Page 25 of His Perfect Woman

14

Lucas

I hung up my phone and tossed it back onto the bedside table. “Breakfast is on the way,” I called out to Victoria as she strolled in from the bathroom. I turned back to the newspaper in my hands, adding, “And our engagement party is the talk of the town. Front page of the lifestyle section.”

“That’s how you know we did a good job. Anyone can get posted all over the internet, but when they put you in print? You nailed it.”

“All thanks to the best PR pro in the city.” I winked.

“And the love guru Heartstring head honcho himself...Mr. Lucas Meadows.” She crawled into the bed and leaned over the paper to plant a kiss on my lips.

We stayed in bed—reading, working from our phones, and enjoying a nice delivered breakfast. I watched Victoria, her hair rolled up in a cotton towel from her shower. She was wrapped in a big robe and had just slid on her glasses to respond to a work email. The comfort and familiarity of the scene was thrilling and unsettling all at once.

This had become our regular routine. We spent most nights together, ravaging each other like animals, all under the guise of giving Victoria her baby. But during the daytime, neither of us shied away from being close like this. We kissed and cuddled. Shared meals. Worked together. It was like a dream come true. I was getting to live out the fantasy I always wanted, but Vic still had no idea just how long I had been dreaming about this.

“Have you given any more thought to us moving in together?” I asked finally.

“Nope,” she shot back without a second thought. She didn’t even look up from her phone.

“Well...don’t you think you should? Or that we should talk about it some more?”

Realizing I wasn’t going to let it go, she let her phone fall to her lap. She turned to me with a groan. “We probably should. But that doesn’t mean I want to.”

“Why?” I laughed, wrinkling my brow.

“Because it stresses me out, Lucas. Keeping our own places seems like the only real boundary we can set in this whole thing. It’s what keeps this an arrangement...and gives us our freedom to still live our separate lives.”

Just say it, Lucas. Just admit that you don’t want to live separate lives. That you want to spend every morning with her...just like this.

“I could help out more with the baby if we were under one roof,” I offered instead. Appealing to her pragmatic side was a much easier solution.

“Or I could just keep an extra bed in the nursery at my place.” She shrugged. “And you could stay in my room on nights when you wanted to help out.”

“And you’d sleep...where? In the nursery?”

“That’s the idea.”

I felt my heart sink down into the pit of my stomach—a sensation Victoria was especially skilled at manifesting in me. It had been happening more and more lately. Every time I thought we were on the same page and I could confess how I felt, she did or said something to knock us back ten steps.

I folded up my paper and moved it aside. “So, once you are pregnant...and the baby is born...all of this…” I waved my hand between us in bed.

She scrunched up her nose. “All of what?”

“Us sleeping together. Breakfast in bed. What happens then? We just...stop?”

I saw a hard lump slide down her throat. “Well. Yes. That is the arrangement, right? Unless, of course, we’re in public. Then we have to show a little PDA. At least for as long as the media still cares enough to pay attention. But if I get Heartstring to the level I want, the media will be all ablaze about you and your company for years to come.”

That reassurance did little to comfort me. It all meant nothing if it was just a publicity stunt to her. But then again...what did I expect? She was only playing by the rules I’d proposed with this whole game. This was a bed of my own making...with her in it, just waiting for the time to come when she would leave.

“This all seems to come so easily to you,” I told her. She certainly didn’t appear to have the same sinking feeling I did.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you enjoy spending mornings like this together? And the nights…”

“Your ego is just spinning out because you can’t believe that a woman might have other things to do with herself besides succumbing to your sexual temptations every night.” She laughed.

“It’s not that,” I insisted, sliding out of bed. I could feel her eyes burning into me as I stepped into my closet to pull out my jogging clothes.

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