Take Me (Take Me 1)

“But she’s wearing a wedding dress,” Janica said. “And you were kissing her like…”

Travis forced a snort, and in that moment he hated himself far more than anyone else could have, even as he said, “So we got a little carried away. It doesn’t mean anything.”

The minute Lily walked away, Travis felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest.

It didn’t mean anything? Had he actually said those words? But she would understand, wouldn’t she, that he had been put on the spot by their siblings? That he hadn’t known what else to say?

Travis badly wanted to run after her, but even if Janica hadn’t been standing directly in his path, he knew he couldn’t. Right then everything he said was wrong, and he’d just make it worse. But Lily loved him enough to give him another chance, to let him explain later. Didn’t she?

“You go after her,” Janica said to Luke. “You’re taller so you can find her in the crowd. I’ll stay here and deal with this prick.”

Luke shot Travis one more deadly glance, then plunged into the crowd where Lily had disappeared.

Travis ran his hands through his hair and girded himself to deal with a protective sister who was out for his blood. And rightly so.

Luke ran through the crowds after Lily, confusing her several times with other women in white wedding gowns. “It’s like the Twilight Zone for weddings,” he muttered as he slowed down his pace to let an elderly lady walk past him. “I’m losing her,” he said, impatiently scanning the crowd for a flash of red hair.

Up on the steps above the square Luke saw red curls. He couldn’t believe the joke his brother had just played on Lily. Innocent, naive Lily. Luke felt like scum of the earth for ever suggesting that she continue her relationship with Travis. The minute he had found out about their one-night stand he should have told her to stay away from his twin.

Their whole lives Travis had been no good where women were concerned. What had possessed him to think that Lily could ever play the same kind of game that Travis played?

A flash of white on the stairs disappeared behind the trunk of an old cypress tree. And that was where Luke found Lily sitting on a tree stump, staring blankly off into the distance.

As his footsteps pounded up the old stone steps, Lily looked up with surprise, hope etched into the lines of her face. It was painfully obvious to Luke that she wanted Travis to be the one coming after her. The next time Luke saw his twin he was going to pound Travis’s face in until he did such permanent damage that no girl would ever want to look at Travis again.

Lily forced a wobbly smile. “Luke,” she said, standing up to give him a hug. “I can’t believe you and Janica came all this way. It’s so nice to see you,” she said, but Luke had a feeling that she wasn’t the least bit happy he and Janica had come to Italy.

“I’m so sorry, Lily,” he said, as he gently rocked her in his arms.

To his great surprise, Lily pushed out of his arms and stared at him. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Luke didn’t know what the right words were. He gestured down to the square. “But what about what Travis did?”

Lily shook her head at him, her mouth in a tight line. “Travis didn’t do anything to me. We both did this together. He was right. The mock-wedding didn’t mean anything. We were messing around, having fun in Italy.”

Her words were firm, but Luke felt in his gut how hard it was for Lily to act so nonchalant in the face of Travis’s less-than-gentlemanly behavior.

Linking her arm in his, she started them back down the steps. “Let’s get back down to the square.

There’s a big party going on tonight, and if I’m not mistaken, I’m at the center of it.”

Luke did as she wished, but as he stole a sidelong glance at Lily’s composed face, he couldn’t help but feel that she was more hurt that she let on. He had to let her confide in him in her own time, he knew that.

But at the same time, Luke got the sense that Lily was really and truly changed by everything that happened since the fashion show. No longer weak—not that he had ever thought her weak, soft maybe, but full of caring and love—she carried herself with an inner poise that he had never seen in her before.

Luke was confused by Lily’s sudden changes. She had always been the one person he could count on just to be. He told himself that it had been a long flight, and he supposed he was suffering from the effects of travel and the beginning of jet lag. Maybe things would even out and go back to normal once he got something to eat and closed his eyes for a few hours.

Janica advanced on Travis. Between clenched teeth, she said, “You are the lowest of the low. How dare you mess with my sister like this! If we weren’t in public, I’d kick you in the balls so hard they’d be black-and-blue for a month!”

Travis backed up and almost knocked over a couple in the middle of a passionate embrace. What the hell was he going to say to Janica? Worse, what the hell was he going to say to Lily?

His marriage to Lily did mean something, he didn’t want to pretend it didn’t, but he’d been so completely thrown off by Janica and Luke’s appearance, he’d choked.

Plus, there was one other uncontestable fact. Based on his rough translation of the Italian language, he and Lily had just been legally wed under an antiquated law.

Janica poked him in the chest. “Don’t you even have anything to say for yourself?”

Travis swallowed and nodded, trying to find his footing in the mess that he’d created for himself. “Yeah, I’ve got something to say. But Lily’s the one who needs to hear it.” He looked over Janica’s shoulder at Luke and Lily, who were making their way through the square.

Janica crossed her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at him. “This better be good, or I swear I’m going to make the rest of your life a living hell.”

Travis held his breath as Lily and Luke got closer and closer. He was sure Janica had plenty of ideas for the kind of tortures that a man would never want to endure. But, frankly, right now he was more scared of Lily’s response to what he had to tell her than he was of the little she-devil with the big claws who was burning a hole into him with her hatred.

Unable to stand it another minute, Travis pushed through the crowd. Ignoring Luke, he grabbed Lily’s free hand, and said, “We need to talk.”

He didn’t know what he had expected from Lily—tears maybe? Accusations?—but certainly not a raised eyebrow and the steady voice that said, “Okay. Go ahead.”