About that Night (4 page)

“Like family law?” I asked. Luke’s answer had surprised me. He didn’t sound like a man that was happy with his chosen profession.

“My buddy asked me to help out with his divorce. His wife’s family has a lot of money and my friend is a high school math teacher. He couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on a lawyer. Besides,” he shrugged, “us divorced guys have to stick together.”

He said it so casually that I almost didn’t process the seriousness of what he had just confessed. “Divorced?”

“Did I fail to mention that earlier?” he asked with a guilty grimace. “Been a divorcé for just shy of a year now.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I wanted to know more details, but I wasn’t sure I had the right to ask. We had only known each other for a few hours, after all.

“That’s a loaded question.” He eyed his nearly empty scotch glass. “I’ve spent a lot of nights in the last year drinking from this glass and thinking about that very question and I’m still not sure I can answer it. The only thing I do know is that I don’t regret my decision.”

“So it was your decision?” I don’t know why, but that mattered to me.

He forced a pained smile and reached for the half-empty bottle of scotch. “It’s a long story. Can I offer you a refill?”

“Always.” I held out my glass while he poured an inch of liquid into it.

“Her name was Lauren and we met a couple years ago through mutual friends,” Luke explained, pouring himself two inches of scotch. “This may be surprising, but I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. We were only together six months when I proposed.”

‘That’s quick,” I said quietly.

He nodded. “Quick and stupid. I barely knew anything about her. Then a few months later, we had this ridiculously extravagant wedding, per her insistence. Two months after that, I found out she was cheating on me with three other guys.”

“Whoa.” My eyes widened. “That’s terrible.”

“I got what I deserved,” he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “I think I was just so caught up in the idea of being in love with her that I never gave myself time to actually fall in love with her. It’s no wonder that I ended up disappointed.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling a tightness in my chest when I saw the pain in his eyes. “You’re a decent guy. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

Luke stared at me thoughtfully. “We all have our scars.”

He was doing more than just turning my own phrase against me. He was making a point. He and I were similar in an important way. We both had experienced terrible heartache. We were both broken souls that had every reason to give up looking for love. And yet somehow we had found each other.

It occurred to me that I didn’t care if Luke was a divorcé on the rebound. I didn’t care that I had only known him for a few hours. The only thing I cared about was how good it felt to be around him and how when he smiled at me, I couldn’t help but smile back.

“How long are we doing to stay here?” I asked, my heart starting to race.

“As long as it takes,” came his easy reply.

“To do what?”

Luke didn’t answer for a long time. His unblinking eyes stared into mine as he contemplated the answer. “To convince you to come back to my place tonight.”

His words were so bold that I was caught off guard. I sucked in a breath and my hand tightened around my scotch glass. As surprised as I was by his invitation, I was even more surprised when I said, “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FOUR

I would like to start by saying that I am not a one-night stand type of girl. I wasn’t even like that in college when it was still at least mildly acceptable to be that type of girl. So when I agreed to go home with Luke, it was completely against my nature. As I waited in the lobby while Luke chatted with the doorman, I felt anxious and self-conscious. But I also felt completely liberated.

“What was that about?” I asked when he returned. He put his hand on my back and steered me toward the elevators.

“Just asking about his kids.” Luke led me past the main bank of elevators and turned the corner. I stared suspiciously at the single elevator door in front of me. He noticed my doubt as he used his key card to call the elevator. He said, “This elevator leads directly to my condo.”

“Of course. You have the penthouse?” I turned away so he wouldn’t see me rolling my eyes. I really had no room to judge considering I was contemplating having sex with him in his penthouse tonight.

“I got a good deal.” He didn’t sound particularly defensive. “It has a great view of the lake.”

“I’m sure it does.” The door slid open silently and Luke stepped inside. I tried to follow, but my feet didn’t want to cooperate.

“Cold feet?” he asked with a sly smile. “I promise I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

“It’s a good thing you are rich,” I said as I finally got my feet to move forward. “Your personality could use some work.”

“Surprisingly, you’re not the first woman to tell me that.”

The penthouse elevator was spacious, but somehow Luke and I ended up standing close enough that his arm brushed against mine. My inner bad girl thought about tackling him right then. He was rich, smug, and overly confident- exactly the type of guy I usually couldn’t stand to look at, much less go home with. But when it came to Luke Donovan, the rules didn’t seem to apply.

“Your ego hasn’t seemed to suffer,” I commented as the doors opened and the penthouse suite was revealed. My first thought was that Luke was right- it did have an amazing view of the lake.

“Come inside.” Luke slipped off his suit jacket and tossed it on the nearest chair. “Take a look around. The balcony is through the bedroom.” He loosened his tie as he checked his phone. “I just need to make a quick call.”

“Sure.” As impressive as the floor to ceiling windows were in the main room, the bedroom was even better. The over-sized bed in the middle of the room was beyond inviting. I imagined the thread count of the sheets to be somewhere in the high thousands. I ran my hand over the silk comforter and listened to Luke’s faint voice in the background.

“Make sure I have the contract on my desk first thing Monday morning. If we’re going to work with Mr. Simpson, I want all of this in writing.” Luke sounded even more confident talking business than he did flirting with women. I was sure he had plenty of experience with both.

The air was cool when I opened the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony. The sounds of the city immediately cut through the air. I could see the dark waves of the lake lapping against the beach.

“Beautiful,” Luke said. I hadn’t even heard him join me on the balcony, but now he was standing there holding two glasses of champagne.

“Sorry?” Luke’s presence had instantly flustered me. His shirt was untucked and his tie hung loosely from his neck. I thought he looked even better slightly disheveled.

“The view. It’s beautiful.” He handed me one of the glasses and our fingers grazed in the transfer. My fingers burned as if I had held them to a flame. Luke hadn’t looked at anything but me since he began talking.

“The lake? It’s not bad.” I took a sip and knew that this was probably the most expensive champagne I had ever had.

“Yes, the lake. And other things.” Luke was still watching me.

His staring was making me uncomfortable so I took another drink. I felt the need to explain myself to him. “I don’t usually do this.”

“Do what?” A smile played at the corners of his lips.

“This.” I gestured to the two of us and then the bedroom waiting for us on the other side of the doorway. “Guys like you.”

“You don’t even know me, Kase,” he said, the playful smile fading.

“Exactly. This isn’t me.” But even as I said it, I knew that it was. At least for tonight.

Luke’s eyes narrowed as he said, “I didn’t make you come here.”

“I know.” I did know. Boy, did I know. “That’s not what I’m saying. I just don’t want you to have the wrong idea about me.”

“Why do you care so much? We might never see each other after tonight. Why does it bother you so much what I think about your character?’

I thought it over and couldn’t come up with a good reason, so I shrugged. “I have no idea. But it does bother me.”

“Well if it helps, I can tell you exactly what I think about you.” Luke waited until I nodded for him to continue. “Contrary to what you might think, this,” he gestured around us, “isn’t really me either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m a saint. I have a lot of money, and when I was younger I used that to my advantage. In business, and with women. But that was a long time ago. You might say, I’ve grown up.”

Now it was Luke’s turn to drink. He looked out over the lake as he continued. “I don’t do this type of thing anymore. One-night stands, hook-ups, whatever you want to call it. But there’s just something about you.

“Like I said earlier, you intrigue me.” He turned back to me. “I don’t think you’re the type of woman I used to take home at the end of the night. I think you’re smart and witty. I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. I think I’m lucky that you agreed to come home with me. And I want to have sex with you very badly, right now, and I think you want the same thing.” This time he didn’t offer me a smile. His bluntness made my heart flutter and I felt a warmth invade my body that had been missing for a long time. “Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t wrong.

Maybe he was just a charmer. One of those guys that knows the exact right thing to say to get a woman to spread her legs. It was very possible. But I didn’t care. I wanted Luke Donovan, and I wanted him right then.

I willed my hand not to shake as I sat my glass on the balcony ledge. I took Luke’s glass and placed it next to mine. “You’re not wrong,” I said, staring directly into his eyes.

He paused for a just a beat before pulling my body to his. Luke was tall- even with my three inch heels he was still a few inches taller than me. I lifted my head to meet his lips, reveling in their warmth and urgency. I could taste the champagne and when my head began to spin, it wasn’t from the alcohol. I was drunk on Luke after just one taste.

“I’m not going to have sex with you tonight, Kasey,” he said after pulling back a fraction of an inch.

“What?” My eyes flew open. “Why not?”

“Because I think what we have is real, and I don’t think you’ll respect me very much in the morning if we sleep together tonight.” Luke’s eyes stared hard into mine. “For some reason, it really matters to me that you respect me.”

I felt confused and a little hurt. I had been so sure that he wanted me as much as I wanted him. “Why even bring me here then?”

“Because I wasn’t ready to say good night to you. I’m still not.” Luke’s fingers softly brushed over my cheek and down my jaw until they were tucked under my chin, lifting my head an inch. “Trust me, Kasey, this is going to be harder for me than it will be for you.”

“It will?” I barely got the words out before his lips closed over mine again. A cool breeze sent a chill down my spine.

“You’re shivering,” Luke said. “Let’s go inside.”

He led me through the bedroom and pointed down the hall. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I’ll get us more champagne.”

We sat next to each other on a leather couch that had likely been shipped straight from Italy. Conversation and champagne flowed easily.

“This is good,” I said, starting on my third glass.

“One of the partners at my first gave it to me when I got married,” he explained. “Then the marriage ended before we even got a chance to drink it.”

“Well that’s depressing,” I said with a laugh. “But her loss is my gain.”

Somewhere at the end of that third glass, I started to feel very sleepy. Luke noticed that I was having a hard time keeping my eyes opened. He led me back to the bedroom and dug in his dresser for a t-shirt and pair of boxers.

“Really. I can just catch a cab,” I protested.

“Nonsense. It’s late. I have plenty of room here.” He forced the clothes into my hand. “Take my bed. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“No.” I had to admit that I was a little drunk and wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of stumbling downstairs to a cab. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to kick Luke out of his bed. “You should stay in here. I’ll take the guest room.”

Luke shook his head. “I insist, Kasey. Please.”

I froze, looking at the bed. “It looks big enough for two people.”

“You aren’t trying to seduce me, are you?” he asked with a chuckle.

“No, I just…” I couldn’t look at him when I added, “I don’t really like sleeping alone.”

“Me neither.” He squeezed my shoulder. “The bathroom is through that door if you want to change.”

By the time I returned, Luke was already in bed, spread comfortably over the right side. His resting form was lit only by the city lights streaming through the open window. I eased onto the other side of the bed, doing my best not to disturb him.

After a few moments of quiet breathing in the dark, I said, “It’s a little sad, isn’t it?”

“What?” His voice sounded even deeper in the dark.

“This night is almost over.” I rolled onto my side. His profile was perfectly still. “I’m not sure I’m ready for it to end.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to.” His head rolled to the side, his eyes shining even in the dark.

I wanted to ask him what he meant by that. I wanted to tell him that I hoped he was right. I wanted to close the distance between us and feel his arms around me.

I wanted to do all of those things, but instead I did nothing. Maybe it was fear of rejection or maybe it was fear of acceptance, but fear kept me from acting. It also kept me awake long after Luke fell asleep. I kept replaying that moment, wishing that I hadn’t been so scared to tell him that I wanted more than just one night.