“I’ll go first. If I don’t make it, know that I love you and I hope you pine for me for the rest of your life. But first, one last kiss.” He kissed me and then strolled right out into the hallway and turned around, holding his arms out.
“See?”
And then my heart felt like it had been replaced with a bomb that was then detonated in my chest.
“Mr. Blaine, I thought you would be at the board meeting.” Mrs. Andrews came out of my father’s office with his jacket. Dad was always forgetting his jacket. Then she saw me and I had never wished for a mysterious sinkhole to open under me and swallow me up as I had in that moment when I saw her putting two and two together.
“We were just—” I started to say.
“We—” Lucah tried to say.
She started laughing. Like, throw-your-head-back, eyes-watering, beg-for-mercy-from-Jesus kind of laughing.
Lucah looked at me and I just gaped at Mrs. Andrews as she gasped for breath and then wiped her eyes. She walked forward and patted my cheek like I was an amusing child.
“Oh, my dear. I wasn’t born yesterday. Your secrets are safe with me.” She winked at Lucah and then walked to the elevator, humming a tune I didn’t recognize.
“What the—”
“I have no idea,” Lucah said, shaking his head as the elevator doors closed.
So much for being stealthy.
Twenty-Six
“She’s not going to tell anyone, right? I mean, the woman has known me since I was in diapers. She’s not going to expose us. Right?” Now I was the one pacing. Lucah and I had gone right to his place after work, mostly because I was freaking out and I needed to be alone. Well, alone with him.
Lucah just watched me pace. I was still in my work clothes and I thought he liked watching me walk in heels. He had kind of a glazed look, as if he was picturing me naked and pacing in heels. I wish he would freak out more about this with me. It was uncomfortable to be freaking when your significant other was not freaking. It made me feel like I was freaking too much, which only made me freak out about freaking out.
My life was exhausting sometimes.
“Would pacing naked help? I know it would help me.” Yup, I called it. I whirled around and glared at him.
He tried to look innocent. “What? I really think it would help give me some insight on the situation.”
“And by ‘situation’ you mean my ladyparts.”
He pretended to be shocked.
“I am offended that you immediately jump to the conclusion that I only want you to pace naked for my benefit. That’s not giving me much credit.” He was trying to distract me and it was working.
“You don’t deserve credit, Mr. Blaine,” I said, leaning over the back of the couch and wrinkling my nose at him.
“She’s not going to betray us, Sunshine. From the way she talked, it seems as if she’s known for a while and hasn’t said anything. Stop worrying.” He pressed the spot between my eyebrows that I knew was all wrinkled up from stressing.
“Well you don’t worry, so I have to worry for both of us.” He reached out, grabbed my arms and pulled me over the back of the couch and into his lap. I screamed and he started tickling me until I breathlessly begged him to stop.
“She’s not going to tell. Trust me,” he said again. He must have thought that if he said it enough times I’d eventually believe it. “Now can we talk some more about the naked pacing? I don’t think we really discussed that fully.”
~*~*~
Despite Lucah’s assurances that Mrs. Andrews wouldn’t narc on me to anyone, I was a WRECK when I went to Sunday dinner that weekend. Sweaty palms, racing heart, the whole nine yards. Whatever that meant. What the hell did that mean?
“You’re going to be fine,” Lucah said, kissing the top of my head as I did my makeup in the mirror, interrupting my wondering about yards.
“I swear if you say that one more time, I’m stabbing you with my mascara brush.”
He just laughed and pinched my ass.