"No, that's okay. I have to run a few errands while I'm at work. I'll take my car." Including an overdue therapeutic lunch date with Lorelei.
"Okay. By the way, you should try that sometime."
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. He pointed to the mug.
"Having a billion dollars. It's handy." He kissed her again, lingering long enough that she had to pull air through her nose. "See you tonight."
He left and Merina shook her head, worried that her current set of problems couldn't be solved by a billion dollars. Arguably, her problems were caused by a billion dollars. Which was the reason for her meeting with Lorelei. Things with Reese were getting complicated where her emotions were concerned. And since she knew her best friend was re-seeing her ex-husband (though Lore had yet to officially admit it), she could help Merina compartmentalize when it came to Reese.
Merina needed to keep her heart separate from the sex. Because the sex was great and she refused to give up the best perk to this arrangement.
* * *
"I'm in love with him."
Her fork halfway to her mouth, Merina lowered it back into her salad bowl and gaped at her best friend. "Malcolm?"
"I know!" Lorelei hadn't touched her salad, but she had downed a glass of Riesling in record time, and she never drank alcohol before five. She dropped her face into her hands. "I didn't mean to."
"This is awful," Merina muttered, abandoning the salad in favor of her own glass of wine.
Lorelei peeked from her hands, an expression of devastation decorating her flawless brown skin. "It is, isn't it?"
"I meant for me. You were supposed to be the voice of reason. I came here to talk to you about keeping my heart out of the equation with Reese since we've…" She looked around at the restaurant and leaned in to say quietly, "Crossed a few boundaries."
Lorelei stopped looking devastated and started looking interested. "Boundaries?"
Merina nodded.
"Did he earn his hashtag?"
"Lore! Seriously?" She lowered her voice when a pair of well-dressed women shot twin evil looks at her. "That's what you want to know? Out of everything I said, that's what you're most interested in."
Lorelei folded her arms on the table and shrugged one shoulder unapologetically.
"Yes, okay? Yes, he earned it and honestly, it's terribly uninventive and a lame descriptor for what he's capable of."
"Well, maybe you are the only one who knows what he's capable of since he's kept you in his bed for more than one night."
There was a thought. Merina bit her lip. Of everything they'd done together, she hadn't stopped once to consider she was blazing some sort of trail. Reese was now a one-woman man after being a one-woman-for-a-night man. That was scary. She wasn't ready to start a real one-on-one relationship. Not with the man she'd temporarily married.
"Listen, you're going to be fine." Lorelei, bless her gorgeous lying face. She had snapped into lawyer mode, saying exactly what Merina needed to hear, and Merina was not going to argue.
"Hit me."
"First off." Lorelei held up a finger. "Malcolm and I were married." Her smile fell. "Of course, so are you and Reese. Maybe that's a bad place to start. You know what I mean. We were really married. Like, for real."
"I'm with you." Merina waved a hand. She didn't feel better yet, but she had faith her friend would arrive at a point.
"Malcolm and I have a relationship that is volatile," Lore continued. "You know, the kind where everyone has a quip for everything. Bickering became like foreplay with us."
Merina sighed. Yeah. Not helping her feel better at all.
"Plus he had a rep before he met me of being quite the ladies' man. Once he met me, he quit those bitches cold and I was the only one he had eyes for. He went from player to a good husband and the only reason we split was because I was too stubborn to—" Lorelei cut off her own speech, seeing the same thing Merina saw: that Lorelei's and Malcolm's story was eerily similar to Merina's and Reese's.
And Lorelei had fallen back in love with Malcolm.
"Sorry, honey." Lore offered her condolences with a hand over Merina's on the table. Then she waved over the waitress and ordered two double chocolate mousses and espressos. "It's not for sure yet," Lorelei said when Merina's shoulders slumped. "Maybe he'll turn back into a dick. Like…Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. Give him time and he'll give you a reason to hate him."
"Okay," Merina said, but that didn't make her feel any better. Because maybe…just maybe, she was enjoying herself too much. Enjoying Reese too much to be willing to hate him.
If she ever had.
* * *
"With the exit of Alex, we'll be deciding who to appoint within the next month," Bob said at the board meeting.
Reese fisted the pen in his hand, willing himself not to throw it like a dart and hit one of them with it. Any of them. He wasn't picky.
"You know my preference, gentlemen," Alex said, leaning back in his chair. How did he do that? Always look so damned calm? "Reese is my number one. He's been groomed for this role since he was a young man. He's good at his job. He works hard."
"We're aware," Frank, the blowhard, said.
Reese looked to his left, but Tag's chair was empty. Usually his younger brother's careless expression was calming. Tag was visiting the Crane Hotel resort in Hawaii to assess the bar situation the board had bellyached about. Nitpicking bastards.
"I will say," Bob interjected, casting a smile of encouragement at Reese, "that the few stockholders I've spoken to have been impressed with his recent turnaround."
"Yes, and the few I've talked to," Frank said, "are suspicious of this sudden marriage and abrupt change in Mr. Crane's behavior."
"The state of my personal life has nothing to do with my business ethics," Reese growled, unable to play nice any longer. At his right, his father sighed in resignation. "Leave my wife out of this."
"And yet, you've been sure to include her at the most opportune time," Lilith said. "Don't get me wrong, Reese, I'm all for a reformed man, but who's to say this isn't a ruse to earn favor and land the CEO?"