No one moves as Heath and I stare at each other with an undeniable shock. The shock that the man I was dreaming about all day long is Camden’s partner has me stuttering in all that I am and do.
This is not my real life. No, this is a god damn comedy film starring Luca West as “Lucia – what the fuck do I do now? – Westwood.” However no is laughing at this funny movie. No one is even smiling.
Every set of eyes in the room are trained on me. I am a professional woman, who for the first time in my career, is left speechless, unable to form a sentence. This is not me. None of this is.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Heath tenderly takes hold of my shaky hand. I’m stunned. He kisses my hand the exact same way as he did when we met days earlier. That same dynamism of stimulation migrates south just as it had the first time.
“You as well.” Awareness sneaks up on me, telling me to get my shit together. I will have to wait and freak the hell out later. I’ll book a sudden trip to see my parents, take the trip with Carl, and dump this entire account on the guys. Yes! Brilliant idea, they can take it over. I will find a way to make that happen and both men disappear. Mitch, Leo, and Annie will understand when I tell them the truth. My non-judgmental friends will dig me out of the mud hole I have dug for myself.
“Luca, are you alright?” Annie leans into me while the four men leisurely stroll down the hall to negotiate a contract. I’m left dumbstruck. No one, and I mean no one, decides as quickly as these two did about putting his dream so quickly in someone else’s hands. Does Camden know who I am? My stomach plummets into my throat before dropping straight to my toes. Up and down repeatedly. There’s no way these two men would actually conduct business this way.
This coincidence with Camden and Heath is no coincidence at all. I’m suddenly sick. I dart to my bathroom without answering Annie. I brace myself over the toilet, hyperventilating. My body shakes from the inside out.
“Oh my fucking god, this cannot be happening. They know each other.”
I lean over the toilet, dry heaving until my eyes water. The word control is now consuming my mind. I’ve lost it, I have no control left. Not even in the only place I ever felt safe. My office. My company.
“Luca. What the fuck is going on?” Mitch pounds on the bathroom door. “Let me in right now, god damn it.”
“Mitch, I can’t do this,” I manage to croak out.
“For god’s sake, unlock this door.” Every single limb of my body is unstable as I try to stand, but I know he won’t leave my office until I tell him something. My reaction to the situation is completely unlike me. I’m never caught off guard. I’m never unprofessional. Twisting the knob, I open the door to my friend and colleague looking at me with concern all over his face. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says as soon as he sees me before pulling me into his arms, wrapping them tightly around me.
“Oh hell, Mitch. I… I’m so sorry. This is a chaos. A mess, and I…” His hands slide up and down my back in a soothing motion.
“Luca, what are you going on about? You haven’t been yourself since you returned home. You need to start talking.”
“I’m not sure if I can.” I begin to cry, my tears soaking into his shirt.
“Sweetheart, what is it? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what is going on?”
Mitch guides me to my loveseat, where he pulls me into his lap, letting me curl into him like a small child. The two of us sit there in silence with him soothing me. How can I tell him? Where do I even start?
He beats me to it when he starts to talk. His words precise and to the point. “You know one of them, don’t you?”
“I know them both,” I whisper, clinging strongly to his now wrinkled shirt.
“Christ, Luca. Business or pleasure?” he questions. And here comes the moment of truth. The moment when the wheels will fall off of my life and I’ll be left clinging onto the brittle fragments that are left, or hopefully where my friend can help me find some sort of tiny shred of hope. The small trace of security and dignity that, up until a few moments ago, consumed me were gone.
For two long hours, I tell Mitch everything, leaving nothing about the last ten years of my life out.
He listens.
He asks several questions about things that he is curious about. He laughs when he thinks I have said something funny, then holds me close when I break down and cry.
When I finally get to the weekend prior and the time I spent with Heath, he tells me we will get through this as a team, a family. There is no disapproving tone in his voice, no bitterness, no pity. There is only concrete phrases of reassurance.
The soft sound of Mitch’s secretary, Renee’s, voice interrupts us through the intercom on my desk. I’m surprised someone hasn’t come in to check on us before this.
“Yes, Renee?” I find my strength, bringing my voice back into a professional mode.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she says, sounding somewhat timid.
“It’s perfectly fine. I’m sorry I had to leave you like that. I had a pressing matter to take care of and Luca has been helping.” Mitch lies to her.
“I understand.” She doesn’t though. Not a damn person knows what I’m going through. What I’ve done. The position I have put my friends and our company in. She must think I’m crazy the way I ran down the hallway, past the three assistant desk, landing myself right where I am now.
“Luca, Mr. Steel would like to speak with you before he leaves,” she states rather abruptly.
I whip my head toward Mitch, unsure of what to do. He closes his eyes and I see a look of resolve shadow over his face. Finally, he looks at me and mouths. “You can do this.”
“Okay, send him to my office in ten minutes. Oh, and Renee?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” I state calmly.
“You’re welcome, Luca. I hope everything is alright?” Her voice full of concern.
“Everything is fine. Thank you.” This time I lie instead of Mitch. I’m not fine. I may never be fine again.
I am undeniably, unequivocally pitiful looking, both inside and out. A disastrous mess. With nothing more to do with my appearance, I fidget in my chair, waiting for Camden. I glance down at the ring that graces my finger. It’s the only piece of jewelry I wear on a daily basis, from all the pieces I have, and it’s from him. Camden. The man who changed my life. I’ve always felt a pang of love for that man. He made me fall in love with my night life and with sex. Camden taught me so much in the little time we spent together. Did notice the ring still rested on my finger where he placed it all those years ago?
I glance down at the ankle bracelet I decided to keep on. This is some fucked up shit. The two men I’ve had the best time with, out of all of them, know each other. The rip roaring fuck of it all is that I slept with both of them.
EIGHT
“Luca.”
I hear my name every day, but hearing the sound of it coming from his mouth has my heart pounding clear out of the cavity that it is nestled in. I’m sitting in my chair, staring out at Lake Michigan, trying to focus so damn hard to see where the ice ends and the deep dark waters begin. That’s the best way to describe my life right now. Where does one of me begin and the other one end?
“Look at me, Luca. Please?” Camden’s deep gravelly voice sends me back so many years.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
It’s quiet, so very eerily quiet. I know he’s still here, I can smell him. He smells the exact same as he did a decade ago. Natural. Pure male with no strong odor of cologne. When I shook his hand a few hours earlier I felt nothing. And now, alone with him in my office, I feel it all. The undeniable chemistry is there, surrounding me until he is all I can see and feel.