Never Marry Your Brother's Best Friend (Never Say Never, #1)

I knock on Luna’s door with my heart in my throat and my head buzzing. I’ve fucked up and I know it, but I’ll fight to see if there’s any way at all I can rescue this messy situation I’ve gotten myself into. Hopefully, Luna’s calmed down and Zack’s smoothed things over with her too because I’m about to throw a whole new cow in this tornado a la Elena Cartwright.

But it isn’t Luna who answers the door.

“Who’re you?” a tall, slender brunette demands. She’s about Luna’s age and dressed in wide-legged slacks and a tank-style blouse. Her makeup is expertly applied and her hair looks as though she’s had it professionally styled. The only thing missing to complete the picture of the perfect businesswoman are the shoes, as her bare toes wiggle on the wood floor of Luna’s apartment.

“Uhm, I’m looking for Luna.” I glance around, double checking that I haven’t gone to the wrong apartment, but behind the woman, I can see Luna’s art-filled space.

“Didn’t answer the question. Try again.” The order is mildly softened by the glint in her eyes as she openly assesses me with a look up and down.

“That’s Carter Harrington, Zack’s friend and all-around annoying scammer in a business suit,” Luna’s voice calls out, sounding flat and dull.

The woman in the doorway goes near feral in an instant. Stabbing a perfectly manicured finger into my chest, she charges, “You’re the asshole who fucked over my friend and made a fool of her at the one place she feels most at home? Should’ve known.”

She’s much harsher than Luna, but the insult doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Luna’s does.

“I didn’t make a fool of her,” I argue. Deciding I need to handle this at the source, I push past the woman and into the apartment to find Luna sitting on the kitchen countertop.

She’s wearing shorts and a baggy T-shirt, and she looks lost—her skin bare and pale, her eyes vacant, and though she’s sitting cross-legged and upright, there’s something that makes it feel as though she’s shrinking away from me.

“Luna? What’s wrong?” I go up to her, setting the bag I brought with me on the counter next to her. My first instinct is to gather her in my arms, which surprises me. I’m not usually overtly caring that way, but something about Luna in this moment makes me want to pull her into me and press my lips to her hair soothingly.

But she flinches away from me. “Seriously?” she says quietly.

“I was hoping Zack had—”

She huffs. “Zack and I are fine. You and I are not.”

Okay, apparently Zack only fixed one problem. I don’t know how he did it, but I wish I had a secret Luna language book right about now so I could do the same.

“Back away from her and no one gets hurt,” the woman from the doorway orders as she holds up karate hands.

“Samantha, Carter . . . Carter, Samantha,” Luna says, gesturing from the woman to me and back.

“I’d say nice to meet you, but that’d make me a liar and I pride myself on honesty, so . . . yeah, hard no to that.” She frowns at my outstretched hand as her hands go to her hips. “Because from what I hear, you pulled a ridiculous stunt . . . proposing to Luna, who you hardly know, at her job, where she felt pressured to go along with it so she wouldn’t look stupid to her coworkers and the guests, and catching it on video, with her wearing what is unanimously voted the ugliest outfit in existence—I added that part myself—and ruining her favorite piece of art with a super stressful memory, just so you can get some poor old lady to give her money to you. Am I wrong?”

She sneers as though my very existence is distasteful and whatever I could say is most certainly going to be a lie.

“Well, that’s not exactly—”

Luna cuts me off before I can even start. “I don’t need you to protect me, Sam, even if you’re on a pretty good roll—and absolutely accurate.”

I can feel that the horrible summarization Samantha gave is likely word-for-word how Luna described it. She said she was disappointed in me. Honestly, at the time, the words had next to no impact on me.

I might be seen as successful, and my mom might give out praise for merely breathing. But in my family, it’s well known that I run a far and trailing second behind my brother Cameron, especially in my dad’s eyes, so I’m quite accustomed to ignoring disapproving comments. I should’ve given her words more consideration, not because of what she said but because of what it took for her to say them.

I swallow my pride and say the one thing I never admit. “I’m sorry. I did have fun with the tutoring and the tour, despite initially thinking art would be boring. I think that’s because of the teacher.” I smile, hoping to salvage things with Luna. I have zero hopes that she’s going to help with my fake-wife situation with Elena at this point, but I would like to leave things friendly so that this whole mess doesn’t affect her and Zack’s relationship. And so that his birthday party next year isn’t a completely painful clusterfuck.

“Keep it coming,” Samantha tells me, waving her hand. “More groveling, Prince Charming. I’m sure you’ve got it in you—somewhere in that tall . . . muscular . . . Greek god body of yours.” Samantha’s eyes are tracing every inch of me with appreciation bordering on ogling. I don’t think I could feel more exposed if I were a Thunder Down Under stripper on-stage in a G-string.

Luna laughs lightly, covering her mouth, but Samantha seems to have given her a boost. “Yeah, whatcha got?”

I glance between the two women, so different but asking for the same thing. With a resolved sigh, I go all in with full theatrics, dropping to the floor—on both knees so that there’s no mistaking what I’m doing this time and clasping my hands in a pleading move.

“Luna,” I say seriously, my eyes locked on hers. Slowly, as though she’s a wounded bird that might fly away if startled, I place my hands on her bare knees. When she allows it with a tiny smile, I begin . . .

“I’m soooo sorry,” I wail dramatically, flinging my head into her lap, my cheek pressed to her thigh. Though I’m close to a danger zone of contact, I look up at her from the submissive position with puppy dog eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. Please forgive me. I will never look at the scattered chaos of a Pollack again without thinking of you and our broken engagement,” I howl as I shake her in my grip.

“Shh!” she hisses, but she’s laughing as she swats at me. “My neighbors are going to call the cops if you keep that up!”