Lucas
Downtown Norfolk, Virginia
Forty-Second Floor of the Bank of Tidewater
He felt like such an idiot. Why couldn’t he stop looking? Had he become a glutton for punishment? Or was it some masochistic corner of his brain still searching for proof that Adam had loved him once, really loved him.
He bet Adam wasn’t lost in thought at his job, gazing at photos of him all evening.
He didn’t meet Oliver’s pointed stare as he thought of the excuse he’d come up with this morning to get out of tonight.
“Yeah. About that…” Lucas shifted some papers around on his desk. “I’m going to have to take a rainch—”
“I’ll see you at a quarter ’til, Lucas. I’m driving.” Oliver raised his voice over his before he walked away, not allowing Lucas to finish his weak lie.
Goddammit .
Well, if Oliver insisted on wasting an evening on shitty company, then fine. He’d tried to give his friend an out, but he wasn’t smart enough to take it.
Lucas walked to the other side of his corner office and removed a bottle of Cavalli Vodka from the minifridge. He sat on the black leather sofa and stared out over the harbor as the sun began to set, wishing he could just relax and enjoy it.
The sun dissolved into a canvas of orange, violet, and blue so deep it seemed endless, but he couldn’t see the beauty in anything anymore.
It was the kind of view that would’ve had his sister reaching for her phone to snap a picture. Or his mother calling just to make sure he saw it.
He used to answer those calls, used to send his own photos in return—when he used to care.
Now, he let them go to voicemail…every time.
He couldn’t stomach the sympathy in their voices, the inevitable, “ We miss you. You’ll be okay, Luc. He didn’t deserve you anyway. It’s his loss. Move on. When are you coming over for dinner?”
They still thought of him as the man who had it all together and was too strong and powerful to mourn a cheating, gold-digging husband.
His sister said it was better he found out now, and not in ten years.
Was it though?
Whoever came up with the saying it’s lonely at the top knew what they were talking about. They had to have felt as he did in that moment—completely alone.
Lucas had more money than he could spend in a lifetime, but nothing or no one meaningful to spend it with.
His millions made him a target, and his heart made him easy prey.