Marriage With Benefits(33)

The loaded question—and Matthew’s bold and unapologetic prying—stomped on her defenses. “I worked there for a year to appease my grandfather. I’m probably the only one he’d trust to take over.” Shrugging, she wrapped it up. She didn’t owe him any explanations. “It’s not my passion, so he plans to live forever, I guess.”

Matthew didn’t smile. Thank goodness Lucas had been the one in need of a wife and not his brother. There was a brittleness to Matthew Wheeler, born of losing someone who meant everything, and she recognized it all too well.

In contrast, Lucas played at life, turning the mundane fun, and he smiled constantly in a sexy, self-assured way, which sometimes caught her with a lovely twist in the abdomen. That was the thing she liked most about him.

Dios. When had that happened?

“Family may not mean much to you, Cia. But it’s everything to us.” Matthew’s expression hardened, and she revised her opinion. The frozen cerulean of his irises scarcely resembled the stunning smoky blue of Lucas’s. “Lana punched a hole in Lucas’s pride, which is easily dismissed, but in the process, she nearly destroyed a century of my family’s hard work. That’s not so easily overcome. Be an asset to him. That’s all I’ll say.”

Matthew clammed up as Lucas rejoined them with a deceptively casual hand to the place where her neck and shoulder met. The dress she wore nearly covered her from head to foot and yet her husband managed to find the one bare spot on her body to brush with his electric fingertips.

She’d missed him. And no way would she ever admit it.

“Dinner’s on,” he told Matthew. “I’ll call you later.”

Matthew’s advice echoed in her head as she let Lucas lead her to his car. Well, she was here, wasn’t she? There was also a contract somewhere in Lucas’s possession granting him the sales rights to the Manzanares complex, which Abuelo had gladly signed.

Her relationship with Lucas was as equitable as possible. How much more of an asset could she be?

Regardless, all through dinner she thought about Fergie. And the house. She wore the Versace and the diamond rings her husband had selected. The scales in her mind unbalanced, and she was ashamed Matthew had to be the one to point out how little she’d given Lucas in return for throwing his strengths on the table.

She’d been so focused on making sure she didn’t fall for his seduce-and-conquer routine, she’d forgotten they had an agreement.

Their partnership wasn’t equitable at all, not with her shrewish behavior and giving him a hard time about attending a social event. She should have been glad to attend, but she wasn’t because her husband was too much of a temptation to be around.

Lucas didn’t try to kiss her or anything at the end of the evening, and she reminded herself four times how pleased she was the back-off messages were sinking in.

She slept fitfully that night and woke in the morning to dreary storm clouds, which she should have taken as a warning to stay in bed.

A young Hispanic woman in a crisp uniform was scrubbing the sink when Cia walked into the kitchen.

The girl smiled. “Buenos días, señora.”

Cia looked over her shoulder automatically and then cursed. She was the señora, at least for the next few months. “Good morning,” she responded in Spanish. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Mr. Wheeler hired a maid.”

Of course if he’d bothered to tell her, she would have. Men.

“I’m to come three days a week, with strict instructions you must be happy with my work.” The girl bobbed her head and peeled yellow latex gloves from her hands, which she dropped into the sink. “I’ve already cleaned the master suite. With your permission, I’d like to show you what I’ve done.”

“Sure.” Cia was halfway to the stairs before the raucous clang of a big, fat warning bell went off in her head. “You, um, cleaned the master suite? The bathroom, too?” Where there was a noticeable lack of cosmetics, hair dryer or conditioner.

Her heart flipped into overtime.

Satanás en un palo. The maid had cleaned Lucas’s bedroom while Cia slept in her room down the hall. They might as well have put out a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News—Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Wheeler Don’t Share a Bedroom.

While the maid politely pointed out the sparkling tile and polished granite vanity in the master bathroom, Cia listened with about a quarter of her attention and spent the other three-quarters focusing on how to fix it.

Lucas had royally screwed up. Not on purpose. But still.

“So you’ll be back on Wednesday?” Cia asked when the maid finished spouting about the cleaning process.