Page 26 of Ruined by My Ex’s Dad (Silver Fox Obsession #2)

Lucas

T he night Savannah walked out, promising to return in a week, had shaken that foundation in ways I still couldn't fully comprehend.

Seven days.

I'd counted every hour, every minute, with a precision that bordered on obsession.

And now, as I stood in my penthouse, watching the city lights flicker on beneath the darkening sky, I was counting the last few seconds until her promised return.

The elevator chimed softly.

I didn't turn immediately, giving myself a moment to compose my features into the mask I'd perfected over years of high-stakes negotiations.

Calm. Controlled. Revealing nothing of the storm raging beneath the surface.

"Lucas."

Her voice still had the power to send electricity racing down my spine.

I turned, finding her standing at the threshold, a vision in emerald silk that brought out the green of her eyes.

She looked different somehow—more centered, more certain. The week apart had changed her in ways I couldn't immediately categorize.

"Savannah." I moved toward her with measured steps, maintaining a careful distance. "You came back."

"I said I would." Her gaze was direct, unflinching, though I detected a slight tremor in her hands as she set down her purse.

"I keep my promises."

Unlike the lies that had sent her away. The unspoken accusation hung between us, though her tone held no bitterness. Just simple truth.

"Would you like a drink?" I offered, already moving toward the bar, needing something to occupy my hands. "Wine? Scotch?"

"No." She moved farther into the room, following me.

"I want clarity tonight. Not liquid courage."

I nodded, abandoning the pretense, turning to face her fully. "And did you find it? Clarity, during our time apart?"

"I did." She took a deep breath, shoulders squaring slightly.

"I spent the week examining everything—why I'm drawn to you, what I want from this, whether it's worth the complications. Whether it's real or just another self-destructive pattern."

The business executive in me appreciated her methodical approach, the weighing of risks against potential rewards.

The man—the part I rarely acknowledged—felt something dangerously close to fear.

"And your conclusion?" I kept my voice neutral, betraying nothing of the tension coiling inside me.

She moved closer, close enough that I could detect the familiar jasmine scent of her perfume, the one that had haunted me during her absence. "That I want this. Want you. Despite everything."

Relief flooded through me, so powerful it was almost dizzying. I hadn't realized just how tightly I'd been holding myself until that moment, how completely her answer had mattered.

"But," she continued, and my guard immediately rose again, "I need something from you that I'm not sure you can give."

"Name it." The response came instantly, without calculation or strategy—a novelty for a man who measured every word with careful precision.

"Honesty." She reached for me then, one hand coming to rest against my chest, directly over my heart.

"Not just about facts or circumstances. Emotional honesty. I need to know what this means to you, Lucas. Beyond desire. Beyond the challenge. Beyond whatever game we've been playing."

Deflect. Minimize. Redirect.

The instincts honed through decades of business negotiations activated automatically. Give her enough to satisfy without revealing the true depth of my vulnerability. A practiced strategy that had never failed me.

Yet as I looked into those green eyes, something unexpected happened. A memory surfaced—sharp, sudden, painful in its clarity.

My seventeenth birthday. My mother sitting on the edge of my bed, beautiful and distant as always.

" Emotion is a luxury, Lucas ," she'd said, smoothing my hair with distracted affection. " One you'd be wise to avoid indulging. "

Six months later, she was gone—off to Paris with a younger lover, leaving my father to retreat into work and me to learn the hard lesson that feelings were dangerous, unpredictable, best kept tightly controlled.

"Lucas?" Savannah's voice pulled me back to the present, concern etching her features. "Where did you just go?"

I stepped back, creating necessary distance, fighting the unexpected surge of emotion the memory had triggered. "Nowhere important."

"I don't believe you." She followed, erasing the space I'd created. "Tell me."

"My mother," I admitted, the words emerging against my better judgment.

"She wasn't... emotionally available. Believed feelings were a liability rather than an asset."

Understanding dawned in Savannah's eyes. "And you learned from her example."

"It was an effective lesson," I said, moving to the window, seeking refuge in the panoramic view that usually centered me. "One that served me well in business."

"But not in relationships."

"I haven't prioritized relationships," I corrected. "They've been... peripheral. Convenient. Uncomplicated."

"Until now."

I turned to find her directly behind me, closer than I'd anticipated. "Until you," I acknowledged.

Something shifted in her expression—a softening, a vulnerability that made my chest tighten with an unfamiliar ache. Without conscious decision, I reached for her, one hand rising to cup her cheek with a gentleness that surprised even me.

Take control. Establish dominance. Return to familiar territory.

The commands echoed in my mind, the instinctual response to emotional exposure.

But my body betrayed me. Instead of pulling her against me with the demanding passion that had characterized our previous encounters, I stroked my thumb across her cheekbone with exquisite care, as if she were something fragile, precious, irreplaceable.

"I've missed you," I said quietly, the admission costing me more than any business concession ever had.

"More than I expected. More than I was prepared for."

Her eyes widened slightly, clearly surprised by this departure from our established dynamic. "What does that mean, Lucas?"

The rational answer hovered on my tongue—a measured response about mutual pleasure, compatible goals, the logical benefits of continuing our arrangement. But what emerged instead was something far more dangerous.

"It means I'm falling for you," I said, the words torn from some place I'd thought safely locked away.

"It means you've become necessary in ways I never anticipated. It means I spent this week feeling as if some essential part of me was missing."

She made a small sound—part gasp, part sigh—her entire body swaying toward mine as if pulled by an irresistible current. I caught her, arms sliding around her waist, not with possession but with something that felt dangerously like reverence.

"I don't know how to do this," I admitted, pressing my forehead against hers.

"How to be what you need. How to offer the emotional honesty you're asking for when I've spent decades avoiding precisely that."

"I'm not asking for perfection," she whispered, her hands coming up to frame my face. "Just effort. Just willingness to try. To let me see the man behind the mask, not just glimpses but the full reality."

The request was simple, reasonable even. Yet it terrified me more than any financial risk I'd ever taken, any corporate takeover I'd ever engineered. To be seen—fully, completely, without the careful filters I'd constructed—was to be vulnerable in ways I'd sworn never to be again.

Retreat. Recover. Regain control.

My instincts screamed for self-preservation.

But when I looked into her eyes, I found myself doing something unprecedented. I leaned in and kissed her—not with the demanding passion that had marked our previous encounters, but with exquisite gentleness. A question rather than a claim. An offering rather than a taking.

She made a small sound against my lips, her body melting into mine. Her hands slipped into my hair, holding me to her with surprising strength, but she matched my tempo—slow, deliberate, exploring rather than consuming.

When we finally parted, her eyes remained closed, tears glistening on her lashes. "Lucas..."

"Let me show you," I said, the words emerging from that same unguarded place.

"What I can't yet say, let me demonstrate."

I lifted her then, not with the urgent desire of our previous encounters, but with careful reverence.

Carried her not to the bedroom but to the sofa, settling her across my lap, cradling her against my chest.

"Tell me about your week," I requested, stroking her hair with gentle fingers. "Not just your conclusions, but the process. How you arrived at them."

She looked startled by the request—this deviation from our physical pattern, this interest in her internal journey rather than her body.

"You want to talk?"

"I want to know you," I corrected.

"Beyond the physical. Beyond the professional mask you wear so capably. I want to understand how your mind works, what matters to you, who you are beneath the surface."

A tear slipped down her cheek, catching me off guard. "Savannah? Did I say something wrong?"

She shook her head, a small laugh escaping despite the moisture in her eyes.

"No, you said something right. Exactly right. It's just... no one has ever wanted that from me before. To know me beyond what I could offer them."

The revelation struck with uncomfortable precision. How many men had viewed this extraordinary woman as merely an asset, a trophy, an accessory to their ambitions? How close had I come to making the same mistake?

"Tell me," I encouraged, brushing the tear away with my thumb.

"I want to hear everything."

And remarkably, she did.

Curled against my chest in the darkening penthouse, Savannah Blake revealed herself to me in ways no physical intimacy could match.