I stood, intending to step away for a moment to gain control of my emotions before I ended up sobbing in front of a stranger. My stomach had another form of embarrassment in mind instead. The breakfast burrito I’d gobbled down this morning crept back up my throat. My gaze darted around the room, frantically searching for a place where I could vomit. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled past the hand I’d slapped over my mouth.
The lawyer rolled his chair back and started to pull a trash can out from under his desk. I didn’t have enough time to wait for him and scampered around to his side, falling to my knees and thanking my lucky stars when my puke hit the bottom of the trash can. A couple minutes later, once my stomach was empty, I realized I’d trapped Mr. Wilkinson in his chair because the wall was right behind him. Grabbing the handkerchief he was holding out for me and lifting it to swipe at my lips, I felt my cheeks heat as I rose to my feet again.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jade?” The question was growled from behind me in a raspy voice with which I was intimately familiar. I swiveled on my heel and came face-to-face with Lucas St. James. In his three-piece suit, with his dark hair perfectly styled and chocolate brown eyes glaring daggers at me, he looked nothing like the man who’d left me tousled and naked in a hotel room bed six weeks ago. “And why the fuck were you giving my dad’s lawyer a blow job under his desk?”
I felt the little blood which was left in my face after my puke-fest drain. I wasn’t sure if it was because Lucas had just said “dad” which meant he was most likely the step-brother in question or if it was the blow job insult.
Mr. Wilkinson jumped to his feet and threw his hands up in protest. “She was doing no such thing, Lucas. You should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting something so untoward of this sweet young woman.”
Lucas’s gaze dropped to my lips, his eyes heating. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d bet that he was remembering me on my knees, doing exactly what he’d just accused me of. But to him, not the lawyer. “I’ve done a hell of a lot more than suggest it.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what he’d been doing. My cheeks heated in embarrassment as the lawyer looked at us questioningly. Lucas had spoken low enough that he couldn’t hear what he’d said, but there was no mistaking the tension between the two of us.
“Please, why don’t the both of you take a seat so we can go over the details of Jonathan’s will?”
I circled his desk and dropped back down into the chair I’d been seated in earlier. Lucas moved forward, coming to stand to the side of the desk instead of taking the other seat. My gaze slid up his body, enjoying the sight of his long legs and lean torso, before coming to rest on his face. His attention was directed away from me, and I took advantage of the moment to savor the masculine beauty of his face. My fingers itched with the desire to paint him, to finally do justice to the portrait I’d started over again at least a dozen times when I should have been focused on the paintings for my first show.
Our weekend together was supposed to have only been a fling, but I’d quickly become fascinated by Lucas to the point of distraction. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in meeting a looming deadline for my show while also dealing with my mom’s death, I probably would have tried to find him weeks ago to convince him that I hadn’t known who he was and to see if this obsession was a two-way street.
“Why in the world would she need to be here to discuss the terms of my dad’s will?” Lucas’s question held a healthy dose of suspicion.
“Because the woman Jonathan married the day before the car crash was her mom, and he made arrangements for Jade to be taken care of in the case of both their deaths.”
“She’s the gold digger’s daughter?” His eyes raked me up and down, icing over. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
There went the two-way street idea. Evidently, he didn’t share my feelings and wasn’t interested in more than what we already had together. It stung, but it was better to know now instead of later. I probably shouldn’t have found the irony of my mom’s situation the least bit amusing because now karma came back to bite me in the ass as I stared gape-mouthed at Lucas. Not only was he the man with whom I’d had a weekend fling, but he was also responsible for the most likely explanation for my persistent nausea for these past few days. Crapballs, it looked like I really shouldn’t have put off taking a pregnancy test and hunting him down if it was positive.
Chapter 2
Lucas
There was a part of me that was devastated to find out Jade was the daughter of that ditzy, conniving, gold digger who’d bewitched my dad with her ... assets, to gain access to his assets. I’d hoped my suspicions about Jade were a product of my paranoia and I hated that they’d been confirmed by this latest development.