Hurts to Love You Read online

  Dedication

  For my family by blood, my family by chance, and my family by choice. I love you and I’m thankful to have so many places I can call home.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By Alisha Rai

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Gabriel Hunter understood women’s bodies. He’d studied them, touched them, decorated them with art, delighted in them, lusted over them. He viewed breasts and asses and thighs on a daily basis.

  He shouldn’t be fazed by a single inch of flesh. The human body should hold no mystery for him any longer.

  And yet, here he was, salivating over a woman’s bare arms.

  Gabe rested his hand on the pristine linen of the tablecloth, his fingers itching. Her skin was so pure and luminous. What color was it? Not pale, not brown, not tan. Some people might call it olive, but he’d never been able to visualize that as a color properly.

  “The dulce-de-leche cake is one of our bestsellers, with ribbons of golden-brown caramel threaded through the—”

  Golden-brown, yes, that was a good description. Creamy, lit from underneath with a golden-brown light. There was a scar on her upper arm, disrupting the smoothness, but a good artist didn’t expect any work of art to be flawless. Imperfections were what made a piece unique. Impossible to replicate.

  Fuck me.

  Gabe hid his grimace. Barely a foot separated them, but she might as well be on Mars for all he could touch her.

  She was Evangeline Chandler. Roughly a dozen years younger than him, the sister of a man he called friend. Sweet and shy and innocent. Oh, and the daughter of one of the richest families in the country.

  Him? He was a tattoo artist. The son of a housekeeper. A guardian of a secret that made any union between them complicated as fuck. Too friendly and respectful of women to be a player, but definitely not any kind of good long-term bet.

  Mars, son.

  Eve raised her gaze to his, and he snapped to attention, ensuring she only saw bland interest. She cocked her head, her straight, expensively cut dark hair slipping over her shoulder. The overhead light reflected on the strands, bringing out shades of mahogany, cherry, burnt umber.

  “What do you think of this one?”

  “It’s perfect,” he said without thinking.

  Her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t look like you’ve even tried it.”

  Oh. He looked down at the row of cake slices assembled in front of him. Cake. She was talking about cake.

  Dutifully, he took a bite of the presented confection and swallowed. He had to fight not to screw his face up in distaste at the overly sweet explosion of flavor on his tongue. He took a giant sip of water. “It’s . . . fine.”

  The man standing next to their table released a small sniff. Gabe had been around rich people enough to know exactly what that sniff meant. Get the fuck out of here, you uncultured swine.

  Eve, being a rich person, could also undoubtedly read the waiter’s sniff, but she didn’t acknowledge it. “Livvy, neither of us like it very much.”

  “Oh, that was my first choice,” came the feminine voice from the speaker of the phone set on the table. Only, with the speaker’s cold, the words came out more like Doh dat was by first choice.

  “It’s very sweet.”

  “Ugh. I wish I was there.”

  Jacques linked his hands in front of his waist. “Once again, Ms. Kane, we would be happy to have the tasting at your home.”

  “She can’t really taste anything right now,” Eve explained.

  “It’s the saddest.” Livvy sniffed.

  “And the groom?” Jacques asked delicately.

  Gabe suppressed an eye roll. The guy was digging for gossip, which was pretty standard amongst town people. Kane and Chandler drama was a favorite topic.

  “My brother is busy today.” Eve cast the waiter an inquiring look. “What’s the next flavor, Jacques?”

  Jacques placed a dish with a slice of light yellow cake in front of each of them. The small, exclusive restaurant was closed to the public for this tasting. A tasting Gabe was sure had been granted due to the Chandler name. “A delicate lemon-thyme, Ms. Chandler. You’ll find alternating layers of lemon curd and a rich vanilla buttercream, garnished with sprigs of thyme and candied lemons.”

  That sounded disgusting to Gabe’s decidedly simple tastes. “Aren’t most wedding cakes like chocolate and vanilla?”

  Livvy made a derisive, nasally snort. “Nothing about this wedding is traditional. Why start with cake?”

  True. Most people in Rockville were accustomed to the unexpected when it came from the Kanes and Chandlers.

  Once upon a time, the Chandlers and Kanes had been best friends and business partners, each family owning half of a grocery store company, the C&O. Then, ten years ago, a series of tragedies had befallen the two families, starting with Robert Kane and Maria Chandler dying in a tragic car accident on a late winter night.

  A minute later, and widower Brendan Chandler, Nicholas and Eve’s father, had swindled Livvy’s grieving mother, Tani, out of her half of the company. Two minutes later, and Livvy’s twin brother, Jackson, was under suspicion of burning down the flagship C&O store in revenge.

  At some point during that mess, Nicholas and Livvy had broken up, their childhood love destroyed. But they’d reconciled last fall, and had seemed destined for the happy ending they’d been cheated out of. They’d decided to get married on Livvy’s birthday, which meant they’d only had a month to prepare a wedding following their engagement.

  It might have still gone okay, but it felt like every possible calamity had befallen the bride and groom over the course of the last three weeks. The original venue had sustained damage in a storm. Nicholas had injured his back playing basketball. Livvy’s dress had been mysteriously lost. The florist had burned down. The baker hired for the cake had canceled due to a family emergency. Multiple invitations had gotten lost in the mail.

  When Livvy, upset, had come into the tattoo shop he owned and she worked at, Gabe had consoled her. Of course her mother was wrong and this wasn’t a curse, he assured her. It was all going to be fine. He’d cracked a joke, she’d laughed. They’d all pitch in. It would come together. And things had started to gel.

  Until Nicholas’s and Eve’s beloved grandfather, John, who wasn’t in the best of health to begin with, had come down with the flu. Livvy’s mother and aunt had been the next ones down. Everyone had held their breath, but John had recovered, and Tani and Maile’s sickness had subsided to some sniffles. Then yesterday, Livvy had gotten sick.

  There were no such things as curses or bad omens. But the bride getting sick a week before the wedding was awfully bad timing on the universe’s part.

  The waiter raised his voice to speak to Livvy. “I
t’s not the usual sort of cake, but your reception will certainly stand out, Ms. Kane.”

  “Goo—” A sneeze interrupted Livvy’s word. “Ah, fuck.”

  Gabe leaned forward. “Liv, why don’t you go rest? We can handle this.”

  “No, no.” A loud sneeze. “I want to participate. This is my wedding cake, damn it.”

  Gabe dug into the lemon cake. The taste surprised him enough he forgot to swallow fast. The sour from the lemon tempered the sugar, making it edible. He glanced at Eve and promptly forgot his own name.

  Her eyes were closed, her lashes long fans on her upper cheeks. The fork slipped out of her mouth, the tines leaving indentations on her bottom lip. She didn’t wear much makeup, but her pink lips didn’t need adornment. “Mmm,” she moaned, and a tiny part of him died.

  He didn’t like the cake that much, but he took another bite, if only to taste what she was tasting and enjoying.

  This was pathetic.

  She opened her eyes, and he wanted her to eat more cake. Hell, he wanted to buy her a whole cake and feed it to her, have her lick lemon and cream from his fingers.

  And then have her lick whatever she liked on other parts of his body too.

  “What do you think?” Livvy asked.

  “I really love it,” he said huskily.

  Eve raised an eyebrow. Her eyebrows were the most dramatic thing about her, thick and arched. “Really? You haven’t seemed to like the others at all.”

  He didn’t like sweets, period, but he couldn’t tell her that. Otherwise she’d wonder why he’d agreed to accompany her to this cake tasting. “They were okay.” He tried to remember what the pretentious waiter had said about some of the other flavors. “But this cake, I was really captured by the ribbons of lemon threaded through the moist . . . sponge.” Okay, that probably wasn’t exactly right.

  He could ignore Jacques’s sniff because her lips twitched, and he wanted to pump his fist. Eve rarely smiled, and laughed even less often, he’d discovered.

  Eve adjusted the phone. “We both like this lemon one, Livvy.”

  “Hmm.” Paper rustled on the other end. “That one was pretty high on my list. Let’s do it.” A series of sneezes followed.

  Eve nodded at Jacques, taking charge. “We’ll do the lemon. You have the photos I sent over, yes?”

  “We do, ma’am.”

  “Excellent. And please tell the chef how grateful we are he can accommodate us on such short notice like this.”

  “Oh no, ma’am. The chef is delighted to assist you. He conveys his deepest well-wishes.” The man’s eyes softened. “Your families have done so much for this town.”

  Both Eve and Livvy murmured their thanks. Gabe kept silent. He’d grown up in the Kane household, but as the housekeeper’s kid, albeit a well-treated one, he’d always been on the outside looking into this world.

  Eve picked up her phone. “Livvy, I’ll call you later to talk about those other items.”

  “Gotcha. Bye, guys. Gabe, I can’t thank you enough for pitching in.”

  Gabe placed his napkin on the table, relieved he wouldn’t have to choke down any more sweets. Give him bags of potato chips any day. “No thanks necessary, kiddo.”

  “No one’s given you grief over my canceling today’s appointments, have they?”

  One girl had yelled at him this morning. Gabe didn’t blame her—Livvy’s specialty was watercolor tattoos, and people traveled from all over to see her. But he wasn’t about to tell the overwhelmed bride that now. “Nope. We have it handled. Feel better.”

  Gabe and Eve gathered their belongings, Eve shrugging on a light jacket that blessedly covered her lush arms.

  Gabe squinted at the spring sunshine when they came outside. The last frost had passed, and the days were growing longer. The perfect weather for a hike, Paul would have said.

  Gabe shoved the pang of grief aside. After almost two years, Paul Kane’s death shouldn’t still feel so sharp, but reminders of his old friend often came when he least expected it. They’d grown especially strong since Livvy and Jackson had moved back home. Paul’s younger siblings were nothing like him, but occasionally Livvy would smile or Jackson would roll his eyes, and Gabe would feel a need to excuse himself for a minute or so.

  Eve finished typing something on her phone. “I can’t believe we managed to get Chef José on such short notice.”

  “Is Jackson peeved he doesn’t get to make the cake?” Jackson had a strong aversion to crowds, which was why Gabe was taking his place at Livvy’s side in the wedding party. One of her bridespeople, as Livvy called them. A world-renowned chef, Jackson was instead handling the food for the event.

  “I think between taking care of his café and his mother and making sure Sadia doesn’t wear herself out with wedding planning, Jackson has his hands more than full. He was the one who asked me if we could outsource this. He’d prefer to concentrate on the wedding dinner menu.” Eve tucked her phone into her purse. “Thanks for coming with. I know this task isn’t in your wheelhouse.”

  “Is picking cake in your wheelhouse?” It was a genuine question. Prying details out of Eve about her life was like chipping away at a stone tablet. Time-consuming and a little hypnotic.

  He might have been raised on the estate that neighbored the Chandlers’, had even been best friends with Nicholas, but he’d been so much older than Eve she’d barely registered on his consciousness when they’d been young.

  And then the split between the two rich families had happened. Though they’d lived in the same town, his interactions with the Chandlers had been sporadic at best. He’d seen Eve twice over the years—once when she’d come into his shop with a friend, and a second time when she’d been a drunken coed in a bar. He hadn’t viewed her as anything more than a kid either of those times. A lost, shy, vaguely lonely-looking kid.

  When grown-up Eve had been reintroduced into his life a month ago, at a lunch Livvy and Nicholas had hosted, that kid was long gone. Her body was curvy, her face innocent yet erotic, with full lips and sharp eyes. She was buttoned up inside and out, not a single emotion or spare inch of skin visible.

  Lust and desire had hit him instantly, but he was a grown-ass man, and he’d tamped it down. Slowly, over the past few weeks, that desire had grown. And now here he was, salivating at the sight of her bare arms.

  Good thing you can’t see her ankles. You might straight up die on the spot from lust.

  “I do eat a lot of cake.”

  He looked down at Eve. She was so sweetly rounded but so much smaller than him. He’d never been particularly attracted to short women, but he imagined she would fit perfectly under his arm.

  Imagine is all you’ll ever do. He made his tone deliberately light. “I eat a lot of burgers. Is there a wedding burger that needs to be chosen?”

  Another twitch of her lips. “Please don’t give Livvy any ideas. We’re at capacity on what we can whip together in the next week or so.” Her voice was low and throaty. It skimmed over all of his nerves and senses, promising rough and lusty delights.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  They stopped at her car, a nicely maintained Acura. It was bland and personality-less. As were her clothes, a brown silk shirt and wine pants. She was like a painting framed with the most mundane of wood, but she’d shine no matter what she wore.

  You sound like a smitten fool. You’re too old for this.

  Was he? No, probably not. But he was definitely too smart for this.

  A strand of mahogany hair flew in her eyes and she pushed it away. Her wrist was surprisingly delicate for such a sturdy woman. “Well, thank you for coming with me today. I know you’re probably busy making sure your shop will survive without you for the week.”

  “Nah, it’ll be fine. Business has been on the slow side this month. Junie and Rod can handle anyone that turns up.” His business wasn’t a huge moneymaker, given the size of the town, but he was good at what he did and hired good artists. With social media and word of mouth, they
did pretty well. Enough that he could afford to leave the place for a week when he needed to.

  “Good.” She hesitated, and something moved behind her eyes. Unable to help himself, he took a step closer.

  “We’re still on for meeting up at the house tomorrow, right?” After their first choice venue had fallen through, Nicholas and Livvy had opted to have their wedding at a large estate they’d rented a few hours away. They’d planned on the wedding party—him, Eve, Jackson, Livvy’s best friend Sadia, and Sadia’s son, Kareem—going up a week early to relax and unwind before the festivities.

  Of course, that was before everyone had gotten sick. Since they were paying for the place, Livvy and Nicholas had insisted the rest of them go up, and they would join once Livvy felt better.

  “Yes.” Her smile was faint. “A little unconventional, a bridal party celebrating without the bride and groom.”

  As Livvy had said, the whole wedding was unconventional. “It’ll only be for a few days. I’m looking forward to it.” A week with Eve within easy reach.

  Surrounded by others, though, including her big brother eventually.

  Yes, it was safe. He would be able to control himself. Even if he did happen to catch a glimpse of something as scandalous and sexy as, like, her knees.

  “Me too,” she said. “There’s an indoor pool.”

  It took a gargantuan force of will not to think of her in a swimsuit. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is there anything else you need me for?”

  “Um, no. I’m . . . I guess I should get going.”

  “Got a hot date tonight?” His tone was light, but the emotion that drove him to fish for info wasn’t.

  Mars.

  “No. I have to attend the annual foundation gala.” She lifted a shoulder. “I planned it before I left my job.”

  “Ah.” Eve had worked for the Maria Chandler Foundation, a nonprofit established by her late mother, until she’d quit in the fall.

  She hit the unlock button on her keys, and her car chirped. “What about you?”

  Was she asking if he had a hot date? Calm yourself. She’s being polite. “Might go to O’Killians. Have a beer or two.” He forced himself to smile. Not too long ago, smiling had been easy for him, especially in front of pretty women. Maybe, if he drank enough tonight, he could recapture the cheerful veneer that had always masked every other emotion. Masked them so well he barely had to think about them. “Have a good time at the gala.”