“Thank you.” Lucas grinned.
“So I just heard from the PI.”
“Really. What’d he find?”
Derek filled Lucas in on Spencer’s history of fleecing women. “I feel like there should be warning bells going off, but I can’t figure out what I’m missing.”
Lucas grunted. “You’ll figure it out. Do you know what you’re hoping to find?”
“Damned if I know. Right now I’m just following my gut. But if I can find anything that becomes an issue with him running the company, even better.”
“So you can take over?” Lucas leaned forward in his chair.
“Maybe.” Or so Cassie could.
Derek knew how much that opportunity meant to her. How badly she wanted to save her grandfather’s company and make him proud. The better he got to know her, the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted that for her too.
Lucas studied him. “You’re softening. Because of Cassie.”
“Maybe I am.”
“She’s good for you, then. I like seeing you happy,” his friend said.
“Can’t say I mind it myself.” Derek’s phone buzzed with a text message.
Miss me? It was Cassie.
Always, he wrote back. Which, he was surprised to realize, was true.
Your place so Oscar isn’t alone?
Leave it to her to worry about his pet, he thought, feeling a grin on his face.
“I take it that’s her?” Lucas asked.
Derek had all but forgotten he was in the room.
“Yeah.” He typed back, suddenly eager to see her.
You. Me. Naked. Make my long day a distant memory.
Be there soon, she wrote back immediately.
On my way. “Gotta go,” he said to Lucas.
Lucas pushed himself to standing. “Far be it from me to keep you from getting laid.”
“Fuck off,” Derek muttered with a grin.
“Bye.” Lucas strode off, laughing.
Derek rose and grabbed his jacket from behind the door, in a rush to get home. Because he needed her, he realized. Needed her to help him unwind after a shitty day, needed her for peace of mind and for the best sex he’d ever had.
Because it wasn’t just sex. That was something he’d realized the last time they were together. It wasn’t sex anymore. It was making love. Something he’d never experienced before, which made it both easy to recognize as different and scary as fuck.
Although they hadn’t been together long, he felt like he’d always known her. That they shared a connection that went back in time and transcended misunderstandings in the past … but not socio-economic differences.
How could he be in love with the girl in the mansion across the way? Never mind that now he was the one with the money to buy as many mansions as he wanted, in whatever country or on whichever island he chose. There was still that class difference.