Doctor Scandalous
1
I knew when this day started that it was going to be a fucking shit show. Nothing good ever starts with a wake-up call from your mother asking you to meet her for lunch. Especially when you already know the reason for the lunch and have been dreading it, well, practically since the day you were born.
Then there’s this call…
“All I’m asking is if you think she’ll say yes?”
I clench my jaw and run a hand through my hair, my other gripping the steering wheel so tight the leather creaks. “Luca, how should I know?”
“Because you somehow know Raven better than anyone. You’re like secret girlfriends. She tells you shit. Confides in you.”
I’d smirk at that if my insides weren’t being poked at with something hot and sharp. Honestly, I hope Luca proposes. I hope Raven says yes. I hope they live happily ever after and suck all the attention and limelight for themselves. Then maybe for once in my life I can stop having that pesky four-letter word thrown at me with the hope it’ll finally stick to me.
Love.
The one thing everyone from my family to the press, to the endless stream of money-hungry women lining up at the mention of my name, try to shove down my throat. But the worst part, the part that has me mashing my molars is what’s coming for me in the absence of love.
“I think she’ll think it’s too soon. You’ve only been back together a couple of months.”
He puffs out a breath. “Rina and Brecken just got married. Oliver popped the question to Amelia for real on New Year’s. Carter just did the same to Grace on fucking Valentine’s Day.”
“Feeling left out when the rest of your siblings are getting married and engaged? Don’t worry, Landon’s still only dating Elle,” I quip.
“I just want Raven as mine. Truly mine. Wearing my ring and my last name. Forever.”
“She’s not going anywhere, brother.”
“I know that. That’s not why I want to seal the deal. I love her, Kap. This is what you do when you love someone.”
I grunt, so beyond not in the mood for this. I grip the wheel tighter, which I didn’t even realize was possible. Soon my knuckles will split. “I’m ignoring you.”
“You shouldn’t. It’s time, old man.”
“I have enough on my plate without trying to deal with yet another gold digger or entitled fledgling celebrity after more fame and headlines or a socialite looking to sit around in her designer digs and do lunch while we spend decades ignoring each other.”
“There’s that side of it. Or. You know. You could find actual love.”
I blow out a silent breath, my eyes closing as I reach a traffic light. I knew this day was coming too. It’s what happens when all of your younger siblings are happily hitched up to wonderful people and your mother is obsessed with love, marriage, and grandchildren.
But they’re not me. Their path was always easier.
“Not interested,” I tell him, opening my eyes again and shoving any useless frustration at this conversation down as the light turns green and I start to drive again. “How about you focus on Raven and leave me to handle my life. Raven is young. Give her time before you put a ring on it.”
“I know. Maybe for her birth—”
“What the fuck?” I practically yell, coming to a screeching halt as a barrage of white that is absolutely not the snow currently falling practically lands right on the hood of my car with a thud.
“Kap? Kap, you okay?!”
“Luca, I gotta go.” I disconnect the call, throw the car into park, and then get out right into the middle of traffic. The white starts to move, sliding across the hood of my SUV until it’s on the opposite side of me. I slam my door shut and repeat myself. “What the fuck?”
“Oh my God!” the woman shrieks. “You stopped! Thank God you stopped.”
I blink at least a thousand times, trying to make sense of the mass of tulle and silk and lace and unruly dark hair before me. “You flew onto my car. Didn’t exactly give me a choice. What was I supposed to do, run you over?”
She’s standing in the street, hugging the side of the hood so she doesn’t get hit by passing cars, but her wild, frantic gaze is over my shoulder, anxiously watching whatever is there. Reflexively I turn to look, cars honking and shooting around me, spraying slush and ice onto my slacks, and find a cluster of people dressed in tuxedos and gowns standing at the top of the church steps, glaring down at us as if they’re about to give chase.
“They followed me? I can’t believe they followed me out!”
I flip back around to find the woman opening the passenger side door of my car and jumping in, pulling her dress in along with her before slamming the door shut. “What the fuck?!” This time I bellow it at the top of my lungs. “What are you doing getting in my car?”
Opening my door, I nearly get sideswiped by a passing taxi, the driver yelling and cursing at me. Yanking my door shut, I throw on my hazards, then turn to the marshmallow that’s taking up half the front of my car.
“Get out!”
“No! I can’t. You have to drive. Please. I’ll pay you. Just drive before they come after me.” Large, slightly watery, heavily made-up brown eyes plead with me, her hands directed toward me in supplication.
My head whips back around, and sure enough, the guy, who I can only assume is the groom, is shooting down the stairs, his fists balled up, an incensed scowl perched on his face. A couple of women follow him, staring straight at me as if I’m the asshole, and I turn back to the bride in my car, just as miffed as the dude she ran out on.
“Seriously,” she cries. “You have to go now. If he gets to me, I won’t be responsible for what happens next. The blood of many could be on your hands.”
I level her with my no-bullshit glare. The one that makes sane women cower. Not this one. She simply throws her hands up in the air, unnerved and at the end of her rope.
“Please, please, please drive us out of here. Clearly, I’m desperate. Who throws themselves into oncoming traffic to escape their wedding if they’re not?”
“Are you in some kind of danger or just crazy?”
A humorless laugh. “I’m possibly crazy, but not in the psychopathic, I need locking up kind of way. And I guess if you consider being chased after by my mother, my maid of honor who is also my cousin, and my lying, cheating user of a now ex-fiancé who has been fucking said cousin being in danger, then yes, I’m in danger. So now that we’ve cleared up my morning from hell, can you drive, or do I have to hurl myself on another moving vehicle?”
I scrutinize her for a second. What I can see of her, that is. Round face. Those big brown eyes as dark as the piles of hair pinned up on her head guilelessly imploring me in a desperate, slightly unhinged way. Glossy, pink, pillowy lips. Curves for days. Large breasts with an ample amount of cleavage spilling over the top of the stiff bust of her dress. Skin the color of the falling snow. Pretty.
For a runaway bride with smeared makeup and more layers than anyone should be wearing.
The groom is now edging toward the street, trying to find a safe path toward us among the Boston North End traffic. He’s shouting something I can only guess at along with a tall, willowy older-ish—she’s had more work done on her face than the Ted Williams tunnel here in Boston—woman beside him.