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I combed through my clothes, even though I already knew what I wanted to wear. Lukas hadn’t said anything more, so I took my time.
I grabbed a white top, a textured material that gathered over one shoulder, leaving the other exposed. I paired it with long pants, tapering in at the waist.
It was casual but still nice. Inoffensive.
I changed, grabbing a pair of sandals off a shelf and walked back out. Lukas hadn’t moved at all, it seemed. Even his eyes were still trained to the door, right where I would have been standing to walk in.
He only moved them now in those familiar quick passes over my body. As expected, my stomach tightened under the weight of his stare.
“What does she mean bymore time?” I asked, moving away from Lukas to sit on the bench at the foot of my bed. I reached down, pulling up the leg of my pant to put my shoe on.
Lukas readjusted in his seat, switching the cross of his legs and settling his hands together over his lap. Another beat lapsed before he said, “Certainly more than passing each other in the hallway.”
Because that’s what we’d been doing.
“Well, dinner tonight will be a good start. We can work together tomorrow,” I offered. That was the better option, and I was presently shit out of luck with solutions. There was one more option. One that would solve both the problem of distance and soothe the bags under Lukas’s eyes.
But I wasnotsharing a bed with him. Yet.
Lukas nodded, making a sound in the back of his throat in agreement. He looked down at his father’s watch, then, “Do you want time to get settled? Your parents will be here soon.”
“Please,” I practically croaked. Each thing Lukas did to remind me of what we once were, how he cared for me—even as a friend, even out of duty—laced another thread. Building a rope that tied me back to him, to the inescapable truth that I was in love with him.
This dinner was sure to strengthen that rope by leagues.
Lukas stood in a quick twist, turning away from me to adjust the chair. Even though it hadn’t moved an inch. He adjusted his pants too, pulling them down at the thighs. I may or may not have noticed because I was staring at his ass.
He walked over, extending a hand to help me up. I took it, the heat of his palm folding into my own.
The dining room in our private quarters had been set beautifully. Perfectly. I’d made sure of that.
I passed over it one more time, straightening a fork next to my mother’s plate.
Static trailed down my back, distracting me from my task. A second later, Lukas’s tanned, muscled arm came around my side, his hand holding my wine glass for me.
Logically, it made more sense to grab the glass with my right hand, the one not trapped in the cage of his arm.
But I’d resigned to the fact that logic didn’t enter the picture where he was concerned a long time ago.
I reached up my left hand, resting my wrist on his own to grab the glass. He hovered for a second, keeping his fingers on the stem even though the weight had transferred to my hold.
Since he couldn’t see me, I let my eyes close and took a deep breath in. It would be so easy, so deceptively natural to lean back. To press my back to his chest and let my head rest against his shoulder.
My eyes blinked back open when I lost the feeling of his skin under mine.
Lukas didn’t step back, though. His wrist simply dropped to the back of the chair in front of me, resting there casually.
Before I could decide whetherIshould move, the door clicked open, and Lukas’s mother walked through.
Sophie Poseidon was the kindest woman I’d ever met. She had an easy, settled grace that shone brighter than the green of her eyes or the flash of her russet brown curls, streaked with gray.
When she saw me, she opened her arms wide, bringing her smile up too. “Daphne, dear.”
Lukas grabbed my wine glass from me, giving me leave to walk over to his mother and accept her hug.
She was a bit shorter than me, but she placed her arms over mine. The second she pulled me into an embrace, I had to fight the urge not to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, just for the two of us.
