Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Lucas
Even after I returned to Marcus and the call, my mind stayed on her. Why would she need to go to the supply store? It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but it did for some reason. We should have everything in supplies, and what we didn’t have, Hazel could order.
“Hey, Lucas. Back to earth,” Marcus teased.
“Sorry, I’m back.” Business. Focus on the task at hand.
“Sounds like the new addition is getting under your skin already,” Marcus observed.
“How did you…” I swear Marcus knew everything going on in this company.
“Oh, fuck off.” The laughter in my voice let Marcus know I was joking, but he wasn’t wrong.
Valerie was under my skin; she always had been.
Some might consider her the one who got away, but that wasn’t true. I was stupid enough to push her away.
“How long have you known her?” Marcus asked.
“What makes you think I knew her before now?” Perceptive man.
“Don’t make me come up there and grill you, Lucas.”
The threat was real. Marcus was one of the few who could ferret out all your secrets if he wanted to. “I met her six years ago; we started a relationship, and a year later, I ended it.”
“Why?”
“Not something I’m willing to talk about.” Mainly because I’d been stupid and scared. Hell, I was getting ready to turn thirty, and there was just something about that age that made me freak out, and I hurt the one woman I never wanted to cause harm.
“All right, for now. Don’t forget to invite Valerie to the pub on Friday.”
The line went dead. Damn the gossip hotline in this building. Not that it surprised me. Many people thought women liked to gossip; the men in this company were just as bad. I grinned as I hung up the phone.
It would be fun to introduce Valerie to my Fantasies, Inc.
family. We’d grown over the past few months, adding Cassie and Emma to the group.
While Cassie had always worked for the company, she rarely went out with us to the pub.
She said she stayed away because she was the only female department head.
I had to admit I was surprised there weren’t more women in leadership roles at FI.
Maybe I should talk with Miles about bringing more women in.
I sat back in my chair and stared out the window, remembering the night I met Valerie.
The company mixer. She was one of the new employees, not that I’d been with the company for long.
Valerie captivated me from the moment she arrived.
She walked in as if she owned the room. The black jumpsuit hugged her body in all the right places, and her hair was spread down around her shoulders like a silken shawl.
How would it feel in my hands, between my fingers?
A confident woman. I took notice. Excusing myself from the conversation, I walked up to her and introduced myself.
We hit it off and spent hours talking, then traded numbers.
For the next year, we were in a relationship until I screwed it up.
I left Smith, Rogers, and Associates and joined Fantasies, Inc.
Valerie mentioned she’d researched FI. I leaned back in my chair with a smile. I’d love to do what Asher did with Emma, give Valerie a crash course by taking her to R&D. Marcus was always thinking up new things for people’s pleasure.
I shook my head. Valerie was here to work, not start up an old relationship with me, no matter how much I’d like that.
Seeing her again brought up a lot of feelings I thought I’d long since resolved.
In the past five years, I’d grown up, not that I wasn’t before, but turning thirty did something to my brain, and it wasn’t a good thing.
I went nuts for a while, and Valerie paid the price. I could see that now.
Had she moved on? No reason for her not to.
I hadn’t noticed a ring on her finger, so I assumed she wasn’t married.
Why did that please me? She deserved to be happy.
And just because there was no ring, it didn’t mean she wasn’t involved with someone.
My gut clenched. I still cared. Not surprising.
We had a good relationship until I fucked it all up.
Maybe we could start over, and I could make it all up to her. It was all dependent on Valerie and whether she was in a relationship or not.
My cell rang, and I glanced at the screen. Mindy. My baby sister. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I instantly worried every time she called, mainly because I’d raised her when our parents couldn’t be bothered with their children.
“Hello to you too.” I could almost hear her eye roll. “Nothing’s wrong. I want your opinion on something.”
There was a note of frustration in Mindy’s voice. “Go for it.”
“I’ve been offered a possible internship at a private clinic.”
Skepticism flowed through me. “Where and who?”
“In Chicago, it’s the Reynolds Group.”
My gut told me something wasn’t right. “Let me do some research.”
“Lucas…”
“Let me do this, baby girl. I want to protect you.”
“Stop calling me baby girl. I need to decide by Friday.”
I sighed. It was habit for me to call her baby girl. I’ve always used that nickname. “Can do. Anything else?”
“Nope. Love you.”
“Love you too.” I ended the call, wondering what kind of opportunity this might be and whether it was worth it.
My overbearing conscience played out all the arguments about backing off and letting her live her life. She’s an adult. You taught her well. You gotta let her make her own mistakes. Yeah, well, smartass, if she didn’t want my help, she wouldn’t have called me, would she?
Conscience aside, as her big brother, I had a responsibility to keep her out of trouble.