Magical Weddings (67 page)

Her father had died only a year after she’d left for school in New England. She’d come back for the funeral service. Only a handful of people were there–a couple of cousins, a few friends of his. The hospice nurse had informed Veronica that he’d died peacefully in his sleep.

In a brief letter he’d left for her, he’d stated in his straightforward way that this was the hand he was dealt. He’d learned about his condition and prognosis weeks after her high school graduation. He was okay with it. He’d see her mother again. But he hadn’t wanted Veronica to put her life on hold to watch him slowly die. He’d apologized for keeping it from her.

Veronica’s voice sounded a bit gravelly when she tried to speak through the emotions. “What a silly girl I was. I never once questioned how he paid for my college education. I knew we didn’t have much saved for it. I just accepted it and went off to school. Was I that selfish and unaware?”

Whether he knew it or not, Lucas was a very good listener. She appreciated his quiet company.

“Your dad had a spot he liked to sit in my mother’s rose garden. There was this one bench with a beautiful view of the Gulf. He’d sit and watch the sun set, drinking his glass of scotch. I sat with him a few times when I was home from college. He didn’t talk much.”

“Did he hum a tune?”

“He did.
Santa Lucia
.”

Veronica hummed a few notes of the refrain until she felt Lucas’ hand on hers. “What will you do now? You have nothing tying you to Florida.”

“The beauty of being a chef is that I can go anywhere. People everywhere have to eat.”

He saluted that one with his glass.

“But what about you? What I wanted to ask earlier was what would you do if you didn’t have the family business to go to every day?”

“I would do just fine.” He scoffed at her look of disbelief. “Okay, I already have a side business.”

“You do?”

“I have a degree in contract law.”

“Oh, so that’s why you were the one stuck negotiating with Mr. Preston this morning.”

“No, Davis could have done that all by himself. He knows how to navigate a contract. I’m sure he wanted to delay me so he could have some alone time with you.”

That knowledge would have made her all excited earlier in the day. “Well, we both know how that turned out. He was ready to throw me into your arms at the end of that walk.”

“Well, speaking of being in my arms.” He grinned. “Dance with me.”

Veronica pinched herself.

She wasn’t dreaming, but she was living some weird fairy tale. She never thought a fairy tale would include stowing away on a boat and wearing borrowed clothes. She was slow-dancing on a yacht under a million stars in the arms of a gorgeous man. The twist was that the man was Lucas. One hand held hers. The other caressed her lower back, and her skin tingled with every slight movement of his fingers.

He’d danced with her before.

Was that just last night?
It hadn’t felt like this.

Of course it hadn’t. Because last night she’d still been blinded by her quest to win Davis.

Today, she’d thrown the blinders away. She was no longer the girl-in-love-with-Davis. The only man dominating her mind at this moment was Lucas.

“Hello, Roni.”

She stumbled on Lucas’ foot. She was annoyed with Davis’ intrusion into her fantasy. Holy hell, the world had truly flipped over.

She didn’t pull her hand out of Lucas’ suddenly-tighter grasp, but she did turn toward Davis. Piper, as usual, didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. “Are the beach games over?”

“Absolutely. The party has come aboard.”

As if backing up his statement, Piper and her contingent of devoted and inebriated friends arrived on the sky deck. The DJ in the corner quickly played the typical bride-to-be musical accompaniment.

Piper slipped away from her group to come grab Lucas. “Sorry for the interruption.” She winked at Veronica. “I need to borrow him for a few moments. Lucas, you have not been in a single photograph with me today.”

While Piper dragged Lucas to the other side of the deck, Davis claimed Veronica’s hand and twirled her over to a more secluded corner.

It was almost
deja vu
. She’d been tucked into his embrace in exactly this way last night.

“You look great, Roni.”

Last night he’d called her incredible. Granted that tonight she was in a borrowed blouse and capris, her hair was wind blown, and her cheeks were still a little sticky from the whipped cream.

“Thanks.”

“It’s still hard to believe. You were there in my house all those years and I didn’t see you.”

That stung a little, adding to that weird feeling in her stomach again. She now knew what that feeling was. Bitterness for all those wasted thoughts and feelings for someone who was totally undeserving of them. He didn’t seem so suave and charming anymore.

“I had to come back a beauty to open up your eyes.” Veronica realized it was time to let go of all the Crowleys. She had lived in their house for many years, but she wasn’t a part of their family. She’d never shared a meal with them. She’d never traded holiday gifts with them. She’d never received an invitation to one of their parties. She wasn’t included, and she never would be.

Swirling her into a shadowed alcove, Davis used his body to press her against the wall, grinding against her. He claimed a hungry kiss before swirling them both back into their dance spot again.

Laughter erupted from deep inside her. She couldn’t stop it. It was a freeing moment to realize what her life with Davis would have been and to decide that she was worth more than that. She wasn’t meant to be a mistress waiting for stolen kisses. She was worth being someone’s only woman.

“Thank god.” He smiled. “What a weird day. I was beginning to think you weren’t in love with me anymore.”

“What would you do if I was still in love with you?”

His chest expanded as he inhaled the scent of her. “I told you yesterday. I’d pick up where we left off.”

“But that’s just sex.”

He winked. “Not
just
sex.”

“Marriage?” She wasn’t interested in that anymore, but she was interested in finally hearing the truth come out of his mouth.

This time he laughed. “Right. It’s not legal to marry more than one woman.”

“Do you love either one of us?”

His smile disappeared. “I’m not...” Several vague emotions swept through his eyes. “Love is a game.”

She pitied him and his shallow ideas about love. “I feel very sorry for you.”

He nuzzled her ear. “Let me show you how to play the game.”

“No.” She was proud of herself. “I’m not a game player.”

“Oh, come on, Roni. You can’t say no to all of this.” He indicated the yacht and all it represented.

She stopped swaying with the music. “I was never in love with you because of your money.” Her voice started to crack a little. “Which I hear you are apparently in great need of. You don’t even own this anymore.”

His expression darkened. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or embarrassed, but she’d definitely touched a nerve. She thought he was about to storm off. Instead, he yanked her back against him and forced her to sway with the rhythm. “So you know the family secret then. We’re financially unstable. Of course, Lucas told you.”

She shook her head. Piper had outed that one, but Veronica didn’t want to betray her confidence.

“Lucas.” Davis ground his perfect teeth together. “You seemed very angry with him earlier. What happened in the massage tent? Did he try to f—”

“No!” This time her voice did crack. Like a whip, it shattered the conversation.

A faster song came on and Veronica successfully pulled herself out of his embrace. But before she could leave him, he grabbed her arm.

“Wait. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She relaxed a little. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I have no right to ask. Meet me in my room in a half hour?”

“The room you share with Piper?”

He nodded. What was that look in his eye? Desperation?

She couldn’t contain her disgust. “I would rather jump overboard and swim home than spend a moment in bed with you.”

An awful smirk bent his once-beautiful mouth. “I can arrange that.”

The heavy beat of the song drowned out the sound of the smack she delivered to his cheek, saving her from creating a major scene. But she glanced across the deck anyway. Only Lucas had been a witness. And his eyes she could read even from here. He was angry.

Veronica, two. Crowley brothers, zero.

Piper would not be pleased. That was the only thing that kept Lucas from wringing his brother’s neck. Davis was going to find it hard to explain the handprint on his cheek, and Lucas knew from recent experience that it would last for a while.

Earlier in the day, Lucas had found his brother pacing in his cabin like a trapped animal. He’d watched Davis closely through the rest of the day, worried about the look in Davis’ eyes–shifty and unfocused.

Lucas remembered that same look in their father’s eyes. William Davis Crowley, the ultimate player in the games of business and romance. Like any good athlete, practice made for good form and many successes. But every now and then, he went too far, and Mother put her foot down. Since she knew all of his secrets and cleaned up all of his messes, he would let her cage him for a time. But resentment had eaten at him. Made him reckless.

This was the atmosphere Lucas grew up in. Until the day his father drove his Italian sports car into a concrete divider on I-75, killing himself and his newest affair.

That was the first time Lucas helped his mother clean up a mess that could have blackened the family name. The family name was all she had, and keeping it clean had nearly wiped them out financially. An extremely successful venture reinvigorated their finances and put the family back on the social map again–enough to renovate the estate and hire a family chef.

Veronica had come into his life then. Simple, quiet, adorable, and loyal Veronica. So unlike any girl his father would have ever noticed. Davis, so much like their father, didn’t notice her until that one night. Maybe not even then. He’d only noticed her when she came back all grown up and wearing that damned tight dress.

Lucas should go see to his brother. It was his duty as a brother and as a best man to keep Davis from cracking under the pressure. To protect the family from a mess that might not be cleanable this time, given the financial and media power of the Preston family.

“Screw it.” He made his choice.

Finding Veronica wasn’t easy. She hadn’t gone back to their room. She wasn’t in the lounge, library or theater room. He even ran through the crew level and still didn’t find her. Then, he realized he’d been thinking about it all wrong. Where would Veronica feel most at home?

He found her in the kitchen making a midnight snack.

“I don’t think I ever spent any time in here before. It’s tiny.”

Slicing through a sandwich, she offered him half. “It’s tiny even for a
mega
yacht.”

“I have new appreciation for how hard the chef works. How the hell does he put out the spreads he does from this tiny kitchen?”

“I’d say highly-efficient design and extreme product utilization.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he works with little equipment and well-planned menus.”

He took a bite of a perfect-looking crab salad sandwich and moaned at the burst of fresh flavors.

“I have an idea.” He grabbed a large platter. Once it was filled with the sandwiches and an assortment of fruits he found in the fridge, he took her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“We’re going to have a picnic in our room where it’s quiet.”

“I
love
that idea.”

And he loved the way her hazel eyes looked at him with pure joy. His heart doubled a few beats.

He wondered what he could possibly do to get her look at him that way again.

Veronica wondered why it felt so natural to be lying in a bed with Lucas while she was wearing only her underwear and one of his fancy button-down shirts. Shouldn’t it feel awkward?

They’d eaten everything on the picnic platter and drank the entire bottle of wine. Sleepy, they’d agreed to share the bed. They were adults and it was a huge bed. Plenty of room to keep a polite distance.

Polite?

She was damned tired of being polite or shy or anything else that held her back. Hell, Nellie had promised her courage. But it wasn’t up to Nellie, was it? Courage was something Veronica needed to demand of herself. Right now, she absolutely wanted Lucas.

For the second time that day, Veronica kissed Lucas.

She sat up in the bed and threw off the covers.

The motion prompted him to roll in her direction. “Are you okay?”

“Shhh.” She put her finger on his lips and straddled his thighs.

He sat up, pulling her tight on his lap. He closed his eyes briefly, and she could feel his desire hard and pulsing against her.

Veronica threaded her fingers through his hair. Enough moonlight spilled into the room for her to watch the expressions on his face until he opened his eyes again.

“I’m Lucas. Not Davis.”

She marveled at the sound of his voice, deep and thick with emotion. He’d stated facts, but she knew he was really asking a question. Did she want him and only him?

“I know exactly who you are.” She took one of his hands from her waist and placed the palm against her chest so he could feel her quickened pulse. “I want
you
, Lucas.”

The devilish smile that curved his lips sent ripples of anticipation through her. Desire hummed along every nerve and tingled across every inch of her skin.

His hand slid behind her neck and pulled her in for a long, deep kiss.

She broke away and held him off with her palm. Slowly, she opened her shirt one button at a time. She kept her eyes on his the whole time. His gaze, however, flicked back and forth between her face and the skin revealed with each button’s release.