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“Is there someone you’re targeting?”
“Moore. He still hasn’t signed. Matthew invited another potential, who’s up here from Houston. George Walsh. He’s looking to expand, and if I’m not mistaken, he just walked in.”
If Walsh lived elsewhere, the Lana fiasco probably factored little in his decision process. “Industry?”
“Concrete. Pipes, foundations, that sort of thing. He’s looking for an existing facility with the potential to convert but wouldn’t be opposed to build-to-suit.” He laughed and shook his head. “You can’t be interested in all this.”
“But I am. Or I wouldn’t have asked. Introduce me to this Walsh.”
With an assessing once-over, he nodded, then led her to where Matthew conversed with a fortyish man in an ill-fitting suit.
Matthew performed the introductions, and Cia automatically evaluated George Walsh. A working man with calluses, who ran his company personally and preferred to get his hands dirty in the day to day. Now what?
Schmoozing felt so fake, and she’d never been good at it. Lucas managed to be genuine, so maybe her attitude was the problem. How could she get better?
Though it sliced through her with a serrated edge, she shut her eyes for a brief second and channeled her mother in a social setting. What would she have done? Drinks. Graciousness. Smiles. Then business.
Cia asked Walsh his drink preference and signaled a waiter as she chatted about his family, his hobbies and his last vacation. Smiling brightly, she called up every shred of business acumen in her brain. “So, Mr. Walsh, talk to me about the concrete business. This is certainly a booming area. Every new building needs a concrete foundation, right?”
He lit up and talked for a solid ten minutes about the weather, the economy and a hundred other reasons to set up shop in north Texas. Periodically, she threw in comments about Lucas and his commitment to clients—which in no way counted as fabrication since she had firsthand experience with his thoughtful consideration and careful attention to details.
Somehow, the conversation became more than acting as an asset to Lucas and enhancing his reputation, more than reciprocation for upholding his end of the bargain. She’d failed at drumming up donations for the shelter, despite believing in it so deeply. Here, she was a part of a partnership, one half of Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, and that profoundly changed her ability to succeed.
It reiterated that this marriage was her best shot at fulfilling her mother’s wishes.
“Did I do okay?” she whispered to Lucas after Matthew took Walsh off to meet some other people.
Instead of answering, he backed her into a secluded corner, behind a potted palm, and pulled her into his arms. Then he kissed her with shameless heat.
Helplessly, she clung to his strong shoulders as he explored every corner of her mouth. His strength and solid build gave him the means to do the only thing he claimed to want—to take care of her. It wasn’t as horrible or overbearing as she might have anticipated.
It was...nice. He understood her, what she wanted. Her dreams. Her fears. And they were partners. Who had amazing sex.
When he pulled back, the smile on his face took her breath.
“More than okay,” he said. “Are you angling to join the firm?”
“Well, my name is Wheeler,” she said in jest, but it didn’t seem as funny out loud. That was a whole different kind of partnership. Permanent. Real. Not part of the plan.
“Yes. It is.” He lifted her chin to pierce her with a charged look. The ballroom’s lighting refracted inside his eyes, brightening them. He leaned in, and the world shrank down to encompass only the two of them as he laid his lips on hers in a tender kiss. A kiss with none of the heat and none of the carnal passion sizzling between them like the first time.
It was a lover’s kiss. Her limp hands hung at her sides as her heart squeezed.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
“We have to find that coat closet. Now,” she hissed against his mouth. Sex. That’s all there was between them, all she’d allow. No tenderness, no affection, no stupid, girlie heart quivers.
His eyebrows flew up. “Now? We just got he— Why am I arguing about this?”
Linking hands, he pulled her along at a brisk trot, and she almost laughed at the intensity of his search for a private room. Around a corner of the hotel’s long hallway, they found an empty storage room.
Lucas held the door and shooed her in, slammed it shut and backed her against the wood, his ravenous mouth on hers.
The world righted itself as the hard press of his body heated hers through the deep blue dress. This, she accepted. Two people slaking a mutual wild thirst and nothing more.
