Crystal Green - The Playboy Takes a Wife

Photo op. Lucas had stumbled into a nice one, hadn’t he?

It wasn’t until Gabriel stopped chatting and started watching him with those big dark eyes that Lucas realized his throat was stinging with an emotion he couldn’t identify.

What the hell?

Brushing it off, he chalked it up to seeing evidence of the good those English lessons had done.

He abruptly stood, averting his face, ignoring thoughts of all the numb days that had been linking his existence together.

His sight settled on his brother, who was lounging by the doorway, tucking his phone into a suit pocket, face pensive.

Keep it together , he told himself.

By the time Gabriel tugged on Lucas’s pants, Lucas had collected himself enough to turn around again.

The child stood there, dark eyes wide and playful. “Come on, come on. Hide-and-seeks.”

As the child jumped up and down and tried to lure Lucas out of the casa, a nun from across the room called to the boy.

“It’s time for chores, Gabriel. Say goodbye now.”

The child frowned, looking as if he didn’t comprehend why the fun had to end. Then, without warning, he turned to Alicia and fired a barrage of upset Spanish words that Lucas couldn’t translate. His tone was choked, his hands fisted in front of him as he punched the air.

Lucas’s chest tightened with concern, with empathy.

But when Alicia patiently reached out to smooth Gabriel’s spiky hair, just the way you would your own child, the boy paused, at first shaking his head and denying her. But as she spoke soothing words, Gabriel allowed her to get closer, closer.

Carefully, she drew him to her, continuing to murmur as she hugged him and smoothed a hand up and down his back.

Thank God, within a few seconds, Gabriel had stopped, his head resting on her shoulder, one hand fisting the material of her blouse.

In his eyes Lucas saw those reflections again, the painted shadows of his own heart buried beneath this kid’s chest. The need to find someone who could help him, too.

The words slipped out before Lucas could rein them in. “We’ll hide-and-seek next time, Gabe, huh?”

He didn’t know why he’d said it. Dammit, when would he ever be coming back here?

But then that beautiful smile lit over Alicia’s lips, and Lucas knew it wouldn’t take much more persuasion.

“See you soon, then, Mr. Chandler,” Alicia said, leading Gabriel away and acting calm enough to fool him into thinking that nothing dramatic had just happened with the kid. “Thank you for everything.”

Lucas nodded, unable to stop himself from appreciating the way her curvy hips swiveled under that shapeless skirt. She gave real nice form to it, that was for sure.

Before reaching the door, she sent him one last glance, and the power of it just about bowled him over. All she did was smile a little, and his world tipped.

What was it about her? In that smile it seemed as if she could read his mind, slip beneath his skin, whisper inside his head.

I know you’re hurting , he imagined the smile saying. And I understand .

After they’d left, Lucas finally took a breath.

Realizing that he’d been holding the same one for what seemed like hours.

David had already gone outside by the time Lucas had said his farewells to the orphanage director. The Brain was waiting for his brother near the limo, where they had a view of the property: the main building, the annexes and the cottages, the chapel, the stables.

Arms crossed casually over his chest, David assessed Lucas, eyes a cool blue. With his stoic/casual pose, he looked like a stone-carved cowboy.

“Guess who called?” David said.

Lucas knew the answer before being told. “What’s the damage from the old man this time? Or is he announcing another future stepmom who’s two years older than I am?”

Well practiced in this line of conversation—one that never went anywhere—David kept his silence. Instead, his body language said it all: the loose limbs that spoke of a man in control of his own destiny, the slight tensing of his jaw that hinted at tension between the brothers. David was a big fan of Lucas’s hands-off business approach; he didn’t mind running everything while Lucas flashed his smile to the world at large. It was Lucas’s majority holding in the corporation’s stocks—a contract-tight promise his father had made to his first wife that included always seeing that Lucas, the firstborn, would own the company—that got to the Brain.

“Just spill it,” Lucas said, tired of waiting.

“He wanted an update. Wanted to know if today’s events were enough to impress Tadmere and Company.”

Tadmere, the family-oriented American media empire they were trying to acquire. Owning them would revitalize TCO, as well as give them more of an avenue to compete with the print rags and news shows that made a living off stalking Lucas. But the current, very pious owners were balking at turning over “their baby” to a company supposedly led by a man of Lucas’s reputation. It was Tadmere—and that scandalous Rome trip—that had prompted this whole personal PR campaign to make him look like a “nice guy.”

“And what did you tell him?” he asked nonchalantly, as was his habit. His dad hated when he did that.

And Lucas thrived on it.

“I told him things went perfectly.” David glanced at his Rolex and stood away from the limo. “He was happy about that, Luke. Really happy.”

A splinter of euphoria stabbed at his chest, making him bleed a little. It happened every time the old man seemed to be coming around, ever since he’d survived the stroke. But, even now, Lucas wasn’t about to get too giddy; Ford Chandler would return to prehealth-scare form soon enough. Lucas wasn’t about to set himself up for a fall.

“I’m sure you can imagine the happy fireworks going off in me,” Lucas said.

David sighed and shook his head. “Come on. You and I both know that, this time, maybe Dad will come around to appreciating you. I, for one, am sick to death of the way things are. And don’t deny—” David held up a finger to silence Lucas just as he was about to protest “—that you are, too. Suck it up this time and don’t get all rebellious against the guy. He’s sticking out an olive branch, these days. Would you just take it?”

“And what would sucking it up entail, David?”

“Just doing more of what you did here today. That’s all. Did it hurt so much?”

In the back of his mind, he heard Gabriel speaking English to him, saw all the boys lined up by the food tables and smiling in an effort to impress him.

Him —the notorious Lucas the Lover.

Respect, he thought. How would it feel to finally have it?

But it was impossible to come clean with David at this point. After all, it’d been tough enough to admit to his brother that he’d gone overboard in Rome with Cecilia DuPont and that he needed to cut the shenanigans.

And it’d been awful to admit it to himself, too. Admit that, more than anything, he craved one kind damn word from a father who didn’t give out many of them.

In response to that, Lucas had made a career out of being apathetic about the business his dad had raised from the ground up with his heart and soul. TCO was the son Ford Chandler favored best, so why didn’t he expect resentment from Lucas?

Resentment. God, it wore him out. He was weary from fighting a father who’d seemed to age fifteen years in the last month. The last time Lucas had seen his dad—hell, it was the day the competing tabloids had come out with that picture of Cecilia dancing in all her naked glory in a fountain, with a champagne-swilling Lucas cheering her on—the man had looked almost done. Finito , as Lucas’s Italian buddies would’ve said.