She’d married Lucas Wheeler because he wasn’t capable of more than short-term. She could trust him to keep his word and grant her a divorce, the sole outcome she could accept.
They had a deal, not a future.
* * *
Midway through an email, Lucas realized it had been four days since he’d spent time with his wife outside of bed. Their time together in bed had been less than leisurely and far from ideal. It was criminal.
He picked up the phone. “Helena. Can you reschedule everything after five today?”
“I can,” she said. “But your five-thirty is with Mr. Moore and it’s the only day this week he can meet. The counteroffer was a mess, remember?”
He remembered. Once upon a time, he would have passed it off to Matthew and dashed for the door. The deficiency created by his brother’s vanishing act multiplied every day, demanding one hundred percent of his energy and motivation, leaving none for Cia.
He missed her. “Reschedule everything else, then. Thanks—you’re the best.”
If he put aside a potential new client’s proposal, skipped lunch and called in a couple of favors, he’d have an infallible amended contract ready to go by five-thirty and a happy Moore out the door by six. Dinner with Cia by seven.
The challenge got his blood pumping. The tightrope grew thinner and the balancing act more delicate, but without his brother to fall back on, new strengths appeared daily.
He was thriving, like Matthew had predicted, because every night Lucas went to bed with the ultimate example of sacrifice and commitment. He and Cia were partners. How could he look in the mirror if he didn’t step up?
He texted Cia with the dinner invitation, and her response put a smile on his face for the rest of the day: It’s a date.
A date with his wife. The wife he secretly contemplated keeping. Forever didn’t fill him with dread or have him looking for the exit. Yet. He’d been nursing the idea in the back of his mind, weighing it out. Testing it for feasibility. Working the angles. If he didn’t file for divorce, he’d have to give up Manzanares because he hadn’t fulfilled his end of the bargain.
There was a lot to consider, especially the effort required to convince Cia to look at their agreement in a different light.
It was time to take the next step and see how difficult Cia would be about staying married. The six months were more than half over, and he had a suspicion it would take a while to bring her around, even with the added incentive of his idea of using the hotel for the shelter.
Moore agreed to the amended contract and walked out the door at five forty-five, giving Lucas plenty of time to cook a spectacular dinner for Cia. The poolside venue beat a restaurant by a country mile, and the summer heat wasn’t unbearable yet.
They sat at the patio table and exchanged light stories about their day as a breeze teased Cia’s hair. He waited until dessert to broach the main topic on his mind. “Have you thought any further about the hotel site?”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s all I’ve thought about. Courtney and I have been redoing the numbers, and she’s excited about it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy it. It was a great idea, and I appreciate all the work you put into it.” She hesitated for a beat and met his gaze. “Would it be weird to ask you to be my broker if we’re in the middle of a divorce?”
Perfect segue. “About that. You can’t wait until you get your trust fund to buy. There are other interested parties already. A bank loan is out, I realize, but I can scrape up the money. Would you accept it?”
She stared at him. “The entire purchase price, plus renovation costs? Not just the thirty-five percent down? Lucas, that’s millions of dollars. You’d be willing to do that for me?”
Yeah, he knew the offer was substantial. What he hadn’t realized until this moment was that his high level of motivation at work hadn’t been solely to prove something to himself and to Matthew. The more successful he could make WFP now, the less of a blow it would be to lose Manzanares, which was a given if he convinced her to forget about the divorce.
“Not as a loan. In trade.”
“Trade? I don’t have anything worth that much except my trust fund.”
“You do. You.”
“We’re already married. It’s not like you have a shot at some sort of indecent proposal,” she said with a half laugh.
What he had in mind was a thoroughly decent proposal. “I’m curious. What do you think of this house?”
“Could you veer between subjects any faster?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, you were seriously asking? I love this house. It’ll be hard to go back home to my tiny Uptown condo after living here. Why, are we about to be kicked out?”