“Same to you, Miss Clarke.” He fixed my hair and then he walked out of the room. We’d decided to stagger our arrival and departure to avert suspicion.

I counted to a hundred before I left the room and walked up the stairs to my office, my legs a little wobbly, but with a smile on my face.

“Mission accomplished?” Lilia whispered to me as I walked by. I just gave her a thumbs up and she shook her head as I sat back down at my desk.

Twenty-Five

“I have never needed a drink more than I do right now,” Sloane said as we sat down at our table at the bar.

“You think you need one?” I said. I sort of filled her in on the chaos, but I’d signed a pesky confidentially agreement that said I couldn’t discuss work outside of the office so I had to be brief. She got the gist.

“True, we both need one.”

“Count me in,” Lucah said, raising his hand.

“If you’re all drinking, I want in,” Ryder said.

“Drinks for everyone!” Chloe said, putting both hands up. Marisol also agreed that she needed one, so Ryder and Lucah went to get them.

“So how’s the charity event coming?” I asked Marisol. After the release of dealing with the Board and then the release of having sex with Lucah, I wanted to talk about something else.

“Oh, it’s stressful, but these things always are. The caterer is having issues and the band backed out last minute, but that’s why you always have a backup plan.” Marisol and her backup plans. She was one of the most prepared people I’d ever met.

“And is the mysterious man from Japan coming?” Her face fell and I kicked myself for asking.

“I haven’t heard from him that much. Have you . . . ” she didn’t finish.

I’d had a few texts, and a phone call here and there, and I had gotten some emails with pictures and so forth, but it was hard with the time difference.

“Just what I’ve told you about. Nothing recently.” She sighed and grabbed her drink as soon as the guys came back with two trays.

“He’s so confusing,” she said, sipping her martini.

“Who’s confusing?” Ryder asked. I’d filled him in on Fin, so he knew who he was and he knew about his and Marisol’s relationship.

“Men. All men,” I said.

“Amen,” Sloane and Marisol agreed.

“Oh, I definitely agree. That’s why I stick with women,” Chloe said. We all clinked our drinks together as Ryder and Lucah shook their heads.

“We could say that women are confusing, but we’re outnumbered so I think we should change the subject,” Lucah said.

“Are you going to sing?” I asked. I knew the answer, because he’d brought his guitar.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” he responded, which made Ryder choke on his beer. Sloane banged him on the back and asked him if he was okay.

“Fine,” he gasped.

The announcer called Lucah’s name and he headed for the stage.

“This is a little something for my favorite.” He winked at me before settling the guitar and closing his eyes.

It was the song he’d been humming the other day. I finally recognized it because I’d heard it on the radio. “Come to Me” by the Goo Goo Dolls. Lucah did what he always did when he sang a song and changed it up, making it slower and sweeter and sexier. He made everything sexier.

When he got to the lyrics about taking vows I almost fell out of my chair. I hadn’t heard that part of the song. Sloane grabbed my shoulder and I looked at the other girls. Every single pair of eyes was wide with shock. So I wasn’t the only one who’d heard that part and had jumped to conclusions.

My heart started its own song, a rougher, harder melody than the soft strums of Lucah’s guitar. I couldn’t feel my hands or my feet and the room started to swirl in my vision, but one thing was stable. Lucah and his guitar, singing about being together forever.

Tags: Chelsea M. Cameron Erotic
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