Chapter Five
Lucas
Well, I certainly fucked that up, watching as Valerie’s retreated. I thought maybe this lunch could be a get-to-know the new Valerie.
Oh yeah, I messed up when I walked away from her, and yes, it was with another woman.
Shit. That woman hadn’t even been someone important to me.
What could I say? In the years Valerie and I have been apart, I’ve worked on my issues.
I’ve grown, but she doesn’t know that. I hate how much I hurt her. She didn’t deserve it. Ever.
Seeing Marcus and Asher with their women reminded me that I wanted what they had.
A woman who loved them. Valerie coming to work for Fantasies, Inc.
was fate. And I wanted to tempt fate. Having her back in my life was a start.
We had been good together. Maybe I was expecting too much.
The connection between us was still strong.
And she did blush when I reminded her about our bedroom antics.
Closing my eyes, I saw her brown hair spread out over the pillow, how fast her breaths came, and the look of pure trust in her eyes. The feather boa had been especially fun. She squirmed as I ran it over her full breasts, down her stomach and beyond, promising her delights she’d never experienced.
The clanging of utensils brought me back to the present.
Maybe I could work that angle. Marcus had some interesting things in R&D.
My dick jumped with excitement, though I was getting ahead of myself.
We hadn’t even worked together a full day.
Convincing Valerie to give us another chance wasn’t going to be easy.
Hell, I needed to get past Valerie’s reluctance to even talk about our personal life. We’d been good together before, working in sync both in and out of the bedroom. I wanted that back for both of us, to protect her and never cause her to feel that kind of pain again.
I had a long way to go before we could relive that bedroom scene. Consent. That had been terminated when I ended the relationship and broke her trust.
We were both very different people now. She mentioned she lived in the Heights area. So did I. What were the odds? But there were a lot of houses in the area.
Would she even listen to the reasons why I ran all those years ago?
Right now, I needed to get through not only today but the rest of her first week without risking her getting angry with me and walking off the job.
I rubbed my forehead. Yep. I had a lot of repair work to do, and it wouldn’t be easy.
The coming weeks were going to be interesting.