It comes far too easily to me now, though, but I never worried about that until I met you. At first, I just thought you’d be perfect as a pretend fiancée. I told you that I had a girlfriend because I wanted to make sure you understood that our arrangement was strictly business. It wasn’t long before you changed my mind about that, though.”
“You don’t have a girlfriend?” Terri asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t had a girlfriend in over a year. I got tired of the whole dating game, really. I could never tell if women were actually interested in me or simply interested in my money, for a start. Being on my own just seemed easier.”
“Until you needed a fiancée.”
He grinned at her. “Until I needed a fiancée, and not just any fiancée. I needed a smart, funny, beautiful, amazing woman. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found you.”
“And I was dumb enough to agree to your plan,” Terri muttered.
“You were kind enough to agree to my plan. And that’s when it all went wrong.”
Terri nodded. “You can say that again.”
“The more time I spent with you, the more I wanted to be with you. I felt like I was eighteen again and falling in love for the first time.”
Staring into his eyes, Terri wondered if she dared believe him.
“I was going to tell you all of this that night, the night here, when I tried to persuade you to stay with me. I wanted to take you to bed more than I’ve ever wanted any woman, but I wanted you know that I loved you even more than that. Of course, things didn’t exactly work out the way I’d planned.”
“Because your mother needed to go to the hospital.”
“Because my mother,” he began and then stopped. “I don’t really want to talk about my mother. I can’t talk about her without getting angry all over again.”
“Because she interrupted that night?”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with the woman,” he nearly shouted. “She told me she was dying, that she only had weeks to live, that she had cancer and a brain tumor and half a dozen other things and none of it was true. Not one word.” He fell silent, staring at the floor in front of them.
“You learned to lie from a master,” Terri suggested after a moment.
“Yes, I suppose I did,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t seem as surprised as I was by the news.”
“I overheard part of your conversation with your mother at the hospital,” Terri admitted.
Lucas frowned. “And you heard me asking her not to tell you,” he guessed. “Is that why you ended things between us?”
“I wanted to end things anyway. I hated living a lie.”
“I didn’t want you to know that my mother was fine because I knew you’d end things once you found out. I, well, I didn’t want that to happen.”
“And you were willing to keep lying to me so that I wouldn’t end things.”
“I was upping the ante,” he said with sigh. “I was hoping to persuade you to marry me. I thought, once we were safely married, I could tell you how much I loved you.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes, but I was desperate. You’re still in love with your ex-husband, aren’t you?”
Terri slowly shook her head. “No, not at all.”
Lucas reached over and took her hands. When she looked at him, he stared into her eyes. “Do you think you could give me a chance?” he asked in a low voice. “We could start over, pretend we just met today. We could have dinner together and call it our first date.”
“I don’t want to pretend anything, not anymore.”
“So let’s pick things back up where they were before,” he suggested. “I believe we were about here,” he said, pulling her into his arms.
“Stop,” she demanded just before his lips touched hers.
He released her immediately. “I’m sorry. I’m crazy about you, but I shouldn’t expect you to feel the same way. You were simply pretending all along.”
“I wasn’t,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“No?” he asked.
“I ended things between us because I was coming to care too much about you,” she blurted out.
His eyes lit up and he began to pull her close again.
“But,” she said, stopping him.
“But?” he echoed.
“I can’t be in a relationship with a man I can’t trust.”
He nodded and then let her go, sitting back on the couch with a sigh. “I love you and I’d never do anything to hurt you. That’s why