Can't Help Falling (11 page)

Not that it was on hers, but it was all she had to offer.

Which made a text that made her wistful a big problem. As big as the strapping guy who'd sent it.

“They're coming down.” Emelia craned her neck to look at one of the big screens nearby. They'd been erected along the river's banks especially for the race. Sure enough, the cameras panned across the cox of the Oxford team leading the dark blues down to the water.

Emelia's heart thumped against her rib cage. She didn't
know a single guy on either side, with the exception of one ginger-headed assistant coach, but suddenly she felt like she was as invested as anyone.

She craned her neck back up at the screen again. It showed the two teams maneuvering at the start line, both coxes' hands in the air to show the umpire they weren't ready to start.

The commentators droned on about each athlete in each boat, reeling off height, weight, and rowing lineage. Emelia stopped listening and focused on the boats bobbing in the current. The race was meant to start when both coxes' hands were down, signaling their boat was ready. But the two seemed to be playing some kind of game of rowing Ping-Pong, one dropping his hand, only for the other to shoot his up. A few more seconds passed, the crowds growing silent as they waited for the two boats to finally be ready.

The Cambridge cox dropped his hand but the Oxford one remained upright.

Finally, his hand dropped.

“Attention, go!” The umpire wasn't wasting any time.

Both boats surged forward, all sixteen men pulling their oars in perfect unison. Forward and back, forward and back. The boats leapt, accelerating swiftly.

Emelia was peering through her fingers without even realizing it. How was she going to survive this for another sixteen or so minutes? Oxford had a nose in front, then Cambridge. The slight coxes yelled instructions through their headsets, hands on the rudders. Oxford managed to get maybe a quarter of a boat length ahead.

“C'mon, Oxford!” Allie's yell ripped through Emelia's right eardrum. She sure had a lot of volume for such a small person.

Emelia watched, her heart trying to break out of her sternum, as the Cambridge crew drew back even. Then Oxford managed to get a slight lead back in the first bend.

She kept her eyes glued on the screen as the crews approached Hammersmith Bridge. The perfect synchronization of the oars, the bodies in motion. The crowd roared as the boats swept along the course, coxes screaming, the rowers' bodies flexing and straining. She'd never seen anything like it before.

T
he boys almost tumbled out of the boat as it pulled up to the riverbank. The buzz of adrenaline and euphoria saturated the air.

“Good work.” Peter hugged crew member after crew member, clapping backs, shaking hands, rubbing heads.

He should have been as euphoric as everyone else but it all felt a bit hollow. He pasted on a broad smile, forcing himself to pretend he wouldn't have given anything to be one of the guys in the boat, stroking their way to victory, instead of just a bystander, a glorified water boy.

It killed him even more that his brother had been in the boat. And he hated himself for having the fleeting thought, more than once, that if they lost it would be good that Victor would know what it felt like, for once, to taste defeat. Never mind the other seven rowers and cox in the boat, who would be utterly heartbroken.

“Great work, Grant.” He clasped hands with their slight cox, towering over him.

“You too, Coach.”

He hadn't
done anything. This day had no more to do with him than if he'd been standing on the banks of the Thames as an average-joe spectator.

“Bunny!” His brother's voice boomed in his ear, one of his hands slapping him on his bad shoulder. Peter tried to cover up a grimace as pain radiated out from his brother's palm print.

Peter turned his head and braced himself for his brother's usual smug smirk. Victor's hair was wet from the combination of the Thames and the magnum of champagne that had already been sprayed over the team. His brother grinned at him, for once no hint of cynicism or loathing in his expression. Just unrestrained joy. Even his scar seemed to fade into the background.

“Congratulations. It was a great race. You earned it.” Peter found himself actually meaning the words. Maybe this could be a turning point. Maybe they could finally leave the animosity between them in the past.

“Tough luck you'll never know what it feels like again.” His brother gave him another whack on his shoulder, as if to underscore his point, and just like that the magic was gone.

Before Peter could even conjure up a response, some curvy brunette was hanging off his brother's arm, and Victor's attention had shifted.

Whatever joy he'd had in the win evaporated, and Peter left the boys to their celebrations. Busying himself supervising the removal of the boat from the water, he tried to ignore the press pack still swarming around, snapping photos from every conceivable angle.

He stayed as far away from them as possible. More than
a few requests for interviews with him and Victor had come in since the Blue Boat lineup was named. All of them framing their story as some variation of a human-interest piece on “passing the torch” from the tragic injured Olympic hopeful to the rowing-prodigy brother who hadn't so much as picked up an oar in his life until he'd decided to try out for the team. Uncharacteristically, Victor had been no more interested in the attention than Peter. Declining every single overture was the first and last thing they'd agreed on in years.

Exhaustion seeped through him. The Boat Race was over. The thing that had driven him to get out of bed every morning for the last six months was done. Tomorrow morning he'd wake up and there'd be no training to go to. No drills to oversee. No tactics to strategize. The boys would go back to what they were ostensibly here for—academics, prepping for exams—and he would be left with a few beginning rowing courses that he could teach with both hands tied behind his back. At least he still had the fund-raising for SpringBoard to keep him going while he waited to hear back on the latest scans of his shoulder.

“Did no one tell you you won?” Emelia's voice came from behind him. He turned to see her standing about six feet away. One of her hands held her hair off her face. She wore a navy sweater for Oxford.

“The boys won. Not me.”

Emelia sized him up with a long look. “I may not know much about rowing, but even I know that Sean Bowden doesn't have anyone on his team out of charity.”

How did she . . . ?

Emelia smiled at his look of confusion. “Allie loaned me
Blood over Water
when I said I was coming. I've only just started though, so don't expect too much.”

Peter tried not to read anything into the fact that she was reading his favorite book, about two brothers who rowed on opposing teams in the Boat Race one year. She probably wouldn't even finish it now that the race was over.

Emelia pulled her hair into a pile on top of her head, took a hair tie from her wrist, and twisted it around the knot as she crossed the distance between them. “If you're this sad over their win, I would hate to see you if they lost.”

He would never confess that there had been moments where he'd hoped for just that. So he wouldn't be the puddle of failure in a sea of victory.

He tried to summon a smile. “I was just thinking it's going to be weird waking up tomorrow. Without this.” The beginners' courses he had lined up would keep the bills paid, but they weren't exactly all-consuming like the Boat Race had been.

But then the plan had been that by now his shoulder would be ready to get back into some serious training. So much for that.

“Well, you don't need to worry about that. I have plenty to keep you occupied.”

“Is that right?”

“While you've been busy in London, I've been busy with the spreadsheets and planning. How do you feel about origami swans? One of the schools SpringBoard works in is having an origami contest. Could get us a good profile. Now that you've got some time on your hands I thought we could put them to good use folding.”

Peter flexed his large hands, trying to imagine them transforming pieces of paper into birds. “Are you serious?”

She looked at him straight-faced, her head tilted, her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. “It's not a real contest without origami swans.”

He waited for her to give him some clue that she was joking, but she gave him nothing beyond big blue eyes and a Mona Lisa smile. It didn't even matter. There was something about this girl that made him want to learn to fold ridiculous shapes out of pieces of paper if it would make her happy.

“Peter!” One of the staff gestured at him. Almost time to go and claim the trophy.

“I've got to go. I'll see you tonight. To talk about the swans?”

Emelia sent him a smile that made him feel like he was trying to breathe underwater. “Wouldn't miss it for anything.”

T
HE ROOMS AT THE
H
URLINGHAM
Club buzzed with a strange mix of euphoria and simmering disappointment. Emelia ran her palms down the front of the cocktail-length navy blue dress she'd picked up on sale the day before. As if smoothing her dress would somehow calm the butterflies flurrying up a hurricane in her stomach. It was only because Allie had somehow sourced a last-minute spare ticket that she was even there at all.

The rowers, rowing alumni, and other guests had been seated in two separate rooms for the meal, but now that dinner was over and the music had started, people were crossing between the rooms.

She sucked in a breath, trying to convince herself she'd dreamed up the chemistry that had arched between them on the riverbank. But the way her nerves were contorting themselves insisted differently.

“Go dance, you guys.” She gave Allie and Jackson full props for not making her feel like the third wheel for most of the day, but the two of them didn't get enough time together as it was. She certainly didn't want them wasting any more of it babysitting her.

Allie laughed as she put her water glass down on the tabletop. “I'm
not sure my toes are up to being mangled quite yet.” She slid a teasing look at Jackson.

“I'm pretty sure I specifically mentioned my lack of skill the first time we danced.” Jackson's arm rested around his fiancée's shoulder, his fingers twisting a lock of hair that had fallen out of her chignon. The strands shimmered like spun copper under the lights.

“But not with enough conviction to make me realize it was really true.” Allie giggled as Jackson nuzzled her hair. Right, time to leave.

Emelia pushed back her chair as the music changed to something slow. “I'm going to get another drink. Either of you want anything?” They both shook their heads. Despite Allie's protestations, Emelia was certain by the time she returned they'd be dancing, lead feet or not. You didn't put your fiancé in a tux, bring him to an event like this, and not get in at least one slow dance.

Dodging the limbs and elbows of people who had already imbibed a bit too much, she threaded her way to the bar. The lights had dimmed, turning people into moving shadows.

The crowd parted for a second, and her breath stuttered as she thought she saw a familiar profile. It wasn't possible. He couldn't be here. She stood on her tiptoes, scanning the room, heart threatening to break out of her rib cage.

She was seeing things. The room was filled with plenty of tall blond men in their twenties who thought they were God's gift to mankind. There was no reason for
him
to be here. Last time they'd crossed paths, he'd been well entrenched in the LA party scene, using his title to cultivate a harem of socialites and C-list TV stars. The entitled son of the Viscount Downley belonged here about as much as she did.

She forced herself to let her breath out as another scan of the room yielded a number of blond men but not him. Then, in the middle of the crowd, she felt her hand being grasped and tugged.

It was over. She'd been found out. Somehow she'd always known it was going to happen. It had been a nice time while it lasted.

Preparing herself for the worst, she turned, ready to see the person she had one horrible thing in common with: the same person's blood on their hands.

Peter.

If it hadn't been for the crowd, she might have hit the floor as a wave of relief weakened her legs.

Peter's brow furrowed. “You okay?”

Emelia placed her palm on her chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He bent down low, close to her ear. “Didn't want to risk losing you in the crowd.”

The guy was like six foot three, and she stood a good half a head above most of the women. There was no chance he would lose her in the crowd. Her insides warmed like the hand he was still holding.

“How was dinner?” It was the best she could manage as she processed that she still had her boring, normal English life. Her cover hadn't been blown.

He shrugged. “Fine. The boys are in great form. But considering I've spent the last six months with them, I'm glad to be done.”

“So, how can I help?” She had to half yell the question to be heard over the background noise. The guy was easy on the eyes, she couldn't deny it, but for her own good she needed to maintain distance with her quasi-boss. Especially when just looking
at him made her think inappropriately of slow dances against a certain broad chest.

“Do you have a second? I've had an idea.”

“Sure.”

He placed a hand on the small of her back. “Let's go outside, where we can hear ourselves think.”

Cutting through the crowd, it took them a couple of minutes to work their way outside, where a few ball-goers stood around smoking and one ardent couple pressed up against a wall seemed to have forgotten they were still in public.