“How so?”
“I’ve watched it happen time and time again: smart, successful women making sacrifices for the men they love. Sometimes it’s small stuff like going to the restaurants he likes, but then it morphs into taking vacations to the places he wants to see, planning the weekend around his friends and what he wants to do, or changing jobs because he got a better one in a new city.”
“Are we still talking about friends?”
“Not entirely,” she confessed. “I didn’t realize it was happening, and looking back, I can’t even pinpoint when it started. But yeah, I was headed straight down the same path my mom had taken.” The realization brought a bittersweet relief. “So in the end, maybe my ex did me a favor by being such an asshole.”
“What did he do? If you don’t mind me asking.”
As a rule, Paige hated talking about the past. But when it came to her ex, she avoided the subject like the plague. No looking back and all that crap. But Lucas had bared his soul to her when he’d told her about losing his wife. He’d shared the details of his broken heart. Least she could do was tell him about her own journey.
“Things were going great, too great I guess, and I let myself get comfortable.”
“Comfortable?”
“Yeah, you know, the point where you’re happy and you stop worrying that the happiness will end and you let yourself relax and enjoy it. Then fate comes along and punches you in the gut.” As she said the words, she realized that Lucas knew about that all too well. And what happened to him was far worse than her loss. “I’m sorry, I feel like a jerk complaining to you when—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “No two people have the same story, Paige. You can’t compare one person’s pain to another’s. We all feel what is happening in our own lives just as deeply.” He smiled. “It’s not a competition.”
She took a deep breath. “We’d finally set a date,” she said. “I’d just gotten a promotion, and he’d made partner at his firm. We were well on our way to having everything we’d ever wanted.”
“And then?”
“And then I came home from a business trip to find him breaking in the bed my parents had given us as an early wedding present.”
“You actually caught him in the act?”
“Oh yeah, I had a bedside view, so to speak. Guess I should be grateful. I mean, I didn’t have to snoop around like some suspicious girlfriend. I lived in ignorant bliss until the moment I flung open the door to see my boss riding my fiancé like a bronco at the state fair.” She had only told the story to a handful of people, but when she did, she always used that analogy. Because that’s exactly what she’d looked like, one arm in the air, her head thrown back, and her ass bouncing up and down.
It took a minute for the information dump to sink in, but when it did, Lucas’s eyes grew wide. “Wait, did you say your boss?”
Paige nodded, then explained how she lost her fiancé and her job all in one afternoon. As she did, that familiar lump formed in her throat. Even after all this time, the sense of betrayal could bubble to the surface at a moment’s notice. “Jeez,” she said, willing herself not to cry. “It was three years ago.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Think I’d be over it by now.” Defense mechanism two hundred and twelve: self-deprecating humor. But Lucas wasn’t buying it. He didn’t laugh along with her. Instead he took her hand.
“I’m so sorry, Paige.”
“Don’t be.” She shrugged. “That afternoon changed my life for the better as far as I’m concerned. I was spared being saddled with a lying cheat.” She winced. “Okay, maybe not the best choice of words, given the whole bronco thing,” she said, hoping once again to shift the conversation with a laugh. No such luck.
“Anyway,” she said on a drawn-out exhale, “that’s what pushed me to start my own business. Opening Chaos Control was the single best decision I’ve ever made. Maybe I should send the two of them a thank-you note.” The suggestion didn’t even earn her a small grin.
“Chaos Control?” he asked.
She nodded. “My company. I had considered Get your Shit Together, but it looked a little long on the front door.”
Still no laugh? This guy was a tough nut to crack. That, or he just wasn’t going to let her use humor to hide her feelings. Her money was on the latter.
She looked down at the rug, only to realize she’d twisted the strand of wool into a knot. Lucas lifted her chin to meet his gaze. Instinctively, she wanted to look away, but for some reason she couldn’t. She was fully dressed, and yet she’d never felt more exposed in her entire life. It was as though he could see right through her, past the tough exterior to the woman who deep down had always wanted more, but was too proud or scared to admit it. Not anymore. Her protective shell wasn’t just cracking, it was shattering into a million pieces.
“Look, it sucked,” she finally admitted. “It sucked more than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I threw all his clothes into the street. I bought refrigerated cookie dough and ate it right out of the plastic tube. I did all the clichés that women in movies do, but what I didn’t do was cry.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t cry because the man who said he wanted to spend his life with me thought it was fine to stick his dick in another woman. I didn’t cry because my boss, someone who claimed to be my friend, who was planning my freaking bridal shower, thought it was fine to screw my fiancé, and I didn’t cry because I knew that no matter how many damn Hallmark movies I watched, I was never going to believe in happy endings ever again.”
Lucas looked at her with a sincerity unlike any she’d ever felt before. “Don’t you get lonely?” he asked as his thumb stroked the back of her hand. The contact was minimal, but the connection was strong.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Maddie doesn’t allow much time for loneliness.” His mouth quirked into half a smile. “Or anything else for that matter.”
“And besides, I’m not alone. I have Mr. Rochester. And Sammy, my assistant. And I have friends. Not that I spend much time with them,” she conceded. “But that’s only because I work so many long hours.”
“You need more than your work and your assistant,” he said. “Don’t you want someone to come home to?”
That was the whole point. She didn’t want any one person to mean that much. Paige’s throat tightened, causing her words to come out in a hoarse whisper. “It’s easier this way.” She swallowed, then spoke her truth. “Safer.”
“Not every man is a pig, Paige.” He waited a beat, then asked, “What, no cracks about the mess in my house?”