Page 6 of Last Minute Fiancé

I was not about to be the jaded bitter bitch ex-girlfriend. So I worked with him, I dealt with the snide jokes, I dealt with the finance dude-bro mentality every day with every single man that worked with me. And there was a lot of men considering this had somehow become the old guard boys club even though we were supposed to be an enlightened society. Well, fuck that; we all knew that was a lie.

I knew that falling in love and going down that path and being with someone—other than a single night where names didn’t matter and neither did orgasms—would only lead to heartache and insanity.

I knew that none of that mattered.

I knew that taking a chance and being with someone that actually mattered would only break you and stand in the way in the end.

Luca was not part of my five- to ten-year plan.

He was my friend. He was my confidant. He was the guy I got drunk with and knew I would always be safe with.

Except I had been the one to kiss him. Which led to what else happened that night.

If either one of us had been in our right mind, it wouldn’t have happened.

Of course, I knew I was lying to myself. Completely lying to myself.

Because even buzzed, no longer drunk, he had asked for consent and I had freely given it to him. I lied to myself and said we would talk about it the next morning.

But of course, we hadn’t. No, I had pretended to be asleep as he rolled away the next morning and called himself a rideshare to go home. That walk of shame had been in the early morning hours where nobody was truly awake enough to notice.

And we had seen each other every week since. After all, my other best friend was married to his brother. So of course I would see him.

We hadn’t talked about it except for the fact that knowing we hadn’t talked about it meant we were firmly of the same mind.

We would remain friends. We would pretend it hadn’t happened, and we would go about our business as if everything was normal and nothing had been fundamentally changed.

Because of course it hadn’t.

We were adults. Maybe this was a new age, where you could have sex with someone, amazing sex where you could still remember the toe-curling orgasms that had made you see stars. Maybe all of that could happen and then you could move on and just be friends.

Because it wasn’t like I was ever going to have sex again. There wasn’t enough time for that, based on the paperwork in front of me and the never-ending emails.

I needed to stop thinking about Luca. I needed to focus.

Luca mattered because he was my friend, but he didn’t matter when it came to my sex life.

That would never happen again.

Of course, if it hadn’t truly mattered, if it meant nothing other than a quick release between two friends who cared about each other, why hadn’t I told Devney or Paisley about it?

I knew the answer to that. Because that would make it important. And then they would want to talk about it. And then I would freak out and want to actually figure out what the hell I was feeling.

I didn’t want to do that.

“Lily, you got the Franklin report?” a deep voice asked from the doorway, and I looked up quickly, ignoring the slight sense of dizziness from the motion.

I hadn’t eaten enough that day, because I’d been queasy off and on thanks to the major report that was coming up. I had finished it, but then they added a new addendum so I needed to go back through it all and it had taken all night. All night where I hadn’t been feeling great thanks to the stress of this fucking job.

But this was fine, this was just one rung on the ladder that I needed to climb to get to where I wanted. And I would get there. I was hardworking and damn good at this. I could make money, and I could make people happy.

“Yes. All done and it’s in your inbox now.”

My boss frowned. “Really? I didn’t see it.”

I looked at the string again. “It’s in my sent. It’s also attached.”

“Can you print it out for me? And perhaps help me with that PDF again? I don’t know why they keep changing the file names.”

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