by Elise Faber
Thunk.
An arrow to his heart.
Luc wanted to be the best man she knew.
But . . .
Timing.
Professionally, his had usually been on point.
Personally? It had always been the absolute shit.
“Pineapple it is,” he murmured, tugging on that unruly strand of hair. Turning, he snagged the remote off the table. “You pick the movie. I’ll order the pizza.”
Her lips curved. It wasn’t her normal smile, but the pain in her gaze wasn’t nearly as pronounced, so he’d take what he could. “Thank you, Luc,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” A little hurt seeped back into her expression, prompting him to nudge her toward the couch.
“You would be fine,” he assured. “You’re the most capable woman I’ve ever met.” He snagged her blanket—yes, hers, since he’d bought it specifically for her after seeing her fawn over it in the store (side note: three hundred dollars for a blanket was insanity, but she loved it, so he’d had no problem making it happen)—and tucked it around her shoulders. “Movie,” he prompted.
“Pizza,” she countered.
He pulled out his phone, held it up as proof of his intentions.
She got busy on the remote.
And later, after she’d fallen asleep, exhaustion deepening the lines around her mouth, after he’d slipped her shoes off and lifted her in his arms again, he made the trek up to his bedroom, tucked her under the covers, and . . .
He grabbed some clothes and slept in the spare bedroom.
Even though he wanted, more than anything, to slide in beside her and take her into his arms.
Chapter Four
Lexi
She woke slowly, her throat feeling like it was on fire, her eyes also burning.
For one second, she thought she’d just woken up with a cold.
Then she inhaled and smelled not the scent of Caleb, but the spice and sandalwood that was intrinsically Luc and, all at once, she remembered everything. Mere stinging turned into an inferno in her eyes. Her throat went tight. Her stomach twisted and knotted, nausea rising. She slipped out from beneath the covers, stood, and surveyed the room, inhaling slow and steady.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Do not puke on the rug you helped Luc pick out.
Focusing on the inane thought calmed her insides. She managed to not vomit on that pretty rug then slowly made her way to the bathroom. The air within was sticky, its humidity speaking to someone—to Luc—having showered recently. And just the thought of a shower created the desire to stand under the hot stream of water, feeling it pound against her skin, sluice over her body, and take with it all this agony and betrayal that was slicing at her.
She went to the tiny room on the side that housed the toilet, did her business, flushed, and came out, her heart skipping a beat when she saw Luc through the open door of the bathroom. He was wearing a pair of sweats, half naked as he moved through the bedroom, pausing for a heartbeat to tug a T-shirt over his head.
She must have made a noise, a slight movement, and he heard or caught the action out of the corner of his eye, because his gaze arrowed up, his face going soft.
“How are you doing?” he asked quietly.
“I’m okay,” she lied.
Which he knew.
Because his lips pressed flat, his eyes went gentle, and she braced herself for more of the careful words, the easy tone from the night before, knowing it wouldn’t take much for her to morph back into that sobbing mess who’d ruined Luc’s shirt. God, she’d cried so much, first during the drive, having to pull over a half dozen times before reaching Luc’s house, although they barely lived five miles apart. Then on his porch and his couch and in his arms and during the movie—
Seriously, who in the fuck cried during Chris Farley’s fat-guy-in-a-little-coat bit?
It was physical comedy gold.
So, anyway—she took a deep breath—she was done with crying, was firmly ready to move into plotting to eradicate her soon-to-be-ex-husband from her life.
“There’s a toothbrush in that top drawer you can use,” Luc said, almost brusquely instead of the tender, gentle voices she’d expected, as though he’d known she was one nice sentiment away from going to pieces. But then again, he probably did know. He was her best friend and knew everything about her, from her obsession with pineapple on pizza to her asshole father . . . and now to her asshole of a soon-to-be ex. Two assholes, one life. Oh what a lucky girl she was.
Sighing, she met Luc’s eyes, saw they were kind but devoid of pity, thank God. He nodded toward a narrow door on the far end of the bathroom. “Towels and girly shit are in there.”
Her brows rose. Why would he have “girly shit?”
He wasn’t seeing anyone, and in all the time of their friendship—nearly two years they’d been all but inseparable—she’d never seen him with a woman. Well, she also hadn’t spent much time in his bedroom. It hadn’t exactly been appropriate for her as a married woman to be chilling in a man’s boudoir, even if Luc was just her friend. The extent of her experience with the space was when she’d helped him measure it for the new rug a month before.
Usually, they’d been at her place, and the times she’d come over, they’d stayed downstairs or had camped out next to the hot tub in the back yard.
So, maybe he had loads of women parading through his bedroom.
It wouldn’t surprise her in the least.
After what she’d found out yesterday, every man in her circle probably had a secret life.
“My sister’s,” he said, moving to the cabinet. “She left it behind when she stayed last month.”
Her brows relaxed.
He opened the door, took out towels—two, she noticed, because of course he’d know that she’d need one for her hair and one for her body, same as he knew that she’d prefer “girly shit” to wash up with. Caleb hadn’t gotten that, not even after seven years together. But Luc . . . well, he noticed all those little details. He paid attention. He cared, and she had no clue why he was still single.
He was a good guy.
Her best friend.
And the one person in the world she hadn’t even hesitated to turn to when the three women had shown up on her porch.
“I can use the guest bathroom.”
A shrug. “This shower’s nicer.”
She bit her lip, had the sensation of his eyes going to the spot. “The rug looks good,” she whispered, her gaze darting away.
“Yeah,” he murmured, and she glanced up in time to see him moving across the room, hanging the towels on the top of the shower. “Mostly because I had someone who actually has a sense of style help me pick it out.”
That made her smile, to relax enough to follow him over and bump her shoulder with his. “Liar,” she said. “I’ve seen your suits.”
The man had style in spades.
He cupped her cheek, green eyes sparkling. “Just a little kid playing dress-up.”
Lexi snorted, her eyes dropping down and then back up. “There’s nothing little about you.”
The air around them shifted, somehow going taut and loose at the same time, and she found herself drifting closer, her body leaning against his. Embers of heat in his eyes, a tendril of desire sliding down her nape, her spine, her ass, curling in and—
She skittered back.
Luc’s hand dropped to his side, fingers clenching into a fist.
“Enjoy your shower,” he murmured.
And then he was gone, the door clicking closed behind him.
Chapter Five
Luc, Two Years Before
It had taken him one meeting to realize that all his talk of not needing a woman and not wanting a relationship was complete and utter bullshit.
Because . . . Lexi.
Holy shit, she was smart.
She’d figured out a solution to a clause in the contract with one of the team’s vendors—a laundry service they’d de
cided to try out when their equipment manager had gone on maternity leave. It had turned out to be a disaster, and they wanted out, had hired extra hands to deal with the laundry on site. Tired of paying double, they’d gone to cancel the contract and had received nastygrams from the company’s attorneys.
Never fail, though, Lexi had found some language in one of the clauses that could have been interpreted one of a couple of ways—“Ambiguity is usually not our friend,” she’d said, pointing out the line. “But in this case, it should give us the space to push back.”
She had pushed back.
And now, they were out from underneath the contract.
And when he’d gone to her office earlier, intending to thank her, she’d waved him off, invited him out for a celebratory beer with Todd and a few others.
Smart. Confident. Didn’t take herself too seriously.
Normally, he wouldn’t have accepted the offer. There were some lines that needed to be kept unsmudged, and boss or not, those within the realm of work should stay firmly in place.
Today, however, he couldn’t say no.
Maybe it was her eyes. Maybe her smile. Or . . . maybe it was the invite without any pressure. The sense that he could relax in this woman’s presence.
So . . . he’d said yes.
Then for the first time in a really, fucking long time, he’d actually put down work he’d been in the middle of in order to make it to the bar on time. Mark the fucking day down in history.
That just didn’t happen.
But for this woman, he hadn’t even thought twice of it.
He’d actually been watching the clock, counting the minutes until he could go to her.
Now, he was stepping out of his car, shoving his wallet and cell into the pockets of his slacks, and moving toward the bar. It was spring, an unseasonably warm day, and the heat had him rolling up his sleeves as he moved to the door, tugging it open.
Music filled the space, loud enough to make him squint—illogically, like turning down the radio when he was trying to find a place to parallel park downtown.
He searched the space, saw Todd first.
Then Lexi.
Thud-thud.
His heart twisted in his chest, squeezed tight then relaxed.
Todd and Lexi sat kitty-corner at the high-top table, two pitchers and a stack of glasses in front of them. The table was full except for two empty seats on either side of Lexi. She had shrugged off her jacket, slung it on the back of her chair as she laughed at something someone said.
Thud-thud.
Jealousy tore through him. He wanted to be the one to make her laugh. The one by her side. Even though he knew it was just friendship with Todd, the other man happily married, his kids grown and his first grandbaby on the way (law had been a second career for him). Even though he knew there was no reason to be envious of Todd.
Luc still was.
That deep-rooted, intense feeling had his feet sliding to a stop.
He’d had five meetings with Lexi—four with Todd at her side, only one with her alone—and every time he’d entered the conference room, each time he’d laid eyes on Lexi, Luc had felt the same focus, the same forceful draw to her.
As though every cell single-mindedly pointed in her direction, fixated on what she was saying, gleaning every bit of information he could about her.
She drank her coffee black.
She liked gummy worms.
She always wore black slacks, but she had pairs with pink, blue, and red stripes as well as the white-lined ones he’d seen that first day.
Her nail polish had changed every time he’d seen her, but the color was always topped with glitter.
And now, she was drinking a beer with Todd, seeming totally at ease.
Something else he respected. That she seemed totally comfortable with herself, regardless of the environment she was dumped in. Which, look, he understood was a generalization, considering he hadn’t seen her outside of work and now this one bar, but Luc prided himself on being a good judge of character.
He wanted to get to know her better.
He wanted to ask her out on a date, regardless of the complications their work lives might bring.
He was willing to weather some pretty intense storms, considering their two-week acquaintance, considering that after his divorce, he’d vowed to never wade into a situation with complications and ties again.
Bottom line.
This woman was different.
So, all of his careful rules were going out the window.
Lexi laughed again, the noise sloshing over him like liquid sunshine.
Thud-thud.
His feet began moving again.
Yeah, maybe it made him a romantic fool, but he had absolutely no doubt that this woman would be worth burning up his rulebook.
He stepped up to the table, inhaling the sweet, floral scent of her, feeling that rightness boiling in his blood, coursing through his veins, propelling him into the chair next to her.
She smiled, and it was an arrow to his heart—but not in a painful way, in the sudden thunk of air freezing in his lungs, his pulse speeding. “Luc,” she said. “You made it! Do you want a beer? We have . . .” She named two types, both of which he didn’t process because he was watching her mouth move instead of actually hearing the words.
“The second one,” he said when she paused, obviously waiting for a reply.
She nodded, poured him a glass and set it in front of him, joining back in on the conversation around them. Every other chair was now occupied, though the faces weren’t familiar.
He listened, only half paying attention to the words exchanged.
Instead, he was focused on the smell of her hair, the heat he could feel coming off her body, the nude nail polish topped with pink sparkles, the half-moon of red lipstick on the top of her glass.
Luc was staring, but he couldn’t find the strength to stop.
Then the conversation lulled, and she turned back to him, golden-brown eyes focusing on him.
He smiled.
She smiled back, lifting her left hand and reaching for the man next to her.
Luc felt like he’d been gut-punched as he noticed something he’d missed before. Something on that left hand—a hand, he realized now, that had always been on the opposite side of him, one he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to because he’d been too focused on everything else.
Because he’d never even considered the alternative.
She laced her hand through the elbow of the man next to her, tugged him toward Luc. “Hey,” she said, turning the man in Luc’s direction, joy in her eyes. “Luc, this is my husband, Caleb.”
Heart seizing, his gaze fixed on the sparkling diamond ring on her left finger, Luc managed to stammer out a hello.
Caleb looked at Lexi the way Luc was desperate to—with love, with adoration, with devotion—and it fueled the bright light inside Lexi, grew that sunshine within her until it seemed to fill the entire bar.
It took one conversation for Luc to see that Caleb was her perfect match.
He chimed in at the right times, complimented Lexi perfectly, refilled her glass, held her hand, gently stroked her cheek when he had to slip out for a phone call.
Love there.
Adoration between them.
But still, Luc couldn’t pry himself away from Lexi. Maybe he liked self-flagellation, maybe he just couldn’t move from the sunlight into the shadows. Regardless, he stayed in that chair, much longer than he’d intended, listening to her, soaking in every second of her warmth as he worked to shove down the desire, the way her body made him feel, made his cock ache. Instead, he filed away everything he learned about her, made sure he was kind and funny and friendly—only friendly—in return.
Even if the thought of being friends with Lexi made it feel like his heart had been torn from his chest and tossed into a blender.
But she was married.
She couldn’t be his.
She was happy.
<
br /> So . . . friends.
If he wanted any part of her in his life, he’d have to be content to only be friends.
Chapter Six
Luc, Present Day
“Enjoy your shower?” he muttered, stalking down the hall.
Fucking, seriously?
Who said that?
Dumbasses, that was who. Dumbasses like him. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about her naked and in his bathroom, too fucking tempting, though he wouldn’t lay a finger on her, not when she was broken.
Broken because of that fucking bastard, Caleb.
How had he ever thought the other man was perfect for Lexi?
Caleb had hurt her, and Luc should have recognized the fucker for what he was, should have stopped him before—
Cursing, shoving that guilt down to deal with later, he pounded down the stairs, desperate to put distance between himself and Lexi. Fuck. More regrets, because what the hell was he thinking? Touching her like that, drifting close, her tempting body pressed to his.
She was heartbroken.
She was hurt.
She didn’t need him getting a hard-on because her breasts had accidentally brushed his chest.
Fingers grasping the curved, metal handle to the back slider, he prowled onto the deck. It was full of greenery and flowers, fucking fairy lights overhead, colorful pottery dotting the space.
Because of the woman who was probably naked in his shower upstairs.
“Fuck,” he muttered, moving across the space he’d paid through the fucking nose to create because he, Caleb, and Lexi had gone to the state fair once, because as they’d wandered through the garden section, through the displays local landscapers had put together, she’d mentioned liking it. It had been one of those scorching summer days, the humidity bearing down on him, sweat soaking through his T-shirt, dripping down his spine. Then they’d stumbled upon that shaded space, a breath of relief slipping out of him when the air had been cooler as they’d stepped through the gate.
And Lex had arrested.
Just stopped immediately in the middle of the path, people streaming around her, lips parted, eyes wide in awe.