by Emelia Blair
A second later, I’m opening the front door, and staring at the person standing there while completely dumbfounded. “What are you doing here?”
Lucas’ shirt is missing a tie and the first two buttons of his shirt are open. His sleeves are rolled up and his hair is all mused up as if he’s spent hours running his hands through it. “I had to…” He pauses and then frowns. “Are you drunk?”
I make a face at him. “So what if I am?”
He looks a little taken aback at my aggressive tone and then looks over my head, “Where’s Sophie?”
I feel a little resentful. “She’s sleeping. Why are you here, Lucas?”
“Can I come in?”
I grip the door a little tighter; suddenly feeling oddly vulnerable while remembering the last time I had been alone with a man when I was drunk. Although, I’m just a bit tipsy at the moment, I’m still scared. “No.”
He freezes at the vehemence of my statement and then his face turns dark as if he’s remembering something. He takes a step back and puts his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to call you but I couldn’t find my cell. I wanted to ask if you wanted a ride to Kendall and Caleb’s place tomorrow, for the party?”
I stare at his face and wonder why he’s so handsome. Nobody should be this handsome. I feel annoyed and in my haziness, I don’t realize I’ve spoken my thoughts out loud.
The shock on Lucas’ face morphs into a sly grin. “Handsome eh?”
I blush fiercely and promptly close my mouth.
“Just how much have you had to drink?” he asks, curiously.
I suddenly remember that I broke the glass and I feel gloomy all over again. “Three glasses of whiskey.” I look over my shoulder.
He follows my gaze to settle on the shattered glass.
“But I broke the glass. I should get another one.” And without thinking, I leave him standing at the front door and padding over, I’m about to step on the glass to reach the cabinet when I suddenly feel my feet leave the ground, a strong pair of hands picking me up by the waist.
I’m deposited on the couch and I blink dazedly at Lucas, “Wow, you’re strong. Wait, you’re not supposed to come inside.”
He gives me an exasperated look. “I’ll apologize for it later. First tell me where your broom is.”
“In the closet,” I gesture towards the small hall which opens up to the two bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom and the tiny closet.”
He stares at me. “Which door?”
“The closet one.” I wave grandly in a random direction.
He sighs. “Don’t move,” he orders.
I don’t like being ordered around in my own house, but I’m a little too drunk to voice a coherent complaint. So, I settle for watching him look through each door until he finds the closet.
In a matter of minutes, he’s cleaning up the glass.
I watch him from over the top of the couch. “What’re you doing?”
He shoots me an unhappy look. “You could hurt yourself.”
“Oh?” I watch him clean up and I admire his lean and muscular form, his forearms attracting most of my attention. He just picked me up with so little effort so he must be really strong.
Finally, he’s standing in front of me. “Go to bed.”
I lean over, reaching for the bottle of whiskey. “No can do. I want to drink.”
He snatches up the bottle before I can reach it and scowls at the label. “This is poison. It’s not even real whiskey.”
I feel insulted. “Not everyone can afford proper whiskey. And this does the job! Give it back.”
Holding the bottle just out of my reach, he looks amused. “You’re cute like this. But you can’t have it back.”
My lower lip quivers. “But it’s mine.”
Lucas automatically looks distressed at the sight of my tears and he lowers his arm.
I jump up and grab the bottle from him, laughing. “Sucker.”
He looks bewildered for half a heartbeat and then snatches back the bottle, wearing a heavy frown. Ignoring my protests, he finds the kitchen and as I follow him, I watch him empty the bottle in the sink, to my utter dismay.
“That cost me twenty dollars!” I grumble.
He shoots me a look. “I’ll get you a better one.” He walks over to me then puts his hands on my shoulders, saying gently, “Elise, go to bed. You’re very drunk.”
I shake off his hands. “So what? I have a right to get wasted after the week I’ve had.”
He follows after me.
I round to him, feeling upset. “Do you know how many times I’ve been called a slut?” I show him ten fingers. “Seventeen! I counted.” I ignore the flare of cold fury in his eyes and continue, “And for what? I didn’t want to sleep with him. I just agreed to a date. And I…” My voice catches, “I told him to use a condom. I begged him but he didn’t listen.” Bitterness floods my voice. “I kept Sophie away from him. I adhered to the contract and everything.”
“What contract?” Lucas’s voice is sharp.
I don’t listen to him, angry now. I’m so angry at the way I’m being treated. I’m quivering with rage right now. Maybe it’s the alcohol, my emotions being all over the place. “Maybe I should just consider leaving,” I finally say, my tone sour. “That’ll fix everything.”
“So, you’re just going to run away?” Lucas’s voice is silky.
It grabs my attention.
The look on his face is similar to the one I had seen this evening and I don’t know why I’m not scared. Instead, I lift my chin up, and demand, “So what if I am?”
He takes a step towards me and I’m intoxicated enough not to step back, something inside of me churning at the way he’s watching me. One of his hands settles on my neck and the other winds itself in my hair in an intimate way. It’s the way he’s standing so close to me, looking down at me that finally robs me of my speech and I stare up at him, my heart beating loudly in my chest.
“You’re quite bold when you’re drunk,” he murmurs, his hand covering my throat in a way that has me trembling, but not in fear. “You’re not quitting your job.”
I open my mouth but the way he’s looking at me, so calmly, has me saying dazedly, “Okay.”
He seems satisfied at this and then asks, “You mentioned a contract.”
I still.
Shit.
I pull away from him as I shake my head. “No. Its nothing.”
He advances towards me.
I stare at him, helplessly, as my lower abdomen tightens.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” He’s hovering over me once again.
This new version of him that I’m facing overwhelms me. It’s intoxicating in a way I’ve never felt before so I shove at him. “Go away. Every time you get close to me, I can’t think!”
He looks oddly pleased with this and he doesn’t budge. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I have to bite my tongue to hold in my secrets. The pain clears my mind enough for me to say, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
This time he smiles at me. “You know I can find out either way.”
I bare my teeth at him. “It’s none of your business.”
He puts one hand and in his pocket and with the other, in a move oddly reminiscent of this evening, he grips my chin in iron-clad hold, and tells me, softly, “You are my business, Elise.”
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest.
7
Lucas
Elise has been holding onto her secrets and while I hadn’t been intending to show her ruthlessness lurking inside me when we had stood in the lobby earlier today, I had been infuriated beyond belief.
I had lost control for a few minutes.
And I had seen the blush on her cheeks.
She liked it.
Of course, then I had gone on to question her and she had pulled away from me.
Coming to her place was a spur of the moment thing. I had lost my cell but more than this, I also wanted to check u
p on her. When she had left my car, she looked so miserable, a certain misery in her gaze that had made me want to beat someone up.
I hadn’t been expecting to find her drunk off of cheap whiskey.
A drunk Elise doesn’t hold back on her feelings and she lets a lot of things slip. Despite being an adorable handful, she’s being cross and stubborn. Every time her lips part, I learn something or the other about her present situation.
When she voiced her desire to leave Starr Industries my blood ran cold. And then this contract.
What did she sign a contract for?
It’s ringing alarm bells.
Suddenly, she realizes she’d spoken too much and now she’s trying to backtrack. Her cheeks are flaming red and her mouth trembles at my words.
I’m seized with a desire to cover it with my own, just to see what she tastes like. But I restrain myself.
“You should go,” she mumbles, faintly.
I sigh. I don’t want to upset her but I will get my answers one way or another. But for now… “Come on. Time for bed.” I force her onto her feet, trying to ignore the way her bare legs rub against my pants as she stumbles.
Everything about her makes me want to sink into her and never get out. She’s like a drug to me and she doesn’t even realize how tightly she has me in her delicate fist.
“I don’t want to sleep,” Elise protests even as she lets me take her to what I assume is her room.
I grab the baby monitor in one hand. “You’re drunk and you have an infant to take care of,” I scold her, lightly.
She looks chastised at my words.
I make her sit in her bed. When she starts looking a little anxious, I pretend not to see it and force her to lay down. It’s barely ten at night and she’s starting to look tired. I have a feeling she isn’t accustomed to drinking much. Tonight must have been one of the spurs of the moment things.
I tuck the blanket around her and put the baby monitor next to her on the side table.
This is not how I’d been expecting this night to end. I had maybe been hoping to convince her to let me order some takeout to make up for that unpleasant scene at the office. But as I look at her watching me, the mental exhaustion from the day making her eyes droop, I muse that this isn’t the worst way to end the night.
I have the urge to press my lips to her forehead, affection rising in me. I settle for running a tender hand through her hair and chuckling. “You’re going to have an awful hangover tomorrow and you’re going to be so mad at me.”
“I’m already mad at you,” she informs me, her words slurred. “You made me tell you all these things and then you threw away my whiskey.”
I run my fingers through her hair again.
She closes her eyes against her will.
“I’ll get you a new one, darling.”
“I liked that one,” she mutters, stubbornly.
I smile at her words. “There’s a strange man in your bedroom and you’re worried about your whiskey.”
She’s half asleep, and she mumbles, “You’re not a strange man. You’re Lucas.”
I still at her words and my heart feels unsteady at the trust evident in her voice.
When her eyes don’t open, I retreat to the door.
Just as I’m about to leave, she says in a low voice that’s filled with sadness, “I wish it had been you.”
For a moment, I’m confused and then her words hit me like a blow, their meaning clear as a bell to me.
I glance at her, the yearning in my heart almost painful but then I turn around and close the door behind me, softly.
I retrieve the branded whiskey bottle from my car. I had gotten it on my way over, coincidentally, hoping to drink some tonight. I place it on Elise’s coffee table. Seeing a discarded ribbon on the floor, I pick up the red cloth and tie it around the neck of the bottle in a neat looking bow. “There,” I say to myself, grinning. “Now, she has sufficient reason to kill me in the morning when I pick her up.”
I pen a small note, telling her that I’ll pick her up around three in the afternoon and leaving it next to the bottle, I’m about to leave when a small filing cabinet in the corner of the room catches my attention. One of the top drawers is open and as I move to close it, without thinking, my eyes fall on some papers lying on the top as if they’d been carelessly tossed there.
On seeing the name on the top one, I pick them up.
A quick once over has my lips tightening.
“Is this supposed to be a pig in a blanket?” Lana asks me, holding up something that looks like a croissant baked around a tiny sausage.
I look at it curiously before taking it from her and popping it into my mouth. Smiling at her outraged look, I chew thoughtfully, remarking, “It’s really good. You should try one.”
She makes an outraged face and for a moment I fear she might try to hit me so I escape, heading over to where Kendall is talking to Elise, Oliver standing next to them, holding Sophie.
He’s been carrying Sophie around like a little princess since I brought her mother and her. He kept bringing her to Lana who’s just as besotted with the cheerful little tyke as her husband.
Even I’m getting the not so subtle hints that he’s sending his wife.
“Kendall, these blanket with pigs are fantastic.”
Seeing me, Sophie opens her arms, demanding to be transferred to me and Oliver has no choice but to release his tiny charge. Settling in my arms, Sophie puts her head on my shoulder as if that had been her intention all along.
She looks up at me with happy eyes and my heart tightens at this precious bundle.
Elise’s eyes are tired and she’s clearly hungover. She doesn’t move to take Sophie from me but her eyes linger on us for a few seconds before she moves her gaze to where Kendall is saying something to me.
I recall her words from last night and feeling Sophie’s weight in my arms, I wish I had some way of making them true.
However, when I picked up Elise in the morning, aside from being hungover and asking me to stop shouting, she didn’t seem to recall anything from last night. I would have believed that had she not passed by the expensive bottle of whiskey on her coffee table as if it had always been there.
But there are more pressing matters on my mind than her trying to get out of an awkward conversation.
“…Are you even listening, Lucas?” Kendall sounds annoyed.
I’m dragged out of my thoughts. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else.” I force out a laugh.
She gives me a strange look but doesn’t pursue the matter anymore.
A small child bumps into me and Kendall immediately grabs him, scolding, “Max, what are you doing running into people? Where’s Duke?”
Max looks around. “Dad said that he’d pay me ten dollars if I leave Mama to work alone in peace.”
Duke, Caleb’s chauffeur slash best friend, slash partner in every crime, and his cell mate in prison, had married Kendall’s best friend Tracy and her son had taken a shining to his new stepfather and preferred to call him Dad instead of by name. Those two were thick as thieves.
Max wrapped his small arms around Kendall’s waist and complained loudly, “I’m hungry. When is Caleb bringing the pizza?”
Kendall fondly runs her hands through Max’s hair and tells him, “We’re not having pizza today. Your mom’s making something. Go bother her.”
As Max runs off, conveniently forgetting about the promised ten dollars, I turn my attention to Elise. She’s watching me again and immediately averts her eyes. I can’t stop the tiny smirk from forming on my lips.
It seems I’ve gotten her attention.
She winces at something Kendall says and Lana comes over, a curious look on her face, “Elise, you’re looking awful. What did you do last night?”
Before Elise can say anything, I interject, “She got drunk.”
Elise looks mortified at my words and glowers at me before scrunching her face up in pain, saying faintly, “I need some aspirin.
”
“If you were trying to outdrink Lucas, no wonder you’re hungover.” Caleb walks over and hands Elise a bottle of aspirin.
She doesn’t even bother with water, just dry swallows two pills.
Sophie is now chewing on my shirt collar and I pat her back affectionately, telling her, “When you grow up, you’re going to owe me a new shirt, kid.”
She babbles happily and when I make a farting noise from my mouth, she leans back and claps, excitedly. Her attempt to mimic me ends up blowing spit bubbles on my shirt. Laughing, I pick up a tissue and clean it off.
“Here, I can…” Elise holds out her arms to take Sophie from me
I shake my head. “It’s okay. Sophie and I are good. Aren’t we, Sophie?”
Sophie grabs my hair in her tiny fists and pulls, babbling in response to my questions. She looks very comfortable in my arms and seems to have no desire to go to her mother.
Elise doesn’t protest but she looks a little unnerved.
I know what’s bothering her and I can’t help but want to tease her. When her face gets all red and she stammers, I adore her.
“Why were you getting drunk with Lucas last night?”
It’s Kendall who asks the question.
Elise shoots me a look of betrayal before saying, “I wasn’t drinking with him. He showed up and I might have had a few glasses.” When Lana opens her mouth, she immediately adds, “It was Friday. I just wanted to relax a bit.”
Kendall and Lana exchange glances before Lana says, “But weren’t you and Lucas going out for dinner?”
Having it spoken out loud has the tips of Elise’s ears burning but she manages to keep her cool. “I was too tired. Sorry, I forgot to cancel with you.”
Kendall shrugs. “It’s all right. Lucas called me from the car.” She glances at Caleb, “Where’s Jace?”
Her fiancé doesn’t look very concerned. “He’s running an errand for me.” Caleb nudges his head towards me in understanding.
I accompany him to a corner of the room. Oliver trails after us, casually, as if he, too, had been invited.
Once we’re out of earshot, Caleb finally asks, “Kendall told me about what’s going on with Elise. Has she said anything?”