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“You just made that up.” Kendall peers at him, suspiciously.
He clutches his chest, almost dramatically. “Moi?”
I chuckle at his theatrics.
He glances in my direction looking pleased. Then he reaches into his pocket and brings out a yellow flower. It’s a daisy. He offers it to me. “I picked it up on the way here.”
Now I blush fiercely and I’m accepting the flower before I can realize what I’m doing.
No one has ever given me a flower before and I know this one will find its way pressed into one of my books. It’s such a simple gesture and yet, I feel the warmth in my chest. I glance up at him, almost shyly. “Thank you.”
Kendall stares at him. “Are you puffing out your chest?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with you?” Lana chimes in.
Lucas frowns at them. “You two are bullies. I’m telling I’m your husband.” Ignoring them, he turns to me. “Have you had lunch yet? I was thinking about taking you and Sophie out for lunch.”
I’m a little taken aback by the request because he’s usually never been this vocal about such a thing. Its almost as if he’s…
My train of thought is lost when Lana interrupts, “Actually, she’s going to lunch with us.”
I shake my head. “I can’t do that either. I have to lose all this baby weight and that means watching what I put into my body for meals. I brought a salad with me.”
Lucas blinks. “What baby weight? You look downright gorgeous.”
I’m starting to think that if he goes on like this then my face will permanently be red around him.
Lana and Kendall vehemently agree.
I sigh internally, their kindness making me feel all fuzzy inside but I can’t hide from reality. “I can’t fit into the dresses I wore before I got pregnant,” I say, mournfully. “So, stop it, all of you.”
Lucas is leaning against my desk and is checking me out, very obviously, and he drawls while smirking, “I can’t see a single thing wrong with you.”
That’s when Lana smiles, almost fondly. “Elise could be wearing a potato sack and have bed head and you’d still think she’s the hottest woman in the room.”
Lucas simply folds his arms against his chest, looking defiant. “So, what? It’s true!”
What is going on here? I feel completely bewildered as I stare between the two of them. Since when has Lucas begun to flirt with me shamelessly and why is Lana acting as if this isn’t a surprise to her?
Sophie chooses that moment to decide that she’s been ignored for far too long and she starts kicking her feet in the pram, making noises that are a cry for attention.
Lucas immediately abandons us all in favor of her, and leaning into the pram, he offers his finger for her to hold on to. She immediately covers it in drool, as he says, “Who’s Uncle Lucas’ favorite girl? You are. Yes, you are.”
I watch Lucas abandon all his dignity to coo at my baby and I wonder at the ‘Uncle Lucas’ part. Then feeling a pair of eyes on me, I turn my head without thinking and see a familiar pair of eyes watching the whole scene with disgust and unrestrained anger, and I immediately stiffen.
I make eye contact with the man and he gives me a cold look which is filled with acidic hate before he directs it towards the carrier where my daughter is being entertained by Lucas. And it is at that moment when I realize that contract or no contract, I should never leave Sophie alone while I’m here because if given the opportunity, her father would harm her.
I narrow my eyes at Darren Hall, the man who sired my daughter.
5
Lucas
I don’t know what grabs my attention.
The way Sophie grows still and quiet, reacting to her mother’s emotions or the fact that Elise is snarling, an expression I’ve never seen on her face.
Even Lana and Kendall notice it and I hear the hesitation in their voices as one of them asks, “Elise?”
