Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Catching me around the waist, he bends, pressing his lips just beneath my ear. “You’re not leaving until I get a proper kiss.”
I tilt my face up, happy to indulge, and for just a breath, work slips away and it’s only the quiet pull of Luca filling my mind and body. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, bringing one big hand up my neck, cupping my jaw.
As it always does, our chemistry takes over, flushing heat down my limbs, electricity pulsing between my legs. Until the quiet voice in the back of my head presses forward, becoming loud and shrill: You don’t have time for this.
But I want to. I want to have more time for Luca.
Pulling away, I press my face to his neck, soaking his sweetness and hotness up with one deep breath, making the same silent promise I make nearly every morning—Starting next week, I will be more present; I will be home before he’s asleep; I will not take his steadiness or sunshine for granted; I will be a better partner—before stretching to peck him just one more time.
“Good luck, Em,” he says, smiling against my lips.
“Thank you. I’m so nervous I want to barf.”
“You’re going to be great.” He steps back, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and letting his gaze roam over my face. I’m wearing makeup today, something I don’t always do for work, but I knew this presentation—with some of the biggest of bigwigs—called for a bit of physical polishing. Luca has always maintained he likes my freckles, but I can see in his eyes that he notices the way a touch of blush brings them out, how my lipstick accentuates my mouth, that I could cut a man with the point of my winged eyeliner. “And you look beautiful.”
“So do you.”
He grins. “See you tonight. I assume you’ll go straight to the restaurant?”
I frown, momentarily thrown. “Restaurant?”
Luca’s smile falters, barely long enough for me to catch it, but I do. He rescues it with a laugh. “Yeah. For—”
My stomach sinks as my brain hooks on the date. “Oh, right, yes, yes,” I say, attempting to cover. “I was thinking I would come home before—”
“You forgot.” His blue eyes glimmer with teasing, but it’s tight. There’s a shadow there.
“I did not!” I try to keep my voice light. It’s not a complete lie. I did remember the date was coming up and had every intention of planning something spectacular, but then Tom discovered a batch of incorrectly time-stamped samples, there were a series of random mix-ups and lost vials in the lab, and our already dwindling timeline was robbed of a whole week. Just one of a dozen small-scale catastrophes recently, but any one of them could have tanked the whole project if not caught. Put them together and my best intentions just… slipped my mind. “I want to come home and change before dinner.”
“Sounds good.” Luca leans in, pressing one last kiss to my forehead. “Happy anniversary, Emery. Hope it goes perfectly today. You’ve got this. See you here at seven.”
“Seven,” I repeat, heart positively hammering behind my sternum. I step outside, laptop bag in hand, legs rubbery with nerves. I wave one last time before climbing into my car and driving off, to the meeting that will change not only my life but the entire world.
2 EMERY
In the car, I wonder whether it’s possible to drown in my own self-loathing. I forgot my own fucking anniversary. Who does that?
Yes, today is an epic day for my career, and yes, deadlines and unforeseen disasters have left me more distracted than usual, but it’s right there in the calendar! The one on the wall that Luca updates meticulously with family members’ birthdays and doctors’ appointments and Sunny Sundays at the beach. Who still uses a paper calendar, you ask? My adorable husband does, insisting he likes the tactile experience and visual accessibility. All true, but he also hangs it next to the coffee maker, knowing it’s the one place I’m most likely to see it.
Unfortunately, I’m usually half asleep while I wait for my coffee to brew. And even if I wasn’t, that paper calendar on the wall isn’t the one I remember to check. That calendar, the one that holds every critical deadline and meeting and to-do item in my work life, lives on the phone I’m contractually obligated to keep out of sight.
The calendar and the phone and the small safe that Luca doesn’t even know about.
That almost no one knows about, not even the busybody neighbor who seems to know everything, and whom I can feel watching from her window as I pull out of the driveway and turn down the street.
Hell, she probably remembered my anniversary before I did.
* * *
There’s an adage that a lie told often enough becomes truth, and I’ve carefully built my life around it. My job isn’t one I can discuss with anyone, not even the person closest to me.