When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

Silence echoed all around me as I worked, and even though it made me feel morose, I didn’t play music to comfort myself. Instead, I worked until seven thirty in the evening, only stopping because of a knock on the door. The house was dark. I’d forgotten to turn the lights on as I worked into the night.

I sighed as I checked the peephole on the door, then let out a little squeal when I saw Beau standing outside holding a huge box and a plastic bag I knew would be filled with Japanese food. I opened the door and immediately stepped forward to take him in my arms, box and bag of food and all.

Beau Bailey laughed as he tried to hug me back with his hands full. “My darling, I missed you too.”

I pulled back to smile at my handsome friend, noting the wrinkles in his otherwise gorgeous Armani suit. Pushing a lock of errant brown hair back over his forehead, I smiled at him genuinely. “Did you come straight from the airport?”

“I dropped my luggage at home, but basically,” he agreed, gently bustling me back into my foyer then kicking the door shut before he handed me the bag of Japanese food. “I missed you, and I needed to decompress with my favorite girl before I went home to my empty apartment.”

“I know the feeling.” I gave his hand a squeeze as we walked together into my kitchen and set about our ritual of getting out wine and plates for dinner. It reminded me briefly of Dante storming my house to bring me Japanese food just days before. How ridiculously at home he’d made himself in my space.

“What’s that, then?” Beau asked as he uncorked a bottle of red from my collection.

“What?”

“That look,” he insisted with a jerk of his chin. “That almost smile.”

I waved my hand, dismissing him with a gesture that I’d tried for years to curb. It was the one Italian idiosyncrasy I couldn’t seem to kick. I always spoke with my hands more than I meant to.

“Nothing.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, setting down the bottle before pouring the wine in order to waggle his brows at me. “It’s definitely something.”

This was one of the reasons I loved Beau. He wasn’t perturbed by my coldness or my reserve. He respected them just as much as he strove to abolish them. He loved to tease me, to make me laugh.

He reminded me that sometimes, life didn’t have to be such a competitive sport.

Still, I changed the subject. “I’ll have to eat and run, handsome. One of my clients has practically ordered me to show up at a party he’s throwing.”

“Should you be eating?” he asked, hesitating as he pulled my favorite, tuna tataki, from the bag.

“You know I don’t eat Italian food if I can help it,” I said as I snatched the tuna from him with a feral look.

He laughed at me, and God, it felt good to have him home, to have him laugh with me and love me. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was without him for the past month while he’d been in England shooting with St. Aubyn fashion house.

“Do you have to go? I thought we could watch Vampire Diaries,” he suggested seductively. “Damon is totally getting to Elena.”

“He is,” I agreed. The teenage vampire show was one in a long line of television shows Beau and I had binge-watched together. We were both busy professionals with tragic personal lives, so we spent a lot of time drinking wine, bitching together, and living our romantic fantasies vicariously through fictional characters. “But if I don’t show up, I have no doubt he’ll send someone for me.”

Beau’s expressive brows rose nearly into his hairline. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“This being Don Salvatore?” he surmised. “Infamous mafia capo and one of the sexiest men ever to breathe air?”

I shook my head at him, but my lips twitched despite myself. “He’s okay.”

“Okay?” Beau turned me to face him with both hands on my shoulders, his face extremely serious. “Lena, honey, do you need to get your eyes checked?”

I burst out laughing and pushed him away. “You are so dramatic.”

“Only about important matters,” he sniffed, resuming his duty of pouring our wine and taking the glasses over to my travertine table. “And handsome men are non-trivial.”

“He’s an asshole,” I promised him, then winced slightly because I wasn’t really sure if that was true.

He was bossy.

Arrogant.

Annoying as hell.

But he wasn’t exactly an asshole.

“Language, Lena,” Beau said on a laugh, teasing me for swearing. “Well, he definitely provokes a response in you. Even that is something. I was beginning to think you’d never thaw.”

A twinge of hurt accompanied his words, and before I could mask it, Beau was reaching out to squeeze my hand. “Not a bad thing, darling. You’ve been through a lot.”