and gave him a much-deserved jab in the solar plexus. “Enjoy the guest room, muchacho.”
SAOIRSE CLIMBED OUT of the ambulance feeling like cement was setting in her bloodstream. Another day of pretending. Another day of hiding the fact the very fabric of her well-being was being torn apart the further Santi drifted away from their little cocoon of 24/7 togetherness.
Stocktaking with the brothers. Dinner with the brothers. Stopping in for a chat with the brothers. A nosy around the fancy clinic to see how far they had all come.
If she could just meet the blighters she wouldn’t care! It was everything Santi had wanted and her heart was soaring for him. With him. But being held at a very obvious distance was taking its toll. Especially with the rapidly approaching courthouse date. This was her future after all.
And his?
Well. He was finally getting what he’d come home for. Closure. Peace. Family.
And the fact she didn’t factor into any of it was becoming clearer by the second. It didn’t stop her from wanting to fight it, though. Didn’t stop her from knowing she’d met The One.
She pulled open the back door of the ambulance and raked around for the cleaning supplies.
“Are you coming back tonight? For dinner?” Saoirse feigned utter disinterest in Santi’s answer, but when she didn’t even get one she chalked the moment up on her growing list of lovelorn-wife moments. Even she hated the sound of her own voice when she sounded all fake cheery.
When they’d kicked this whole thing off? She’d swept away a mountain’s worth of concerns. They’d had fun! They’d had sex! They’d worked together and been brilliant because whenever they’d done anything together it had been better!
Those together moments were dropping like flies.
It was now glaringly obvious that Santi’s offer of marriage was just what he’d said: a favor. Something to keep him in Miami until he was drawn back into the bosom of the Valentino clan.
Or...hard chest.
Or...whatever it was four brothers did whenever they made peace.
Eat buckets of Helibanas and leave their fake fiancées in the wake of their happy-families parade?
It was looking that way.
Her whole swooping-heart, pitter-pat, pulse-racing thing was just a problem she’d have to sort out on her lonesome.
She stopped her frantic scrubbing of the ambulance door and turned to face a freshly materialized Santi, who was looking at her curiously. He’d been doing it more and more over the past few weeks.
Weeks racing past so fast she could practically hear them taunting her.
Her visa was painfully close to expiring. The unspoken-of wedding was a looming issue on the horizon, no longer the brightly glowing thing she’d been anticipating.
Work had become her go-to companion. She’d used every excuse in the book to rack up extra shifts. Needing a new race suit, needing a new carburetor. Needing an engine rebuild. Suffice it to say her car was taking a pounding on the racetrack these days.
She turned around to see his eyes still solidly locked on her. Paranoia was beginning to set in. Sure, she’d put on a couple of pounds over the past few weeks but that had been comfort eating. Completely understandable considering the circumstances.
“What are you staring at? Haven’t you any work to be getting on with?” She shooed him away, quickly going up on tiptoe, trying to check out her reflection in the ambulance window to see if something was smeared on her face. The day had been a particularly messy one and all she wanted right now was a hot shower. She scrubbed at her face even though she saw nothing, and looked back toward Santi.
He was leaning against the ambulance with his legs crossed as he filled out the mileage log. It shouldn’t look as sexy as it did, but the pose never failed to make him look like Mr. January straight through to December.
A hot shower with a certain someone might make scrubbing off the day even more pleasant to look forward to.
“No, sorry.” He scuffed his boot against the tarmac and looked back up at her. “Previous plans.”
“Oh, cool.” She plastered on her I’m-so-happy-to-hear-it smile. “Big night out with your brothers?”
“No, not tonight.” His eyes met hers with that electric burst of connection. The one that felt as if he’d hit her with starbursts and moonbeams and anything else romantic the world had on offer.
He threw a coin up into the air, caught it and slapped it down on the back of his hand as if he were playing heads or tails with himself. His face lit up with a huge smile. One so sweet it near enough tore her heart from her chest.
“...and so they said we’d get together for a football game or something.”
“Sorry? What was that?” She’d been staring at his mouth and not listening to the words again. “You mean soccer?”
“No, American football, you doofus.” He crossed over to the ambulance, threw the clipboard he’d been filling in onto the gurney then crooked his elbow around her neck and gave her one of those goofy knuckle-rubs on her head. The kind you’d give a brother...or a little sister. Two months ago? Perfect. Now? It felt like she was being downgraded.
What a difference a reconciliation with your family could make.
“Ah, Murph, good times, eh? It’s been great catching up with them. Like I’ve become whole again.”
She watched as he drifted away to that faraway place she’d seen him revisit again and again over the past few weeks before remembering he was in midconversation. “You’d love them,” he tacked on, a shot of panic in his amber-flecked eyes making the Great Unsaid of the whole exchange come through loud and clear.
“All it takes is an invitation!”
Take that, you unwitting heartbreaker.
“Thanks, Miss Manners. Got it.” He tapped his head as if storing away a great tip for folding napkins at his next formal dinner party. In other words, straight into the mental garbage can.
She turned away, fighting the painful sting of tears.
She wasn’t going to meet them. Not unless she suddenly needed a neurosurgeon, an epidemiologist and a pediatric-transplant surgeon all at once.
And yet?
None of this was sitting right. Santi didn’t give panicky glances. He was all male. A macho, muscled-up hombre with a take-no-prisoners smile. He looked like a poster boy for the Marines he had so recently belonged to. Throw away the gun, toss in a stethoscope and boom! Santiago Valentino. She snuck a peek at him, her scrubbing arm coming to a slow halt as she did.
She gave her shoulders a shake and started scrubbing again. Hard.
“So,
