Wild Open Hearts (Bluewater Billionaires) - Kathryn Nolan Page 0,113

I said, waving my hands.

“Also can you please tell me what happens to Salvio in book five?” Daisy whined. “I’ve been waiting forever.” One of the authors had an extremely popular and long-running series about a bunch of brothers who owned a winery and Daisy was obsessed.

“Oh my god, ignore her,” Cameron said to the romance authors. She gathered us in, like a football huddle. “Luna, what’s going on in that pretty brain of yours? I can see you scheming.”

I blew out a breath. “If Beck has a certain view of who he is, especially in comparison to me, then I need a way to show him. Show him what I see when I look at him. Not… not what he believes to be true. What his mother said or Jasmine or the media or anything else.”

“Show him why you love him,” Emily said with a sweet smile. “What would do that? Is there anything Beck wants? Has done? Maybe from his past?”

I sipped my broken-heart-latte, courtesy of Lady Raquel. It smelled like baking cookies with my mom and tasted like nostalgia and comfort. Alchemy. If this was an elixir for a broken heart, it was working.

What did Beck want? He wanted me, at some point. And maybe, hopefully, still did. He wanted Lucky Dog to flourish.

Willow.

“Emily, do you think Derek’s team of super savvy tech people could help me out with something?”

“Of course,” she said. “What is it?”

I flashed a real smile for the first time in days. “I need them to help me find a dog.”

62

Beck

I’d been at my tiny kitchen table for hours. I had tossed copy after copy of the application, scribbling through sentences. It was harder than I thought, forcing my words into a kind of sense. Making them match, even slightly, the feelings that I had. I’d never been good at this, and as I sweated and erased and crumpled up paper, I hoped that it would be clear.

It was all I had.

So when there was a knock at my door, I was completely startled. Other than Elián, not many people had been to my run-down apartment.

Imagine my surprise when it was Luna da Rosa in a white dress and a crown of flowers.

And she was clutching a stack of papers to her chest.

“Luna,” I said, like she was a dream.

“May I come in?” she asked. Her smile was shy.

I blew out a breath. My heart was trying to climb out of my chest. “Uh, what are you doing here?” I was trying to figure out how clean my apartment was. I never had visitors.

“I brought you a gift,” Luna said. And I wanted to kiss her so badly I forgot how to breathe.

“I, uh… I have a gift for you too,” I said, stepping back to let her into the small space. I was barefoot, in old sweatpants and an undershirt. She slid past me and I inhaled her sunshine scent like an addict. Watched her look at my kitchen, my tiny living area, peek her head around the corner toward the bedroom. My furniture was thread-bare and not a single picture hung on my walls. But she had no judgment, just curiosity.

Then she sat in one of the chairs, kicked off her sandals. I had spied on her Instagram feed for the first time in two weeks last night. She was sad. Really sad. It was painful to see.

“I was thinking about ways that I could show you how much I love you,” she said, voice clear. “To dissuade you from having any doubts about me or my intentions or my feelings. And so, with the help of my friends, I did a little digging. Talked to some people. And uncovered a mystery for you.”

“A mystery?” I asked, hung up on the fact that Luna had said the words how much I love you.

I assumed she’d abandoned our love. Yet here she was—surprising me, as usual.

“With some keen internet sleuthing, I tracked down the program coordinator from your class at Positive Results twenty years ago. He’s still there, and he’s still amazing. In fact, I think the foundation might be considering them for a gift soon.” She gave me a fun wink and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Wait… you mean Eric?” I asked.

Luna nodded. “He remembered you.”

“But he’s worked with thousands of inmates at this point,” I said.

“He remembered you,” she said, “because of how gigantic your heart is. And he remembered Willow and looked up the family that had adopted her.