Page 11 of His Perfect Woman

“Just needed to make sure the spark was there. It’d have to be for us to make this work.” He smiled, winked, and walked out the door.

I stood there for a long time. Long after he had disappeared around the end of the hallway and I heard the ding of the elevator, followed by its doors closing shut. I kept my fingers pressed to my lips the entire time.

Oddly enough, the only thought resounding through my mind was—Well!? What was the verdict!? Did he think we had the spark!? Because in my opinion...that would be enough to convince anyone. Even his sisters and brother and my closest friends...Hell, it was almost enough to convince me.

I finally shut the door and tried to shake it off. Why did I even care what he thought? There was no way I could go through with this.

...Or could I?

6

Lucas

I walked through a shit show of murmurs, whispers, and sideway glances at the office just trying to make it to my own private little corner-view without any trouble. I had only been safely secured behind my desk for a full minute before all three of my siblings came barging in, locking the door behind them.

Camille, Joshua, and Jada all stood in a wall in front of me, their arms crossed, their eyes glaring.

“Do you want to tell us what the hell is going on!?” Camille spoke first.

“I take it everyone has caught wind of the press conference.”

The three of them erupted into exaggerated chatter about what they had heard, read, and seen. I held up one hand and they all stopped. At least I knew I still had some command over my family. It helped that we were at work, where technically I was their boss first and their brother second.

“I didn’t get secretly engaged without telling you,” I assured them, which, from what I gathered by all of their upheaval, seemed to be their primary concern. “What I said at the press conference...it’s just an arrangement. Well, a proposed arrangement. Between Victoria and me. We’ve been friends for a long time. We’re comfortable with each other. She’s ready to have kids, but is single and busy with work. And I need to have a family for appearances. So...we’re joining forces.”

“Joining forces!?” Camille shrieked. “Jeez, Lucas! This isn’t some business transaction. You’re talking about having children! Getting married! And you committed to all of this via a very public press conference without so much as breathing a word of it to us!”

“I’m well aware by now that the way I handled this was not ideal,” I said defensively. “And Victoria may not even agree. But we’re discussing it.”

“She hasn’t even agreed?” she scoffed. “Great. And if she doesn’t? Then what?”

She immediately spiraled into a rant about how it’s all anyone on the internet was talking about all of a sudden. My scandal had been reborn as a romantic tale that everyone was swooning over. Which meant if Victoria didn’t agree—we were screwed. I was screwed.

“I actually don’t think it’s such a bad idea.” Joshua shrugged, preemptively recoiling from our sisters. They were the only women we would ever cower from. Well, in my case, maybe them and Victoria.

They both turned on him with all the fury that had been directed towards me moments ago. “Think about it,” he protested. “We all know Victoria and have since high school. There are no skeletons in her closet threatening to burst out and bring us all down...which is more than I can say for any new woman he might meet. And it solves the issue of Lucas’s bad press. What could go wrong?”

The question sounded ominous and my sisters were all too aware of that. They both fired off in simultaneous protests of all the exact ways it could go wrong, all of which I had already considered.

“Everyone just calm down, okay?” I stood and walked over to the bar, pulling out four glasses and filling each one. “Drink something to calm your nerves, and we’ll talk about this more once we know exactly what Victoria decides to do.”

It took another hour of convincing to get them complacent enough to leave my office and get back to work. But no one was particularly happy. Including me. I didn’t like so many unknowns hanging in the air..

Things only got worse when I went to the breakroom for coffee later that day. My assistant was out to lunch and I didn’t feel like calling in an order or going out. The coffee in there wasn’t great, but it would do.

Then Trent came in. He was scowling at me from the moment he walked over. I continued stirring in my creamer and stood my ground, but he leaned against the counter and crossed his arms—making it clear he wasn’t going near the damn pot until I was at least a few feet away.

“How’s your intro to Heartstring going?” I asked finally.

“Fascinating.” He smirked in an arrogant sort of way. “Especially after that press conference.”

“Oh, you caught wind of that? Good thing you’re in the finance department and it’s not really your department or concern.”

“It’s a little bit my concern,” he insisted with tension in his voice. “You see...Victoria is my friend. I feel like I would have known if she was engaged or thought it was possible she would get engaged any time soon. I was under the impression...no, I was certain my interview was the first time you two had seen each other in quite some time. So, you can imagine my surprise when you two were suddenly engaged less than a week later.”

I leaned one arm against the counter and faced him, taking my time to sip my coffee. “Not so sure I like your tone, Maddox. You sound a little...miffed. Not exactly the way you want to talk to your new boss.”

“I’m off the clock right now, as it so happens. On break.” He stepped a few feet forward. “So I’ll speak candidly: I don’t like the idea of you using Victoria to fix your press scandals.”

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