Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 67966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Oliver had a point there. But Thorn was a firm believer in approaching a man at the right moment. And that typically meant a smidge longer than the ink still drying on the divorce papers.
“Lucas really needs help, Thorn, please. He’s been burned, badly, and I’m worried this guy might’ve fucked up his head for good.” Oliver exhaled. “I’m just asking you to come and observe him…and you can decide for yourself if he needs Belladonna.”
Thorn grabbed his wallet and keys. “I’m on my way.”
END OF PILOT, Episode One
Season 1, Episode 2
New Beginnings for the Brokenhearted
Downtown Norfolk, Virginia
Forty-Second Floor of the Bank of Tidewater
Lucas’s Office
Friday, 8:30 p.m.
“Yo, Lucas.” Oliver rapped his knuckles twice on the doorframe before leaning in, grin casual, like they were still the kind of fellas who went out for happy hour after work without thinking about it. “Don’t try to cut out on me this evening. Remember, you, me, drinks, at Pier Fortune at nine.”
Lucas glanced up from his monitor after hurrying to close the slideshow he’d been staring at for the last forty-five minutes—pictures of him and his ex-husband in Tahiti on their honeymoon. Sunburnt and wide smiles, fingers linked tight as if it’d be that way forever.
He felt like such an idiot. Why couldn’t he stop looking? Had he become a glutton for punishment? Or was it some masochistic corner of his brain still searching for proof that Adam had loved him once, really loved him.
He bet Adam wasn’t lost in thought at his job, gazing at photos of him all evening.
He didn’t meet Oliver’s pointed stare as he thought of the excuse he’d come up with this morning to get out of tonight.
“Yeah. About that…” Lucas shifted some papers around on his desk. “I’m going to have to take a rainch—”
“I’ll see you at a quarter ’til, Lucas. I’m driving.” Oliver raised his voice over his before he walked away, not allowing Lucas to finish his weak lie.
Goddammit.
Well, if Oliver insisted on wasting an evening on shitty company, then fine. He’d tried to give his friend an out, but he wasn’t smart enough to take it.
Lucas walked to the other side of his corner office and removed a bottle of Cavalli Vodka from the minifridge. He sat on the black leather sofa and stared out over the harbor as the sun began to set, wishing he could just relax and enjoy it.
The sun dissolved into a canvas of orange, violet, and blue so deep it seemed endless, but he couldn’t see the beauty in anything anymore.
It was the kind of view that would’ve had his sister reaching for her phone to snap a picture. Or his mother calling just to make sure he saw it.
He used to answer those calls, used to send his own photos in return—when he used to care.
Now, he let them go to voicemail…every time.
He couldn’t stomach the sympathy in their voices, the inevitable, “We miss you. You’ll be okay, Luc. He didn’t deserve you anyway. It’s his loss. Move on. When are you coming over for dinner?”
They still thought of him as the man who had it all together and was too strong and powerful to mourn a cheating, gold-digging husband.
His sister said it was better he found out now, and not in ten years.
Was it though?
Whoever came up with the saying it’s lonely at the top knew what they were talking about. They had to have felt as he did in that moment—completely alone.
Lucas had more money than he could spend in a lifetime, but nothing or no one meaningful to spend it with.
His millions made him a target, and his heart made him easy prey.
Pier Fortune Bar and Restaurant
1400 Atlantic Avenue,
Virginia Beach Oceanfront
Friday, 10:40 p.m.
Thorn nursed his second Crown Royal and ginger ale while he made a few notes about Lucas Brewer on his iPhone, as he watched him from the other side of the room.
His notes on Lucas Brewer were already stacking up—quick impressions, shorthand assessments—each one adding up to Oliver’s assumption.
From across the room, Lucas was impossible to ignore.
Broad shoulders and a chest that filled his navy power suit as if it’d been tailored with worship. He was tall enough to command attention the second he walked into a room…but for all the wrong reasons.
Thorn hummed under his breath as he leaned back into the leather of his corner booth and unbuttoned his suit jacket to get more comfortable.
He slid his phone into the inside breast pocket. He had enough notes. Now, he could just watch.
Lucas tossed back a second shot and chased it with a long pull of beer. He had one elbow resting on the glass bar top, his other hand draped over his thigh, while Oliver leaned close to his ear, as if giving him classified information.
If not for the relentless scowl etching deep lines in Lucas’s brow and the downward curve of his full lips, Lucas would be considered stunningly handsome. Or maybe sexy-distinguished because of the streaks of silver in his black hair.