Belladonna

Lucas

Downtown Norfolk, Virginia

Forty-Second Floor of the Bank of Tidewater

It never was at this hour.

The voice of the man on the other end sounded like satin over sandpaper scraping at his heart—something he wished didn’t beat anymore.

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose at the immediate pulse of tension blooming behind his eyes.

The leather of his chair creaked as he spun toward the window, seeking solace in the sprawling view of the city’s lights glittering on the black expanse of water.

Why did I even pick up the phone? Who else is going to call my office this late?

“How could you allow her to walk into that courtroom and leave me with nothing? Like I never mattered. Like I never meant anything to you.”

Lucas clenched his fists in his lap as the soft sniffles slid through the receiver, tugging at a hollowed-out place in his heart—a place where his spouse, where love, had once been.

“You don’t even care about how much I’m struggling, do you? I’ve had to start working as an event planner again.”

Lucas was silent, not trusting his voice not to crack.

He gazed absently at a lonely catamaran coasting along the Elizabeth River, drifting with the tide as if it had nowhere to be.

It was almost two in the morning, yet one boat floated alone in the middle of the dark body of water as if it had no dock of its own.

“Say something, dammit! Why are you doing this to me?” Adam screeched.

Lucas didn’t want to speak. He hadn’t heard his husband’s—ex-husband’s—voice in three months. Not since his divorce lawyer had filed a no-contact order to put a stop to Adam’s theatrics.

His ex would storm into his office mid-meeting, call at odd hours, throwing tantrums over money.

Yet here he was violating the order again, reciting the same argument as if the papers hadn’t been signed today, as if they weren’t officially over.

Lucas sighed as his stomach sank. It had always been about money. Lucas had been foolish to think a man as gorgeous as Adam would’ve wanted him for anything but.

Loosening his tie did nothing for the tightness in his throat. It wasn’t fabric choking him—it was humiliation, his obliterated pride.

However, he managed to croak out, “Adam. Why are you— You know you’re not supposed to be calling me.”

“I’ve always loved how you say my name. So strong and serious,” Adam purred.

Lucas hated that some stubborn part of him still heard it as sweet seduction.

“Don’t,” he demanded.

He may have been sad and lonely, but his mind could no longer be fucked with and manipulated by a sexy man.

“Let me come home. This has gone on long enough.”

“The papers were signed today, Adam. Our marriage is—” He bit down on the rest of that realization, pressing his fist to his lips.

“Why can’t you forgive me?” Adam yelled, making Lucas remove the receiver from his ear.

“It was one time! Once! All the times I forgave you for never showing up to my events, for standing me up on our anniversary night, for never taking me out on Valentine’s Day, or any day for that matter.”

“That’s not justification for what you did.”

“It is!” Adam snapped. “I even made us a date night, and you couldn’t even honor that.” He sniffled some more. “I was always sympathetic to your work, Lucas. I always understood that your business came first. Sometimes, I’d even bring you dinner when you worked late, remember?”

As if you cooked. You bought me overpriced gourmet takeout.

The back-and-forth was an old, toxic rhythm, yet the scars in his chest still felt raw, new.

He’d once loved Adam’s energy, his laugh, the way he lit up a room.

And Adam had loved being lit up in return—by gifts, by luxury, all the shine Lucas’s money could buy.

At forty-four, Lucas should’ve known better than to mistake attention for affection.

Like the cruelest reflex, came the memory, Adam in their bed, eyes dark with passion…but not for him.

Lucas shook his head. “Yeah. I remember. Tell me, Adam, how understanding and sympathetic would you have been about my late nights if you’d shown up with dinner and found me fucking my assistant on my desk?”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought.” Lucas should’ve hung up.

“You uncompromising bastard.”

“I tried to give you everything you demanded and more, Adam,” Lucas gritted as pain throbbed behind his left eye. “You wanted to go on shopping sprees in New York, Paris, and LA every spring and fall, you wanted to drive the newest car, you had to live in the biggest house—”

“Who doesn’t, Lucas? You can’t make me sound unreasonable because I wanted to finally live nice after coming from nothing.”

Lucas almost choked. “Your mom was a dermatologist, and your dad owned his own construction business, Adam. Jesus Christ. Was your struggle up from the suburbs really that difficult?”

“You wanted me to sit home alone in a big empty house, full of stuff… but no you.”

“I couldn’t make the money fast enough, which you spent like water. You wanted me to stay home and love on you all day, but you also wanted me to earn enough money to make you the most envied man in Hampton Roads.”

“And now guess what my friends think of me?”

That you’re an ungrateful, cheating piece of shit who tore my heart out.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Lucas felt as if Adam had sucker-punched him in the stomach.

God, he’d been a fucking idiot. And at forty-four, he should’ve known better.

“Can I just ask you one question?”

Adam sucked his teeth, but Lucas didn’t wait for his permission before he started speaking, “If I hadn’t been me, if I hadn’t been an honored guest wearing an Armani suit the night we met.

If I’d just been one of the waitstaff working the gala you were throwing for the firm that night.

” Lucas exhaled slowly. “Would you still have agreed to go to dinner with me?”

The silence extended so long that Lucas thought maybe Adam had hung up. He wished he had.

Lucas dropped his head. That silence spoke volumes. Therefore, there was no need to ask any further questions.

Adam had never loved anything but his money.

Had he really cheated just that one time? They’d only been married for four years, and Lucas had spent a lot of late nights at the office.

Who else knew he—one of the top ten investment bankers in Tidewater—was being played for a fool?

It didn’t matter. There was no repairing Lucas’s reputation or his marriage because he’d never be able to get the image of his husband wrapped tightly in another man’s arms out of his mind.

Even if he burned out his damn corneas, the vision would still be there, lurking, torturing him. And it wasn’t just the intense pounding Adam had been taking from that stranger in their bed. It’d been the adoring, yearning way Adam had gazed at him as he did.

A way he’d never once looked at me.

That was how Lucas knew Adam’s affair wasn’t a one-time mistake.

But at least Lucas had gotten out when he did and with his assets still intact—thank god for the infidelity clause in their prenup.

“Lucas, my love. Please. I wish you were here in bed beside me right now,” Adam begged sensuously, and despite how angry his ex made him, Lucas’s comatose dick twitched in his dress slacks.

Lucas should’ve felt nothing except rage and anger, but none of those powerful emotions protected him.

Instead, he had one feeling: pain.

“You’re a good man, Lucas. Don’t do this to me. I can’t live on five thousand dollars a month. I know you can afford twenty times that if you really cared for me. Why are you doing this? It’s not right…”

The rest of the call was just noise.

Lucas set the receiver down slowly, the way he would place flowers on a grave.

He didn’t slam it. He didn’t yell back at Adam.

He just stared at the solitary boat on the river until his vision blurred.

Lucas was sure at that exact moment that he’d never trust or love another man again.

He wanted to drive his fist through the plate-glass window, but he knew that was one, impossible, and two, pointless as fuck. He checked his watch, figuring he should probably go home. He couldn’t sleep on his office couch again. People were beginning to gossip.

“Evening, Lucas.”

“Shit.” Lucas jerked his head up in surprise before diverting his watery eyes when he saw it was one of his partners. “Sorry, Oliver. I didn’t see you standing there. What has you here so late?”

His longtime partner—previously his favorite hangout buddy—motioned to his briefcase. “I decided to stay and wrap up the waterside proposal. Since James is working the graveyard shift at the airport tonight, there’s no reason for me to rush home.”

“Yeah, I hear ya. I was just finishing up myself.”

Lucas dropped his gaze to his desk and fumbled with some papers while discreetly wiping his eyes.

“Hmm.” Oliver made a contemplative sound. “I heard you’ve been staying later and later at night. Your divorce was finalized today, yeah?”

“I’m sure that’s not news.” Lucas scrubbed a palm down his face. “Just when the watercooler crew got bored of talking about my husband’s indiscretions, they can now talk about the settlement I had to pay for being a dumbass.”

Oliver took a couple of steps inside, and Lucas was dreading his attempt to talk to him. He didn’t want to discuss anything. He just wanted to curl up in a ball and draw the shades to let humiliation churn in his stomach.

“I’m not staying. I just wanted to invite you to have a drink with me tomorrow.”

“I’m working tomorrow,” he said robotically.

Oliver smirked. “Of course you are. I mean after.”

“I have a thing, um…” Lucas fumbled, trying to find a lie that made sense. “Until like nine.”

“Cool. I’ll swing by and get you at nine-thirty. Just a quick drink at Pier Fortune at ten o’clock.” Oliver winked. “Just trust me, Lucas. You won’t wanna miss out on this opportunity.”

I’ve had drinks with you plenty of times, and it was never life-changing.

Lucas groaned in annoyance. He was in no mood for drinks, socializing, laughing, reminiscing, or anything else, but Oliver was a great guy, and Lucas remembered him having to get over his own nasty divorce a couple of years ago.

Maybe one drink won’t hurt.

Perhaps Oliver could give him some tips on getting over the dreadful loneliness without Lucas having to ask.