When your ex-husband, who broke your heart and shattered your soul six years ago, organizes a gala party, you have no choice but to get yourself involved. After all, you’re now a made woman, a CEO in your own right, of a green food company. So you return to his company, powerful and stunning, and you shock him to his very core with your appearance on his board. But you are shocked too, because you realize you’re still attracted to him. Even more strongly than when you were married to him. And that’s a problem, because he’s engaged to the new shiny lady on the block. They say you can’t eat your cake and have it, but what if you can?
Lihat lebih banyakLuna was used to men staring at her by now. She was a successful woman in her late twenties, beautiful with- as it’s all men seem to be capable of thinking about- a great body.
So she was used to the stares. She didn’t let it bother her, because in her opinion, the ones who actually have the guts to walk up to her were the real men. If staring was all a man does at a beautiful woman, then he probably didn’t deserve her. She kept her head high and her gaze focused ahead as she walked into the conference room. There was a long mahogany table in the middle of the spacious room, office chairs lined both sides to the other door at the end of the room. Fluorescent lights shine over the flat surface, making the glass in the middle of the table, glimmer. Men in suits were seated on both sides of the table, their laptops open in front of them. Some of them were typing on their laptops, while some were idly discussing. They all turn to stare at her as she walked into the room. Idle chatter dies down, open stares were pinned on her. Again, Luna ignored the stares, she turned to the intern hovering beside her. He was a young fresh-faced kid, just a few months out of college, and jumped slightly every time she spoke to him. He did so again as she turned to him, she ignored it. “The CEO is not around?” she asked. “Um, no, um, no, not yet, ma’am,” he stuttered. As Luna processed the information, a smile threatened to spread over her face. Oh, Justin, she thought to herself. This was a classic move he used, arriving fashionably late to meetings to assert control. She had studied him while they were together and she had seen how effective the move had been then. A small smile tipped around Luna’s lips. The intern’s face flushed red, but she didn’t notice as she turned away from him to look back at the room. “Um, do you want me to, um, place a call to his secretary? Ma’am?” he added. Luna waves the suggestion away with a careless flick of her wrist. “No, it’s fine,” she said instead, “we’ll just wait for him. He’s the one who’ll be receiving the shock of his life, after all,” she murmured, adding. At her words, a feeling of glee ran through Luna’s body. She had worked hard at the surprise she was going to be unfolding today, for months. She had been meticulous in hiding her identity from Justin’s executives all while they’d been discussing the terms of the contract with her own executives. And now today, she was going to reap the fruits of her labor. She was going to enjoy seeing the look on Justin’s face when he walks in and sees her. Oh, she was going to soak in every moment of it. The smile spreads a little. “It’s fine,” she said again, absently to the flushed intern, “we’ll just wait for him.” As she walked over to the first vacant seat to her right, the intern rushed forward to pull out the chair for her. “Thank you, Jaden,” she said as she took her seat. She heard the intern suck in a breath beside her. Did he think she didn’t know his name? Luna’s lips tip wryly as she thought about it. There was no one working for her she didn’t know. She might not know each and every one of their history, or family, or life, but she at least knew their name. By now, some of the executives seated around the conference table had stopped staring at her, the idle chatter had picked up again, but there were still some staring and giving her the side eye. It really was easy to ignore them, Luna thought to herself, because she knew the real battle she had come to fight today wasn’t some random men stares. It was Justin Lucius. Justin, tall, dark, handsome and dangerous as sin. And her ex-husband. That was the real battle she came to fight today. Seeing him for the first time in six years was bound to wreak havoc on her entire system. She knew that, and she hoped she was mentally prepared for it. Justin wasn’t the only one who was going to be experiencing a whole range of emotions in the meeting today, the only difference was that she knew what was coming. Luna took a deep breath as the seconds ticked on. She resisted the urge to check the time, she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds since she had sat down. It only felt like hours because of the anticipation thrumming through her. Just then, the door to the conference room opened behind her. The men, who had been staring at her before, all turned their head towards the door. Luna could feel the change in the air, like a higher presence than a human being was entering the room. That was the effect Justin had on people, he exuded command and dominance like a regular man exuded cologne. Luna found she couldn’t turn her head to look at the door, a tingling sensation was running through the tips of her fingers and her heat was hammering so loudly against her chest it felt like- “Mr. Lucius is on his way,” a voice said from the doorway. Luna’s head snapped toward the entrance. She stared hard at the man standing at the threshold like he had two heads. That’s not Justin, she thought to herself. Her heart pounded hard against her chest as she realized what just happened. It wasn’t Justin that had come in, it was just some random executive announcing Justin. Just the thought of Justin had made her freeze up like that! What would happen when he finally came in? Could she handle it? Could she keep- And then Justin stepped to the doorway like a figment of her worst fear.“I want to say thank you to everyone for coming,” Logan said into the microphone. The gala had been going on for hours now, it was starting to wind down, towards the end. He was giving his speech as Chairman of Lake Industries. “This would not have been successful without you all,” he continued. “I consider you all family, but I would like to thank my family, the one that I made. Both my sons, Justin and Brian, I am proud of you both. This Gala would not have been successful without you both, I love you.” He raised a toast towards Justin and Brian. “And to the ladies who stood by their side, and not just stood, but did their part in making this a success, Luna and Ashley,” he raised his glass towards Luna and Ashley, he smiled, “I love you. You are the best additions this family could have ever asked for, and my sons are lucky to have you in their lives.” He paused. “Love makes the world go around, without it, we would be lost, and I am glad that you four have found your way to ea
Luna stood in front of the full-length mirror, she placed a hand over her bump, and stared at her image. She smiled as she felt Justin’s arms wrap around her midsection. She leaned back and rested her head on Justin’s chest, she sighed as he started nibbling on her neck. “Can’t we just stay in and not go?” she asked, tilting her neck even better for Justin’s mouth to have access. Justin stopped nibbling, he looked at the mirror, meeting her eyes. “You are a witch,” he murmured. Luna laughed. “What? It’s just a suggestion,” she said, trying to look innocent. “Yeah, a suggestion that you know I am one hundred percent for,” Justin replied. “Hell, I suggested it an hour ago, and what did you say?” Luna closed her eyes. “We really should go,” she echoed her own answer. “That’s right,” Justin murmured, his mouth already muffled against the side of her neck again. Luna sighed, she twined her fingers with Justin’s on her stomach. “I was an idiot,” she murmured. Justin ma
Present. Now Luna was mad. When the article was released, while they were preparing for the press conference, during the press conference, Luna had been sick all through. But now that the press conference was over, she was mad. She had kept her calm all through the press conference. Even when the questions had turned personal and her answers had left her a little hard to breathe, Luna had kept her calm. Rita had arrived just few seconds after the press conference started, she had stood behind the interviewers, facing Luna. And she had been showing her markers with her hands, thumbs up when she was doing good and stuff like that. That had helped to keep her calm, that, and the solid presence of Justin behind her. He had stood behind her chair, no word, no interruptions, just the occasional squeeze of her shoulder. Quiet support, and steady, even gentle, backing. And then Moira had walked in. The press conference had been nearing its end by then, Luna had watched as Rita had f
Flashback Luna sat on the sofa in the living room, staring at nothing. Moira was in front of her, pacing and reprimanding her about something. Luna wasn’t sure what, she hadn’t been listening when Moira started, she wasn’t listening now, and she simply just didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to care, she barely had the energy to be seating here as she was. She just wanted to lie down. For the past two weeks now, that was all she had been wanting to do. Just lie down, preferably in a dark quiet corner, but at this point, she would take anything she could get. But she wanted to lie down, pull a thick, dark cover over her head, and just go to sleep. She wanted to sleep, and go on sleeping, she wanted to sleep for a long period of time. And whenever she thought of the concept of waking up from that sleep, she didn’t like it. Her heart sunk at the thought of waking up, and having to face all of this again. If she woke up, she had to sit up, she had to stand, she had to walk, she
The next day, the whole issue with Honor took a back seat in Luna’s mind as she found herself with an entirely different, and bigger, situation on her hands. Another article was leaked, this one about her father. It dug up the old news about her father, and the issue he had with Lake Industries, the debacle that had brought Luna to New York and to Justin. The article was all about rehashing what her father did, how he ‘betrayed’ Lake Industries for a handout, and how he disappeared from the grid because of his shame. His name, face and story were plastered all over the news article. Even her mother and sister were not left out, Mira and Ashley’s faces and names were printed in it too. Feeling sick about it all, Luna pressed a hand to her stomach, she stood still, trying to get in a deep breath. She was at home, people were in the house, Justin had called an emergency press conference immediately the news had hit the media. Camera men and their crew were moving about the living
“I really needed that,” Luna said two hours later, as she and Justin walked back into the studio. Justin wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Which part?” Luna laughed, she swatted his arm playfully. “The food and nice view part, you pervert.” Justin shrugged. “Hey, you sounded like you enjoyed the other part very much too when we were doing it.” Luna laughed again, she shook her head. “You’re an idiot.” “An idiot you were screaming his name,” Justin leaned down and whispered into her ear. Luna looked up at him, her eyes widening. “Justin!” Somebody cleared their throat behind them, Justin and Luna both turned at the same time to look. The smile and teasing glint in her eyes were still there when Luna’s eyes met Honor’s. “Honor,” she said, startled. She sobered up immediately, Honor looked at Luna, like she focused on her like she was determined to act as though Justin was not there. Luna felt the freeze, but somehow she felt like Honor’s acknowledgement of her was not part
One week later. Luna rubbed the kinks out of her neck, she had been stuck going through things that needed to be put in place for the Gala, all morning. All week too. Ever since Honor pulled her company out of the Gala event, there had been slacks in the work that needed to be done. Both in the parts that Honor had taken up to do, and in the aspects that her company had been taking care of. The fashion aspect. “These are really good,” Luna commented, looking at the design sketches that had been left by Honor and her company before she left. “Yeah,” Temperance, the assistant working with Luna on deciding the fashion angle for the Gala, said beside her. “Miss Kosarin and her people really worked hard on it, they worked almost round the clock too. It was like there was some competition or something.” Luna knew better that Temperance just what she was saying. From the first day they had met, she and Honor had both known there was going to be a competition between them. They had
Present. Luna and Justin were both in Justin’s car, they were driving after Honor. After her announcement, Honor had dropped the mic and immediately left the party. Moira had been livid, she hadn’t shown it, of course, or at least not in an explosive way. She hadn’t screamed or shouted, or done anything of the sort. Even in the face of what someone like Moira would probably term the greatest betrayal of all time, she still hadn’t lost control. She hadn’t shown her anger to the guests or given them a show that they could go talk about to the blogs. No matter her personal feelings towards Moira, Luna had had to admit that she found that impressive. But even with her composure, Luna had known she was angry. In fact, it had been very obvious to her, and no doubt to her family members too. She saw the look Justin, Logan and even Brian, had exchanged when it happened. The vein that had popped out on Moira’s forehead had been the first tell, followed by the twitching at the corner of
Flashback. “So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do?” Brandon asked the lawyer. Luna was in her room, the room she shared with Justin, although ‘shared’ was a strong word for how much time Justin actually spent in the room with her these days. Luna shook her head to shake off those thoughts, thinking about the ever increasing distance between she and Justin for the past month would only just make her depressed. And she didn’t have the time or head space for that. She refocused her attention on the matter at hand. She was in the room, her mother and father were on a call with her, Luna stared at their faces on the laptops screen. A man was seated beside her, Carl James, her lawyer. He was a low budget lawyer, the type she had been able to afford on her own, hers and her parents, that is. She couldn’t tap into the generous money Justin kept depositing into her account almost every day. And she couldn’t do that because she couldn’t very well use his money to hire a lawyer who
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