“To talk.”
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”
The wind picked up in that moment, skirling around the corners of the house. She almost thought she felt a ghostly drop of moisture hit her cheek.
“Actually, we do.” He hiked his jacket up around his neck, obviously trying to shield himself somewhat from the biting wind. “And it’s starting to rain. You’re not going to leave me out here to get soaked, are you?”
She was tempted to. And was this more of his “luck” at work, that he’d show up just as the weather turned nasty again so she’d be compelled to invite him inside?
Even as she contemplated the idea, she knew she wouldn’t. Just yesterday she’d thought she loved this man. If she were going to be perfectly honest with herself…although she really didn’t want to be…she knew she still loved him. Was blazingly angry with him, yes. But now, looking at him, at the way those dark eyes were fixed on her face, pleading, at the lines of the mouth she’d thought she’d never get enough of, she knew it wasn’t as easy to turn love off and on as she thought.
“Come in,” she said, attempting to keep her tone as neutral as possible.
Obviously, that hadn’t worked as well as she would have liked, because his face lit up as he crossed the threshold, then hesitated in the entry, glance going uncertainly to the coat rack in the corner. No doubt he was wondering if she’d allow him to take off his jacket.
“Oh, go ahead,” she snapped. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he told her, and she shot him a pained look.
“It’s a little late for that.”
He took the hint and went into the living room, while she headed to the kitchen, accompanied by a strong sense of déjà vu. Was the universe somehow conspiring to get her together with Lucas Wilcox? Maybe. But the universe was about to discover it had met its match in Margot Emory.
She got the coffee going and made herself a fresh cup of tea while the coffee percolated. Right then she wished for something a bit stronger than tea, but that wasn’t happening. Especially when she could blame wine for some of her loosened inhibitions when it came to the man currently waiting in her living room.
No, don’t think about that. Just concentrate on getting the coffee put together.
At least he took it black. That made things somewhat easier. She didn’t bother with a tray this time, only doctored her tea in the kitchen, then picked up his mug in her left hand and the tea in her right, and went back out to meet him.
“Here,” she said, not caring how ungracious she sounded.
He took the mug from her. “Thanks.”
She wouldn’t bother to say that he was welcome. He wasn’t welcome, not here in her house, not in her life. There wasn’t anything he could say to her that would make her change her mind.
Seeming to sense her mood, he blew on the coffee but didn’t look at her. As he stared at the fire, he said, “I know I screwed up. But when Lester offered to look a few things up for me — ”
“Oh, now he was the one offering? It wasn’t all your idea?”
“Well, no. That is, I said I was interested in a woman but was worried that she might be involved with someone, and he said he’d look into it. I told him not to dig too deep, that it wouldn’t be right — ”
“Even the little you did wasn’t right.” She’d remained standing this whole time. No way was she going to sit down next to him. Even having him in the same room was hard enough. Being less than a foot apart on the sofa? No way.
Lucas ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh that was almost but not quite exasperated. “Margot, the stuff he looked up was the sorts of things that anyone spending a half hour on Google could have probably found.”
Was that true? She really had no idea, as she certainly hadn’t made a practice of looking herself up online. Angela once said that Damon seemed to have figured out a way to erase most traces of his personal information from search engines, including any photos, but Margot couldn’t begin to determine how he’d managed such a thing. The former Wilcox primus had been very good at twisting magic to his own ends.
“That’s not the point — ” she began, but Lucas cut her off.
“What is the point, Margot?” He set down his mug of coffee without drinking any of it, then got to his feet. The living room was not very large, and he seemed to fill it as he stood there, staring down at her. “Do you want me to say it again? Okay, I screwed up. I screwed up because I had to know if I had even a hint of a chance with you. I screwed up because, once I’d seen you, I didn’t even want to look at another woman. I screwed up because I’d spent my whole life thinking love was for someone else, not me, and then when I saw you at the gallery last spring, I knew I’d been wrong all along, and that it hadn’t worked out for me before then because none of those other women were you.”