Being with Alex made her miserable.

Surely somewhere out there was the right guy for her.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She had already met the right guy for her. Sitting here having to endure this miserable night with Alex cemented that fact.

She missed Jake. Jake was the right guy for her, dammit.

Where had she gone wrong? It sucked when you cared about someone and they didn’t return your feelings.

She counted the hours until this farce of an evening with Alex was over.

Tomorrow, she was going to make an attempt to talk to Jake again. She was an attorney, a fighter. A Fairchild never gave up that easy, especially when it really counted.

She hadn’t been mistaken about her feelings for Jake. Or for his. So he’d had a bad day. She’d made too much of his mood and let her own feelings of inadequacy guide her.

She wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Jake pulled up in front of Lucy’s house, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy. She was either going to answer the door, and he was going to have to explain his behavior earlier today, or her father was going to answer the door.

Neither situation was going to be pleasant.

He walked up and rang the doorbell. Time to man up and face the consequences.

He’d acted like an ass earlier today. Worse than an ass. So he had a million things on his mind, so several things hadn’t gone his way. So he’d been in a bad mood.

His lady had showed up with lunch. He should have dropped everything and paid attention to her. He should have had the decency to at least be grateful.

Instead, he’d been surly, ungracious, and all but slammed the door in her face.

What the hell had been wrong with him, anyway?

Fear, that’s what it was. She’d showed up at his trailer, beautiful, smiling, and the first thing he thought was…she was his.

He wanted Lucy in his life, and not just today. He could see having lunch with her every damn day for the rest of his life. And breakfast. And dinner.

Frankly, that had scared the hell out of him.

Yeah, he’d had a bad morning, but that didn’t excuse his actions. He’d deliberately pushed her away because she scared him. His feelings for her scared him. She’d been beautiful, bright and smiling like a woman in love, and she’d scared the shit out of him.

So he’d acted like an asshole.

She should slam the door right in his face. He’d been so rude to her today. It was unforgiveable.

Unfortunately, Lucy didn’t open the front door. Raymond Fairchild arched a brow and offered up a distasteful expression.

“Mr. Dalton.”

“Mr. Fairchild. Is Lucy home?”

“As a matter of fact, she is not. She’s out for the evening with her fiancé.”

“Excuse me?”

“She went out with Alex tonight.”

Not this again. “They’re not engaged.”

“I beg to differ, Mr. Dalton. She might have dallied with you, but Lucille has since come to her senses and has agreed to marry Alex Sheldon. They’re off right now planning their wedding.”

Jake crossed his arms. He didn’t believe Raymond Fairchild for one minute. “Uh huh. Just tell Lucy I came by.”

Waste of time. Her father wouldn’t deliver the message. Jake knew that. “On second thought, never mind. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Fairchild just smiled, his grin slimy as a snake’s. “They’re at La Chateau on Market Street if you’d like to check it out for yourself. Good night, Mr. Dalton.” Lucy’s father closed the door. Jake turned on his heel and went back to his truck, having no intention of checking out the restaurant where Lucy was allegedly having dinner with Alex. But he found himself jumping on the freeway and doing just that, pulling into an empty spot on the street right in front of the restaurant. Trendy, modern, with glass windows that showed everything going on inside.

As luck would have it, he spotted Lucy and Alex with the best seat in the house, right next to the front window. Drinking wine and having dinner. Smiling. Talking together.

They made a nice couple. Jake’s stomach tightened.

Alex picked up Lucy’s hand and pressed his lips to it. Lucy’s lips parted, her eyes wide. With pleasure, maybe?

Jake didn’t need to see more than that. He pulled away from the curb, realizing he’d been all wrong about Lucy. He might have thrown her out of his trailer today, but it didn’t take her long to run back into Alex’s arms.

Hell, maybe that’s why she’d brought him lunch today—to sit down and break things off with him. Publicly, at his place of work so he wouldn’t cause a scene.

Yeah, he was an idiot. Just because you slept with a woman didn’t mean she cared about you. Just because you might be falling in love with her didn’t mean she returned your feelings.

He had a lot of things to learn about the rich folk.

He should have never taken that walk on the other side of the tracks. He knew where he belonged.

From now on, he’d stay there.

The three hours Lucy had spent in Alex’s company were the longest in her entire life. When he’d picked up her hand and kissed it at the restaurant, she thought she might lose her dinner. Really, his attempts at seduction were revolting and something out of a nonfiction book on how to seduce women—blatantly obvious.

She’d sat there, utterly appalled for a few seconds while he pressed his mouth to her hand, then slid his tongue out—yes, he actually licked her. Ew. Shocked, she’d been momentarily stunned and unable to move or utter a word, afraid she’d either scream at him or burst out laughing. She’d finally recovered enough to jerk her hand away and wipe the back of it with the napkin in her lap. When he’d followed up with his best attempt at a smoldering, seductive, look, she’d snorted and masked it by faking a cough.

The rest of the evening had pretty much gone downhill. Alex had reiterated what a great “match” they’d make together, using words like “partnership” and “merger” until she finally rolled her eyes and told him point blank that she wasn’t the least bit interested in him, romantically or otherwise. Then she’d stared out her window the entire ride home, refusing to let Alex walk her to the door. She’d practically run to her front door and hurried inside, locked the deadbolt behind her and peeked out the peephole to be certain Alex wouldn’t try to come inside.

Hopefully she’d made her feelings more than clear to him.

“Where’s Alex?”

Lucy jumped and let out a squeal at her father’s voice right behind her. She pivoted and placed her hands on her hips.

“Good Lord, Father. You scared me. Quit lurking.”

“I wanted to see how your date went.”

She brushed past him and went into the library, sliding onto one of the leather chairs so she could kick off her shoes. “It wasn’t a date. And it was horrible. Alex is a pompous moron. Spending any time alone with him is torture. I don’t like him, have nothing in common with him, and if you try to foist him on me again I’ll move out. Is that clear?”

Her father glared at her. “Really, Lucille. You’ve hardly given Alex a chance.” Lucy sighed and leaned forward, wishing she could make her father see reality. “I don’t have feelings for Alex.”

Raymond snorted. “What do feelings have to do with anything? You two are a good match on paper.”

She rolled her eyes. “I want someone to love, Father. How difficult is that to comprehend?”

“Love means you’re not thinking with your head. Who do you want, Lucille? That rough construction worker Jake Dalton?”

Yes. “I want someone to love me. I want a relationship based on emotions, not balance sheets.”

“Love is messy.”

“Love is perfect.” It was like talking to the wall. He’d never understand.

“He was here tonight, you know.”

Lucy’s head shot up. “Who was here tonight? Jake?”

“Yes. I set him straight though.”

Dread dropped her stomach to her feet. She gripped the edge of the chair. “What did you do?”

“I told him you had finally come to your senses and decided to marry Alex, of course. Which is what I thought was going to happen tonight.” She sank back into the chair. “Oh, Father. How could you do that? I’m not at all interested in Alex.”

Her father tsked. She really hated when he did that.

“I only want what’s best for you, Lucille.”

Anger made her shoot to her feet. “No, you want what’s best for you. You aren’t thinking of me at all. You never do. You don’t care about me and what I want. You don’t think about me being happy. You think about the firm. You always have.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Lucille.”

“Am I? When did you become so heartless? Was it after Mother died, or have you always been this way?”

Anger mottled her father’s face. “Do not speak to me that way. Who is it that you think you want? That lowlife Jake Dalton?”

“He isn’t a lowlife. He’s built a solid business from the ground up. He works hard and he’s successful.”

“He’s not at all the type of man for you. He’s beneath you…beneath us. You could do much better.”

Disdain dripped off her father’s words. And prejudice. Maybe she’d avoided seeing it all these years, but there it was, plain as day.

“You’re a snob, Daddy. You don’t even know Jake. You haven’t even given him a chance.”

Her father lifted his chin. “Nor do I intend to. It would be a waste of my time. Just as he’s a waste of yours.”

Tears threatened, and she hated that. Having any further conversation with her father would be useless. She knew she needed to leave before she said something irreparable, something that would tear the fabric of her relationship with her father. She turned and fled from the room and went to her own wing, shutting and locking the door. She threw herself on her bed, feeling like the princess locked in the tower.

Okay, maybe she was being melodramatic, but her father’s interference had to stop.

Jake had been right when he’d told her she was too old to be living with her father. She hadn’t counted on him manipulating her life to this extent.

She had to talk to Jake, to set things straight between them, let him know that her father had been wrong about her and Alex. It was time to change a few things about her living situation, about her life with her father.

It was time to stand on her own.

The next day she knew better than to try and see Jake at the construction site. No way was she going to risk having the door slammed in her face again. She could only imagine what must be going through his head, what he must have thought after his conversation with her father last night.

She’d avoided her father the entire day at work. Fortunately, spending the morning in court helped. After she went to lunch, she spent the remainder of the day locked up in meetings with a few of the junior attorneys going over pending casework. By the time the day ended, she had managed to successfully dodge her father. She raced home, changed clothes and was out the door before her father came home from the office.

Now she just had to convince Jake to see her. She pulled in his driveway, relieved to see his truck parked there and his garage door open. She heard the sound of mowing in the backyard and went through the gate, petting Rascal who bounded up to greet her.

Rascal led her to Jake, who was just finishing up his lawn work. He turned when he saw her, and frowned.

Shirtless, covered in grass, sweat and dirt, he looked magnificent.

“What are you doing here?” He brushed past her to push the lawn mower toward the front of the house.

She followed, watching as a grabbed a towel and wiped his face. Yeah, still grimy.

Still gorgeous. “I…I came to talk to you about last night.” Ignoring her, he turned on the hose and began to wash down the mower.

“There’s nothing more to talk about. Your father set things straight.” Undaunted, she stepped closer so he could hear her over the powerful noise of the water stream. “And who are you going to believe, Jake? Me or my father?”

“I saw you at the restaurant with Alex.”

How nice of her father to tell Jake where she and Alex had been having dinner.

“Yes, I went out to dinner with Alex.”

Jake turned off the faucet and turned to her, then looked around the neighborhood. Other homeowners were washing cars or doing their own lawn work. “Let’s take this inside.”

She nodded and followed him through the garage and into the house. Jake stopped in the kitchen to grab two beers, opened both and handed her one. He leaned against the counter while she took a seat at the kitchen table.

“I went to dinner with Alex. He was at the house when I got home last night. I was…admittedly a bit hurt about lunch yesterday.”

“So you decided to dump me and go back to Alex just because I couldn’t have lunch with you?”

“No.” She sighed, feeling like neither of them were seeing things clearly. “My father, and Alex, can be rather insistent.”

“I hardly see you as a pushover, Lucy.”

“You’re right. It was stupid. I feel nothing for Alex and should have said no. I felt manipulated and cornered and I shouldn’t have gone with him. But I did. And I had a miserable time. Alex droned on and on about himself and his life and I couldn’t wait for dinner to be over.”

“I saw him kiss your hand.”

“I almost lost my dinner over it. I was so shocked when he did that it took me a full minute to register what he was doing. I jerked my hand away as soon as I could recover.”