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For an instant he held himself still, his gaze dark and intense bare inches above hers. “I love you, Holly. I’ve always loved you.” The words were harsh and hoarse. They seemed dragged from the depths of his being. Holly’s fists clutched the sheets, her toes curled as he began to move. Slowly. Deeply. As if he were touching the very core of her being.
If she let him, he could touch her there. She knew it. She nearly sobbed with the knowledge. She twisted, matching his thrusts, letting go of the sheet to rake her fingernails down his back, then clutching him close as he drove them both over the edge.
She cried out. She said his name.
He slumped against her, his body sweat-slick, his heart hammering so hard she could feel it against her own. He lifted his head and looked down at her, a hint of a smile on his lips. “So,” he said raggedly, “you want to argue with that?”
Holly couldn’t argue. She couldn’t even speak. She just looked at him, drank him in. Then she shut her eyes and breathed deeply, held him close.
* * *
The sun was high in the sky when Lukas woke. He knew where he was, tangled in the sheets of Holly’s bed. He remembered the passion, the intensity, the love they had shared. And he smiled, recalling how she’d simply shut her eyes and gone to sleep beneath him. He’d lain there, savoring the feel of her body, nearly boneless now, slumbering beneath him. Finally, he’d rolled off, but only to tuck her against his chest and spoon his legs behind hers.
He sighed with contentment, then stretched and rolled over to reach for her again.
He was alone.
D1
CHAPTER TEN
SHE WAS IN the kitchen. Or in the bathroom. She’d gone to her office. Or maybe down to the gallery to work.
Lukas bolted out of bed, then told himself that the flare of panic he’d felt at finding her gone was nothing more than an overactive imagination.
She hadn’t left him. She couldn’t have.
But it turned out his imagination was better informed than all his rationalizations. He found a note on the kitchen counter. As he picked it up, his hand shook.
Lukas, thank you for everything. I won’t see you again before I go. It’s better this way. I’ll have a mover pack my things and store them. I’m sure you won’t want to store my stuff. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you did for me. PS: don’t forget those kids at St. Brendan’s will still need you. Thanks, Holly
Lukas’s fist crumpled the letter. He felt gutted. He felt hollow. He felt sick. His throat was tight. His eyes stung.
So he was wrong again. She didn’t love him, after all.
* * *
It was the first day of the rest of her life. And then it was the second. And then the third.
But no matter how hard Holly tried, she couldn’t seem to live in the moment. She had spent the whole last week of her life in New York out at her mother’s on Long Island. She told herself it was the right thing to do. It was what she’d always intended. It didn’t have anything to do with leaving Lukas’s at the crack of dawn so she wouldn’t have to face him in the clear light of day.
She was doing the right thing, she told herself over and over. She was doing what she’d planned—and she was making things easier for Lukas. He might think he wanted to marry her, but he didn’t mean it.
He could marry anyone—the remarkable, sophisticated, elegant Grace Marchand, for example. If he didn’t want to marry a paragon like Grace, he certainly wouldn’t want to marry her! She told herself that every day, too. And by the end of the week at her mother’s, she had done a reasonably good job of convincing herself that was the truth. Besides, she was eager to get to Hawaii. That was something else she repeated again and again.
Her mother wasn’t convinced. She looked worried every time she glanced Holly’s way. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked Holly.
“I’m fine,” Holly assured her.
“Because you don’t look very happy.”
“I’m happy,” Holly lied.
She would be—in time. It would be a relief when she got to Hawaii and started her training. She just needed something new and different—a new challenge to find herself.
Hawaii was different. All balmy breezes and sunshine. And the training was thorough and demanding and thought-provoking. Or it would have been, Holly was sure, if she’d been thinking about it. She didn’t.
She thought about Lukas.
