Page 77 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Chapter 27
“Damn it.” I check my phone and it’s past 6:30. Standing, after sitting so long at my new desk in the giant room filled with similar desks, all cordoned off with low cloth-covered partitions that could hardly be called cubicles, let alone offices, I should be stiff.
Looking around at the plebian half-cubicles, I should feel humiliated.
In truth, all I feel is anxious about being late to meet with Lucas. I speed dial his number and he picks up after one ring. Hearing the traffic noise as he says hello, I bite my lip. He’s already on his way. To Margo’s.
“Doll face,” he says. My unchecked smile pops up. Looking around the space, I see only a few loan officers still at work among the three dozen desks. I’d been determined to be the last one to leave, but that would need to wait until tomorrow. And every day after that.
“I worked late.”
“Naturally,” he says. I laugh because I can tell from his tone that he’s not bothered.
“Pick me up out front of the bank?”
“I’ll be there within ten minutes. Will that work?”
“Perfectly.”
“I can hear the smile in your voice. Does that mean you’re looking forward to seeing me? Or is it the prospect of meeting with the investigator?”
“About fifty-fifty, I’d say.”
He laughs, a truly amused laugh at that. He knows it’s true and it still doesn’t bother him. My smile percentage for Lucas goes up another ten percent.
“You’re up to sixty-forty now. If I stand here listening to your voice and your laugh—”
“I know what will happen. We’ll be late. Hurry down to the street. I’ll look for the most beautiful woman in the crowd.” I roll my eyes at this, but I’m still smiling as I gather up my papers—personnel forms—and shove them into my bag. The work bag is a gift from Margo. It’s possibly the only thing I’ll let her get away with buying for me.
“See you in eight,” I say and disconnect as I hurry to the open doorway to the corridor. I’d been hoping to chat with my new boss before leaving, but that was another thing that would need to wait until tomorrow. As I rush past his door, I’m mildly surprised he’s not there. It looks like he’s gone for the day. The computer is dark and there’s no sign of a coat or briefcase.
The elevator doors open and I’m the only one on it to ride down the sixteen flights, so I let myself smile. My first impression of my boss was that he’s a lightweight and I still think I’m right. I can get his job. In no time.
I owe Bert, my ex, for this. I know he’s trying to be nice to make up for being a jerk at the New Year’s Eve party. He knew what he was doing when he suggested me for this department. He’d said I’d be able to advance quickly and now I know why.
On the street, I look around for the limo and there are a few in the area. Lucas will have to find me because I’m not going to look in all the limo windows to find the right one.
It’s cold and dark tonight and a wistful memory of Italy tugs at me. It seems like I was there eons ago, or only in a dream. And it hits me now that I’ve only ever been with Lucas under extraordinary circumstances—fairy tale or emergency. Never in normal day-to-day situations or even normal dating. I never worked with him or went to school with him or even socialized with him at the usual places where my social circle ran—my old social circle, I should say. Hopefully they won’t hold my new status against me now that they know I’m homeless and penniless.
Watching a limo approach to find a spot at the curb, I know it’s him. I don’t care if I don’t know the everyday version of Lucas. How different could it be? He still has that same heart beating inside him, the same generous soul, strong mind, and most of all, he’s still sexy as hell. It shouldn’t be the most important thing, but somehow he’s turned me into a sex fiend.
The back door pops open almost before the limo stops and I walk over as Lucas emerges. He’s wearing a dark, well-fitting Italian suit, one I hadn’t seen before. He’s stepped-from-a-magazine gorgeous.
The look he gives me and the fact that he’s here picking me up in a limo seem unreal suddenly. It still surprises me in that stomach-bubble way that he’s a wealthy man, with a blip of a Cinderella vibe that I should find more troubling than pinch-me-I’m-dreaming. Knowing that Lucas is the passenger instead of the driver has me equal parts purring and wistful.
When he waves the chauffeur aside and helps me inside, I let go of a small smile. He’s still the same Lucas. A wave of warmth rushes through me and it’s not all about the touch of his hand on the small of my back or his distinctive male scent that’s heating me up. It’s partly gladness that he’s still an Uber driver at heart, down-to-earth even as he slides in next to me in the back of a particularly large limousine.
“Are you anxious about finding your birth parents? It won’t be long now,” he says. I’m leaning against him, sunk into the buttery leather cushions of the limo’s back seat. His arms are wrapped around me and if I close my eyes it would feel like we’re at home on a couch relaxing. Then the limo moves and, even with the smooth glide, the notion of a living room couch disappears.
“Or we may never find them,” I say. Not sure why I’m thinking like this except maybe I’m just as much afraid to find them as I am excited about it. Lucas is right about one thing—a lot of things, but this one thing in particular—I need to put my obsession, my hurt about my birth parents behind me, to close the wound and get on with my life. On my own terms.
Maybe I don’t need to find them to move on. I’m almost 27 years old after all, an adult. But I’ve imagined them all these years, imagined confronting my birth father, imagined throwing my spectacular success in his face.About that spectacular success . . .
Maybe that’s my hesitation. I need to get back to that place, get ahead at the bank and get my doorman apartment back. I am in no position to throw anything in anyone’s face right now.
We drive in comfortable silence for a few minutes, though the sexual tension, that low-level flutter I always have in his presence, remains. So it’s not truly comfortable, not in the classic sense. This is the way Lucas and I hum, the way we are. As I realize what we have, a warm blurry sense of euphoria washes through, warming me like the rising of the sun in the morning as it comes over the horizon.
I don’t want this drive to ever end. And I don’t want to say anything to spoil the golden feeling.
