Take Me (Take Me 1)

“I know that,” Janica said, annoyed at Luke for going back to the obvious.

“So how could things have changed so much in a week?”

Janica shook her head and stared up at the moon again. “I don’t know,” she said softly. Looking back across the table to the wedding cake, she stood up. “But I think we’d better go find out because lover boy is gone.”

Damn him for kissing me like that. Lily ran barefoot down the winding cobblestone streets, her skirts raised, her shoes in her hands. She had nearly convinced herself that she had imagined Travis’s feelings for her, that the week had been nothing more than her imagination running away with itself, when he went and shattered every ounce of self-preservation she had left with that kiss.

His kiss had stolen her very soul. Even if she had wanted to fight it, she couldn’t have. No one could have. His will to possess her was too strong.

You’re mine, all mine, he had whispered against her lips.

She had longed to hear those words from him her whole life. But now that Travis had finally said them, it was all wrong.

Travis was Travis and would always be. Lily wanted to kick herself for forgetting that for even one moment. These few days with him had been incredibly precious, but nothing had really changed.

Her feet were killing her, but she was afraid to put her shoes back on. The heels would slow her down.

She gave a passing thought to her real clothes and shoes, which were still back at the square. Right now all she wanted was to get back to their hotel room and lock the door. Her instincts told her that Travis was close on her tail, so she ducked into a narrow alley and picked up the pace.

She couldn’t see him again tonight. She couldn’t talk to him. It was impossible. When he had apologized for hurting her hadn’t he vowed never to hurt her again?

The saddest part of it all, Lily knew, was that she had wanted so badly to believe that he truly did love her. She had trusted him.

Even though she knew better.

Even though she knew that trusting Travis, that loving Travis, was a one-way trip to a severely broken heart.

Travis took every shortcut he could find back to the hotel. If he didn’t get to the room before Lily, she’d lock him out and he’d never be able to convince her to listen to what he had to say. Truthfully, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to tell her, but hiding from what had happened tonight would only make things worse.

The hotel was deserted when he burst through the thick wooden door. He took the stairs two at a time and when he turned his key in the door to their room, he half expected the locks to be changed.

The rooms were dark. Not bothering to turn on any lights, he pushed through the patio doors to the balcony. Looking down to the moonlit fields below, he wondered where Lily was. What if she had been so distraught that she got in a car with a strange man? Terrible visions of Lily, his Lily, being overpowered by a burly Italian made his blood go cold with fear. If she had come to any harm tonight, he was never going to stop blaming himself.

The door opened behind him, then closed with a click. He heard panting and turned around to see Lily doubled over, trying to catch her breath. He wanted to run to her, but if he did, she’d bolt back out the door. It was hard, so hard, to wait for her.

She turned and dead-bolted the door. Unable to wait it out any longer, Travis softly said, “Lily,” not wanting to scare her. She jumped back against the door, uttering a high-pitched scream.

“You,” she stuttered when she finally got her breath back, “you scared me.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Lily,” he said as he took cautious steps toward her. If he could just hold her in his arms, then she would—

“Please leave,” she said.

“Lily. Let me explain.”

Her eyes were as blank as her words. “I can’t do this right now.” Her voice grew wobbly. “I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Alone!”

The word “alone” slapped Travis across the face with its finality. “I understand,” he said quietly, and he did. “And I’ll go.”

Lily’s face contorted with such relief he almost cried at the pain of knowing how much she didn’t want to be near him. Feeling weak, so horribly weak, he said, “But please, let me say one thing first.”

Her eyes glittered in the dark and he hated himself even more than he already did for making her cry again. “Go ahead,” she said emotionlessly.

Travis swallowed hard. It was now or never. “I didn’t mean those things I said in the square, Lily. God how I wish I could take them back.” Lily closed her eyes and leaned back heavily against the door. “I saw Janica and Luke, and I don’t know what happened. I freaked out. I acted like an idiot. But I didn’t mean any of it. We weren’t just messing around. This isn’t a joke to me. I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I do love you. I really do, Lily.”

When Lily was silent, Travis asked, “Do you believe me?” and hated himself the minute the words left his tongue.

Lily opened her eyes. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she said sadly. She flipped the dead bolt open and turned the knob, opening the door to the hall. “Good night.”

Knowing it was no more than was his due, Travis did as she asked. “Good night, Lily,” he said as he walked through the door and back down the stairs.

Travis sat heavily on the couch in the lobby, just as Luke and Janica pushed through the wooden door.

He stared at them blankly. He no longer cared what they thought, what they said.

The only person whose opinion he cared about was upstairs hating his guts. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Luke took in his brother’s dejected state immediately. He’d always been able to read Travis, and right now Luke was reading something he’d never seen in his brother before: self-hatred.

Travis had always been unfailingly self-confident in everything he did. His very presence was infused with assurance that he knew the right thing to do, the right thing to say, the right way to feel at all times. Could it be that Lily had done this to him? Could Lily have broken his brother apart?

It was impossible for Luke to swallow. The Lily he knew, who had been his best friend since grade school, couldn’t hurt an ant, let alone his unbreakable twin brother.

“She’s upstairs if you want to see her,” Travis said heavily.

Instead of heading for the stairs as Luke had expected her to do, Janica sat down next to Travis on the couch, her legs folded beneath her. “Have you talked to her yet?” Janica asked and Luke was shocked by the concern he heard in her voice.