London Falling. Chanel Cleeton

      CHAPTER ONE

      Maggie

      I WASN’T LOOKING FOR Samir. At least that’s what I told myself.

      I shouldn’t be looking for Samir.

      “We spent most of the summer in St. Tropez. You should have seen the guys. There was this one guy...” Fleur took a sip of her soda, her brown eyes sparkling. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “He was so fine. You would have died.”

      I flashed her an easy smile, my gaze glued to the door behind her. Classes started tomorrow. Where the hell was he?

      “How was the U.S.?”

      I tore my gaze away from the cafeteria door, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Which I pretty much was, come to think of it.

      “It was fine.” Boring. Frustrating. Agonizing.

      I turned my head to the side. The entrance was just barely visible out of the corner of my eye. Come on. Three more students walked in, laughing and talking about their summer break. My heart sank. One boy was tan, his skin more yellow than the caramel color I’d come to love. Like. Whatever.

      “Are you listening?” Fleur’s voice was impatient, two shades away from pissed off, as she nudged my plate. “You seem like you’re somewhere else.”

      “I heard you,” I lied with ease, turning my body toward the open doorway and glancing at the clock against the wall. The dining hall closed in fifteen minutes. If he was going to make our first family dinner back at school, time was running out.

      I shouldn’t have cared. I should have known better than this. I shouldn’t have been sitting here waiting, my stomach in knots, my nerves frayed. I’d already made it through four months with only two one-line texts from him. What was another day?

      Everything.

      I tore my attention from the empty doorway, the gaping hole taunting me. “Is anyone else joining us?” I asked Fleur, my voice deceptively casual. I couldn’t say his name, but I was desperate to hear it. He was a secret I both wanted to keep and needed to spill.

      I’d spent the whole summer in South Carolina talking about him to my friends back home, until even my best friend, Jo, was sick of hearing about my boy woes. Sadly that was saying a lot, considering how boy-crazy Jo could be.

      “No idea where Mya is. She’s been MIA practically all summer. I think her parents’ divorce is hitting her hard. Michael said something about the two of them going out to dinner with other friends.”

      Mya split her vacation time between her home in Nigeria and her family’s flat in London, where her father worked for the Nigerian Embassy. Last year she’d discovered he was cheating on her mother and apparently over the summer he’d asked for a divorce. Mya was spending most of her time with her mom and not speaking to her dad. She seemed to be handling it pretty well, all things considered. But still—Mya’s priority right now was her family.

      I waited for Fleur to continue, to say the one name that had been flooding my head all summer long. But in classic Fleur fashion, it appeared she was going to make me work for it.

      “And Samir?” I kept my gaze trained on my plate, memorizing the china’s webbed pattern, hoping she hadn’t heard the hitch in my voice.

      Fleur shrugged in that wonderfully French way that reminded me of him. A wave of nostalgia crashed over me. It had been four months, after all.

      “No idea. You know how Samir is, you can’t exactly predict what he’s going to do next.”

      No kidding. Not being able to predict Samir’s moves was exactly what got me into this mess in the first place. Not that I regretted our one night together. I just wished to hell he’d given me more to go on than a text the morning after, followed by a cryptic one in July. Even worse?

      There hadn’t even been a chance for me to casually interact with him online. Trust me to hook up with the one guy who seemed allergic to social media. Maybe it was a Lebanese thing? Or more likely a Samir thing. He wouldn’t deign to do what everyone else did. He was a giant pain in my ass. Too bad I sort of liked it.

      I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, not bothering to resist the urge to smooth down any stray flyaways. My hair was just the tip of the iceberg; brand-new black sandals adorned my feet, their height more aptly suited to a nightclub than a university cafeteria. Relentless workouts at the gym, combined with endless overtime hours, had squeezed my curvy five-four frame into a pair of designer jeans so expensive, I’d been too afraid to eat for fear of spilling. A new black halter top completed the look that an hour ago I thought had screamed “I look good without trying to” but now felt more like “I’m desperate over here.”

      Losing my virginity was making me crazy.

      “Maggie!”

      I jerked my head up. Fleur stared back at me, an annoyed expression on her face.

      “Sorry,” I mumbled, my cheeks heating.

      “What is up with you?” Her tone was a mix of concern and petulance. Classic Fleur.

      For the millionth time, I wanted to tell her. Last semester on my last night in London I lost my virginity to your cousin and I can’t stop thinking about it. Or him. I wanted to confide in Fleur. But if I did, I wasn’t just admitting to a one-night stand. It was so much worse. Yeah, he was still with his girlfriend when it happened. No, I don’t know if they’re still together. No, I don’t know if he likes me. Or if he regrets it. Or if he thinks about that night at all. No, we haven’t talked in one hundred and twenty-four days save for two texts, but who’s counting?

      “I’m sorry, I think I’m just jet-lagged.” That, at least, wasn’t completely a lie. My flight from Charlotte to London had been particularly brutal. I stared back at the clock. Five minutes left.

      Unfuckingbelievable.

      I’d been camped out here for like four hours. No way I’d missed him. Was he avoiding me?

      I sighed, pushing back my chair. I knew when to admit defeat. “I’m going to head up to the room and go to bed.”

      “Can I join you?”

      I froze, my entire body prickling with awareness. I knew that voice, that teasing tone. It had been haunting me for months.

      “Samir!” Fleur jumped up from the table and launched herself at her cousin.

      I turned, time moving in slow motion. Fragmented images and thoughts flew at me. Flashes back to that night—his body pressing into me, his hands molding my curves, his lips devouring mine—mixed with the reality of Samir in the flesh. My gaze ran over his body, drinking in the sight of him.

      He’d cut his hair. The black curls I’d once run my fingers through were shorter now. The skin I’d kissed, tasted on my tongue, was a deeper tan. Whatever he’d done this summer, clearly he’d spent time in the sun. Impossibly, he looked better than I remembered. His shoulders looked broader, his body toned and hard. The memory of his naked flesh, his muscled chest, his abs...

      I