Chapter Ninety-five

“Now onto what I invited you on a lunch date for,” Sabrina said nicely when they were rounding up dinner, they had spent most of the time talking about everything else but the main reason for the lunch date.
“Does this Saturday work for you?” She asked kindly.
Claire smiled, this was exactly what she had hoped for, that Sabrina would suggest a close date. “Absolutely, would you be able to organize another dinner party on such short notice though?” She asked with genuine concern.
Sabrina just waved a delicate hand weighed down with diamond-encrusted jewelry, “Of course, I’ve got an entire crowd of people hired just for that, you don’t have to worry about that at all.” She said cordially.
Claire thought that she should have guessed this but she asked anyway because, after their short lunch date, it felt like they were closer than acquaintances, dare she say friends even. And it just felt right to be worried about a friend even though there was no reason to be.
“I apologize for keeping you this long, Luna Claire,” Sabrina added, “And if I’m not being intrusive, I really hope that we’ll get the chance to do this again.”
Claire rose to her feet, intending to politely shake the socialite's hands, and was pleasantly surprised when Sabrina went for a hug instead. Although Sabrina was slightly older than her, she really felt like they could get along.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Sabrina offered with the biggest smile.
“Oh, you don’t have to bother…” Claire started to refute.
Sabrina just linked their arms together, “On the contrary, it would be my honor to.”
Claire found herself searching the restaurant for Rosie and Alec, she didn’t see them which meant that they must have returned to the car when they saw her getting ready to leave. She did see other patrons taking pictures of them walking out of the restaurant hand in hand with the biggest smiles on their faces as they waved at them.
They separated at the parking lot and fortunately, there were no paparazzi anywhere to be found, Sabrina had done a great job of keeping their lunch date under wraps.
“How did your lunch date go?” Rosie asked with a smile when she got into the car.
“Great… the food was really nice too, did you get to try it?” She noted.
The car ride back to the mansion was filled with conversation about the restaurant’s menu. It was uneventful which was a relief, Claire would never say it but she was still anxious about another possible attack, it was a reaction that she couldn’t help.
Alec went ahead of them when they got into the mansion, leaving the Luna Queen and her assistant to make the trip to the second floor all by themselves.
“Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,” Rosie suggested tentatively, careful not to overstep.
Claire was not tired, the lunch date hadn’t tired her out at all, and her conversation with Sabrina had energized her if anything. She would definitely take up the other lady’s offer for another meeting like the one they just had.
She had spent the morning attending to her assignments, and she knew that information about her meeting up with Sabrina Vaschell would make headlines news quite soon. What better time to get to writing those letters that would be sent to news agencies than now?
“I’m fine, why don’t we move to the sitting room and work on the letters over snacks instead?”
“I’ll get everything set up,” Rosie was quick to agree, hurrying off after dropping Claire off at her bedroom so she could have a wardrobe change.
There was no reason to remain in full glam when she would be spending most of the afternoon discussing technical terms with her assistant. She changed out of the minidress she had on, swapping it for comfortable joggers and a loose t-shirt.
When she finally made her way over to the sitting room, she found Rosie waiting for her, the redhead had also changed into comfortable clothes and was seated on the sofa with a pad in her hands, and a plate of cookies and wine on the glass table.
Claire couldn’t begin to picture just how she had managed to get it all done so fast. She walked inside and settled on the sofa beside Rosie, snagging a cookie for herself as she did.
“So, how are we starting this?” She asked, pleased with how informal the air between them was.
Rosie was anything if not professional, she tapped the floral cover on her pad. “I’ll write down whatever we come up with here, then I’ll translate it to formal speak before sending it to Alec.”
That sounded simple enough to Claire, she sat up straighter. “Let’s keep it short with minimal details…”
They finished creating the contents of the letter in a short amount of time, and Rosie got her wish granted because they spent the rest of the time watching movies and running through an ungodly amount of chips.
Claire only remembered that she was supposed to have dinner with Lukas when the sun was starting to set. She jumped to her feet in a panic, hurrying to her room after explaining her slip up to Rosie who was quick to shoo her off.
Claire only slowed down when she got closer to their shared bedroom, sure Lukas said they were having dinner together but what exactly did that translate to? Would they just have dinner in the mansion like they did every other night or would there be something different this time?
She decided to put some effort into dressing up anyway, it didn’t hurt either way, no matter how the night turned out. She went with a leather miniskirt which was very different from her usual style but she looked elegant in it still.
She paired it up with a tube top and boots, all black, going with a white overcoat to balance the outfit. She left her hair down, and did minimal makeup, after weeks of getting dressed up to the nines, she had picked up on a thing or two.
Claire frowned slightly as she stared at herself in the mirror, thinking that she overdid it a bit. Her thoughts were wiped clean when familiar arms wrapped around her waist, she didn’t even flinch, finding Lukas’ midnight blue eyes on her through the mirror.
“You are gorgeous,” Lukas whispered, kissing her reverently on her mating mark.
Whenever he gave attention to it, which was as often as he could, Claire couldn’t help but remember the meaning behind it, it made her giddy.
“I almost don’t want to take you out, I’d rather keep this all to myself.” He said seriously.
Claire smiled, relieved that she hadn’t misunderstood Lukas’ invitation, “I won’t stop you,” She replied coyly, meaning her words. She would be happy if all they did was have dinner as always.
“I want you all to myself tonight, good thing I booked a private room.” He said, stepping away.
Claire turned around and walked into his arms, noting that he was dressed just as elaborately as she was. Although that was casual wear for Lukas because if she hadn’t slept in his arms enough times, she would have believed that he slept in designer shirts and fitted pants.
She welcomed his kiss, molding herself against him. When they broke apart so that they could make their way out of the mansion, Claire found herself wondering just how private those private rooms could be.
She hung off Lukas’ arm while he had his arm wrapped around her waist - *who knew that a day would come when she would be happy and proud to be held like this by Lukas?*
The ride to the restaurant was filled with strained conversation, strained because they kept trailing off midsentence because they got distracted staring at each other’s eyes and lips. The air around them was electrically charged with need, so much so that Claire found herself wondering if eating was all that important.
But Lukas had already gone through the trouble to book a reservation at an elite restaurant, she would get through this even if it meant that she would find herself on Lukas before the end of the night.
As soon as they were driven into the parking lot of the restaurant, rapid camera flashes went off, indicating that someone had tipped off the paparazzi. Fortunately, they gave them a wide berth but maybe Lukas’ deadly expression had something to do with that.
Other than being assaulted by bright light, there were no other issues. When they got to the entrances, they were received by a stiffly dressed man who introduced himself as the manager before proceeding to direct them to their private room.
They turned heads as they walked past the main area of the lavish restaurant, either the restaurant was extremely popular in the area or the majority of the people present just like the paparazzi had shown up because they had heard that the American Alpha King and his Luna Queen would both be having dinner there tonight.