Let's Pretend (Romantic Comedy, Contemporary, Second Chance, Sensual) Read online

  He went down like a poked soufflé.

  The knife clattered to the tiles and Belle kicked it away. Carl joined her, taking over the task of restraining the winded attacker.

  Belle rushed back to her patient. The girl was barely breathing, her pulse weak. Zoë ran from the room to warn OR. Belle pressed the emergency button for assistance, only vaguely aware of Carl carting Jack through the opposite door. He’d make sure Jack was properly detained, but Ruth was her priority and if she didn’t move fast, she’d lose her.

  ~*~

  The OR buzzed with activity and adrenaline as Belle worked to save Ruth’s life. Just as she suspected, the knife had penetrated the girl’s spleen, nicking the splenic artery.

  “Clamp.”

  The assisting nurse handed Belle the clamp. “Love is crazy.” The nurse shook her head in incredulity. “Look what he did to her. It’s enough to make you extra cautious about who you let into your life.”

  Belle repaired the artery. Her patient would live but Belle was so beyond tired. She needed a break from this place. Suddenly the trip she’d been dreading couldn’t come fast enough. She couldn’t wait to get away for a few days. Even if she did have to pretend all was perfect in her world.

  2

  Some days his job blew chunks!

  This wasn’t the worst day he ever had on the job, but it was certainly up there.

  In the Fire Station locker room, Lucas Delaney yanked the towel from around his waist and pulled on underwear, jeans, and white tee. He was at the end of his shift and glad as hell. He and his crew had rescued an injured horse that had fallen down a steep embankment. The animal had been testy and un-cooperative, bucking and rearing as the crew worked to get a harness around it to pull it out.

  The horse had only minor injuries and had been reunited with its owner.

  They’d fought a warehouse fire that threatened to get out of hand. The warehouse and its contents was a total loss but no one was hurt, which meant a good result.

  Then his crew had been called to a road traffic accident involving a motorcyclist. Luc dealt with good and bad days every day of his career but he could have done without having to tell a young mum that yes, the mangled motorbike she just passed on the verge of the carriageway had indeed belonged to her husband and he hadn’t made it.

  Luc swore he could still smell the haunting scent of burnt rubber, fuel, exhaust fumes, and the woman’s perfume. Hear her broken-hearted sobs. And the image of three scared little faces staring out from the woman’s hurriedly parked car would be imprinted on his brain forever.

  A lively discussion about how long a man should wait before phoning a woman after their first date alerted him that his crew was about to join him in the locker room.

  “Hey, Delaney.” Mac, a fellow firefighter slapped him on the back as he walked by. “Congrats on that promotion.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, does this mean we have to be nice to you?” Sam, the crew’s driver worked the combination lock on his locker and swung open the door. “Because I have to tell you, I don’t think I can do it.”

  Luc’s phone jingled in his locker and he reached for it. “I’m just glad I don’t have to listen to your girly feelings all day long.”

  “Hey, I was sharing. You can’t appreciate new love ’cause you’re an old married man. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to woo.”

  The locker room erupted with raucous male laughter. Luc couldn’t even force a smile. Something acerbic settled in the pit of his stomach. Married did not describe his current status. After five years of marriage, Belle had quietly informed him over dinner that she was leaving. Apparently, they had grown apart. News to him since only the previous night they’d pulled an all-nighter and it wasn’t to stay up and watch TV. Although in hindsight, he’d noticed something was off with Belle for weeks and she wouldn’t talk to him about it. He’d thought everything was great between them until her bombshell a year ago and he hadn’t seen his wife in six months.

  By mutual agreement, they’d decided to keep their failed marriage to themselves for the time being. Why Belle wanted it that way was beyond him. As for Luc, his pride wouldn’t let him broadcast the fact that his wife had left him.

  “Woo?” Luc glanced at the LCD screen on his mobile. Mia. Damn. “Who says woo?” He flicked his gaze back to Sam. “See? Girly.” He dodged a playful left hook to the shoulder.

  “Women like that sensitive stuff.” Sam’s right came at him with another playful jab.

  Luc dodged and chuckled as he headed out of the locker room to take his sister-in-law’s call.

  “Hi, Mia, what’s up?”

  “Hey, Luc, I know I only saw you a few days ago but I didn’t get around to asking you if you were coming to Gran’s in a couple of weeks for the family get-together.”

  He’d had drinks with Mia last week. His marriage to Belle might be over but her sister would always mean a lot to him. Which was why he felt like a total heel for deceiving her.

  “Belle said you can’t make it,” Mia continued. The sound of pouring liquid filtered down the line. “I don’t suppose you’d be able to get away from your training early enough to make at least part of the weekend, could you?”

  He had no clue what she was talking about, but her tone said he did, so he played along.

  “I doubt it.” He wasn’t scheduled to attend any training for a few weeks.

  Chances were Belle and Mia’s grandmother had called a family gathering, as she tended to do at least once a year. And since no one dared to disappoint Gran, the family living in the UK usually dropped whatever they were doing and hopped the first flight over the pond. If he and Belle were married, he’d know about the trip and he would be travelling with her. Belle must’ve given the excuse as an explanation for why he wouldn’t be there.

  “I know Gran is looking forward to seeing you and Belle.” She paused to gulp a sip of something. Probably whatever she just poured. “She was disappointed when you were both tied up with work last time.”

  Luc leaned against the cool wall at his back. Was this some sort of psychology whammy Mia was pulling on him? It was the only explanation for why he suddenly felt so guilty. Sure, he adored Belle’s grandmother but as far as he was concerned when Belle and he split, she took her family with her. He certainly never expected her to accompany him at his family dos, why would he feel obligated to attend hers?

  A cool breeze from the opened window opposite brushed over him.

  Belle hadn’t asked him, Mia had.

  He shoved the fingertips of one hand into his jeans pocket and blew out a breath. Belle hadn’t asked because she didn’t want him there. And in so doing she placed him in the unhappy position of having to lie to her sister. Or at least, fob her off. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “That’s all I ask.” Her heels click-clacking across hard floor echoed through the phone. “Gotta go. Try to make it, Luc, it’s imperative you be there. Love to you and Belle.”

  “Wait, Mia, I’m not making any prom—”

  She made a kiss-kiss sound and cut him off.

  3

  “Look who I found!”

  Belle turned to the sound of her younger sister’s excited voice and stopped breathing. Mia stood at the kitchen’s opened back door, a happy grin on her young-for-her-age face, her hand wrapped around the muscular arm of the one man Belle didn’t expect to turn up at her grandmother’s house in Madison, Connecticut. Especially since last she knew, he was in the UK.

  She stared in bewilderment at Luc. It’d been months since she had last seen him, and it’d taken all of two seconds for her body to remind her how much she missed him. Her heart pounded, the pulse in her throat echoed the beats.

  And all the while she was very aware that with just one word, Luc could ruin this weekend.

  Tommy, Belle’s cousin—founding member and leader of the Hate Lucas Delaney Club—gave a low-pitch snarl and nudged her in the side. “I thought you said the leprechaun was awa
y on some firefighters’ training course?”

  “Didn’t he break your nose once before for calling him that?”

  Tommy looked down the crooked appendage at her, his face red with anger and a little too much alcohol. “I’m not a skinny runt anymore—I can take him.”

  Belle’s gaze slid to the beer bottle in her cousin’s hand, then to his beer belly. He may have piled on the weight in the last few years, but looking at Luc’s fit, hard-muscled body, she doubted Tommy would stand a chance of winning a fight against Lucas.

  “You may outweigh him, Tom, but unless you’ve also added four inches to your height, he still has an advantage.”

  Her gaze swung toward the backdoor. Mia tugged on Luc’s arm, urging him into the kitchen where several of Belle’s family members gathered around the table and leaned against countertops as they chatted, pondering the reason Gran had called an unscheduled family get-together in the middle of September.

  Mia threw a glance at Luc. “He was wandering around outside, looking as if he’d forgotten his way,” she continued, dragging him behind her as she headed straight for Belle. “I told you she’d be in the kitchen heading up the worry party, Lucas.”

  None of Belle’s relatives knew she and Luc had quit on their marriage, so Belle had to do some fast acting. How would she have reacted before the divorce? For starters, she wouldn’t have left Lucas in England while she visited her family. But even if he’d been away on Fire Brigade training as she’d told her relatives, she would have launched herself on Luc the second she saw him. All eyes turned to her, waiting for Belle to greet her husband as Luc sauntered over to her with that long-legged, uninhibited stride of his. Everyone knew the two of them couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

  He stopped in front of her, his green-gold gaze running over her upturned face with reservation. “Hello, Belle, you look w—”

  “Luc!” She threw herself into his arms, plastering her mouth to his in an enthusiastic kiss that shocked her as much as it did Luc. No way could she allow his formal greeting. It would draw questions she didn’t want to answer. Not now, when she suspected her gran was about to announce a terminal illness. The last thing Gran needed was the horrible news that her granddaughter and her favourite grandson-in-law had filed for divorce.

  Luc nipped her bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth in the way that always drove her wild. The breath stalled in her constricted lungs, strangling her heart to an uneven beat. Clearly, he was making the most of her charade.

  When his hand slid from Belle’s waist to cup her bottom and squeeze the cheek, shock electrified a yelp out of her. She jumped backward out of his arms, only to ricochet off the kitchen counter and land against him. His rumbling chuckle vibrated through her, as he lost no time in covering her lips with his once more.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” someone called out. “Get a room.” And followed it up by hurling an empty kitchen roll tube at them.

  Luc released her. His suggestive grin tugged at her lower abdomen as his hazel eyes turned to olive with mischief. The same shade as when he was aroused.

  “I have missed you.” The deep drawl with a hint of Irish inflection went straight to her knees.

  Belle gave a frazzled laugh. Her insides shook so much from nerves that she started to shiver despite the afternoon’s heat. She had to get Luc alone so she could ask him to keep their divorce a secret.

  She grabbed his hand. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?” Turning on her heels, she hurried him out of the kitchen while the other occupants laughed and made kissy sounds.

  “What are you doing here?” Belle asked on a frantic whisper as she picked up her pace through the house.

  “Mia phoned me to say your gran called a family meeting, and it was ‘imperative’ for me to be here this weekend. She suggested I try to dodge training and get here for at least some of the weekend. Since, to the best of my recollection, I wasn’t on training, I figured I’d come and visit with my favourite Gran.”

  “I had to make up an excuse to explain why you weren’t with me.” His knowing smile made her clench her teeth. “Besides, Gran called a family meeting, and you’re no longer family.”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Just because you want to end our marriage doesn’t mean I feel the same way, Belle.”

  “Keep your voice down. Gran might hear you.”

  He stopped her at the foot of the stairs, his fingers searing her arm even with the light touch. “Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart. I loved the welcome, but what’s going on?”

  Belle pulled her arm away with ease. “Will you just shut up for a second?” She resumed her mission to get to her bedroom. “I’ll explain when we get some privacy.”

  He followed. “I’m confused. One minute you’re throwing me out of our house, and the next you’re kissing me like everything is back to normal. You haven’t told your family yet?”

  Belle glanced over her shoulder as she ran up the second flight of stairs. Luc kept pace with her, his efforts less exhaustive than hers, as he took the steps two at a time with a lithe velocity that highlighted his fitness. Fifteen years as a firefighter kept him agile.

  “Have you told your parents?” The thought that he might have brought a strange ache to her heart.

  Luc’s gaze flicked from hers to the galleried wall of framed family photographs that stretched along the entire landing to Belle’s room at the far end.

  “I came close last week.”

  So he was having as hard a time breaking the news to his parents as she was. Why did that knowledge lift her spirits? She pushed open the door to the bedroom she was using, stepped ahead of Luc into the bright, airy room, and left him to close the door. “You’re right, I haven’t told my family yet.”

  Lucas slid his hands into his black trouser pockets. “It didn’t take me long to figure that out. What I can’t decipher is why?”

  “I think Gran has called this family meeting to tell us she’s seriously ill.”

  Astonishment drew Luc’s brows together. “What makes you think that?”

  “She’s very evasive.” Belle sat on the end of the bed, crossed her legs, and clasped her hands on her lap. “When I asked her why she’d called the family together she said something terrible has happened, but she refuses to elaborate until everyone has arrived.”

  “How many more of your family members are due?”

  “She won’t say. Just that when the time is right, she’ll tell us why we’re here.”

  “What does your mum think? If anyone can get it out of Annie, it’s Vicki.”

  Her mum who was artistic, flighty, and fun. A woman who had dragged herself out of a dark place after her husband’s death, she decided life was too uncertain to let a day go by without making the most of it. Armed with her new motto of ‘live every day as if it were your last’, Victoria Murphy had changed the spelling of her name from Vicky to Vicki and jumped into the exciting pool of life with both feet.

  “Mum isn’t here yet. She’s due to arrive later tonight.”

  “Maybe you’re worrying for nothing. You know how crafty Annie can be. Perhaps her request for us all to be here is her cunning way to force her family to visit.”

  Belle had to admit her gran was wily. She’d played more than one trick on them in the past. But something was different this time. Gran seemed subdued, unresponsive to even the most diligent effort to cheer her up. Belle had tried several times to speak with her gran since she’d arrived yesterday at lunchtime. Gran had either cut her off, claiming to be tired and in need of a nap, or she’d flat-out shooed Belle from her bedroom when she’d tried to examine her.

  “I’ve hardly seen her since I got here—she keeps napping. I’ve never known my gran to take afternoon naps. Yet two minutes after I arrived, she went off for one.” Unwilling to allow Lucas to see the tears brimming her eyes, Belle cradled her head in her hands. “I’m convinced she’s called this family meeting to break bad news.”

  She couldn’t bear
the thought of her beloved Gran dying. Not now, when Belle needed her strength and wisdom.

  The bed depressed beneath Luc’s weight. When he placed an almost tentative hand on her back, Belle restrained the urge to lean against him. “Is there anything I can do?”

  In the last six months, Belle had learned to stop thinking of Luc as her source of strength, but she needed his cooperation this last time. “Actually, there is. You can’t let anyone know we’re divorced. I don’t want Gran to have any stress until we know why she brought us here.”

  “You want to pretend our marriage is solid?”

  Belle beseeched him with her eyes. “That’s the only option. Can you imagine how Gran might react if we announced our break-up? I’d rather err on the side of caution and pretend everything is perfect between us for now.”

  He blew out a sigh and rubbed his jaw with the hand that wasn’t sending sentient sparks down her back. “How hard can it be to pretend for the next couple of days?” Luc’s familiar Irish lilt did little to soothe her.

  “Exactly! How hard can it be?”

  4

  Belle may not have loved him any longer, but she wasn’t immune to him; she’d melted in his arms less than twenty minutes ago. Perhaps the kiss she’d greeted him with had started out as a frantic effort at pretence, but it had ended in white hot, bona fide awareness.

  Luc smiled. He could see where going along with Belle’s plan could work in his favour. He didn’t like being part of a divorced couple, and certainly not when Belle made up the other half. He regretted every nanosecond of the minutes it had taken him to allow Belle to throw him out of their home. For months before that last fight, he could feel her pulling away from him; he’d touch her and she’d flinch. He’d walk into a room, and she’d find a reason to walk out. His off days were spent waiting for her to get off her hospital shift only to get a call from her—when dinner was good and cold sitting on the table—to say she had to pull a double shift because of some emergency surgery or other.