Page 35 of Devious Temptation
Being one of my closest friends for the better part of the last six years, she knows when not to push the subject. Candlelight bounces off her face as she cuts another piece of her herbed chicken, lips pulling wide as she glances at me from beneath her lashes. “You must be thrilled about your new secretary.”
“Assistant lead,” I correct automatically. M.I.G. stopped using the term “secretary” years ago. “And why do you think I’m thrilled?”
Because where Lucy is concerned, you’re too damn easy to read.
“I think we both know why, Lawson.” Her eyes narrow as she focuses on a random spot behind my head. “Lucy… She looks young. Maybe around Rhys’ age?”
I can feel the sweat beginning to bead at my temple. And because Jules knows me too damn well, her eyes grow wide as she puts all the details together. She sets down her fork and picks up her wine, settling back in her chair while I reach for my water glass and down half of it in one gulp.
“It’sher,isn’t it? She’s why you like the red wig so much,” she muses, rubbing her glass along her bottom lip.
Jules and Cameron don’t know all the details of what happened between Lucy and me, but they know enough. When I moved to New York, I was broken. I’d committed what I felt was a heinous crime, and I didn’t even go after Lucy to try and rectify it. I didn’t check on her to see howshe was. I blocked her from my life and ran from my problems.
I don’t know what type of life I would have fallen into if it weren't for them. They took me in and helped me learn a lot about myself, even though I was thirty-seven and should have had my shit together.
“It makes sense now, why you’re so grumpy.”
“Can we not talk about it?”
“She’s beautiful, Lawson. And looks like she adores you. She wanted to stab me the second I walked into your office,” Jules laughs. “I imagine she noticed how much I look like Charlotte, too. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when she realizes you prefer redheads.”
“She isn’t going to find out,” I grit out derisively, motioning for our server to bring me another whiskey.
“Well, that’s a damn shame. You two look positively edible together.” Her tone drops suggestively, a recognizable heat filling her gaze as she licks her lips. “Can you imagine if Cameronhadtaken the job? You’d have never known she worked for us, and I guarantee he would have had her on her back in the first week.”
The thought of Cameron touching Lucy instantly brings my blood to a roaring boil—a feral, possessive monster ripping through my chest in a way it didn’t when I thought of her and Mike together. Lucy was prepared for Cameron to take over. She’d studied him. Knew his likes and dislikes. She was eager to please him, yet she keeps giving me so much sass.
If she sassed Cameron the way she does me, he’d have put her over his knee and punished her, company policy bedamned. He’d throw caution to the wind in the same way Iwantto but can’t.
Not with her.
Roughly, I push my plate away as the server appears with my new drink. “Thanks, Jules. I’m no longer hungry.”
“Aww. Did the whittle baby lose his appetite at the thought of his friend bending the woman he wants over a desk?” she mocks in a child-like tone.
An abrupt cough flies from our server’s throat as he clears the table silently. I glare at Jules while she beams a Cheshire grin back at me. “I can’t wait to fill Cam in on all this.”
“There’s nothing to fill him in on. I’ve already decided I’m going to pass the office off to Randall once it’s integrated. Shouldn’t take more than a year.” I fish my wallet out and pluck two hundreds and a fifty from it, handing them to the server. “Keep the change.”
When he leaves with a thank you, Jules eyes me skeptically. “And then what? Come back to New York and go back to your old ways?”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” I knock back my whiskey.
New York helped me bury my sin before it taught me all the things I should have already known about myself. Charlotte and I had Rhys so young that I never had the opportunity to find myself after high school.
Now that I know who I am, it’s even more reason to stay away from Lucy.
“Have you tried to talk to her about it?” Jules asks, setting her empty glass down. “She didn’t appear frightenedof you or uncomfortable. Perhaps you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“She was a child.” My teeth clench together so hard I swear I hear my molars crack.
“She’s not a child now, Lawson,” Jules parries. “And what will you do when Rhys finds out? Or are you planning on keeping it from him for a whole year? Isn’t he moving back in a few months?”
“Have you always been this much of a nag?” I deflect.
“Darlin’, you know I’m only quiet and subservient in the bedroom,” she teases.
While we wait for the elevator to take us back down to street level, Jules turns to face me full-on. “You know, I think Iwilljoin them at that bar for drinks.”
