"Stop crying. I'll go talk to her." Lucas sighed and turned to leave.
He found me working in the storage room a few minutes later.
"You're unhappy, so you deliberately came here to work to spite me?" His voice was tight.
"I didn't..." I started, then stopped and nodded. "Sorry. I was being willful."
"I knew it—Evelyn is talking nonsense."
Lucas looked at me with reproach, but his tone held a trace of something softer. "But you know how it is. She loves me too much, that's why she acts like this. Don't be too calculating with her."
I had given up on Lucas the moment he first cheated.
But now, seeing him defend Evelyn so blindly, ignoring logic and reason, a familiar ache throbbed in my chest.
After all, this was the man I had once loved deeply.
The man who had once protected me against the world.
"Don't worry, I'm not that petty." The practiced smile slid into place like armor. "What's the status of the land in the southern suburbs?"
Lucas Dickerson shifted gears seamlessly. "That plot has hit its ceiling. Zero room for appreciation. We need to offload it immediately."
"Selling now would be a bloodbath." A sigh escaped—convincingly reluctant. "We'd be taking a massive loss."