Tryst with a Trillionaire - Chapter 12
With a morning meeting scheduled at La Defense, Conor dressed and knocked on Lucy’s bedroom door. He entered, handed her his credit card and told her to spend a few hours wandering the city before giving her a quick kiss goodbye. It was the best way to please a woman.
As he walked out of the mansion, he frowned. He looked up toward the bedroom window. Was he buying her affection? He knew that sort of thing wouldn’t work on Lucy, but how else could he keep her attention? His parents had instilled that emotional necessity into his very marrow. He knew he wasn’t worthy of affection unless he was spending or making money. Because they’d never said I love you to him. Those words had never left his mouth, either.
Did he want Lucy to say she loved him? They’d only spent a few days together. Days that had shifted something inside him. Made him believe that every day could be as easy and light as it was when he was spending time with her. That maybe love could be something beyond the material?
But he knew from past relationships that a bought woman could never be true. The idea of losing Lucy—well, he wasn’t sure he could handle that emotionally. When she held his hand and beamed that beautiful smile at him, he felt so close to being seen. Loved.
Hopping into the limo, he headed for the meeting. With hope, Lucy wouldn’t be like the rest of the women who had breezed into his life and then abandoned him when they learned he wanted to go beyond the material and into the emotional.
***
The yellow duck purse was covered in crystals. The price tag was hefty.
After breakfast, Lucy had dressed in a summery floral dress and tucked Conor’s black credit card in her purse. He said she should buy anything that caught her eye. A luxury handbag store had beckoned.
The duck purse was so on-brand. Could a picture with this purse be the one to go viral? As she left the store, bag in hand, a tingle of excitement tickled her neck and cheeks.
But by the time she returned to Conor’s lake house, and he’d texted that he’d be there in an hour, that tingle had segued from excitement to dread.
She placed the purse on the table against a background of lush climbing vines on the lakeside terrace. Standing in front of the purse, Lucy couldn’t summon the joy she’d experienced when she’d initially spied it. That adrenaline rush of having one’s wants fulfilled, much like getting thousands of likes for a post, had disappeared.
She hadn’t needed the purse. Sure, she reasoned, Conor could afford it. Yet she’d taken money from a man as if she deserved it. Like…he was paying her for her time.
She toyed with the diamond bracelet on her wrist.
Plopping onto the chair before the table, she caught her chin in hand. “What am I doing?” she wondered aloud.
Indulging in a fantasy, remember? Doing exactly as he’d told her she should do? The man liked to treat her. She should accept that! Gifts were his way of showing affection, after all.
With a nod, Lucy shoved away her need to justify this purchase and took a few shots of the purse. Her followers were going to love this.