“Highland Park. More specifically, our house in Highland Park,” he said.
“You picked out a house? Already? Why do we need a house? What’s wrong with you moving in with me?” A house was too real, too … homey.
Worse, the two-story brick house was beautiful, with elegant stone accents and gas coach lights flanking the arched entryway. Not only did Lucas have more than a couple of working brain cells, he also had amazing taste.
“This place is available now, it’s close to the office and I like it. If this fake marriage is going to work, we can’t act like it’s fake. Everyone would wonder why we didn’t want to start our lives together someplace new.”
“No one is going to wonder that.” Is that what normal married people did? Why hadn’t she thought longer and harder about what it might take to make everyone believe she and Lucas were in love? Maybe because she knew nothing about love, except that when it went away, it took unrecoverable pieces with it. “You’re not planning on sharing a bedroom, are you?”
“You tell me. This is all for your grandfather’s benefit. Is he going to come over and inspect the house to be sure this is real?”
Oh, God. He wouldn’t. Would he? “No, he trusts me.”
And she intended to lie right to his face. Her stomach twisted.
“Then we’ll do separate bedrooms.” Lucas shrugged and crinkled up the corners of his eyes with a totally different sort of dangerous smile, and this one, she had no defenses against. “Check out the house. If you hate it, we’ll find another one.”
Mollified, she heaved a deep breath. Lucas could be reasonable. Good to know. She’d need a huge dollop of reasonable to talk him out of the Cia Wheeler madness. Dios, it didn’t even sound right. The syllables clacked together like a hundred cymbals flung against concrete.
She almost got the car door open before Lucas materialized at her side to open it the rest of the way. At least he had the wisdom not to try to help her out. With a steel-straight spine, she swung out of the car and followed him to the front door, which he opened with a flourish, then pocketed the key.
With its soaring ceilings and open floor plan, the house was breathtaking. No other word would do. Her brain wasn’t quick on the draw anyway with a solid mass of Lucas hot at her back as she stopped short in the marble, glass and dark wood foyer.
He skirted around her and walked into the main living area off the foyer.
Heavy dustcovers were draped over furniture, and heavier silence added to the empty atmosphere. People had lived here once and fled, leaving behind fragments of themselves in their haste. Why? And why did she want to fling off the covers and recapture some of the happiness someone had surely experienced here once upon a time?
“Well?” Lucas asked, his voice low in the stillness. “Do you want to keep looking? Or will it do?”
The quirk of his mouth said he already knew the answer. She didn’t like being predictable. Especially not to him. “How did you find this place?”
He studied her, and, inexplicably, she wished he’d flash that predatory smile she hated. At least then his thoughts would be obvious and she’d easily deflect his charm. This seriousness freaked her out a little.
“Vacant properties are my specialty,” he said. “Hazard of the job. The owner was willing to rent for six months, so it’s a no-brainer. Would you like to see the kitchen? It’s this way.”
He gestured to the back of the house, but she didn’t budge.
“I don’t have to see the kitchen to recognize a setup. You’re in commercial real estate, not residential. Why did you bring me here?”
“I’m throwing down my hand.” He lifted his chin. In the dim light, his eyes glinted, opening up a whole other dimension to his appeal, and it stalled her breath. What was wrong with her? Maybe she needed to eat.
“Great,” she squeaked and sucked in a lungful of air. “What’s in it?”
In a move worthy of a professional magician, he twirled his hand and produced a small black box. “Your engagement ring.”
Her heart fluttered.
Romance didn’t play a part in her life. Reality did. Before this moment, marrying Lucas had only been an idea, a nebulous concept invented to help them reach their individual goals. Now it was a fact.
And the sight of a man like Lucas with a ring box gripped in his strong fingers shouldn’t make her throat ache because this was the one and only proposal she’d ever get.
“We haven’t talked about any of this.” She hadn’t been expecting a ring. Or a house. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Do you want me to pay half?”
“Nah.” He waved away several thousand dollars with a flick of his hand. “Consider the ring a gift. Give it back at the end if it makes you feel better.”
“It’s not even noon, Wheeler. So far, you’ve presented me with contracts, a house and a ring. Either you already planned to ask someone else to marry you or you have a heck of a personal assistant.” She crossed her arms as she again took in the fatigue around his eyes.
Oh. That’s why he was tired. He’d spent the hours since she’d sprung this divorce deal on him getting all this arranged, yet he still managed to look delicious in a freshly pressed suit.
She refused to be impressed. Refused to reorganize her assumptions about the slick pretty boy standing in the middle of the house he’d picked out for them.
So he hadn’t been tearing up the sheets with his lawyer all night. So he’d rearranged his appointments to bring her here. So what?
“Last night, you proposed a partnership,” he said. “That means we both bring our strengths to the table, and that’s what I’m doing. Fact of the matter is you need me and for more than a signature on a piece of paper. You want everyone to believe this marriage is real, but you don’t seem to have any concept of how to go about it.”
“Oh, and you do?” she shot back and cursed the quaver in her voice.
Of course she didn’t know how to be married, for real or otherwise. How could she? Every day, she helped women leave their husbands and boyfriends, then taught them to build new, independent lives.
Every day, she reminded herself that love was for other people, for those who could figure out how to do it without glomming on to a man, expecting him to fix all those emotionally bereft places inside, like she’d done in college right after her parents’ deaths.
“Yeah. I’ve been around my parents for thirty years. My brother was married. My grandfather is married. The name of the company isn’t Wheeler Family Partners because we like the sound of it. I work with married men every day.”
Somehow he’d moved back into the foyer, where she’d remained. He was close. Too close. When he reached out to sweep hair from her cheek, she jumped.
“Whoa there, darlin’. See, that’s not how married people act. They touch each other. A lot.” There was that killer smile, and it communicated all the scandalous images doubtlessly swimming through his head. “And, honey, they like to touch each other. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
Right. She unclenched her fists.
They’d have to pretend to be lovey-dovey in public, and they’d have to practice in private. But she didn’t have to start this very minute.
She stepped back, away from the electricity sparking between her and this man she’d deny to her grave being attracted to. The second she gave