Luke

---

The next day, I spent the time in meetings with Andy, one of Chatter’s lawyers who was there to talk about the deal. We discussed our meeting with the investment company that wanted to buy us out. We talked strategy and tactics, and then what we'd do once the deal went through.

John leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head.

"Me and Mr. Big Shot here are going to sail around the world."

Randy Andy, as we called him, turned to me.

"After you get back, you're pulling a rich boy going into space?"

"Something like that," I replied. “Maybe John will join me on a one-way trip to Mars.”

"Not on your life." John shook his head and held out a hand. "I'm sticking to the good old planet Earth with its oxygen and living soil and protective atmosphere and geomagnetic protection from harmful cosmic radiation. Once we’re back from the trip, I'm going to find me a rich blue blood woman and start my family dynasty. Do everything right."

I laughed at that. "Seriously, what are your plans? You're going to have a billion dollars. What are you going to do with it?"

"Make another billion."

"No philanthropy? No fulfilling a life-long dream?"

“After finding me a good woman to make me an honest man, I’m going to make another billion will be fulfilling a life-long dream so I'm good."

I turned to Andy. ”You and Shana getting married?"

"Probably," Andy said, his hands folded. "She's getting antsy about getting pregnant before she's too old."

I nodded, but felt strange. "I guess I'm the odd man out," I said. "Not getting married or starting a dynasty. I want to create a legacy that will outlive me. Space. That's my life-long dream."

"You would have been singing a different tune if this happened a year ago," Andy said, his eyebrows raised suggestively. Of course, I knew what he meant. Before I found out Jenna had been cheating on me.

"You're right, of course," I said. "I would have been planning the biggest wedding of the year. But that was then. This is now."

"You're the last man in your family. If you don't procreate, there will be no one to keep the family name going."

"I'll donate my sperm. Someone will carry on the genes, if not the name."

"A name is everything, man," Andy said. "You'll get over Jenna. You'll find someone else. I bet in a year, you'll be talking about buying real estate somewhere with some pretty young woman you fell for while you were in some port."

I laughed. "Not likely, but whatever."

"He likes this woman he met last week," John said, a sly grin on his face.

"Oh?" Andy said and leaned forward. "Do tell."

I shook my head. "She's a great woman, but I'm a confirmed bachelor."

"He's falling already and doesn’t know it," John insisted. "He's trying to deny it, but I know the truth."

Now Andy was all smiles. "Seriously? Who's the lucky woman?"

Then John relayed the story of how Alexa and I met.

"She actually pretended to be a call girl?"

When I nodded, he laughed.

"Oh, that is such a great story. You two can tell that one the rest of your life on the anniversary of your first date."

"You're full of it," I said, unable to stop smiling. "We're just a couple out of convenience. I'm faking it for her benefit, to keep the skinny Teaching Assistant out of her hair, and she's faking it for me so I can let my adoptive mother's best friend down easy that I'm not marrying her daughter."

"Faking it?" Andy said, a grin cracking his face. "Is he faking it? That's a real smile on his face."

John shook his head. "He really likes her."

"Keep deluding yourself," I replied and stood up, gathering up my files. "Well, enough girl talk. I have work to do finishing off the presentation. We can go over it next week before the meeting. I'll send it to you when I'm done."

We left the conference room and went our separate ways.

I was somewhat amused by Andy's and John's attempts to paint me as infatuated with Alexa. Sure, I'd love to fuck her brains out, but that was it.

They both had to get a life. I had plans for the next fifty years and they didn’t involve becoming a lapdog to some woman just so I could get my rocks off.

I'd learned that lesson with Jenna and wouldn't make that mistake again.

---

The following Friday, I sat at my desk gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. I checked my cell to see if Alexa had pulled out at the last minute, like I suspected she might, but so far there was no text from her.

LUKE: Hey, how are you today? Slay any international relations dragons? I hope you're still planning to come to Westhampton with me tonight. I need a sidekick to keep the wolves at bay…

I sent the text and then waited, wondering what she'd say in reply.

When she didn’t reply right away, I opened a file on my desk and tried to occupy myself. Finally, I heard a ding and checked my cell.

ALEXA: I'm through with dragons for at least two weeks, I'm happy to say. If you seriously need me to come to Westhampton, I'm willing but I want a promise from you again that you're not going to try any funny stuff.

LUKE: I am a man of my word. I promise to only fake trying funny stuff. I will pretend to be so turned on by your mere presence that I can't wait to get you alone in my bed so I can ravish you the way you deserve. It will all be a total act, rest assured. ;)

ALEXA: Good because I don't do meaningless sex, no matter how wonderfully pleasurable it might be.

LUKE: *sigh* Classic boy-girl divide. He wants meaningless sex, and she wants meaningful sex. Can I ask you something? Why can't plain old good sex be enough? Don't you like good sex? Maybe you haven't had enough of it to know what you're missing. I assure you, I would make it worth your while. It's been over a year after all…

She didn’t respond right away, and I felt that maybe I'd pushed a bit too hard.

LUKE: Of course, if you prefer to just fake it, I understand. Well, I don’t understand, but I can accept it.

Another silence passed and I hoped I hadn’t been really wrong to text what I had. I read over my text and tried to see what I might have written that would be taken in the wrong way.

LUKE: ??

Finally, after about ten minutes, she replied, and I felt a huge sense of relief that she wasn't going to tell me to fuck off and deal with my family and the Blakes on my own.

ALEXA: I have my reasons as I'm sure you have yours.

LUKE: Of course you do. Look, you can't blame a guy for trying. You're beautiful and sexy as hell. I can't not want to fuck you silly. You have to understand that. Right?

ALEXA: This is the source of all problems in the world between men and women. Men can't seem to see us without their dicks getting in the way. I'm more than just tits and ass…

Whoa. I really put my foot in it that time.

LUKE: Of course you are. You're much more and all of it is very attractive. I'm sorry if my bluntness insults you, but I'm only being truthful. I promise that I won't be too obnoxious when we're at the beach house for the weekend. Only as obnoxious as I have to convince everyone that we really are fucking our brains out, okay? Deal?

I waited for her response. From my way of thinking, I was complimenting her, noting how beautiful she was and how sexy. How pretty much every man I knew would feel the same way about her.

ALEXA: As long as you keep your end of the bargain, I'll keep mine.

LUKE: Deal. I'll pick you up at seven. By the time we arrive, there'll be a barbecue, bonfire and we can sit around, have a few drinks and enjoy the night. You deserve to relax and enjoy yourself and celebrate your successful exam. You can hold my hand a bit, we can gaze in a loving but entirely fake way into each other's eyes in front of the Blakes, put on a good show for my adoptive mother and then hit the sack. I promise to be a total gentleman when we're alone.

ALEXA: I'm holding you to it.

LUKE: Okay. See you in a while.

Damn, woman…

I thought she'd be flattered that I found her so attractive and desirable. I'd think she would like it, but apparently, it was a sore spot for her.

I'd be the perfect gentleman with her when we were alone, even though it would be hell to have her in my bedroom and not be able to actually use it the way I wanted.

With her on the bed, on the floor in front of the fireplace, on the sofa in front of the window, and in the bathtub. Wherever I could take her.

That was the normal red-blooded hetero male in me.

The other part of me, the part with a functioning pre-frontal cortex, knew I had to show her that I appreciated her as a person as well as a woman.

I'd make sure I asked her all about her thesis and what she was planning to do with her PhD when she finished it. I wasn't a total ignoramus when it came to women.

I'd been engaged to and ready to marry one.

Scratch that – I was a total ignoramus when it came to women, at least when it came to judging whether they were faithful. I thought Jenna was faithful, but I was wrong.

I wouldn't make that mistake again.

---

I went home and took a shower then packed my bag, throwing in a few pairs of swimming trunks and some clean boxer briefs, my golf hat, a Hawaiian shirt and some Bermuda shorts. I packed my shaving kit, and then added in a few condoms – on the off chance that Alexa changed her mind. I wanted to be prepared for all eventualities.

After I dressed in some jeans and a clean button down white shirt, I went to pick her up.

On the drive there, I was hopeful that we'd have a fun weekend, despite putting on a show. We enjoyed each other's company – I was sure of that much. I think if I could close my eyes and just listen to her talk, or if we kept it to texts, we could be great friends. I enjoyed her playful banter and of course, she was smart. Smarter than most guys I knew.

It was just that she was so damn sexy…

Buck up, soldier.

I'd have to be a perfect gentleman with her this weekend. No pushing myself on her. Let her come to me if she decided she wanted some…

---

I arrived at her apartment block and waited on the street, double parking while I texted her that I was outside. The sun was still high in the sky despite the hour, and the air was warm for September.

LUKE: Your knight in shining black armor awaits, m'lady.

ALEXA: Be right there.

About three minutes later, she appeared outside the door to her building, looking like a movie star in her white sundress with brightly colored flowers, a pair of sandals and a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. I hopped out of the car and helped her with her bag. She got in the passenger side when I opened the door and I threw her bag in the back beside mine.

I got back in the car and turned to look at her.

She was perfect. Everything – her hair, her dress, her sandals… she was the perfect date for a weekend at my family beach house.

"You look fantastic," I said and smiled.

"Thank you." She looked at me over her sunglasses, a grin on her lips. "You're not so bad yourself."

"We aim to please."

I drove off once she had her seatbelt fastened, surprised at how much I was looking forward to this weekend. Usually, I'd only tolerate things at my family's beach house, trying to wear headphones to keep from talking to people, even though they'd inevitably interrupt and try to make conversation. Sometimes, I'd bring work and sit at the table on the patio and hold my cell to my ear, shrugging to make it look like I was busy conducting business so I could dodge any conversations with people I would rather avoid.

This weekend, I was honestly looking forward to walking around the grounds with Alexa at my side, using her as a shield from having to do much socializing. I'd ensure that we pretended to be deeply involved in each other, and hope that if we kept to ourselves, they'd leave us alone. Surely, Mrs. Blake would finally get the idea finally that I was not interested in her daughter. With John there, I could relax and hope that she was pleased with the chance of matching her daughter up with him instead.

"What am I in for this weekend?" Alexa glanced at me as we took the freeway on the way to Westhampton.

"Fun, sun and lots of prying questions from my family. The usual."

"How much do I tell them about us?"

"Wing it," I said. "If they ask about Jenna, just say that I don't talk much about her, and that you feel it's better that way."

"Are you going to tell me about Jenna?"

I shook my head. "I don’t talk much about her. It's better that way. Suffice to say she betrayed me. That's really all you need to know."

She watched me for a few moments. I felt her eyes on my face and tried not to say anything more. I didn’t want to get into the whole business of my cheating fiancée, because it was a real downer and I wanted to put it all as far behind me as I could.

"Unlucky in love," she said and watched the passing scenery. "Join the group."

"You too?"

"I don’t talk too much about it. I think it's better that way." Then, she glanced back at me, smiling softly. "The two of us are like the walking wounded."

"Not me," I said and took in a deep breath. "I'm completely over it. Never think of it unless someone brings it up. When they do, I try to put it out of my mind as soon as I can."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

We drove in silence for a moment, and I knew she was curious and fighting her desire to ask me more. Hell, I was curious about her sad story, too, and would have really liked her to tell me more.

Instead, I asked her about her family, and she told me more about them and her life traveling around the country with each posting her father got.

"It sounds like a great life," I said, thinking about how much I missed my own real parents, and how Dana and I used to imagine what it would have been like to have both of them still alive instead of two adoptive parents.

"It was a great life. I saw a lot of the country, met people from all over the world. My father taught me about responsibility and duty, and how important a strong family can be. He was a very lucky man to have been able to fly jet planes all his life. He stuck in the military rather than get out and go commercial like a lot of his fellow pilots did. He became a career military officer. He loved the life."

"I'd like to meet him. I bet he has some good stories to tell."

"Oh, yeah," she said and smiled. "Lots of them."

"Tell me one," I asked, wanting to pry more info out of her. "Tell me your favorite story of his."

She smiled and twirled a strand of hair, thoughtfully. "He and a couple of other pilots were on a cross country trip to Nashville, returning a visiting pilot to his home base. They went out that night and visited Hank Williams Jr.'s grave. It was past midnight and they were technically trespassing and very drunk, but they wanted to visit it while they were there. The police found them and were going to arrest them for trespassing and drunk and disorderly conduct. They asked for my father's ID and he saved the day. He was an honorable Colonel in the Confederate Army and had this joke ID card they gave out to people. The cop saw it and shrugged, followed them back to the hotel instead of arresting them."

I laughed, imagining the whole thing in my mind's eye.

"He was an honorary colonel in the Confederate Army?"

"It was a joke, of course. Something he got when he was in Louisiana or someplace on a cross country. He wasn’t really a supporter of the Confederacy or anything but it did save their asses."

I smiled and wondered what kind of man her father was and whether we'd get along. We came from very different backgrounds, but I thought I'd probably like the man regardless.

"What would your father think of me?"

She glanced at me quickly, and then looked away, chewing on a nail. She narrowed her eyes at me. "I don't know…" She smiled. "He'd probably tell you that he has a shotgun in the closet and knows how to use it."

I laughed at that. "He would?"

"Oh, yeah." She laughed. "You don't know how many times he pulled that one on my new boyfriends. Sometimes, he'd be cleaning his rifle when they came by, really slowly and methodically so they could watch him check the sight. It was so blatant. He was always so serious about it, but then he'd laugh his head off if he saw any fear in the guy's eyes and confess he was just kidding. One of my boyfriends actually bonded with him over his rifle, asking if he could help, that he was an expert marksman and wanted to join the Marines and become a Scout Sniper. My dad wanted me to marry him."

I could imagine it, smiling at the image in my mind's eye.

"But you didn't want to marry him?"

She glanced away. "I was almost going to. Things didn't work out."

"What happened?"

She looked back at me as if she was considering how much to tell me.

"You don't want to know, believe me," she said finally, her voice soft. She looked back out the side window, resting her hand on her chin. "He's the reason I'm here instead of Oregon or California. I also got accepted at Stanford and UCLA but I wanted to escape. Let's leave it at that, okay?"

Oh, so she left Oregon to escape a bad relationship? It was interesting to me, of course, but I knew enough not to pry. We both had bad experiences, but hers hadn't soured her completely against romance, while mine had. I put it out of my mind and turned my attention back to the road.

We drove the rest of the way, talking about everything under the sun except our bad relationships – high school, college, my business, the deal, my parent's deaths and how we ended up orphans. How neither of us could wait to get away from both our adoptive parents.

"I wish I could have stayed on the coast so I could be close to my parents," she said.

"You can still visit."

"No, I can't."

"The ex?"

She nodded. "Let's leave it at that."

So, it was more than just a bad breakup. "It must be some seriously bad stuff, if that's the case."

"It is," she replied and sighed heavily. "Like I said, you do not want to know and I don't want to talk about it. I'm not trying to be rude and I'm not trying to be mysterious or anything. There's a good reason I can't go back and there's a good reason I don't want to talk about it."

"Don't worry," I said, and smiled softly at her, wanting to ease the discomfort between us. "I'm just your fake boyfriend of convenience. You don't owe me anything except a pretend good time."

She smiled at that and I thought again how pretty she was, her lashes long over blue eyes. "Maybe a genuine good time? I could use one…"

'"I'll do my level best to make it a genuine good time, okay?"

She nodded. "Okay. Sounds good."

She flashed me a quick smile and then turned to watch as we drove up the private road to the beach house.

Her eyes practically bugged out when she saw it. Even I had to admit it was pretty impressive for a beach house.

Let's face it – anyone would be happy to live there.

A huge colonial, it had nine bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, a pool and tennis court, and a strip of green that my father used as a putting course for golf. Plus a boardwalk along the private beach front where Dana and I held our beach parties while we were growing up.

"This is your beach house?"

Her mouth was open as we drove up the circular driveway in front of the entrance. Double doors led to the interior and a huge porch wrapped around the entire twelve-thousand square foot building with three wings. One wing was for entertaining, one wing was for family, and the final wing was for guests.

Yeah, it was worth in the neighborhood of thirty million.

There was a six-car garage and a small cabana on the beach where we often hired bartenders to serve our guests. Plus a huge stone wood-fired barbecue that could double as a pizza oven.

"I was expecting something more… modest. You know, like a cottage."

"We're wealthy," I said, trying to be as honest and up front as I could be. "This property is pretty old. My adoptive father renovated it about a decade ago, upgrading everything, but I basically grew up here in the summers."

"Wow."

I parked in the driveway in one of the slots for visitors, and noted there were three other cars parked, indicating we had guests. I opened her door quickly, wanting to be a perfect gentleman. I then grabbed our bags and took her hand, walking her up the stairs to the porch and then opening the door for her.

She stopped and stared in the front entryway.

Yes, it was ostentatious. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the second story ceiling over the entry. Across from the entrance was a wide stairway that curved up to the second floor, splitting off into two wings.

"You'll be staying with me in the family wing," I said. "There are enough rooms that you could have one for yourself and one for your bag, but I want there to be no doubt that we're a couple, so you'll have to sleep in my bedroom."

"No funny business, remember?" she said, frowning slightly.

"No funny business," I replied. "Unless you want some. If you do, hey, I'm a generous guy. I'll donate to the cause. Considering you’ve been out of commission for over a year…" I raised my eyebrows playfully, but she didn’t seem to appreciate my sense of humor.

"Just kidding," I said, not wanting to hurt her. "I just want you to know that if you felt a need, I'll be here. Ready and willing. I won't push, I won't even try to seduce you, but I can't promise you won’t eventually find me incredibly desirable and irresistible." I grinned and finally saw her smile as well, although she was trying hard not to.

"Don't get your hopes up."

"I never hope," I said. "I go after what I want and I usually get it. Usually."

"But not always," she said. "You've lost before."

"Oh, yeah," I said and peered around into the great room, expecting to see someone but the place was empty. "Everyone must be down at the beach."

Then, I walked her up to the bedroom on the second floor, down the long hallway of rooms for my parents, Dana, if she was going to be here, and then my room at the end. I opened the door and she walked in.

I could sense her amazement when she took it in.

A huge four poster king sized bed sat in one corner. Beside it stood a chest of drawers, a small plush sofa and chair. A set of double patio doors opened onto a personal balcony that overlooked the greens and ocean.

"This is fantastic," she said and opened the patio door. She stepped on the balcony and I heard her take in a deep breath of salt air. "It's heaven."

I went to her side and rested my hands on the rail. "Yeah, it's pretty great. At night, I like to hear the roar of the surf. We're close enough that you can hear it when the doors are open. You can see some pretty decent stars as well. There aren't too many houses around with any lighting."

She smiled and then turned to me. "So, Mr. Big Shot, what's first on the agenda?"

"Something to eat. If you look down at the beach, you can see my family is sitting around a table by the barbecue."

"Sounds good," she said and together we left the house and made our way down the path past the putting green and swimming pool, to the beach.

I wondered who was there. People usually arrived Friday night for one of our weekends, and stayed until Sunday afternoon, but people came and left all weekend for meals and meetings.

I took her hand and prepared to meet my family and their guests, wondering what kind of weekend it would be.