The Wake-Up Call(31)

He descends into the water like a giant rock. Just tumbles in, slow motion, still curled up with his knees to his chest. Despite the anger swirling in my belly, I find myself laughing—more at the surprise of it than anything. I can’t believe I actually just pulled him into the pool.

He bursts up through the surface and his eyes find mine immediately. They’re sparkling with anger. I let out a nervous eep. He’s actually pissed off now. I’ve seen Lucas annoyed more times than I can count, but I’ve hardly ever seen him really raging. It’s kind of . . . God. Is it bad that it’s kind of sexy?

He says something long and presumably very insulting in Portuguese. I swim backwards to try to create a bit of distance between us, but he’s a lot bigger than me, and it only takes one swipe for him to grab my leg.

“You,” he says, voice low and furious, “are not going anywhere.”

He actually lets go of my leg the moment I kick it, but I don’t swim away again, I just bob there, trying not to grin. The rush of anger has gone as quickly as it came; now I am having to work very hard not to nervous-giggle.

“You push me, I push you,” I say. My shirt snags at my skin as I move—it is not comfortable swimming in clothes. “If you’re going to do something, Lucas, you need to live with the consequences.”

“I did not push you.”

“Well, OK, technically I didn’t push you, either,” I say, and I know my grin is winding him up, which just makes it even harder not to smile.

“You are so childish,” he spits, swiping at his eyes and advancing on me.

“What are you going to do, dunk me?”

“Something like that, yes,” he says, and then, with both hands, he sends a huge wave splashing down over my head.

I splutter, gasping. “Oh my God!”

I splash him, too. He splashes me back. We’re soaking and the water’s churning and my back has hit the edge of the pool now, my shirt slick as silk against my body. When the water settles, Lucas is right in front of me, arms braced on either side of mine, hands gripping the ledge. His chest is heaving. His eyes still have that spark in them, but as we face each other, dripping, his cheek twitches ever so slightly.

“You can smile,” I tell him, leaning my elbows back on the pool’s edge, my soaked shirt pulling taut. “It’s not dangerous.”

He smiles. I take that back. This wet, dark-eyed Lucas is a different beast from the uniformed man who stands beside me at the front desk. With his white shirt clinging to the muscles of his chest and droplets gleaming on the skin of his neck, he’s not just offensively handsome, he’s hot.

“I’m going to win our bet,” he promises me, his voice low. We’re so close I can see the flecks and tones in his brown eyes. “You know I am. That’s why you do things like pull me into swimming pools and try to destroy phone numbers.”

“I didn’t . . .”

I stop talking. His gaze has dipped, eyes moving over me. I feel a droplet of water chase another over my collarbone, down to my sodden shirt, and I watch him catch that tiny movement, pupils flaring.

“Yes?” he prompts.

He looks at my lips. And for a wild, daring moment, I think I might kiss him—snake my arms over his shoulders, pull our wet bodies flush . . .

I take an uneven breath.

“I saved the number in my phone. You know I’d never do something that might actually harm the hotel. Not even to piss you off.”

Lucas studies me, unreadable. “Why are we like this?” he says after a moment. “You and me?”

“Like what?”

The chlorine has made my throat ache; I swallow. His eyes are on mine now.

“Always fighting.”

He pauses, taking a small breath, as if he’s hesitating over what to say. His eyes slide away from me, and I breathe out, as if he’s let me go.

“Well,” he says. “Since last Christmas.”

And there it is. I turn my head aside. I don’t want to look at him now, not while we’re talking about this.

“I think you just answered your own question,” I say. “You know why I hate you.”

He flinches slightly when I say hate, and I almost wish I could take it back, though I don’t know why—he knows it, I know it. I take another breath, steadier now, and meet his eyes again.

“I’ve always figured you hate me because I’m everything you don’t like all wrapped up in one human being,” I go on. “And you know you were a dick last Christmas and don’t like that I’m right about it. How’d I do? Is that it?”

Lucas lifts a hand off the side of the pool to wipe his eyes. That tension between us is sluicing away, replaced by something much more familiar.

“You think you are everything I don’t like? All wrapped up . . . in one human being?”

“Aren’t I?”

He looks back at me. “No,” he says eventually. “Not at all.”

I shift, discomposed. “You find me strange, though.”

“A little.”

That hurts more than it should. I thought I was past Lucas’s insults getting to me—but then, I did just hand him the very one that could do the most damage.

Lucas shifts to the side so he can rest his back against the pool. “Is strange that bad?” he asks.