Chapter 3

The colleague beside me raised her glass, waiting. Forcing a polite smile, I clinked my glass against hers and drained it.

The iced soda burned down my throat, feeling just as scorching and painful as cheap whiskey.

Before the dinner wrapped up, our clients wanted a tour around the downtown entertainment district, and Mr. Vance asked me to lead the group.

Before heading out, my eyes met Lucas's across the room. He didn't say a single word to me.

I couldn't help wondering: if Chloe were the one leading the tour, would he have hovered over her with warnings? Would he have insisted on coming along to keep her safe?

Less than an hour later, my phone rang. It was an associate, his voice breathless with panic: "Mandy! Lucas got into a fistfight with Miller! He's at the police precinct!"

By the time I posted his bail and walked him out of the station, a light drizzle had begun to fall.

He furrowed his brows and asked, "What's with that look?"

My fingers curled tightly into the hem of my coat.

The coworker had told me everything. After Lucas sent Chloe away, she had stayed outside waiting for the dinner to wrap up. An intoxicated Miller spotted her on his way out and insisted on dragging her to an afterparty lounge, completely ignoring everyone's attempts to stop him.

The second Miller grabbed Chloe's shoulder, Lucas laid him out with a single punch.

I glanced down at Lucas’s bruised, raw knuckles. My mind flashed back to our freshman year, when an older frat guy gave me a hard time during rush week.

Lucas had climbed the dorm fence in the middle of the night to beat the guy senseless. Back then, he had told me fiercely, "Nobody gets to mess with you except me."

Seeing I wasn't answering, Lucas pulled open the car door and slid into the passenger seat.

I walked toward the driver's side, but a soft, breathless voice stopped me.

"Mandy!"

Chloe jogged toward me through the rain. "I'm so sorry, this is all my fault..." She held out a small pharmacy bag. "Could you please give this to Lucas?"

I opened the bag. Antiseptic spray and bandages.

I looked up at her. Under the streetlights, her eyes were luminous and rimmed with tears, her cheeks flushed, droplets of rain clinging to the ends of her dark hair. Even as a woman, I had to admit she was breathtakingly pretty.

A painful voice whispered inside my head: "Is there really anything left to save?"

Getting into the car, I tossed the bag into Lucas's lap. "From Chloe."

He frowned, inspecting the boxes. "Is she an idiot?"

"This ointment is for acute muscle sprains. I only have surface cuts..."

His voice sounded annoyed, but I caught the faint, undeniable tug at the corner of his lips.

I took a steadying breath, keeping my voice as flat as possible. "Why did you hit him? There were other ways to handle that."

"He put his hands on her! What other way was there?"

I stayed silent. But with the alcohol running through his veins, Lucas became unusually chatty. He began venting relentlessly, and every word was about Chloe.

"Chloe is useless except for her pretty face. She makes three errors in a simple report, and she freezes up every time she talks to a client..."

"She's even more clueless than you were back then... Honestly, Chloe..."

The rain picked up, blurring the windshield. As we stopped at a red light, Lucas suddenly rolled down his window and leaned out.

I followed his gaze. Across the street, Chloe was running with her briefcase clutched to her chest, her white shirt soaked through and clinging to her back.

"Stupid girl!"

Lucas muttered a curse, grabbed the umbrella from the footwell, and bolted into the downpour.

I watched him sprint through traffic toward Chloe, tilting the umbrella so it shielded her completely from the rain. Chloe tilted her head up, said something, and Lucas smiled.

When was the last time he had smiled at me like that?

Back at our apartment, Lucas took a quick shower and collapsed onto the bed. In the dark, my voice trembled as I asked, "Lucas... are you falling for someone else?"