Then finding out I’d been made into the other woman.
“You’re leaving,” Breanna said softly, resting her head on my shoulder.
I knew she had to be reading the scathing resignation, but I didn’t do anything to stop her.
Instead, I answered her question. “Other than you and a couple of other friends, I really haven’t found much reason to stay. Now this thing with Lukas…” I shook my head. “It’s too much, Bree. It’s just too much.”
She was silent as I finished typing up the letter.
Skimming it once, I decided it was good enough. I saved it before opening my email. Without giving myself time to think, I drafted a quick note to Lukas and the head of human resources, then attached the letter. I huffed out a breath as I hit send, then closed my laptop.
“Feel better?” Breanna asked quietly.
“No.” Looking around my room, I took in the bedroom suite I’d just bought, the few furnishings I’d allowed myself to get as I tried to make this strange place into a home. I hadn’t even had a chance. “But I will sooner or later. You want to keep the bedroom suite? Maybe use this as a guest bedroom?”
She gaped at me.
I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, but I can arrange to have it transported back home if you don’t.”
Which was smarter since I’d need it for when I found myself an apartment because I wouldn’t stay with my parents any longer than necessary, that was certain.
“Um…I’ll think about it,” she said slowly. Then she grinned. “Maybe I’ll donate mine and take yours.”
I laughed. It almost felt good.
Rising, I went to lug my suitcase out of the closet, one of the nice things about the condo where Breanna lived. It was spacious and open, the kind of place I’d probably have to pay three times as much for to get in New York. Which meant I wouldn’t get anything like this right away. My parents would float me the money, but until I got the bulk of my trust fund at twenty-five, I had to be careful.
“Anything I can help with?” Breanna asked, her voice husky.
I glanced up and saw that her eyes were wet. I went to her and hugged her. “I’ll miss you.”
She hugged me back. “Let’s get this done before I try to talk you out of it,” she said, pulling back almost immediately.
We worked in silence for almost twenty minutes and would have likely kept that up until we were done if it wasn’t for the ringing of the doorbell.
Breanna sniffed and looked at me, grimacing. “Do you mind? I don’t do goodbyes well, and I looked awful now.”
I nodded and paused to hug her again before slipping out of the bedroom.
Shooting a quick glance at the clock, I saw that it was almost nine. I didn’t think Breanna was expecting anybody, and I knew I wasn’t so I had no idea who it was because I knew it wouldn’t be Lukas.
I sure wouldn’t have minded a pizza delivery guy right then though.
My belly rumbled demandingly, almost on cue, as I opened the door. Face flushed with embarrassment, I went to greet my visitor.
But the words froze on my tongue.
It was Gracie.
Lukas’s wife.
20
We stared at each other for the longest time, the silence growing taut and heavy, moving well past the awkward stage and into the downright weird. But I didn’t know what to say or do, and it seemed like Gracie felt the same.
Did she go by Mrs. Grayson? Had she hyphenated? Kept her last name? Should I ask?
The longer she watched me, the more uncomfortable I became, and I opened my mouth, desperate to shatter this quiet. Then I spoke – and I wanted to yank the words back.
“I didn’t know he was married,” I blurted out.
I braced myself for derision, for anger, for speculation.
What I got was a laugh. “I know that,” Gracie said, her voice gentle. “Our relationship isn’t publicized, and he told me that he hadn’t told you.”
“He…you…” Shaking my head, I asked, “He told you about us?”
“Oh, I’ve known for a couple of weeks. Lukas and I don’t really have any secrets.” She glanced past me, then said, “I’d like to come in, if I could. I know this must be awkward.”
Awkward?
Yeah. We could start with that.
I was pretty sure that calling this awkward was like referring to the Titanic as a bit of disaster, but what the hell. “Sure.” I stepped back, crossing my arms over my belly as she came inside.
She didn’t bother with any pleasantries, just went straight to the couch and sat down, clearly waiting for me to follow suit. Since I wanted this over, I did just that, sitting in the armchair across from her and crossing my legs. Gracie met my gaze.
“So Lukas told you about us.”
“Yes.”
“Might have been nice if I was informed,” I said breezily, trying not to let the feelings of betrayal and hurt overtake me. We’d had a sexual relationship, nothing else. No reason to feel hurt over it.
“Lukas has…trust issues,” Gracie allowed. Then she shrugged, sighing. “But yes, he should have told you. I’m here to try and…explain.”
“What exactly is there to explain?” I demanded. “Do you two have some sort of…open marriage? If so, hey…fine. But that’s not my speed, and the bastard should have told me.”
She cocked a brow. “Agreed. And I wouldn’t call ours…open, per se. It’s more a marriage of convenience. You see….” She paused, licking her lips and drawing in a deep breath. “Lukas and I both get certain things out of our marriage. He gets a partner for dinner parties or the various cooperate functions he has to attend, minimizing the chance that he’ll have to deal with flirtatious overtures that make him…uncomfortable. And I…well…” She paused and brushed her hair back. “Stella, I’m gay. My family is very conservative, and they have no idea. Before Lukas and I made this arrangement, I constantly had to deal with them trying to hook me up with this bachelor or that, various blind dates. It was awful. Now, they leave me alone.”
I said nothing, staring at her as I processed her words.
A marriage of convenience.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I asked finally.
“I don’t know.” Gracie shook her head, lifting one slim hand in a gesture of confusion. “What I do know…he’s…different since you came along. Lukas carries a lot of things inside him, and sometimes, he keeps too much of himself trapped inside. But he smiles more lately. I think it’s because of you. I hope you’ll give him another chance.”
“Ha.” I got up and paced over to the window, staring outside at the busy street, still crowded despite the growing lateness. “I think you’re wasting your breath, Gracie. Lukas told me earlier that we were done. I made a personal comment and…whoa, was that a mistake.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Gracie said, and there was stubborn determination in her voice.
Slowly, I turned and met her eyes. “Did he tell you what I said?”
“I know you’ve cracked his exterior. Whatever is doing that is something he needed to have done. He needs to start feeling. He never allows himself that bit of humanness, but I think you draw it out of him.”
She rose from her seat, gazing at me. “You’ve been good for him, Stella. Nobody knows him like I do – and I’ve never seen him open up as much as he has the past few weeks. You’re the reason for it. But I can’t make you believe that. You have to choose to do so for yourself. Lukas has a great deal to give, but you would have to be patient with him. He would be worth it, I think.”
She turned away.
“I saw him beating himself.” I don’t know what drove me to say it. “I mentioned it to him tonight. That’s what set him off.”
Gracie turned back to me, her mouth a perfect O of surprise.
“Wow,” she breathed out. “That’s…wow. Yes, I can see why he’d try to pull back on you.”
“Why does he do it?”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said, sh
aking her head. “That’s his story. It’s one of the sadder parts of him. But…if you would be patient, he may well share it with you.”
21
“Here.” Gracie offered me a key. We sat in the car, the engine idling, parked in front of the big house. “I’ve got a date. Besides, I think this is something that belongs between the two of you anyway.”
I blushed but accepted the key.
Folding my hand around it, I squeezed it hard enough that the edges bit into my hand.
Eying the front door with trepidation, I said, “What am I supposed to do if he doesn’t want to talk to me? It’s a far way for Uber to come for a pick up.”
“He wants to talk to you.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “I know him better than he knows himself.”
I was taking an awful lot on faith here, but just gave her a nod and climbed out. The house towered over me, making me feel incredibly small as I made my way closer. My hand shook as I fit the key to the lock and slid it. The sound of the tumblers clicking into place seemed louder than necessary, and I didn’t know if it was me or just the heightened awareness that made it seem so.
Slipping inside, I closed the door and braced my back against it, letting my eyes adjust as I took in my surroundings. Gracie had told me she lived in the east wing of the house, while Lukas lived in the north. Just take the stairs and keep going straight. His bedroom is at the very far end of the hall.
Seemed simple enough.
My knees shook with each step.
Halfway up, I realized I’d left the key in the lock, and I hurried back down to retrieve it, tucking it into the pocket of my blue jeans. I’d changed before leaving the condo with Gracie, and I was glad I had. It had gotten colder, the temperature hovering in the forties. It didn’t seem much warmer in the hall as I made my way closer toward Lukas’s room, despite the jeans and turtleneck sweater I wore.
Was it the chill that made my hands continue to shake? Nerves?
I didn’t know.
Coming to a stop outside the door, I took a deep breath and knocked.
“Go away, Gracie!” Lukas said, his voice low and intent.
Instead of correcting him, I slipped inside.
The chill here was worse, and it wasn’t hard to see why.
He stood in the open doors of what looked like a balcony and wind blasted in.
He spoke without looking at me. “Damn it, Gracie–”
“It’s cold,” I said, interrupting him. “Can you shut those doors, please?”
He spun around so fast, it was almost comical.
Our gazes locked across the room and I inclined my chin, refusing to look away.
“You…” He stopped for a second before continuing on. “What are you doing here?”
“Gracie brought me here.”
His lids flickered. Bit by bit, his expression closed until it was like staring at a closed book – his features gave nothing. Save for that slight flicker of his lids, I might as well have been staring at a statue.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“Well, I haven’t decided,” I said softly. “I could be here to kick your ass for not telling me about her. I could be here to apologize for intruding on your personal business…I just haven’t decided.”
His mouth tightened, some of the icy façade fracturing. A split second later, it smoothed over, gone as if the fracture never existed.
Fine. He wasn’t going to take the first step. I’d do it.
“I shouldn’t have intruded on your personal business. I’m sorry,” I said.
His head bowed, big shoulders shuddering on a heavy sigh. When he looked back at me, I thought maybe he was going to say something…explain, even. When he looked away without saying anything, I wanted to scream. But I did nothing. I wasn’t going to push again. I knew better now.
“I should have told you about Gracie,” he said, each word slow and halting, like they had to be dragged from him with rusty, iron hooks. “What we have…we’re friends. The marriage is a convenience. There’s nothing else between us.”
“She told me.” I wasn’t sure if I entirely believed her, because I didn’t see Lukas giving so much of himself to just a friend. But that could be just because I was jealous she had so much. And I wasn’t going to push. Not for anything.
Another gust of wind blasted through the open doors, and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. Lukas jerked as if coming out of a fugue. He turned back to the doors and pulled them closed, then gestured to me. “Come over here,” he said gruffly, beckoning toward a fireplace that took up most of one wall. He hit a switch and gas logs flared to glowing life.
I let him pull me closer to the fire, and a sigh escaped me as warmth penetrated the chill that had gripped me for what felt like the past several hours. Lukas stood behind me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms, adding to the warmth.
Something brushed the back of my head.
I thought it might be his lips.
Another shiver raced through me, and he said, “Still cold?”
“It’s getting better,” I told him, the words husky. Slowly, I turned in his arms and tipped my head back to meet his eyes. “You told me it was over. Is it?”
He caught a fat curl in his fingers and stroked it. “You sent a resignation. Should I accept it?”
Instead of either of us answering the other, the two of us swayed closer.
His mouth met mine. It was hard to say who kissed the other first.
His tongue swept into my mouth, a hungry, deep kiss that I felt from the tips of my toes all the way up. My breasts heated, the nipples tightening. He slid one hand under the hem of my sweater, and I gasped at the shocking heat of his hand on my naked skin.
Clothes fell away.
I’d glimpsed a massive bed tucked up on a platform on the far side of the room, under a triangular frame of windows, but it seemed so far away now. When he swept me up into his arms, I moaned, because I didn’t want him to stop kissing me or touching me long enough to carry me to the bed. I didn’t even want him to stop touching me long enough to get me naked.
To my delight, all he did was carry me over to the couch that faced the fireplace and laid me down, stripping my jeans away without once pausing in the kisses he pressed to my mouth, my neck. Once he had me naked, he came down over me.
I fought with the buckle of his jeans, hurriedly freed him and wrapped one hand around his cock. Skin stretched smooth and tight over his erection and his heavy length pulsed in my hand as I stroked down, then up. He caught my hand and dragged my wrist up over my head, pinning them in place as he wedged his hips between my thighs.
He watched me as he pressed up against me, the moment almost painfully intimate.
The moment he slipped inside me, we both groaned and I arched up, deepening the connection.
Lukas grunted as I clenched down around him, withdrawing and driving back inside, hard, fast. I felt his balls slap against me, felt him swelling. “Lukas,” I breathed out.
His mouth took mine, swallowing down the sound.
Our breath mingled, the ragged moans becoming one.
His heart slammed against mine, and the hand gripping my wrist slid up to twine with my fingers, palm to palm.
Panting, moaning, desperate, I scrabbled underneath him, needing to be even closer. One big hand cupped my ass and tilted me up, deepening the contact. I cried out as each thrust now had him scraping over my clitoris, the head of his cock bumping against me just right.
“Lukas!”
He bit my lower lip.
I climaxed with a whimper.
He didn’t stop.
Neither did my orgasm. Not until it slid into another, then another.
When he finally reached his, I was a melted puddle of flesh, so weak and boneless I could barely move. He shuddered against me, arching into the cradle of my hips one last time.
Then, a harsh groan slipped from him, and he climaxed so hard I felt the jerking rhythm of his cock. His mouth was bur
ied in my hair, and his voice was muffled. But he whispered my name just before sinking down to lie on me for just a moment.
I heard him.
He murmured, “Stella…”
22
“My father was abusive.”
The words, spoken in the quiet stillness of an early morning, caught me off-guard.
Lukas and I had lain awake together for nearly twenty minutes without speaking, facing each other, just enjoying the silence and warmth of the other.
So when he spoke, and the words were what they were, it came as something of a shock.
I steeled my jaw against trembling, refusing to let myself tear up the way I wanted to. I also had to fight against the anger that burned inside.
“He used to beat me…whenever. If I didn’t do good in school, or if he thought I was being a show-off, bringing home good grades. If it rained and I had to stay inside, or if it was sunny and I asked to go outside. It got to where I didn’t ask for anything – I just got by. If I was hungry, I stole whatever food I could find because if I asked, he’d belt me. If my clothes were getting too small, I’d steal them, too, or find them at shelters, whatever it took.”
“Lukas–”
“He was a mean bastard. He liked to hurt people, and I was an easy target, Stella.” His eyes flicked to mine. “And I’m his son.”
He paused then, and I tried to puzzle through whatever it was he was telling me.
I wasn’t having much luck.
He must have seen the confusion on my face because he stroked my hair back, then pulled me in and placed a kiss on my forehead. “I’m his son. Sometimes, anger burns inside me so bright, the need to strike out…I can’t explain it. But I worry that if I don’t do something to blunt that edge, I might strike out and start hurting people…like he hurt me. That was why you saw…”
It clicked then, and I understood what he was telling me.
He was explaining about the shed.
“Lukas, you can’t tell me you were in that shed because you felt some deep urge to hurt me,” I said, reaching up to touch his cheek.