Green Card

6 The Elusive Wife (Lucas)

"Lucas!" Danny was calling as he approached, some blonde flavor of the month on his arm. I shoved my phone, where I'd been staring at my three unanswered texts to Piper, back into my pocket and looked up at my primary investor with a forced smile. "There you are. And alone, is it? Damn, I was hoping to finally meet this elusive wife of yours."

"She's on her way," I told him, hoping that was true. But Piper hadn't told me she'd left the house and I honestly had no idea if she were on her way or making a run back to LAX this very moment.

"Of course. The CEO's wife must arrive fashionably late," Danny replied, raising a brow as he watched me over the rim of his glass.

"Excuse me," I said, more curtly than I'd intended. I gestured to my empty glass and strode off toward the bar for a refill, gritting my teeth all the way.

Danny had invested heavily into my company when it was just another big-dreamed start up in Silicon Valley. In the beginning, I'd owed much of Denodado's success to him. If I hadn't had the capital to hire more programmers, more artists, we never would have been able to make Retribution what it was today. But he'd become insufferable since, always forcing me to attend board meeting after board meeting where they would ask me the same ten questions about IOI and analytic yields and budgetary forecasts. I hadn't started this business to be the CEO. I had started it to design games. The business end was something I tolerated. But lately, it was taking up more of my time than I cared to admit and I had come to see Danny as the sole reason for that.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out as I gestured for the bartender. I looked down to see Piper's name flash across my screen.

Chill out, Vega. I'm here.

I smiled at the text and raised my eyes to see the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on smiling at me from across the room as she slipped her phone into her little black handbag. My eyes must have bulged out of my head.

"Piper?"

She was intoxicating in a slinky little black number with a slit that showed every inch of her gorgeous legs as she walked toward me. Her dark hair was slicked back into a modern marvel of shining hair gel. Her lips were a tantalizing dark red, puckered and perfect. Her eyes were shadows, shimmering in the dim light of the high class bar. When she reached me and leaned forward to order her own drink from the bartender, I saw her full back and nearly passed out right there.

"Wow," I said, appraisingly. She pushed out a hip and did a little bow and I grinned, eying her from head to toe, unable to stop myself. "Incredible. Truly, I'm speechless."

"I doubt that," she answered, rolling her eyes as she took her martini and sipped. I watched her red lips leave a stain on the crystal clear glass and cleared my throat. I'd never been so jealous of a beverage before.

"Fair enough," I replied, leading her away from the bar with a hand against her lower back. When I touched there and felt warm skin, all of the blood in my body rushed south and it was everything I could do not to wrap my other arm around her and pull her in for a passionate kiss so deep that she could feel my years of pent up desire right then and there.

But I was reminded that we were currently at a work function surrounded by my esteemed colleagues at the approach of Arthur Silver, a prominent member of the board and one of the only ones who had ever been kind to me. I smiled up at him as he approached, his lovely wife of forty years on his arm.

"Arthur," I greeted him with a smile and a raised glass. "So good to see you. And you as well, Tiffany. Might I introduce my beautiful wife, Piper?"

"Pleased to meet you," she replied, shooting Arthur a dazzling smile that made my heart hammer against my chest. I grinned from ear to ear, beaming with pride like a man with a pedigreed show dog. "I've heard such wonderful things about you."