40-Love - Olivia Dade Page 0,25

a few minutes while he had a private conversation with K—

“No worries. I’ve gotten answers to all my questions.” Tess smiled back at Karolina. “Thank you for everything, Lucas. You kids have fun.”

Kids. He closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose. Shit. He hadn’t even considered the fact that Karo was in her mid-twenties. Thanks to the magic of makeup or dermatology or good genes or something, she looked even younger than that. And now that he thought about it, had she called Tess ma’am?

When he opened his eyes, Karo was lounging at the top of the steps in one of her usual impeccable white outfits, her blond hair sleeked back into some kind of twist.

Twenty-four. Undemanding. Pleasant. Willing.

Brushing past her with another polite smile, there was Tess, her silver-streaked hair tangled and whipping in the wind as she made her exit.

Forty. A little rumpled and sweaty from their time in the sun. Prickly and encouraging and determined and sly and funny and so fucking hot he was surprised the cupcakes hadn’t melted in her hand.

She wanted more from him than Karolina did.

Correction: She had wanted more. For several fleeting, vulnerable minutes.

Karolina moved closer, rising on tiptoes to brush a kiss across his cheek. “So when are you free tonight?” She gave him a familiar-looking wink. “You know I always look forward to our dinners the night I arrive.”

Those dinners usually occurred in bed. But not tonight, since he refused to use one woman as a substitute for another. Both women deserved better than that. Hell, so did he.

Maybe he’d feel differently tomorrow or next month.

Tonight, though, he was going to bed alone.

“Karolina…” He leaned down and kissed her on her forehead, and then moved a step back. Two. “We need to talk.”

Eight

When Belle glanced across the room for the umpteenth time, brow furrowed, Tess ducked her head and jotted gibberish in her spiral-bound notebook, feigning intense concentration.

If she made eye contact, her friend would apologize. Again. And Belle hadn’t owed her one apology, much less six of them and counting. Even if that weren’t true, Tess would gladly forego penitence in favor of forgetting Lucas Karlsson existed and never mentioning his name ever again.

She’d been a fool. Idiotic enough to believe, if only fleetingly, that a barely-legal flirt might consider a woman like her anything more than a convenient distraction until something better came along. Ridiculous enough to have felt betrayed by concrete evidence of his other casual entanglements. Irrational enough to have been stung by the stark contrast between her and his…Karolina.

Apparently, she was still a fool, because her stomach churned once more at the memory of that stunning, elegant, young woman kissing Lucas’s cheek, claiming him for her own.

But that foolishness was no one’s fault but her own, no matter what Belle believed.

“Put your notebook down, babe. You need to get ready for your lesson.” Belle spoke from her double bed, where she was thumbing through a paperback. “Unless you want to cancel, which I’d understand.” Her wide brow furrowed as she hesitated. “It’s your birthday vacation. You should do whatever you want. Again, I’m so sorry I pushed you into all this.”

There it was. Heartfelt apology number seven.

It was sweet of her best friend to worry, but the contrition needed to end. Immediately.

Tess laid her notebook and pen down on the coffee table. “We worked this out already, Belle. Don’t worry, and please don’t apologize. I know your intentions were good.”

Honestly, despite the dueling distractions of work and Lucas, Tess should have realized her friend was up to something even before that first lesson. The two of them had taught in the same department for several years and worked in the same school for even longer, besties the entire while, until Belle moved to Boston for her boyfriend-turned-ex-boyfriend. And during all that time, Belle had been a pink-clad, sequin-loving catalyst for action. Not fearless, but unwilling to be guided by those fears. She couldn’t tolerate dithering, and she refused to stand by idly when she saw a problem she thought she could fix.

Tess might not have considered her current sexual and romantic drought one of those problems, but Belle obviously hadn’t agreed. Which was unfortunate and, frankly, irritating.

But on the occasional teaching days when mingled exhaustion and frustration had left Tess in tears after the last bell, Belle had listened and located tissue boxes and helped however she could. No one had supported Tess more in her quest for an administrative position. And Tess had never