Besides, there was no alternative to divorce. The trust clause stated she couldn’t file for divorce. He had to.
As she ushered Fran to the door with the promise of meeting her for lunch next Monday, Cia had herself convinced she and Lucas were on the same page about the divorce.
* * *
The green dress Lucas bought Cia for the Friends of the Dallas Museum of Art benefit gala was her favorite. Sheer silk brushed her skin like a cloud, and the neckline transformed her small breasts, giving her a bit of cleavage. She’d twisted her hair into an updo and a few rebel tendrils fell around her face. Sexy, if she did say so herself.
Lucas, criminally stunning in an Armani tux, came into the bathroom as she stepped into her black sandals. He swept her hand to his lips and zapped heat straight through her tummy.
The man had touched her as intimately as possible, in more ways than she’d imagined existed. Yet a simple kiss on the back of her hand turned her knees to jelly.
“Mrs. Wheeler, you are indeed ravishing.” He pulled a flat box from the pocket of his jacket. Without taking his eyes off her, he opened the lid and offered her the box.
Cia glanced inside and her already weak knees almost pitched her to the travertine tile.
“Lucas,” she squeaked, and that was the extent of her throat’s ability to make sound.
He extracted the necklace and guided her to the mirror, then stood behind her to clasp the choker around her neck. Emeralds set in delicate filigreed platinum spilled over her collarbone, flashing fire and ice against her skin. Every eye would be drawn to the dazzling piece of art around her neck, and no one would even notice her cleavage.
“It reminds me of you,” he murmured in her ear, not touching her at all, but his heat, a signature she recognized the moment he walked into a room, raced up her bare back. “An inferno captured inside a beautiful shell. All those hard edges polished away to reveal a treasure. Do you like it?”
Did she like it? That was akin to asking if she liked the sun or breathing. The necklace wasn’t jewelry, the way every other man on earth gave women jewelry. It was a metaphor for how well he understood her.
Lucas had an uncanny ability to peer into her soul and pluck out her essential desires, then present them to her.
Similar to his mother’s pearls, this necklace represented all the frightening, unexamined things in her heart, which Lucas never let her forget. Neither could she forget he’d very pointedly failed to mention the things in his heart.
“I can’t keep it.” Her hand flew to the clasp, only to be stilled by his.
“Yes. You can. I insist.”
“It’s too...” Personal. Meaningful. Complicated. “Expensive. I’m sure you still have the receipt. Take it back.”
“The artist custom-made it for you. All sales are final.”
She shut her eyes for a beat. “That’s not the kind of thing you do for a woman you’re about to divorce. How are we going to make it look like we’re on the outs if you’re buying me custom-made jewelry?”
They had time, but they’d done such a bang-up job of making a fake marriage look real, reversing it presented a whole new set of difficulties. She wished she’d considered that before hopping into Lucas’s bed.
“Maybe I’m trying to earn your forgiveness,” he suggested, and in the mirror, his gaze locked on hers, a blue firestorm winding around her, daring her to ask what he’d done that required forgiveness.
Was this an apology for bringing up an alternative to divorce? “Forgiveness for an affair, maybe? You wouldn’t do that.”
His forehead tightened. “How do you know what I’m capable of?”
She spun away from the mirror, about to remind him that he’d been the one to convince her he’d never cheat. His black expression changed her mind. “Because I do. Only someone with a huge ego and a heaping spoonful of selfish has an affair. You don’t have the qualifications.”
They stared at each other for the longest time, and, finally, Lucas blinked, clearing his expression, and gave her a slow smile. “So maybe I’m trying to earn your forgiveness for slaving away at the office. Leaving you alone for days on end, crying into your pillow about how your husband never pays attention to you anymore.”
“That could work,” she said, then squealed as he backed her up against the vanity and slid magic fingertips up her leg, gathering green silk against his wrist.
“It’s been so long, hasn’t it, darlin’? Are you desperate for my hands on you? Like this?” His palm flattened against her bottom and inched under her panties, stealing her breath as he dipped into her instantly wet center.