Page 40 of My Best Friend's CEO Dad

He warmly wraps his hand around mine. “I’ve already told you, my maybe-girlfriend…”

“Right. I don’t need to apologize.”

“If the money’s a problem?—”

“Don’t,” I quickly say, just like I have with Kayla so many times. “We’re doing fine. Very well, in fact. Mom and I are far better off than lots of people.”

Lukas shrugs. “I want to help you if I can.”

I pull my hand away, focusing on my food, the reality of the steak, and not the unreality of a future we shouldn’t even be discussing.

“I know,” he says. “We can’t think past the next hour. It’s too risky.”

I glance at him, at the understanding in his eyes. “You read my mind.”

“Ever since becoming your maybe-boyfriend, I feel so much closer to you.”

I laugh, wondering how rare that is to find a man who can make his partner laugh when, a second ago, profound sadness was gripping me. “You mean literally a minute ago?”

“We move fast, Maci,” he says.

“That’s true,” I reply. “Do you… usually move fast?”

“Usually,” he repeats, shaking his head. “I don’t usually do anything. I had a relationship with a woman who I never loved and who never loved me. Then I focused on my business. The end.”

“Come on, Luke,” I say. “I won’t be mad. I don’t expect you to be a virgin or anything.”

“You won’t be mad?” he says. “I’d be mad, Maci, thinking of you with another man—more than mad. It’s a jealous, hungry, insane feeling. It’s an ‘I need to trash this goddamn place’ feeling. Just the idea of you with another man makes me mad.”

“I must be crazy,” I murmur. “I know most women would find that pretty weird. Maybe want to back off.”

“You don’t?”

“No, actually, I want you to feel that way.”

“Good,” he says fiercely. “Because I felt like that the first moment I saw you. I mean, the new you. The grownup you.”

Suddenly, I wish we were back in the swimming room, and I was bent over the chair with my pants trapping my legs together, with his thick member rubbing against me. I told him it was about Kay, and I didn’t lie exactly, but there was something else beneath that. Nerves like I couldn’t believe.

“So…” I go on.

“I meant it,” he replies. “There was Kayla’s mom, and then not much—a few flings here and there. But not for years, and I always felt seedy after. They always felt pointless.”

“And this doesn’t?” I ask.

“Does it to you?” he replies with a note of anger.

“I asked first.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he’s quick to reply. “Maybe we’re doomed, my maybe-girlfriend. Maybe we were doomed from the first time you played ‘I Spy’ with my dick, but this doesn’t feel pointless. It might just end in disaster. That’s all.”

“We’ll have to make a choice,” I whisper. “Won’t we?”

He nods, sighing darkly, cutting into his steak for a moment, making a screek noise on the plate as though hinting at the mayhem we won’t be able to ignore.

“Yeah,” he says gruffly. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”

“That’s one hell of an understatement,” I murmur, trying not to let myself think about what it’ll mean: either letting my best friend go or letting my maybe-boyfriend go. “The thing is, there might not even be a choice. Once Kayla finds out…”

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