Her Contract (Romance) (7 page)

Chapter 17

Anna

On the subway, everything is blurry - the carriage, the people, and even my own hands in my lap.

I barely hear the person sitting next to me when they ask, “Are you all right, honey?”

Wiping my eyes, I turn to the dark-skinned lady who offers me a gentle smile. “I’m okay, thank you,” I tell her, but, of course, it’s a lie.

I’m far from being okay. I’m hurt, confused, mortified and, worst of all, ashamed of myself for thinking that Lucas had changed.

Playboy billionaires don’t ever change.

Not even the ones you knew before they inherited their parent’s money.

Even if some deep part of him loves me, it’s obvious he can’t keep his dick in his pants.

Back in Vegas, he’d gone to see his “old friend” – a prostitute who not only has stellar looks, an A-grade body, and tits that even Dolly Parton would raise an eyebrow at, but who also sucked him off.

And right before he came back to the penthouse, declared his feelings, and then screwed me into blissful oblivion.

I mean is that messed up or what?!

When the carriage stops at my platform in Brooklyn, I give a weak smile to the woman and hurry off.

I just want to get home, change into my sweatpants and run until my body can’t take it anymore. There’s nothing like a good, long sprint to ease a problem in your life. Even if the relief only lasts an hour or so.

Once I’ve finished power walking down the street and Dad’s house looms ahead, I jog the rest of the way. His blue Ford isn’t in the driveway. Good. He wouldn’t want to see his daughter like this. Not again. Not after how I was when that asshole, Jake, went from being Superman to bloody Lex Luthor.

Up in my bedroom, I quickly get changed and slip on my black Asics sneakers.
The same color as Lucas’s heart. The prick.

But just as I bound down the stairs and make for the front door, it unlocks and opens.

Oh, man. Excellent timing. Not.

“Anna!” Dad says, pushing the door wide. His arms are packed full of groceries and I can only just see his head. Abigail Hartz stands right behind him, unknowingly demonstrating just how much her son’s smile resembles her own.

“I thought you said you were going out tonight?” Dad adds. “With that gentleman friend of yours?”

Keeping a level head, I look from Dad then Abigail then back to Dad again. “Yeah, um, something came up. So we decided to give it a miss,” I say, trying to sound sincere. “I was just on my way out for a run.”

Dad nods, appearing to believe my story and walks past me in the direction of the kitchen.

“Hello, Anna.” Abigail’s grin widens as she paces in after him. “I’m glad we caught you actually. There’s something your father and I have been meaning to ask you. Do you think you could spare a minute?”

Even if I were the most horrible person in the world, I’d have a hard time letting Abigail down. She’s just so polite and unpretentious. Unlike someone else I know.

This whole situation is weird. Here I am, speaking with my new secret boyfriend’s mom, only I don’t think I can call him my boyfriend anymore. Not after what I’ve just witnessed.

So I guess she’s my ex-boyfriend’s mom now?

Oh, and she’s also going to be my stepmom in just over a month.

Just when I thought all the mind-games had gone on a sabbatical, it comes back early, and with a vengeance.

“Um, sure,” I say with a reluctant shrug of my shoulders and follow her into the kitchen.

I help Dad and her unpack the bags before he ushers us out on the back patio for some homemade lemonade. Even though it’s after six o’clock, it’s still hot out, at least, seventy-eight degrees.

Taking a gulp of my ice-cold drink, I peer over at the happy couple giving each other “goo goo” eyes. “So what did you want to ask me?”

Abigail sucks in a breath – quite an odd thing for an otherwise confident woman to do – and leans across the table. “We were wondering if you could do a speech at the engagement party. Lucas is doing one for us and well, we thought it’d be lovely if you did one too.”

Lucas
. Just hearing his name rubs me up the wrong way. I feel the lump rising in my throat but fight it.
Not here, not now, Anna.

“Oh, really? Are you sure? I mean I’m not great at the whole public talking thing,” I reply, giving a sheepish smile.

In all honesty, I don’t want to do it. But it’s not because I’m not happy for them. I just don’t like the idea of Lucas staring at me the whole time.

“Don’t worry about that,” Dad pitches in, holding his glass of lemonade up to his lips. “The fact that you’re willing to write something and read it out is all that matters to us.”

Well, that doesn’t give me much of a choice, does it?

It looks like all eyes will be on Lucas and I come Sunday afternoon. The engagement party is being held at my old boss’s penthouse on West 56
th
Street between 6
th
and 7
th
Avenues.

Apparently it’s worth a whopping one hundred million green ones, so I’d be lying my little ass off if I said I wasn’t a little interested in checking it out.

“Okay, if that’s what you both want. I’ll do it,” I tell them, carving out my best fake smile to cover the cloud of depression still floating over me.

After I down the rest of my lemonade, I leave the lovebirds to it and go for a run around the neighborhood.

Within minutes, I feel better.

What happened at the office today – seeing Lucas with that damn redhead – is becoming less tender to think about the faster I push myself.

And once I break out into a full-on sprint, I’m almost completely numb.

If only I could keep on running.

Forever.

Chapter 18

Lucas

Waiting for Anna to walk in is nail-biting agony. If she’d just give me a couple of minutes to explain everything before she tosses what we have out the window.

And then if she still doesn’t want to pursue a relationship… fair enough. Never being able to touch her again and stare into those misty, gray eyes would shatter me, but at least, I could live with knowing that I tried.

“So Lucas, how have your first few weeks being the director of the company been?” Uncle Sam asks, standing beside me at his home bar. He orders a whiskey on the rocks from the bartender, the same choice of poison as me.

“Productive,” I say with firmness. “The Vegas warehouse has been secured and should open within six months.” Raising my glass, I drain the amber liquid and tilt it across the bar for a refill.

“Splendid. I knew you’d make me proud, Lucas. Jack would be proud too.”

Hearing my dad’s name creates a pang in my stomach. There’s an emptiness there that I know won’t ever be filled. But that’s life. People die, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

My only regret is that Dad never got to see me give up the playboy thing. He left this world thinking that his son was nothing but an ungrateful little shit.

Uncle Sam gives me a solid pat on the shoulder and then leaves the bar to mingle with his guests.

Taking my glass with me, I go and admire the view from one of the 360-degree terraces that encircle this floor. It truly is remarkable – a canvas of shadowed skyscrapers and Central Park, under a sunset sky streaked with orange and purples hues.

New York sure knows how to show off her beauty.

Just as I finish downing my third whiskey in less than an hour, I hear the applause ring out inside. The soon-to-be bride and groom have arrived, and if I’m not mistaken Anna too.

Depositing my glass on a table inside, I look for her in the crowd. But she’s nowhere to be seen. Surely she must have come with Mom and Frank?

“Ah, darling. There you are,” Mom says, walking up to me and planting a kiss on my cheek. “Sorry, we’re late. We had a flat tire. Can you believe it?”

Even though I’m listening, my eyes are still searching for Anna.

“Now, Frank and I are going to circulate around the guests for the next fifteen minutes and then we’ll have the first speech. Anna is doing it.”

My gaze returns to her immediately. “Anna?”

“Yes, we asked her to do one. Yours will be straight after hers, of course. You did bring it, didn’t you?”

I pat my pocket and sprout a reassuring grin. “It’s here, Mom. Don’t start panicking.”

She gives a little scoff and then squeezes my arm. “Very well. Now, I better start thanking people for coming. Fifteen minutes, remember?”

“Yes, Mom,” I say with a broad, cheesy smile and then take my leave. I have fifteen minutes to find Anna and sort things out.

After about five minutes of searching the entire floor, the one place I stupidly didn’t bother to look was the exact place I’d been the moment she arrived. The terrace.

I watch her for a minute before I go out. Talk about beauty witnessing beauty. Her flowing dark auburn haired silhouette and the backdrop of Manhattan are a perfect couple.

She looks like she belongs here, and she does.

In a few months, this penthouse will be mine. Uncle Sam has decided on a sea change, in Maine. He wants to write a book about his memoirs –
The Peaks and Pitfalls of a Billionaire
.

Good on him I guess. He gets some well-earned R & R and I get his company and triplex apartment.

It’s a win-win all round.

I was hoping Anna would share this all with me, but now… that’s almost a hopeless cause.

“It’s pretty spectacular, isn’t it,” I say with care, closing the door to the terrace behind me.

Anna doesn’t flinch or turn around. She just keeps staring out at the blinking lights of the city.

“I know I’m probably the last person you want to speak to right now,” I continue, “but I’m going crazy. I need you to hear me out, Anna. Please.”

She peers over her shoulder at me and sighs. “You’re right. I won’t find closure until you do. So go on then, spit it all out.”

When she returns her gaze to the city, I fill the rest of the space between us and join her by the railing. Taking a deep breath in, I tell myself to just say it straight.

No excuses. No dilly-dallying. Just say the truth. Even the stuff she doesn’t want to hear.

“Everything I said that night, before we… slept together, was true. I did plan to seduce you, but then I realized it had backfired. As cliché as it sounds, I’ve been in love with you since we were damn teenagers.” I pause to wait for a reaction, but she just orders me to carry on.

“Before I came back to the penthouse… yes, I went and saw Monique. I didn’t think I had a chance with you over that inane comment I said about your work uniform, and so I just wanted to-”

“Bang me out of your mind again?!” Anna cuts in with a harsh tone. “Just like you did back in high school.”

I nod in defeat, acknowledging that what she’s said is correct. “But that’s just it, Anna. As soon as Monique and I started things off, it didn’t feel right. I felt like I was cheating on you or something. So I put a stop to it barely before she’d even…”

“I get the picture,” Anna says with a hint of humor.

It’s clear that she’s grossed out but, at least, she’s still listening. That gives me some hope.

“Let’s say I believe you, Lucas. And that getting a prostitute to suck your dick is what made you realize you loved me, yadda, yadda, yadda. What the hell is with her coming to New York and being on top of you?”

“Well, there’s actually an easy explanation for that,” I tell her, shaking my head. I’m still kicking myself over the fact that I never, not even for a second thought that Monique would grow to really like me. Love me even.

“Really?” Anna asks, turning to face me, her forehead creased with apparent intrigue. “Please, enlighten me.” There’s that sassy tone of hers.

The one that I’ve always admired.

The one that makes my cock jolt.

The one that reassures me, even more, that this strong, independent, beautiful woman, is the right companion to have by my side.

“She’s a little in love with me,” I say with caution, looking out to the skyscrapers. “I had no idea, of course.  But she couldn’t handle me wanting to be with you, so she threw herself on me, thinking it could somehow change my mind. I know what it looked like, but man does she know how to pin a guy to a chair.”

The last thing I was expecting Anna to do was to break out into hysterical laughter. She tries to cover her mouth and take calmer breaths but she can’t stop herself.

“I’m glad you think that’s funny,” I state with a chuckle.

“Oh, it is,” she says between gags. “I wish I’d be a fly on the wall. Seriously.”

When her laughs finally peter out, I put an arm around her waist and pull her close. To my utter happiness, she lets me.

“Please say you believe me, Anna. I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”

She takes my face in hers and stares into my eyes like she sees the truth in them.

“I believe you, Lucas. But despite all that you’ve said, some trust has been broken. You still planned to seduce me, and went to see Monique. I need some time before we can move forward. Before we can be a real
us
.”

Even though disappointment is flooding through me, I accept what she says and bow my head. “I understand. I’ll prove to you that you can trust me again, Anna. I promise.”

She reaches up on her tippy toes and kisses me with raw passion, and in full view of everyone inside, who has undoubtedly noticed us by now.

After all, it’s been way longer than fifteen minutes. I don’t want to think about what emotions must be running through both Mom’s and Frank’s head right now.

When Anna pulls out of the kiss and flattens her feet back on the terrace beneath us, she carves one of her notorious wicked smiles.

“I won’t make it easy for you, though,” she teases, stepping away from me and towards the door to the penthouse.

With a whole-hearted chuckle, I cock my head to one side and call out my reply, “Well, Miss Monroe. It’s a good thing I love a challenge…”