Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
She smacked him lightly over the quilt. “You can’t do that.”
“Can’t and shouldn’t are two different things, sweets.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do that,” she said. “How’s that?”
Lucas frowned up at the ceiling. “Fine, you win.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not a race or something.”
“Says you,” he mumbled playfully under his breath.
Yeah, said her.
Delaney knew there wasn’t a single chance on earth Lucas would overstep a boundary she made clear because that just wasn’t in his nature, so she let him have his joke. It changed nothing that she had told him, though.
The minutes ticked by the longer the two of them remained on the couch while the old wood chief pumped out a constant stream of heat to keep them cozy and snuggled together. Snowflakes blowing off the roof danced in front of the bay windows, giving the two a show to watch instead of the mess still on the floor.
“I hate that I won’t be able to see you tomorrow,” she admitted, the words slipping out under her breath although she desperately wanted him to hear them.
Lucas sighed noisily.
“Or the next day,” he agreed. “Or the ones after that.”
Delaney pouted. “Rub it in good, huh?”
He tipped his head her way, ruffling her hair with his fingers at the crown of her head until she peered up at him with a meaner expression.
“There she is,” he whispered.
Had he thought he lost her?
Delaney had news for him.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Even if after today, she was a phone call away.
Lucas nodded, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow. “Yeah, I know, Delaney. I might need that—you, I mean. I might need you.”
She wanted to ask a lot of things.
The whens, hows, and all the whys.
None of them mattered, though, because she’d still be there. If he called, or should he show up looking heartbroken on her doorstep again.
She’d be right here.
They cuddled closer on the couch, and while he waited for her to finish her tea, Lucas held onto her like she had done for him the night before.
“How am I supposed to get through the next week?” he asked.
Rhetorically, maybe.
Lucas continued, saying, “I can’t imagine showing up to work Monday morning, where my father will be waiting, and just going on as if he did nothing. But that’s what he’ll expect, and frankly, it’s what the people we employ deserve.”
She couldn’t begin to understand how it must affect Lucas to be forced to work alongside someone who seemed to enjoy his son’s suffering. Never mind being the face of a company, that as he had explained it to her during their stay, would be going through a transitional period with the CEO—his father—returning to homebase.
“Nobody’s gonna expect you to go back and be … perfect,” Delaney said.
“No, but I’ll still try. Because the fact our family can’t stand to be in the same room together shouldn’t affect the day-to-day lives of the people who work for us, and especially not their jobs. It just … fuck,” he uttered, jaws tight.
It killed him inside.
She heard—and felt—what he couldn’t vocalize.
“I still don’t know how to do it, though. How to pretend like I’m okay. It shouldn’t be hard. I’ve done it for most of my goddamn life.”
He shouldn’t have to.
That was the thing …
Delaney knew very little she could say would change the difficult upcoming days he faced back in the city. “You take it all one minute at a time, and you don’t have to make excuses if you need to get away from certain people or things—unless they’re offering to help you, don’t let them hurt you. You’re allowed to say when enough is enough, Lucas.”
Nobody would do it for him.
He nodded against the top of her head, but otherwise, said nothing.
Sometimes, silence was the better answer, anyway.
Chapter 27
“I just saw the changes on your schedule,” Nola said the second Lucas picked up her call. “Do you want me to run you over some breakfast or coffee before I head into the brewery?”
He smiled. Her concern came from good intentions. The icy roads he could see from the seventh floor of his high-rise apartment at the top end of the east side provided Lucas with a reasonable excuse to keep Nola from dropping by.
“You just worry about getting to work on time,” he replied. “I’m good.”
“You know,” Nola went on, never missing a beat, “I had a whole stack of notes for you today. I even used the company colors. I might have been looking forward to you returning more than I should have.”
Lucas chuckled. “Oh?”
“Well, Mr. Dalton,” Nola muttered, stressing the mister like Ronald did in his condescending way, “couldn’t walk past my desk last week without making a comment about them, so I tried to keep it all out of sight, but …”
Damn.
Lucas should have been in the office by the time she arrived. Ronald’s comments wouldn’t sting, or be nearly as loud, with Lucas in the building to keep his attitude under control. He tried not to feel too badly about taking a couple of extra days before returning to work.