NINE
CLAIRE OPENED LUKE’S FRONT door and let herself inside. It was strange being in his space without him. After she and Eric had their picnic the previous night she’d worked for a couple more hours, finishing priming the upstairs. She’d been so exhausted by the time she got back to Luke’s she hadn’t had the energy to think about how weird it was being there without him. For the past week or so he’d been working so much it felt like she was alone most of the time anyway. She should probably go back to her place. They barely knew each other, and she’d practically moved in with him. It was crazy. The perspective would be good for both of them. She decided to ignore for moment the way her heart hurt at the thought.
Nobody was working the Ashton Court job on a Saturday. With everything that had been going on, she didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be there alone. She wasn’t scared exactly, more prudent. And she had more than enough work to do on her flip. She’d spent the day working there and managed to make it back to Luke’s at a respectable eight o’clock.
She was going to take some of Eric’s advice and take a bath, maybe read or play around on her tablet and then sleep a full uninterrupted night. Luke should be home in the morning.
She’d sent him a text to thank him for the food and to tell him about Eric. She’d gotten a growly one back and a couple lamenting boring meetings today, but nothing for a couple of hours. Dropping the key fob into the bowl on the kitchen counter, she pulled out her phone and sent a quick text.
In for the night. I plan on raiding your refrigerator. No French cavalry needed.
As a second thought she added;
Taking a bath. Wish you were here.
She waited a moment for a response before opening his massive stainless steel refrigerator and digging around for leftovers. Popping a carton of some kind of chicken into the microwave, she picked up her tablet and started to skim her emails. There weren’t many and by the time the microwave dinged she’d moved on to surfing the web. She wasn’t really looking for anything, just killing time waiting for the chicken to cool.
Snagging the container from the microwave, she peeled back the top, careful not to burn herself with the escaping steam. She took a fork from the drawer and stabbed a piece of something she was probably chicken Marsala, but she thought twice before she stuck the steaming piece in her mouth. On a whim she typed Luke Masters into Google search. She missed him, and she was pretty sure Google search was the grown woman’s equivalent of writing his name in her notebook.
She hit the image button knowing it was a bad idea. Luke had been photographed hundreds of times with dozens of different women on his arm. She’d make herself crazy looking at those pictures, but she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to see him. She scanned the thumbnails. There were lots of red carpet photos with many gorgeous woman. One in particular, a stunning brunette stood out. She was on Luke’s arm at a couple of different events.
There were also pictures of Claire and Luke together at the opening of his building, 609 West. She looked at them together and still couldn’t believe it was her in the photos. Andre was a genius. But it was the pictures of Luke by himself which made her heart flip. Several of them were obviously posed PR pictures, but others caught him in more candid moments looking like a barely civilized sexy pirate in a business suit. He was so handsome he stole her breath.
She saw one with a blue background that made his eyes seem to flash. She clicked to make the image bigger and saw he was standing in front of a leukemia benefit backdrop. He wore a tux with the ease that other men wore jeans and the one in the picture fit every hard angle of his body, hinting at the muscles underneath. Her mouth went dry remembering what it felt like to have all that strength over her, moving inside her until her world flew apart. She clicked the arrow to go to the next picture.
It was another at what looked like the same benefit, but in this one Luke had his arm around the brunette from the other photos. Claire fought the jealousy which reared its head at seeing the other woman with Luke. Then she saw the time date stamp on the photo and the bottom fell out of her world.
She looked at the date on her phone, praying she was seeing things wrong. She wasn’t. The photo had been taken a couple of hours earlier. No wonder he wasn’t answering her texts. He was at some benefit with another woman.
Forcing herself to close the photo, she went back to scanning thumbnails, pausing when she saw one with Luke helping what looked like the same woman into the back of his car. They obviously hadn’t known they were being photographed, but Claire didn’t have any trouble recognizing both of them. She clicked to open the photo and then clicked again to follow the link to the website. It was for some kind of gossip rag and the caption readBillionaire developer Luke Masters and socialite Gretchen Carlisle out for a night on the town at la Maison. The article was dated yesterday
He’d been with the other woman the whole time. And even Claire was savvy enough to know someone didn’t just walk into a restaurant like la Maison. It took months to get a table there. Even if they did give arrogant billionaire developers special treatment, Luke would have had to plan ahead. Claire thought back to how casually Luke had pulled the key fob out of his pocket. He had it ready for her. He’d never intended to take her with him on the trip.
What would he have done if she’d said yes when he asked her? She hadn’t made him find out. She let him fuck her against the wall and then sent him off to the arms of a woman he’d obviously been with plenty of times before.
She felt like such a fool. He hadn’t made her any promises or said he wouldn’t see other women. Just because she’d fallen in love with him, didn’t mean she was anything more than a convenient fuck for him. Just thinking it sliced at her heart. She’d been playing house with a man who didn’t care about her. She had to get out; she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t spend another minute in a place that smelled like him, where she saw him everywhere she turned. Leaving the chicken untouched on the counter, she shoved the tablet in her bag, grabbed her phone and walked out the door.
