Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Clause Three

Lucas Hargrove climbed three flights of stairs in a suit that cost more than my car.

He didn't hurry.

The two guys from the second floor flattened themselves against the wall to let him through.

He stopped in my open doorway and looked at the room.

At Dee in my bathrobe, and Trent in the middle of the floor, and the cardboard box with my hairdryer sticking out.

"Mallory," he said pleasantly.

Trent's mouth opened and shut.

"Mr. Hargrove."

"Sir, I didn't know."

"You wouldn't have," Lucas said.

He bent, picked up the hairdryer and handed it to Trent with great courtesy.

"Put that down gently."

"It belongs to my wife."

You could have heard a pin drop on the second floor.

Lucas crossed the kitchen and stopped in front of me.

Up close, he smelled like cedar and clean laundry.

"Clause three," he said, low.

"I'm asking."

"Come and live with me."

"You're not asking," I murmured.

"You're performing."

"Yes," he said.

"Is it working?"

I looked past his shoulder.

Trent's face had gone the color of old paper.

Dee was hugging her own elbows.

The woman from 3B had stopped pretending about the plant.

"A little," I said.

"Then say yes."

"I'll say yes," I said, "on my terms."

"I'd expect nothing less."

I packed one suitcase in nine minutes.

I did not look at Trent once.

On my way out, Dee said, very small, "Cal."

I didn't turn around.

Lucas's penthouse took up the top two floors of a glass tower on the river.

The living room was bigger than my whole apartment.

There was a grand piano nobody played, a wall of books nobody had opened, and a view of the whole city going gold in the evening.

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