“What?” she huffed. “What are you talking about, Lucas?”
“You’re not staying here.” His tone was clipped.
“I’ll go back to the motel.”
“The hell you will. Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s what I can afford, Lucas. I appreciate what you’ve done for my mother but I’m not…I’m not going to be some…kept woman.”
“Kept woman?” he said with a stiff expression. “Who said anything about a being a kept woman?”
“Well, I sure can’t afford the rent for Romero Towers, that’s a no-brainer.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“I’ll cover it, Maxine. When are you going to learn to accept help when it's offered?”
“Because you’ve done so much for me and I feel as if…I’ll never be able to repay you.” The words caused a painful lump to swell in her throat. Maxine could not breathe or think straight. It was all too overwhelming.
Just then Lucas paused, his expression turned serious. He saw something over by the corner of her studio apartment on the ground by the overturned bookshelf and mounds of books spewed across the floor. He walked over to that area and knelt down; a grin touched his lips.
“What is it?” Maxine asked with great curiosity. She stepped over some books and overturned coffee table to get to where he was.
It was the beautiful bouquet that she had placed on top of her bookshelf. The one she caught at Lucy’s wedding around the same time Lucas had caught Antonio’s garter. Oh, my.
Lucas swallowed. He turned around to face Maxine and handed it to her with a wicked grin. “You may be needing this one day, beautiful.”
Maxine flushed. If only.
***
A few weeks blew past Maxine as she spent time in her new apartment at Romero Towers on the luxury strip of Bay Street and the lake with a beautiful view of the blue water. She had never been in a place like that. Sure enough, Lucas had convinced her to stay there. She had nowhere else to turn. In the first few days, Lucas was with her at the office to ensure things ran smoothly at the agency with the new software program. It was a dream. Speaking of dreams, every night since Lucas helped her out in her apartment she thought back to watching him pick up that magic bouquet in the rubble of her trashed apartment. That bouquet. She referred to it as magic because of all the things to find. It was as if it was some sort of positive omen or maybe even fate. What had that meant? Why had Lucas grinned? A distinct feeling of lightness floated inside her belly. Love. She thought about Lucas having caught the garter that day of Lucy’s wedding, too. Was that a coincidence or…kismet?
As Maxine shuffled through some paperwork on her desk at Dream Weddings, Inc. she tried to push the thought of having anything romantic with Lucas aside. The last thing she needed to do was to raise her hopes only to have them come crushing down.
She had to shift her focus back on work. Yes, work. She loved the new technology Lucas had set up for her business. That was a step in the right direction.
Betty, the receptionist and admin assistant, loved it, too. It was more self-serve for clients and meant less hassle for them. It was also cost-effective since things were headed more online much like travel agencies these days.
At least now her company would be able to keep up with technology and the changing times. So at least they stood some fighting chance of survival in the competitive marketplace. Of course, it also meant that revenue would take a small hit but that was inevitable in any case since most clients were not coming in with mounds of cash to have their weddings organized by a live person.
But to her chagrin, Lucas wasn’t there much of the time. At least after things got up and running. He left Maxine to her work, sure as promised.
The high-rise state-of-the-art condo was close to her office at Dream Wedding, Inc., which in and of itself was a dream! Talk about a fast commute. And all this time, Lucas was on the West Coast handling some business merger plans for Romero Corp. on behalf of his grandfather. She felt foolish now for accusing Lucas of having her as some kept woman. Sure, he wanted to help her out a bit, but it seemed as if he had other things occupying his mind, like business, of course. He was, after all, a prominent entrepreneur and executive, right?