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  This Can’t Be Love

  Whispering Bay Romance, Book 5

  Maria Geraci

  This Can’t Be Love

  Copyright © 2017 Maria Geraci

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  THIS CAN’T BE LOVE

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  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

  Excerpt from CAN’T STOP THE FEELING

  More from Maria Geraci

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to Whispering Bay, where smart heroines and hot heroes collide to find love and their happily-ever-afters! To find out more about this series and my other books, please visit my website. And if you’d like to learn about new releases and other fun stuff, please sign up for my newsletter. Happy Reading!

  Chapter One

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Luke Powers was recovering from a round of marathon sex when the gorgeous brunette lying next to him sat straight up in bed and hit him with those dreaded words no guy ever wanted to hear. “I think our relationship needs to go to the next level. Otherwise…” The ultimatum hung in the air, sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

  He stifled a groan and took a deep breath. This was a scene he should be used to. Every few months, Torie would break up with him. He’d take it like a man, and then after a few days or even a week, she’d call, wanting to get back together and they’d resume their relationship like nothing had ever happened. After three years, however, the pattern was getting a little old.

  “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be happy to take it to whatever level you want,” he joked, hoping she’d go for it.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t. “Luke. You know what I’m talking about. Either we get married or we break up for good.”

  He froze. Torie had never used the M word before. He thought the “next level” was moving in together.

  Maybe he should have expected this, but he’d always been honest with her. He wasn’t the marrying kind. Way back when, he’d made a point of telling her that on their second date. She’d laughed in response and said she wasn’t the marrying kind either. She worked seventy hours a week at her downtown Atlanta law firm and she was on the partner track. She was too busy for marriage. Or so she’d told him. Obviously, something had changed.

  He sat up and shoved a hand through his hair. Her big brown eyes were filled with tears.

  Aw, man. Luke hated crying. It was up there with those late-night infomercials on starving children in third world countries and the emaciated dogs. He almost wished Torie was the angry type. He’d take temper tantrums and screaming any day over tears.

  “Do you love me?” she whispered.

  In all the time they’d been together, neither of them had ever used the word love. It had been an unspoken agreement between them. Of course, he cared about her. How could he not? Torie was beautiful, smart, and accomplished. Yes, she could be a bit egocentric and high-strung at times, but no one was perfect.

  He thought carefully about how to answer.

  “I love everything about you, Torie,” he said finally, calling her by the nickname that only he was allowed to use. To everyone else she was Victoria.

  She slipped out of bed and began pulling on her clothes.

  “Torie—”

  “Don’t.” She spun around and stabbed him with a glare that bordered somewhere between anger and hurt. “I’m thirty-four and while you might think this is my biological clock ticking away, it’s not. Despite my better judgement, I’ve fallen in love you. And I thought…I thought that you’d fall in love with me, too. I thought if I just gave you enough time you’d come around.” She laughed, a sad little laugh that tore at his gut in a way he’d never felt before.

  “So that’s it? We either get married or we’re through?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” She didn’t look angry anymore. More like resigned. Like a part of her had expected this.

  He could tell her that he loved her. Hell, who knows? Maybe he did. He’d never told anyone he loved them before. In high school, he’d been too busy making good grades and playing sports to pay much attention to girls. Then he’d hit college and there had been a few girlfriends. But he’d graduated summa cum laude from Duke, the Powers family alma mater, with his civil engineering degree without ever saying those three little words.

  Then he was off to grad school at the University of Charleston to get a master’s in marine biology and the pattern repeated itself. A couple of girlfriends, but no one special. After school, he took a job with an environmental engineering firm that specialized in marine construction. He’d worked hard in those first few years to build up a reputation of excellence. He’d also learned how to play hard. While all his buddies were settling down with nice, girl-next-door types their mommas would approve, Luke found that he enjoyed the single life. He liked going out with a different woman every weekend. Going to nice restaurants and having lots of nice sex. Most especially, he’d liked coming home to his nice, empty apartment where he could kick back and relax and not have to worry about anyone but himself.

  Eventually, he quit his job and together with a friend from grad school they’d opened their own consulting firm. For the past seven years, he’d traveled around the country, making more money than he’d ever dreamed possible. He had an upscale condo in Atlanta, a beach house in north Florida, and a couple million dollars tucked away in investments. He and Torie had a good thing. They saw each other exclusively and were together most of the time he wasn’t away from Atlanta traveling, which he had to admit, could sometimes be weeks at a time. For the most part, he missed her when he was away. And he’d been faithful to her. Maybe love was as simple as that.

  She finished dressing, then turned to face him. “I love you, Luke, but I can’t be with a man who doesn’t feel as strongly for me as I do for him.”

  He started to say something, what exactly, he didn’t know, but she cut him off by leaning over the bed and planting a kiss on his cheek. “It’s all right, I know you care about me.” She gave him a shaky smile. “But it’s just not enough anymore.” For a second, he was afraid she’d start crying again.

  “The thing is,” she continued, this time in a hard voice, “I know that one day you’re going to fall in love. And I hope you’re happy. I really do. But…and I hate to say this, a tiny part of me hopes that she breaks your heart into a million pieces because I want you to know what I’m feeling right now.”

  He watched as she pic
ked up her overnight bag and walked out the door. A part of him said she’d be back. After all, she’d done this before. But something deep in his gut told him that this time she meant it. Torie was walking out of his life and she was never coming back.

  Should he stop her?

  He felt sad, guilty even, but the simple truth was he didn’t want to get married. He didn’t even want to live together. And if he didn’t want those things, then he couldn’t be in love with her.

  The whole thing felt surreal. Unsettling, in a way he couldn’t quite describe.

  And then it hit him.

  Torie was right to leave him. She was the full package and she deserved a man who could reciprocate her feelings. But she was wrong about the other part. If he hadn’t been able to fall in love with someone like Torie, then it was never going to happen for him. He was thirty-seven years old. All his friends were married. A few of them were already divorced from wife number one and onto wife number two. His best friend and business partner, Ethan, just got hitched a couple of years ago and Luke’s younger sister, Mimi, had been married for eighteen years, with a couple of kids and a surprise baby on the way.

  Marriage and kids…they weren’t for Luke. Neither was forced monogamy, dirty diapers, and making nice with your mother-in-law on Thanksgiving.

  He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He had a good life. Hell, he had a great life, one that he’d always dreamed of. There was no need to force something he simply wasn’t capable of feeling.

  Chapter Two

  Whispering Bay, Florida

  Six Months Later

  Luke Powers was hungry, tired, and horny. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the list was in the correct order. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast nineteen hours ago and he hadn’t gotten laid in forever. But he hadn’t slept in two days, so right now, tired was winning out. He couldn’t fall into his bed fast enough.

  He tried to pull his truck into the driveway to his beach house but a beat-up Honda Civic was blocking the way. Three other cars, all with Indiana license plates, haphazardly took up the rest of the grassy strip between his place and the house next door, making it impossible to park anywhere near his own home.

  Damn tourists. They thought renting a house for a week meant you could do whatever you liked and the hell with everyone else.

  He drove his truck around the block until he found a place to park, which, on second thought, was probably for the best. Whispering Bay, Florida, was a town of about ten thousand people. Ten thousand people who watched your every move, that is. If anyone saw his black truck with the distinctive Georgia license plates parked in front of the beach house he hadn’t visited in over a year it would only be a matter of minutes before Ann Powers knew that her only son was back in town.

  Not that Luke didn’t plan to visit his family. Eventually. But for right now all he wanted was a couple of days sleep with a little fishing thrown in. A couple of quiet sunsets sitting on his back patio with a cold brewski in his hand. He’d spent the last three months working his ass off. A little R and R before his next project wasn’t too much to ask.

  He yanked an overnight bag from the back seat of the truck, ignoring his remaining gear. No need for anything more than a toothbrush and a clean change of underwear right now. He’d get the rest out tomorrow.

  He trekked down the deserted road, past the dark, quiet houses, weaving his way around the parked cars with the out-of-state license plates. Whispering Bay wasn’t the tourist mecca that nearby Panama City Beach or Destin were, but it was July, and most of the homes on this block were owned by snowbirds. Retirees who lived here during the brutal northern winter months, but who rented their places out in the equally brutal Florida summers.

  Currently, the houses on this block were filled with families on vacation. They’d spend a week on the pristine beaches of the Florida panhandle, another week in Orlando visiting Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter, then spend the rest of the year paying off their credit cards.

  He stood in front of the lime-green, clapboard beach house his grandfather had bequeathed to him three years ago. The motion detector lights came on to reveal a freshly mown lawn and trimmed hibiscus bushes. His mother did a good job of supervising the upkeep with a joint bank account he’d established for the home’s maintenance.

  Luke loved this old house. As a kid, if he wasn’t in school or playing sports, he was here with Gramps—taking the Martha Sue, Gramps’s old boat, out on the Gulf of Mexico to fish. The place wasn’t fancy. It was more like a two-bedroom fishing shack, really, but it sat on prime beachfront real estate, which made it worth even more than the upscale condo he owned in downtown Atlanta.

  He could easily rent the house out, but he preferred not to. He kept all the stuff he didn’t want in his Atlanta condo stored here and he didn’t want a bunch of strangers pawing through his things. One day, he’d retire and come live in this house. He’d buy a new boat and spend his days out on the water, fishing and enjoying small town life again. Hell, maybe he’d even get a dog.

  He unlocked the front door, pleasantly relieved to be walking into a semi-cool house. The Florida summer was too hot to not have the air conditioner on even with the place empty. He turned on a light in the living room and found the wall thermostat set to seventy-eight, flipped it down a couple more degrees, and took a look around.

  He blinked. Shook his head. And blinked again.

  Someone had rearranged his furniture.

  That would be his mother, of course. Or Mimi. Not that he minded. He was grateful they took the time to watch the place for him. There were other changes, too. His brown leather couch had some kind of frilly blanket draped across it and there were at least a dozen candles everywhere. The slightly sweet vanilla aroma lingering in the air betrayed their recent use.

  He picked up a discarded towel that had been carelessly tossed on the wooden floor, then, what the—? He tripped over something, nearly losing his balance in the process. He bent over to retrieve the offending item—a bucket filled with seashells.

  Huh. Now that was weird. His mother wasn’t the collecting seashells by the seashore type. More like the sitting in her lounge chair sipping on a cold martini type.

  The place wasn’t exactly messy, but neither his mother or his sister would leave a damp towel lying on the floor. Maybe Mimi had let the kids use the house. Or maybe they were using it without her knowledge. His niece, Claire, was almost eighteen and had just graduated from high school, and his nephew, Cameron, was…what? Thirteen? Could they be using the place without anyone knowing?

  On the upside, if they were using the beach house, then maybe they’d left some grub behind. His stomach let out an angry growl. He flung open the refrigerator door. There was a carton of milk, a few sticks of butter, some suspicious looking Chinese takeout and half a pepperoni pizza. Not exactly the healthiest food on the planet but, under the circumstances, he couldn’t complain.

  He reached in for the pizza, then noticed a plastic container with some macaroni and cheese and opted for that instead. Add in a neat inch of the Glenlivet he kept in the cupboard above the stove and he’d have himself a semi-proper meal. But when he checked the cupboard, his bottle of scotch was gone. He knew for certain that neither his mother nor Mimi would have touched it. Which meant…

  The idea of Claire sneaking in here and drinking his liquor brought out the protective uncle in him. He hoped to hell she wasn’t using this house to throw any wild, teenage parties.

  He zapped up the mac and cheese, grabbed a fork, and plopped himself down on the sofa. Steinbeck’s novel, Travels with Charley, sat spine up on the armrest and, according to the back cover, it was the property of the Whispering Bay Public Library. Definitely pre-college summer reading material. Good to know his niece wasn’t spending her entire summer partying before heading off to Duke.

  He put the book aside and found the remote, then hit his favorites button expecting ESPN. The Hallmark channel popped up instead.

 
The messy towel, the seashell bucket, hell, even his missing scotch he could forgive. But reprogramming his remote? Whatever happened to a man’s home being his castle?

  He switched over to the Golf Channel, and took his first bite of the mac and cheese. Damn, but this was good. And homemade. Not any of that boxed crap he’d lived on in college. Had his mother made this? Nah. Mac and cheese was more Mimi’s style. His sister was a good cook, but her culinary skills had definitely gone up a notch since he’d last eaten her food.

  He wolfed down the rest of the macaroni, then toed off his sneakers and propped his feet on the coffee table, too tired to move. Maybe he’d fall asleep right here on the couch. He was thinking about how great it was to finally be doing absolutely nothing when his gaze wandered over to the side table and a collection of framed photographs that made him immediately sit up.

  There were at least a dozen photos of him and Torie at various stages in their relationship, as well as a couple of him by himself, all arranged carefully, like some kind of shrine.

  This was definitely his mother’s handiwork.

  Two photos were laid face down, as if on purpose. He flipped them over. One was a picture of Torie and him taken in New Mexico last year during a ski trip. The other was a photo of them at a wedding a couple of years before that. They’d only been together a few weeks at that point, but he was the best man and he’d needed a date and she’d completely wowed all his friends. He put down the framed photo and thought about the email he’d received from her a few weeks ago.