He’d looked out for me too, and my heart had revelled in it. Loving the way he didn’t disregard my opinion, unlike Dad and Nate, who saw me as just a girl. Lucas made me feel special.
But when his mother had died suddenly things changed. We truly became his family, gave him a home, and as much as Nate was his best friend, and my father a man he respected and could call on for advice, my mother the one to feed, water and look after him, I was Lucas’s ear. It was my turn to be there for him.
I was the one he talked to about how he felt, about his grief which was tainted with guilt at not having been the closest of sons to his mother. But his remorse only succeeded in making me more angry, more protective, as I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. She should’ve been a better mother. She should’ve been there for him more.
Like I had been.
Until my eighteenth birthday, that is. Until I pushed him too far.
I was naïve to think he would consider me worth the risk. Naïve to think he could have loved me enough.
I take a shaky breath and duck my head against the bitter cold wind. I know better now. I won’t go there again.
I teeter down the pavement towards home and I shiver. The champagne topped up with wine had been doing a fine job of warding off the chill until now.
How could things have gone so wrong five years ago?
Ten years ago I messed up and he broke my heart.
But five years ago, he and Nate and their business... I just don’t get it.
My parents loved Lucas—Nate loved him. I can’t believe he just bailed on the company, as my father and Nate claim. They hate him for it, but the Lucas I know—I knew—wouldn’t do that. And the anger, the resentment—it’s there on both sides.
If we’re to work together I need to get the full story. I need to know I can trust him. Which means I need Lucas to tell me his side of it. And that means dragging up the past.
I wanted to press Dad at dinner, to be honest and tell him that I suspect Nate of playing a greater role in what went down five years ago. But I didn’t. Instead, Lucas just became the elephant in the room.
A rather sexy, irresistible, fuck-me-now elephant.
I remember how he looked on his knees, his head buried between my legs, and the chill evaporates with a lick of heat. I wonder whether his trunk would be just as impressive as the oversized animal’s...
A surprised laugh erupts over my crazed thoughts.
‘You know, talking to oneself is the first sign of madness.’
Lucas. Oh, God.
I misstep and quickly correct it. Straightening my spine I turn to face him, praying that the low light hides the excitement rising beneath my shock. ‘Technically, I was laughing, and that is a sign of good character...not that you’d know much about that.’
His brow lifts over eyes that flicker and I wonder if my words sting. Guilt fires inside me—it’s a low blow—but I bury it.
‘What are you doing here, Lucas?’
‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
I take a shaky breath and remind myself of the trillion reasons why this needs to stop. ‘I thought I made it clear earlier that we’re even.’
He steps towards me and heat flares with his proximity. My lungs drag in air that is tainted with his cologne.
‘And I told you,’ he murmurs, ‘we’re not...not even close.’
I hear the desire ring in his voice, feel it echo in my blood, and I force myself to turn away, to walk. ‘It’s close enough, Lucas.’
‘That’s not what your eyes were telling me earlier, Evangeline.’
He follows close behind me and I ignore the shiver of delight, wrapping my arms around my middle, hugging my faux fur coat tight.
I can’t tell him that I’m scared of falling for him again. But I can tell him that my family hating him makes this a very bad idea.