Chapter Twelve
Lukas was pulling out all the stops. An all-black Bugatti waited in the portico of his building, the headlights switched on. Gleaming the way it did against the late dusk sky, the car seemed like some kind of spectre. Dark and mysterious.
If Robert and Scott wanted her and Lukas to be seen, they would certainly get their wish.
Katherine had done as Lukas asked and worn the incredible dress he’d bought her.
Her stomach felt like she was in a rollercoaster every time she thought about what had occurred in the fitting room.
No matter what happened after this month, she would keep this dress forever—a reminder of the racer she had been so wrong about.
The man who brought her to life. The passion that was only bestowed upon a lucky few maybe once in a lifetime.
‘Ready?’ Lukas asked beside her.
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
He took her hand, led her to the car and helped her in before closing the door and getting in himself. Something about this night felt different. It had felt different since they’d left the fitting room but Katherine couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
Was it Lukas? Was he being more attentive? Or was it her? Was it the way she felt about Lukas that was morphing into an affection she couldn’t name?
She tried to pay little attention to what happened outside the car as Lukas drove the short distance to the Monte Carlo casino, but she couldn’t not notice the number of phones in hands that followed them as they drove by, and when they reached the valet and exited Lukas’s car.
Katherine was always on the other side of the media and now, just as Lukas was watched and snapped and recorded every moment he wasn’t in his home, so was she. She wasn’t sure she liked it all that much. Yes, she was in the public eye, but it was never, ever like this.
She felt Lukas’s arm around her shoulders and gave him a small smile. She really hadn’t appreciated his patience before.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Ignore them.’
Her steps slowed. ‘What?’
‘Keep walking and I said, “Ignore them.”’ His arm drew her tighter to him.
More protectively. And when she looked up, there was a look in his eyes that took her breath away.
‘The longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to be.
Cameras are going to follow you everywhere.
The best thing you can do is ignore the attention. ’
They reached the grand entrance to the casino where people the world over wished to visit but only a handful ever would. Lukas tilted Katherine’s chin up and she gazed at his face. At the determined expression.
‘And you can trust me to protect you.’
Katherine’s throat went dry. Had he really noticed her discomfort with the attention she received? Attention was something she craved but never asked for. Now she was getting it in spades, so why was it bothering her?
‘I—’
‘Can protect yourself? I know you can, but this is something you’re unprepared for. This kind of attention is invasive. It’s not curious; it’s entitled.’
‘How did you…’ Katherine wasn’t sure what she was asking. How did he know? What was he really saying?
‘There was attention that I craved and never received too, Katherine, but I knew this—’ he tilted his head in the direction of flashing cameras ‘—wasn’t it.’
Lukas understood her like no one else. If they stood out here any longer, the world would witness her getting emotional and she didn’t want them to see her like that.
Never mind that such a display would get the tabloids going crazy, because that was the unfortunate side effect of playing it up for Aero TV. The tabloids were having a field day.
‘I think we should go inside.’
He smiled. ‘That is probably a good idea.’
‘So we’re gambling tonight,’ Katherine said in a light tone she forced when they climbed the stairs and walked through the historic doors.
‘No.’
‘Okay…then what are we doing at a casino?’
‘Being seen and not heard.’ His smile held a secret.
‘You know what, I’m not even going to ask. Lead the way.’
Lukas noticed Katherine struggling with being in the public eye at this level.
This wasn’t anything like her job and he knew how violating it felt.
Yes, she’d agreed to this, but it didn’t mean she deserved to feel that way.
He could help her. Was helping her. He was protecting her by bringing her into his home, taking her shopping where they would have constant reprieves whenever they went into the high-end stores, and bringing her here where the clientele was so exclusive.
And that was why he took her into a restaurant.
‘Bonsoir,’ an elegant hostess greeted. ‘Bienvenue. Your table is waiting, Mr J?ger. Please follow me.’
Lukas placed his arm around Katherine’s waist, holding her close as they followed the hostess through the stunning frescoed restaurant and into a cozy private corner near a window. The tables around them were empty. A reserved sign on each of them.
He held the chair out for Katherine and once she was seated, rounded the table to his own. The hostess handed them menus and left.
‘Did you reserve all these tables?’ Katherine asked. ‘Is that how you made sure we wouldn’t be heard?’
‘I’m a selfish man, Katherine. I want your attention focussed solely on me.
’ A lie it was more convenient to tell, because the truth was that he wanted to spend all the time he could with her alone.
He wanted her smiles and her candid honesty and her passion.
He wanted them to be trapped in a bubble where he could lavish his attention on her and in return she would wholly want him.
But wanting that much was a secret because she was only with him to save her career and enjoy some no-strings sex.
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ she said, leaning towards him. ‘I don’t think you’re selfish. I think you were made to feel that way but really, you’re generous and kind and protective.’
‘Is that so?’ He didn’t want to say more than that and give away how he felt to have someone see him that way.
He had never spoken to his father about his feelings regarding his parents’ divorce or his mother’s disapproval.
He had never wanted his father to be forced to comfort him and lie to him.
To tell him that his mother was wrong. It would have hurt his father to say that.
It was better to be the son his father needed him to be.
‘Yes.’ She reached across the table and placed her hand on his. A burning, sparking touch he wanted pressed against his cheek, a comfort he wanted to soak up. ‘And I truly don’t understand how you’ve been single for so long or why.’
Because his choices had consequences, that was why. And he couldn’t put another person through the way he lived his life.
A waiter approached the table and Lukas gestured to Katherine to order, all the while watching her.
The way she smiled and laughed and bantered.
The way her red hair glowed under the lights.
The way the gleam from the candle on the table sparkled in her blue eyes.
She was incredible. So full of life and determination.
She was also the only person he had met who he could relate to.
‘And for you, monsieur?’
‘I’ll have the same and a glass of your best Bordeaux for Ms Ward.’
‘Of course.’
‘You knew I liked red wine?’ Katherine asked when the waiter left and Lukas was forced to show just how much attention he’d paid to her over the years.
‘There was a discussion about wine between you, and some of the drivers when we were in France once. You mentioned a Bordeaux you tried—’
Her eyes grew wide. ‘That I loved… Lukas, that was two years ago. You weren’t even there.’
‘I wasn’t part of your conversation, but I was there. I watched and listened,’ he confessed and then made another confession. ‘And to answer your previous question, I’ve been single this long because of choices I made.’
Katherine’s frown was a silent request for him to continue.
‘I was in a relationship for two years. We lived together. I was certain I would marry her. I loved her and in my mind we were already committed to growing old together.’
‘What!’ The surprise on her face was almost comical. ‘I had no idea.’
‘No one did, and that was the problem. No one knew because I was determined to maintain our privacy. Protect us from the press and scrutiny. But keeping it hidden forced us to be so careful of what we did and where we went. Whether people would take pictures of us. We tried to be happy, but she grew tired of how viciously I protected our privacy.’
You’re snuffing out the life in me, Lukas. I want to have fun. Not be sequestered in the shadows so no one ever sees us, or takes a picture of us. I won’t wait for you to be ready to live. You need to figure this thing out with the media because they are never going away, but I am.
‘She said she couldn’t live like that. As if we were sneaking around doing something wrong.’
Katherine was quiet, listening and not interrupting.
He could see her curiosity and a part of him wondered if he was being stupid, telling her something so private.
She was still a journalist and only on this date because that career in the media had been threatened.
But something in him wanted to keep talking to her, so he did.