Free Book | Forest's Redemption

Chapter 12: Lauren's POV

"Lauren, can I come inside?" Lucas' voice sounded from behind my bedroom door.

I hesitated whether I should let him in after everything that happened today. I spent the rest of the day just wandering aimlessly around the office, not really sure what to do and hoping that he would call me to his side again.

That never happened.

Instead, he let Jona start working for him. HR started the whole background check and clearance for him. Lucas replaced me like I meant nothing to him.

"Uhm, sure." I got out of bed. "You can come in."

He opened the door before I could get to it and what I saw when he opened that door almost made me freeze right where I stood.

He was wearing grey sweat pants that hid nothing to the naked eye. I could see the outline of his p***s in those pants. It was swinging with every step he took inside my room, as if it was taunting me, daring me to pull down those pants.

Before this weekend, I had never seen Lucas Greyson naked. Not once.

When I saw his naked form...his broad shoulders...his muscle incased body...his perfectly tan skin...and his well endowed shaft..

He was busy making love to another woman, thrusting into her, licking her and kissing her, but I couldn't stop staring. I froze. I had never seen him like that before.

Only Charlotte has seen him like that.

I was angry...but I was also afraid that I would never get to see him like that ever again. So raw, so aggressive and yet gentle. So sweaty, but never growing tired. Not even for a second.

And now here he is wearing sweatpants that are riding much too low under his abdomen and somehow accentuating the man's six pack.

Lucas Greyson is built like a god. f**k.

I gulped when he wrapped his big strong arms around me. He wasn't wearing a shirt and I was only wearing my night dress that stopped right below my butt. I knew that lifting my arms to hug him back would leave my behind exposed, but I didn't care. Lucas has never hugged me shirtless. He has never worn sweatpants that made me feel his p***s press up against my stomach.

He has never let me have him like this.

"I'm sorry." He whispered against my hair. "I'm so sorry for everything."

"It's ok." I lied. "Water under the bridge."

"No, it's not." His hands were suddenly on my waist and he was pressing me up against him, making sure that I was pressed up hard against his groin. I could feel him getting hard, but that didn't seem to bother him. It was most definitely not bothering me. "Charlotte is being a bully and I'm not going to stand for it." He said with both hands still on my waist. "I broke up with her. We're done."

"You are?" I asked.

"Yes." He chuckled and held my chin between his two fingers while his erection kept growing in his pants. "She wanted me to choose between you and her, Lauren and I chose you. I will always choose you."

I didn't get to tell him how happy this made me. I didn't get to tell him that I've been waiting my whole life to hear him say that because he kissed me before I could respond.

It was slow and passionate and our tongues were just melting into one another.

"Lauren!" I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. "Lauren can you hear me? Lauren wake up."

I jumped from the couch and fell to the floor in a thud.

"What? What? What is it?"

"You fell asleep." Christian gave me an awkward smile and helped me up. "You seemed to be having a pretty intense dream."

I cleared my throat and tried not to look too embarrassed.

Of course I was dreaming. Lucas has never been shirtless around me. Even after working out, Christian would come out of the home gym with only shorts. However, Lucas always wore a shirt.

And those sweatpants...he would never wear sweatpants like that around me. I should have known it was a dream.

I'm such an i***t.

"I don't even remember it." I muttered. "Probably just a silly dream. Is Lucas home yet? I really want to talk to him about what happened today."

He shook his head and took out his phone to show me a text message from Lucas.

'Just a heads up that I won't be home tonight. I'm sleeping at Charlie's place. You should see it. It's f*****g awesome.'

"He didn't say anything about me...about what happened today?" I asked nervously only to find him shaking his head sympathetically.

"He's letting her do whatever she wants." I muttered to myself. "It's like he's under her spell or something."

He sighed and tried giving me a hug. I just stood there with my arms all limp while he hugged me.

"He's like that with her." He patted my back. "He'll always say yes to her. The upside is, she's the same."

"What do you mean?"

He took my hand and walked me to the table where he had his PC open.

"I mean Lucas will always say yes to Charlotte. However, Charlotte will also always say yes to Lucas."

I gave him a confused look. It was difficult to believe that statement because so far it looks like Lucas is the one who's giving that woman everything she wants; no matter how cruel and ridiculous it is.

"I'm not convinced of that." I replied honestly. "As things stand, Lucas is giving in to her like she didn't abandon him for five years."

He kind of rolled his eyes before he explained himself.

"You know, Charlotte wasn't always Charlotte." He started. "When she was in fourth grade I remember mom complaining around the house that she's going to be held back because she didn't bother handing in her homework and sometimes even skipped class. She was a real problem for her teachers and even mom couldn't get through to her. Everytime mom tried to talk to her she would just look at her like she's a crazy person."

We went to the same school. I thought to myself. "How come I don't know any of this?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Maybe you weren't in the same class or maybe you don't know about it because mom tried really hard to keep it under wraps so Charlotte wouldn't get teased by the other kids. Point is, she was headed in the wrong direction and no one could get her out of it...no one but Lucas."

I ignored the bloody ache in my chest. It was burning me. Why would Christian even tell me this?

"Do you want me to stop?" He asked sympathetically. "I don't have to tell you all this. I can show you everything I found on that Jona guy instead?"

"No." I shook my head. "Tell me. I don't really understand the point you're trying to make, but I think this is something I need to hear."

He took a deep breath. "Well, we weren't supposed to know about Charlie's situation, but mom was talking about it so much that we ended up getting the gist of it. Me and Annabelle were only seven years old, but we understood that Charlotte was going to fail the fourth grade at the rate she was going."

"And Lucas?" I spat out.

"He brought her home the day after mom had another one of her rants about Charlie. Annabelle and I spied on them and heard him tell her she needs to get her grades up or they won't be friends anymore."

...

"After that, Charlotte became the perfect student. Mom thought she was the one who got through to her, but Annabelle and I knew the truth. She did it because Lucas told her to get her act together."

This man was making me feel so much worse about everything. Surely he knows that? Why would he tell me all this?

"You're telling me about a bunch of kids." I tried ignoring the obvious point he was making. "We're talking about adults. They've changed. Lucas is an adult man who-"

"In eighth grade", he spoke over me, "Lucas told her he wants to marry a lawyer one day. He told her how mom wanted to be a lawyer growing up, but her family couldn't afford to take her to school. When the two of them got to school the next day, Charlotte signed up for Debate, Model UN, public speaking and all kinds of clubs that would essentially put her on track to becoming a lawyer. I don't even think he meant what he said. I think he told her he wants to marry a lawyer because he could tell she would be good at it. "

He took my hand in his when he no doubt saw me holding back my tears. What the hell am I up against?

"I'm not telling you this to hurt you." He tried to console me. "I'm telling you this because I know that Lucas cares for you. I know it may not seem like it, but he won't let Charlotte kick you out of his life. He will tell her to accept you and she will do it because he asked her to."

I tore my hand out of his and wiped away the few tears that were rolling down my cheecks. I mustered a brave fake smile. He may think he's making me feel better, but this is just crushing me all over again.

"You know..." he seemed to hesitate finishing that sentence, "you and Charlotte are more alike than you think."

I scoffed at him. Charlotte and I couldn't be more different. I'm human and she's the devil.

"How do you figure?" I asked.

"Well, she's just as obsessed with my brother as you are." He said with a smirk. "She might be meaner and more frank about what she wants, but you're both willing to do whatever it takes to keep that man in your lives."

I sighed and let those words hang in the air.

I didn't want to tell him just how wrong he is. I didn't want to tell him that a woman who waits her entire life for a man to see her, catch a glimpse of her or acknowledge her can't be compared to the woman who has been hogging his attention for his entire life.

I'm nothing like Charlotte. I'd never leave Lucas. Never. I'd never make him choose between me and his friends. I'd never cause a rift between him and his brother.

"Can I ask you something?" He looked at me with those gentle brown eyes of his. He looks a lot like Lucas, except for those eyes of his. He and Annabelle got their mother's eyes, but Lucas got his father's dark green eyes.

I nodded my head.

Whatever he was about to ask me will most likely end up making me feel worse about myself than I already do, but I decided to just get it over and done with.

"You've seen Lucas with other women over the years." He said awkwardly. "He may not have introduced them to us, but we knew of them. He even dated Annette for a whole year before she broke up with him because he was 'too distant'. Why are you so riled up by Charlotte? One mention of her name even got you to finally kiss the man. For all we know, she's just stopping by and she'll be out of his life soon."

I tapped at his PC awkwardly. I couldn't answer that question. There's no use answering that question.

"What did you find out about Jona?" I asked.

He didn't bother repeating his question. He just sighed and moved his PC closer so I could see what was on the screen. He understood that this conversation was over.

"HR will probably have a full report on his background check within a few days." He clicked on a tab on his computer. "Looks like he grew up in fostercare. He bounced around different houses and even a few states."

"So he's not qualified to be Lucas' assistant. Is that what you're saying?"

"Oh no." He opened another tab. "The man went to Brown University. Graduated at the top of his class. He did a double major in..." he squinted his eyes and moved his face closer to the screen, "Corporate governance with a minor in accounting ...and International Commercial law." He blinked his eyes rapidly as if he didn't believe what he just read. "Why is someone with these degrees an assistant?" He muttered to himself. "Doesn't make any sense."

"You think he's faking?" I asked with a glimmer of hope in my voice. "Maybe he isn't actually an assistant. It sounds more like he's a lawyer. Charlotte could be planting him in the company so he can spy on us or something."

He shook his head while still typing on his PC. "I already checked. He's been Charlotte's assistant for some years. It seems they started together at her firm. He's known as the best legal assistant in the game. Everyone has been trying to get him, but he refuses to part with Charlotte."

I grabbed his damn PC to read everything about Jona myself. The man constantly has a bored and annoyed expression on his face. There's no way he can be a good assistant. And even if he is, that just confirms my suspicions that he's spying for Charlotte.

I read everything that was on the screen. I saw pictures of his graduation. The man was even f*****g valedictorian of his graduating class. And then I saw pictures of him and Charlotte. There were too many to count. He looked annoyed in most of those pictures, except in pictures of them in court together. In those pictures, he has that same glint in his eyes that Charlotte always has. That evil look that says they've already won.

"How did a fosterkid get into Brown?" I huffed at him. "And how could he afford it? Isn't that fishy?"

He just shrugged. "Probably got good grades in school? It says here there was an anonymous donor that paid for his tuition."

He tried taking his PC back, but I held on to it. This doesn't f*****g add up. A foster kid in an ivy league school? And he did so well that he was valedictorian and then he CHOSE to be an assistant?

"This is getting all the more suspicious!" I started typing into his PC. "What about Charlotte? We would have known if she was the state's lead counsel. Jona is lying."

I started typing her name into the search bar, but he grabbed the computer from me.

"You can't just do a simple Google search." He went to some odd site and then clicked on a tab.

"Lucas checked with the head of the legal department. They confirmed what Jona said. She's the City's lead counsel. The only reason her face hasn't been plastered all over TV is because she hasn't made partner at her firm. The partner she's working for is taking all the credit, but every lawyer working on this merger knows Charlie is the go-to person for anything related to the merger."

I could feel my body slipping further down my chair. Of course Charlotte is some big fancy lawyer that the f*****g City of New York would appoint to deal with a merger this size. I'm not even good enough to be Lucas' assistant anymore, but she's some fancy lawyer who can decide the fate of the entire merger.

Fucking Charlotte. f*****g Charlotte Ericsson.