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He glances at his watch. “Well, I had a meeting. And it got canceled a minute ago and now I have nothing to do.”
When his eyes gleam as they settle on me, I find myself taking a step back. “What?”
“Well,” he drawls. “The office doesn’t open for another half hour. Do you want to get some breakfast?”
I’m about to deny the invitation but my stomach makes a loud noise.
Lucas gives me a cheerful look. “Well, that settles it then. I’ll carry Sophie’s carrier.” He rounds the corner and picks it up.
I can do nothing but follow him, helplessly.
“There is this fantastic coffee shop just down the road.’ He beams at me. “It has the best breakfast deal.”
And ten minutes later, I’m sitting across from him in quaint little café, drinking tea and eating deliciously scrambled eggs.
Lucas truly is a force of nature.
I watch him as he babbles nonsense to Sophie.
She loves it when people pay attention to her and she’s quivering with barely restrained excitement.
My parents wholly disapprove of my keeping Sophie. They’re traditionalists and believe I should have married first. So, while they talk to me on occasion, they don’t want to hear anything about Sophie. They haven’t even come to see her. So, aside from me, Sophie has no family.
No one who will love her so completely and adore her wholeheartedly, and yet when I saw the way Lucas looked at her in the hospital room, when the doctor had handed her to him, that look of love and pride on his handsome face had made me want to cry, ‘Oh, why couldn’t it have been him?’
“You haven’t touched your food yet,” I tell him, pointing towards his bacon and eggs which is starting to get cold.
He reluctantly stops playing with Sophie and starts digging in. “So, how have you been?”
I think about how I spent twenty minutes staring at my naked figure in the mirror, this morning, feeling so unattractive. “It’s been all right.” I take a sip of my tea. “Sophie is a handful. She keeps me up at night.”
He stops eating then and studies me with what looks like concern. “Are you sure you should be back? I know you cut your maternity leave short.”
This time, my smile is a little strained. “Well, it’s just me and Sophie in our apartment all day long and it got kind of lonely.”
I’ve been sinking into depression day by day and I refuse to let that happen to me.
Just then Lucas’s phone rings and he makes a face before answering, “What, Deb? I’m busy.”
There’s a pause and then, Lucas Black blushes. “You know what? As a matter of fact, I am!”
Another pause.
“No, you may not!” He cut the call and stuffs the phone in his pocket, not meeting my gaze.
My curiosity sufficiently aroused, I ask, “Is everything okay?”
“It was my sister,” he mutters.
That is new information to me. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
This time, he meets my gaze, looking pained. “I try to forget on most days myself. And then she calls me up to remind me of her existence.”
I watch him, patiently, knowing just how to get people to talk.
He continues, “She’s my twin and she’s getting married in three weeks’ time. And I’m required to bring a date.”
The last part of his sentence makes the smile slide off my face. There is a soft burning in my chest and I quickly stomp on it.
