“I’m fine,” I said, my voice going up several octaves.
“Of course you are, because that boy loves you, and if he still loved her, then he would be with her. But he’s with you, because he’s meant to be with you.” She made it sound so simple. I liked it.
I nodded and she patted me on the shoulder.
“Besides, she’s definitely too thin. I want to take her out for lunch and feed her.” She giggled and gave me a wink before leaving.
I would deal with that later. Now, I had work to do. Glorious work that didn’t make me think of Lucah and his ex and her red hair and long legs at all.
~*~*~
My phone rang at eleven thirty, and it was Lucah. I took a breath before I answered.
“Hey,” I said. He breathed for a second before he responded with, “Hey.”
“You recovered? Everything okay?” I tried to keep my voice level and calm.
“I think so. I’ve, uh, I’ve been hiding in my office.” His office was a lot smaller than mine, and the walls were a lot thinner.
“From Violet?”
“I don’t know. From everything. You wonder why I don’t talk about my past and part of it is because of my parents and part of it is that, I don’t know, I’m not ashamed of the way I grew up, but I’m afraid it’s going to taint what I have now.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“I’m just glad to know that you’re as ridiculous as I am about some things. I was beginning to wonder.” I almost started laughing. I got a sick thrill out of knowing that Lucah could get worked up about things.
“Can we have lunch? And by lunch I mean coffee? I need you.” His voice changed from a regular whisper to a sexy whisper and I immediately felt my own needs in some key areas. Lunchtime sex? Yes, please.
“Where?”
“My desk?” He wasn’t serious. I waited. “Okay, okay, how about, ah, the hotel around the corner. I hear they have excellent . . . coffee cups. That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.” Now that made me laugh.
“A hotel? How illicit. I’m game. Meet you out in front at twelve?”
“Absolutely.” He hung up and I decided that this day had gone from potentially awful to pretty damn good.
~*~*~
I counted down the minutes until noon and I was praying that no one asked me for anything so I could get out of the office without incident. Fate was in my favor as I grabbed my coat and my purse and nearly skipped to the elevator.
And then my glee was brought to a screeching halt as I nearly crashed right into Violet. Buzz, gone.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said as we tried to get around each other and did a little dance.
“No, no, my fault.” We both sort of laughed and I finally made my way to the elevator. I’d gone from thinking she could be my new best work friend to trying not to imagine her getting hit by a taxi. I shoved her aside in my head and tried to think just about Lucah. Mmmm, coffee with Lucah at a hotel. Yum.
He beat me to the front of the building and was standing there, waiting for me when I came out, a huge grin on his face. That pushed every thought about the redhead upstairs (what was her name again?) aside as I walked slowly toward him.
“Are you ready for coffee?” I said, stopping with a few feet of space between us.
“Yes, Miss Clarke, I believe I am.” He held his hand out and I took it. We were both eager, so instead of strolling, we picked up the pace. I almost suggested taking a cab, but it was literally only two blocks, so it would have been crazy to do that.
I made Lucah get the room, because I knew what they were going to think. He came back, waving the key card in the air.
“I got it for two days so they wouldn’t think you were a call girl.”