Never Marry Your Brother's Best Friend (Never Say Never, #1)(12)
I may not have seen anything Luna has personally painted, but the way she brought the art in the museum to life, I can imagine her doing the same with her own work.
“Oh, darling. That makes my heart melt like butter on a hot biscuit.” She sounds a bit choked up, and I say a silent thank you to Luna. “I tell you what, let’s have us a bit of dinner this weekend and we can talk about my portfolio. Do you need to check with Luna’s schedule to see when she’s available?”
What? Why would I need to do that?
And then it hits me.
Elena means dinner with me . . . and Luna. My wife, Luna.
“Oh, I’m not sure she can. She’s so busy, you know, and I try not to bore her with too much work talk,” I say, hoping Elena can be charmed into meeting with only me.
“Nonsense. If she’s an art lover, she’d never forgive you if she missed out on seeing Thomas’s collection. I wouldn’t want you to be in the dog house. Why, I remember one time Thomas went to town with a friend. They were going to play a round of golf or something, I forget what. But they went to the movie theater instead, and he saw that tornado movie without me. You know the one with that cutie-patootie Bill Paxton? He knew how much I liked that fella, so whoo-boy, I was hotter’n an August day in Atlanta. Made that man sleep on the couch for two solid nights.”
“You didn’t,” I tease, following along with her dramatic story-telling.
“You betch’ur bottom I did, but do you know how he got out of the doghouse?” She pauses, and I can sense her smile through the phone. “He set us up a little picnic out back at sunset, and we had ourselves ice cream sundaes for dinner. He knew that ice cream is the way to my heart because we’d gone for milkshakes on our first date.”
“Sounds like he was a good husband, even though he didn’t take you to see Twister,” I agree.
“Oh, he took me, alright. I made him go watch it again. With me.”
I laugh in surprise. For such a wealthy, influential couple, it sounds like the Cartwrights were remarkably normal. Maybe even a bit simple in their lives together.
“That’s why I’m tellin’ you, you’d best bring your Luna to see this art or you’re going to be sleeping on the couch and planning ice cream dates.” Her voice has gone from congenial to hard, as though testing to see whether I’ll accept her wise advice.
I don’t think. I don’t consider. I certainly don’t plan, which is my modus operandi. But nevertheless, the words spill out. “Of course, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to come.”
I knock on Luna’s door with my heart in my throat and my head buzzing. I’ve fucked up and I know it, but I’ll fight to see if there’s any way at all I can rescue this messy situation I’ve gotten myself into. Hopefully, Luna’s calmed down and Zack’s smoothed things over with her too because I’m about to throw a whole new cow in this tornado a la Elena Cartwright.
But it isn’t Luna who answers the door.
“Who’re you?” a tall, slender brunette demands. She’s about Luna’s age and dressed in wide-legged slacks and a tank-style blouse. Her makeup is expertly applied and her hair looks as though she’s had it professionally styled. The only thing missing to complete the picture of the perfect businesswoman are the shoes, as her bare toes wiggle on the wood floor of Luna’s apartment.
“Uhm, I’m looking for Luna.” I glance around, double checking that I haven’t gone to the wrong apartment, but behind the woman, I can see Luna’s art-filled space.
“Didn’t answer the question. Try again.” The order is mildly softened by the glint in her eyes as she openly assesses me with a look up and down.
“That’s Carter Harrington, Zack’s friend and all-around annoying scammer in a business suit,” Luna’s voice calls out, sounding flat and dull.
The woman in the doorway goes near feral in an instant. Stabbing a perfectly manicured finger into my chest, she charges, “You’re the asshole who fucked over my friend and made a fool of her at the one place she feels most at home? Should’ve known.”
She’s much harsher than Luna, but the insult doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Luna’s does.
“I didn’t make a fool of her,” I argue. Deciding I need to handle this at the source, I push past the woman and into the apartment to find Luna sitting on the kitchen countertop.
She’s wearing shorts and a baggy T-shirt, and she looks lost—her skin bare and pale, her eyes vacant, and though she’s sitting cross-legged and upright, there’s something that makes it feel as though she’s shrinking away from me.
“Luna? What’s wrong?” I go up to her, setting the bag I brought with me on the counter next to her. My first instinct is to gather her in my arms, which surprises me. I’m not usually overtly caring that way, but something about Luna in this moment makes me want to pull her into me and press my lips to her hair soothingly.
But she flinches away from me. “Seriously?” she says quietly.
“I was hoping Zack had—”
She huffs. “Zack and I are fine. You and I are not.”
Okay, apparently Zack only fixed one problem. I don’t know how he did it, but I wish I had a secret Luna language book right about now so I could do the same.