Chasing Forever Read online

  Lucas sighed. “Can we move past what happened between us six years ago? I think it’s been long enough that we can get past any hurt feelings. We’re adults. There’s no reason to dwell on the past. Friends?” he asked, holding out his hand to her.

  Staring at his hand, anger burned through her. “That’s easy for you to say when you weren’t the wronged party.” She took a sip of her ice water. “Look, Lucas. I’d love to finish my summer associate position, but you can’t blame me for not wanting to reciprocate any sort of friendship. Let’s keep everything professional.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Lucas responded, dropping his hand and leaning back in his chair.

  Regan rearranged the napkin in her lap. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page. No more lunches, no work trip to Colorado, no prying into my personal life. Just work. You assign it. I complete it. End of story.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?” she responded, looking up from her lap.

  “We need to work together effectively. That means we can’t ignore each other. Lunches, the trip to Colorado, and other little social encounters are necessary. We have a rough history, but so do a lot people and just like everyone else you need to put your big girl pants on and work around it.”

  What a jerk. Regan lifted her hand in protest.

  Lucas leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table, a condescending smile on his face. “Consider this your first lesson in practicing law. You may not always like your client, opposing counsel, the judge, or your colleagues, but you need to learn to get past it in order to be an effective advocate for your client, and if you can’t do that, then you might as well pack up your bags and go home.”

  If she leaned forward just one inch she could flick that patronizing smile right off his face. Instead, she pushed her chair back slightly and crossed her arms. He had effectively boxed her into a corner. She couldn’t disagree without looking immature and unprofessional. If she agreed, that would mean she agreed with him. She hated agreeing with him. The silence stretched to the point of awkwardness. She glared at him wishing she could tell him exactly where he could stick his lesson, but she couldn’t, not if she wanted to stay at Martin and Black and she did.

  Exhaling loudly, she gave herself a pep talk. She could do this. She could finish the summer with her dignity intact. Feeling slightly better, she pasted an overly bright smile on her face. “All right.”

  Lucas flashed his brilliant signature smile, the one that earned him the King of the Panty Droppers title in college. “Really?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Really.”

  “No more talking about the past.”

  “It’s buried.” For now, she silently added.

  He reached his hand across the table again. “Friends?”

  She eyed his hand, then shook it. “Not quite, but something like that.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll take it.”

  “You’ll take what?”

  Regan snatched her hand back at the sound of that voice. She turned toward Richard, the senior partner in the corporate litigation department. He stared at them with one eyebrow raised. She wanted to squirm in her chair, so she folded her hands in her lap forcing herself to remain still.

  Lucas shrugged. “The bet.”

  “Huh?” Regan said, her eyes wide.

  He looked at her pointedly. “She doesn’t think the Giants can win tomorrow night. I disagreed and proposed a little bet.”

  Richard shoved his hands in his pockets. “She’s going to lose. The Dodgers’ best pitcher is out with an injury.”

  “I told her that. She didn’t care.”

  “Not smart,” Richard said, looking at her and shaking his head.

  “What can I say? I’m not much of a baseball fan.” She looked at Lucas and smiled her most innocent smile. “It’s kind of boring. It’s a sport for men who have limited athletic abilities. It doesn’t take much talent to stand by a little square waiting to hit a little ball, then run in a circle.” She used to love baseball before she hated it. He ruined it for her. When she watched a game, it reminded her of Lucas. Just one of the many simple pleasures in her life he destroyed by being the biggest asshole to walk the face of the earth.

  Richard laughed. “Lucas loves baseball. He played in college. Did you he tell you?”

  “No, I didn’t realize,” she said. “Wow. I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. My opinion is tainted by some jerk I met in college who played baseball. He wasn’t even that good. Don’t be offended.”

  Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “None taken.”

  “So what did you wager?” Richard asked.

  “Lunch. She’s going to owe me lunch on Friday.”

  “Well, you better make it hurt after that comment about baseball.”

  Lucas turned to look at her. “I’m planning on it.”

  Richard turned to talk to the waiter, and Lucas winked at her. “Be prepared,” he whispered. “I’m going to make you eat your words.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Wait. So you two are friends now?” Drew asked, laughing. “How did you pull that off?”

  Lucas shook his head. “She didn’t say friends exactly, but she said we could be something like that.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “Like something more than friends?”

  “No, I think she meant something less than friends and more along the lines of a tentative truce.”

  Drew whistled under his breath. “I can’t believe she called a truce. Keep your eyes open. It could be a trick. If I were her, I would be quietly masterminding your downfall.” Drew shook his head. “No, downfall is too nice. Death, maiming, public humiliation is more likely.”

  Annoyed, Lucas stood up from his chair. He didn’t want to be reminded of his past transgressions. He never wanted to hurt Regan, but once Olivia started the ball in motion that night he froze. All he could do was stare as Olivia went for blood. Nothing he said would’ve mattered. He waited too long. “We agreed to keep the past in the past.”

  Drew took a sip of his beer. “Right. Good luck with that.”

  He and Drew were at the neighborhood bar watching the Giants play. While the bar was dark and served heartburn inducing food, it had its benefits. The owner let them control the television remote, it was never too crowded, and there was always an open table.

  Usually, meeting for beers to watch the baseball game offered a much-deserved reprieve from the firm’s mandate to rack up billable hours faster than humanly possible, but tonight his mind kept drifting back to work. Well, not work exactly, more like Regan, and working with Regan. Even the baseball game reminded him of her given their silly, not totally existent bet over which team would win.

  For some reason, he thought it would be a good idea to divulge his lunch conversation with Regan to Drew. Rather than acting as a non-judgmental sounding board, Drew wouldn’t shut up about the situation.

  “I know Regan, and she’s not trying to trick me.”

  “Oh, you know her. Refresh my memory. How many years has it been since the incident in college?” Drew held up his fingers to make the sign for quotation marks.

  Lucas shrugged. “Six or so.”

  “And you still think you know her?”

  “Yeah, I do. She’s not like Olivia. She isn’t the type to come up with wildly manipulative and vengeful schemes.”

  “There aren’t many people like Olivia. I’ll give you that. Remind me why you still talk to her.”

  Lucas exhaled loudly. “It’s complicated.”

  “She’s a bitch. She’s self-centered. She’s high maintenance. She’s toxic.” Drew took a sip of his beer. “How does that make things complicated?”

  “I’ve known her forever. Our families are friends. We spend holidays together. I think our parents still harbor some delusion that Olivia and I will be more than friends one day. As much as I want to, I can’t just write her out of my life without good reason.” Lucas lifted his beer mug.

 
“Can’t or won’t?” Drew asked.

  “Maybe a little of both. I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “It’s settled then.” Drew leaned back in his chair. “You might as well propose. Get it over with. No use in prolonging the inevitable.”

  Lucas choked on his beer. “Propose to who?”

  “Olivia. That’s where this is headed.”

  “That will never happen,” Lucas said, shaking his head. Being married to Olivia would be a death sentence. They may have dated casually in college, but it was more of a convenience than anything else. Olivia liked the image they created together, but neither of them was interested in having a serious relationship. At the time, she dated other people and so did he. Since college ended, they were friends, nothing more, not ever.

  “Then you need to open your eyes.”

  Lucas cocked his head. “Excuse me?”

  “Please tell me you’re not that blind. You had to have noticed.”

  “Noticed what?” He didn’t like the direction of this conversation.

  Drew laughed. “You’re shitting me. You really haven’t noticed anything?”

  Lucas shook his head.

  “Olivia has successfully gotten rid of every woman you have dated for longer than a month. Think about it.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Other than Regan, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “There was that girl two years ago, the cute little blonde. What was her name?” Drew waved his hand in Lucas’s direction.

  “Mia.” Lucas folded his arms across his chest.

  “You brought nice, soft-spoken Mia to some event. Olivia spilled red wine on her white shirt.”

  “That was an accident.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “If you say so. Then there was Rachel.”

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “Rachel dumped me after that charity event.”

  “Didn’t you notice Olivia cornered her for nearly thirty minutes at the beginning of the night?”

  “So what?”

  “Olivia subtly informed her that you two had an understanding.”

  Lucas slammed his hands on the table. “Seriously?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Drew shrugged. “I figured you knew Olivia pulled that crap all the time and you didn’t care because you never did anything about it.”

  Not only did Lucas care, the idea that Olivia may have repeatedly interfered with his relationships made him furious. Lucas looked up at the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I had no idea.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Confronting Olivia wouldn’t be easy. She would never admit to anything. He could ask her some subtle questions, but what happened or didn’t happen in the past wasn’t relevant. He needed to make sure Olivia understood they would never be together and hopefully she would stay out of his personal life.

  Thirty minutes and one Giants win later, Lucas and Drew waited outside their neighborhood bar for a cab. Lucas tipped up the collar on his black overcoat to minimize the effect of the wind and drizzle. Days like today, he missed the Texas heat. Even when the sun made an appearance, he still felt cold.

  Drew hadn’t mentioned Olivia again, and he truly appreciated it. He realized he had to deal with Olivia. He invited her back into his life to preserve harmony between their families, and at the time, he believed Olivia wanted the same thing. Apparently, he read her wrong again. Dinner with Olivia when he returned from Colorado on business would be interesting and possibly explosive, but this had to end.

  When a cab stopped by the curb, Drew and Lucas both climbed in. They’d lived on the same street since they graduated from law school, not intentionally, but coincidentally. Lucas knew he should invest in his own place rather than continue to rent. Now that he was on the verge of making partner, it seemed to silly to continue living in a two bedroom flat when money wasn’t an issue. His mom constantly hounded him about living a transient lifestyle, but he didn’t see the point in buying something when he worked so much that he hardly spent any time at home. It was a place to lay his head, nothing more.

  “So why are you making such an effort with Regan? She’s working with you for a couple months and then you probably won’t see her again. I can’t imagine that either of you wants to work for the same firm indefinitely,” Drew questioned.

  To avoid making eye contact with Drew, Lucas looked out the window. They had been friends since the first day of college, and he trusted him implicitly, but he didn’t think he could verbalize why Regan’s approval and acceptance meant so much to him. He could hardly understand it himself. “I don’t know. I guess I feel bad about what happened between us.”

  “Bullshit. It’s more than that. You have plenty of ex-girlfriends, but I’ve never seen you bend over backwards to make them comfortable or spend an entire evening analyzing every word exchanged between the two of you.”

  “I don’t see most of my ex-girlfriends on a daily basis. I’d like to eliminate the awkwardness going forward.”

  Drew rolled his eyes. “Since when do you care about that? You aren’t still attracted to her, are you?”

  Lucas turned to face Drew. “Our relationship ended badly. One minute we were together and the next….” Lucas shrugged. “It was over, and I never saw her again. Normally, when you’re dating someone, the attraction fades, you realize you don’t have much in common, you don’t want to spend time with that person anymore and then things end.”

  “Are you saying you need closure?” Drew chuckled. “You sound like a girl.”

  “Fuck you,” Lucas responded without heat. Maybe he did need closure or maybe he wanted her back, but he didn’t want to share any of that with Drew. When they were together, even if their relationship started as a lie, he had never felt that way about any woman and the sad truth was he hadn’t felt that way since. Acknowledging that fact was a real mind fuck.

  “Be nice to her or don’t. You’re her boss for a couple months. Get over it unless you want to be something more than her boss.” Drew pulled out his phone. Apparently, he was done talking. “And in that case, you have your work cut out for you.”

  The taxi stopped, and Lucas leaned forward to pay the driver. When they were both on the sidewalk, Drew raised his hand. “See you later. Call me if you want to meet on Saturday for drinks.”

  Lucas started walking in the opposite direction then stopped. “Hey, Drew.”

  Drew stopped in front of his building, a narrow three story, colorful Victorian divided into four flats like the rest of buildings on the block. “Yeah?”

  “Do you think it’s a lost cause?”

  Drew pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them from hand to hand. “A relationship with Regan?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Only you can answer that, but if you want her, you’ll have to do a lot of groveling and I don’t know if you have it in you.”

  Lucas nodded even though Drew probably couldn’t see the gesture in the darkness. “She’s seeing someone.”

  Drew took a few steps toward Lucas and shoved his keys into his pocket. “Is it serious?”

  Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be. The guy would like it to be. That’s for sure.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter. It could be causal or not, but either way you need a grand gesture, one that erases all that shit you pulled with Olivia—”

  Lucas curled his hands into fists. “After I met Regan, I told Olivia I wasn’t interested in her game. I never intended to be a part of it. Olivia fucked up and tried to seduce Professor Pierce for a grade. She gambled and she lost. It wasn’t my business.”

  “Sure, but why didn’t you deny Olivia’s accusations? I was there. You didn’t say anything. You let Regan believe every word that came out of Olivia’s mouth.”

  Lucas’s stomach twisted. Jesus. He hated that day. It made him physically ill when he
remembered how Olivia played him like a pawn. He saw the pain flash across Regan’s face, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and deny everything, but then he froze. He’d received his acceptance letter earlier that day from Stanford University, and he knew he had to accept. Staying in Texas for law school didn’t make sense anymore, and that meant his relationship with Regan would have to end in a couple months anyway. Right then and there, he decided to let their relationship end rather than dragging it out. He convinced himself it would be better that way. “I knew it wouldn’t work anyway. I was graduating at the end of the year.”

  “And you think it could work now?”

  “Honestly?” Lucas looked down at his shoes. Based on his conversations with her, Regan had spent the last six years hating him. No, hate was probably too nice of a word. Loathing, abhorring, or detesting might be a better description. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure I want a relationship.”

  “For both of your sakes, figure it out before you do anything.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Don’t turn her life upside down again because of some lingering curiosity or fascination with her. Only act on your feelings when you’re damn sure you want to be with her.” With that, Drew turned to leave.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two days and two hand delivered cappuccinos later, Lucas strolled into Regan’s office around eleven in the morning. “We’re leaving for lunch in a half hour. Are you at a good stopping point?”

  “Lunch?” Regan asked, looking away from her computer screen. She’d been working on a Rule 12(B) Motion to Dismiss for the last two days so she’d hardly left her office, not even for lunch. She greatly appreciated the daily cappuccino delivery even though she would never admit that to Lucas.

  “Don’t pretend as if you already forgot our bet.” Lucas picked up some files from the chair across from her desk, set them on the floor and then sat down.

  “Bet?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

  Lucas chuckled. “Remember you bet on the Dodgers. I bet on the Giants. The Giants won. Therefore, I won our bet. You owe me lunch.”