something. “And trust me when I tell you that when you want someone to not know what’s going on with you, you can be very good at putting on a façade that will fool the best of them.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “My mother trained as a medical doctor, Luke. She never noticed my distress because I knew how to hide it well. So trust me when I say that you couldn’t have known. Even with Mary Beth.”

“You think so?”

“I
know
so.” She smiled at him. “Come here,” she said and opened her arms.

Luke pressed his head to her bosom, and she placed her cheek against his soft hair all while cradling him to her. He needed comfort right then, and this, she could give.

After long seconds of easy and peaceful silence, he shrugged away. She let him go and smiled again. How much had it cost him to tell her about this imagined failure of his? Most men would never admit to be being wrong, let alone apologise for it.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded and smiled back.

The mood returned to lightness, and she giggled when he pulled her into his arms and tumbled them both onto the mattress. Missy settled the side of her head in the crook of his shoulder, her front pressed to his hard, sinewy side.

A thought flittered in her mind, and she voiced it aloud. “Is she better now?”

“Hmm?”

“Mary Beth.” She paused to take a small breath. “You spoke to her recently?”

“We’re in touch, yeah, and she’s doing great. Thriving, really.”

“That’s good.”

“Hmm.” The sound rumbled from his chest. “She’s found her place.”

“What about you?”

Where had that come from? No taking it back, though; she’d have to see this through. She propped herself up on an elbow and watched his face.

“Have you found your place?” she continued.

He sighed. “Frankly, I’m not sure.”

His candid reply startled her. She’d had inklings that he must trust her because he’d opened up just a few minutes earlier, but this? A whole other level of confession, indeed.

“You always wanted to be a model?”

He laughed at her question, the sound deep and rich and utterly sinful.

“That’s the last thing I thought I’d ever be. Being scouted took me by surprise, and I originally thought it’d be a matter of a couple of years, tops, before I was forgotten and dumped back into real life.”

“You’ll never be forgotten. Those
Sinners&Saints
posters are iconic.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said with a smile.

Was that a tinge of colour on those sharp cheekbones?

“I never really thought about it before, though,” he added.

“About what?”

“The fame, being recognised everywhere just by your face. It can be a burden, but it’s also an opportunity.”

She perked up at these words. For years, she’d been telling her father and everyone at
TnT
that they could use their celebrity to give back. Corporate social responsibility being the business buzz word of recent times, she’d seen avenues to exploit for returning favours back into the same society that had made them shoot to the top strata of the fashion world and market.

Could Luke have the same vision she’d had?

“Look at Mary Beth,” he said.

Oh groans.
Her, again? She’d soon start thinking he remained totally hung up on his ex.

“By admitting she was anorexic, she threw a spotlight on the condition and is demystifying it all while providing support to all anorexics out there. She’s found her platform, and the
TnT
outreach campaign will only confirm that.”

Missy blinked and sat up straight. “The what?”

Luke gave her a frown and she fake-rubbed her side.

“Cramp,” she muttered.

After pulling herself together, she faced him again. “What’s this about a
TnT
outreach campaign?”

He chuckled. “You don’t know? It’s the talk of the fashion world.”

“I, uh, am a bit out of touch with that universe, you know.”

By choice.

His eyes grew wide, then he smiled. “It appears the big boss himself—Jacob Taylor, the owner and CEO of
TnT
—contacted Mary Beth to ask her to get on board as an outreach advocate for the company’s new CSR campaign. Apparently, they’d been looking for an angle to favour, and her coming out gave them the perfect crusade topic on a platter.”

Each word threw a knife into Missy’s gut, and she listened with dwindling breath as he expanded on something she knew inherently...because
she
had designed the proposal for an outreach campaign.

Yet, at the time when she’d left, she hadn’t found the right agenda to pursue. Her father had shelved the project in one of his bottomless drawers and that had been the end of it, and for her, the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’d known then that he would never take her seriously, so what option did she have except stay back and be an airhead trophy wife like her mother, who’d checked her brains out at the altar the day she’d married Missy’s father?

“It...it’s a big deal?” She forced the words out of her suddenly dry as sandpaper throat.

He shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it. That’s why Jacob Taylor wants to wrap the shoot for
Saints
this weekend itself. All resources are moving to that outreach campaign starting Monday. And that’s not negotiable. Every employee of
TnT
will be expected to throw in his or her weight.”

Missy bit her lip. Why would her father be doing all of this? She needed to know—

No, she didn’t. Knowing him, this would simply be another idea he’d make the world believe he’d spearheaded; she’d be nothing more than the broodmare bearing the keys to the company being offered to Blake Townsend if she ever went back.

Luke’s cell phone rang, shattering the atmosphere. He scrambled out of the bed to go find his pants in the front room. After a terse conversation on the line, he pulled on the garment and addressed her.

“Cade Kingston just got in, and they need me to go through logistics for the shoot.”

She nodded.

“You run ahead.” A glance at the clock showed her ten a.m. “I need to go up to the restaurant, anyway. Lunch shift.”

After putting on his t-shirt and his shoes, he walked back to the bed and reached out to touch her cheek.

“Missy, listen—”

She knew what he’d say. They’d had one night, and that’s all it would amount to. She placed her hand over his where he cradled her jaw and smiled up at him. “Last night was perfect, but no strings attached, Luke.”

He seemed confused for a second, then he nodded and dropped his hand. After pressing a kiss to her forehead, he left.

Missy let herself fall back onto the bed and she clutched a pillow to her hard. So many revelations in the wake of Luke popping into her life. What was she to do now?

***

The rest of the day passed by in a blur for Luke, and only when he sat at a pub table nursing a bottle of Green’s Endeavour beer—gluten-free stuff that George Bennett had procured specially for him—did he pause long enough to think back on his night with Missy.

Something had taken over him when she’d confessed to the self-mutilation. His heart had bled for her sorrow, for the desperation and sadness he’d seen on her face. Then again this morning, when he’d looked into her eyes bare of any makeup. Strings had tugged inside him, and he’d wanted to open the book of his life in front of her and be more than just physically naked in her presence. Yes, he’d loved their night together, but more than just sexual relief, it had felt different with her.

Almost like coming home...

Was he going insane?

The noise level at the table where he sat with Cade and another friend, Terry Gilliam, went up a few notches as twin brothers Finn and Patrick Burley joined them. Trust the local hairdressers to be the life of every gathering—Finn could talk the hind leg off a donkey while Patrick mostly sat back and observed.

He made the presentations since Terry didn’t know the locals. A Londoner, he’d come to Daimsbury to be around Agneta Trammell, pregnant with his baby though the two had dated only sporadically a few months prior. Luke had met the England Three Lions’ football player in some charity circles.

Finn plopped himself down in the booth and chugged some beer. “So, Gilliam, that transfer to Ashton Rovers is a done deal or what?”

Terry proved a good sport; the buzz around this negotiation hung on everyone’s lips. “If the hamstring cooperates.”

“Damn, bloody luck, eh,” Finn continued. “You’d easily have made that international line up for today’s game otherwise.”