Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews, it was great to see that people are excited for this story and if I would have had more time then I would have had this chapter finished a couple of days after I posted the first one because of all of the inspiration you guys gave me.

"So Brooke knows," she commented in an attempt to break the awkward silence that had quickly occurred after her phone conversation with Brooke had ended.

"Oh," he replied and she was sure that it was simply an attempt to annoy her, if it was then he succeeded anyway.

"She said we shouldn't do anything rash," she tried to engage him in a conversation again.

"What does that mean? She wants us to stay married?" he asked her, knowing that he was probably right since Brooke along with help from Haley had been trying to get them back together from the minute they broke up.

"No." She seemed panicked at the thought of staying married to him. "I think what she means is that we should be careful who we tell and talk to our bosses before we get an annulment."

"Sweetheart, I'm my own boss," he told her arrogantly.

"Fine then your editor or whatever, actually Julian wants to speak to you about it," she muttered now regretting the decision to start a conversation.

"I don't get why we can't just get an annulment now, I mean what difference will talking to our bosses make?"

"Well you're kind of a public figure and I guess that with the movie based on your book coming out soon it would be kind of bad press if it got out that the two characters from the supposed love story got married drunk in Vegas and had to get an annulment," she reasoned.

"I guess that's true. So are you going to listen to her and talk to your boss then?" he asked her curiously.

"Well she has way more experience in this area than I do so yeah, I'm going to take her advice." Peyton cringed at the thought of talking to John Knight about her disastrous one night stand however if it would save her hassle in the long run then she'd do anything.

"So Brooke got married in Vegas?" he commented sarcastically, "wow I never knew."

"You know what I mean because believe it or not this type of thing doesn't happen to me all that often."

There was yet another awkward pause as though both were deciding the best way to not turn this into a fight. She didn't want to fight with him, to be honest she was more angry at herself for getting into this situation than him, as he'd said before it wasn't as though he was pouring drinks down her throat.

"Look it happened and we can't do much to fix it right now so I'm just going to enjoy the time I have left here without thinking about it okay?" Peyton told him firmly, a big part of her just wanted to find her hotel room and fall asleep without ever thinking about Lucas Scott again.

"Right." He nodded before watching Peyton head towards the door.

She waved awkwardly as she left the room, it was only after this that Lucas realised she was actually serious about not spending any more time together so he ran out of the room to catch her in the hallway.

"Hey Peyt," he shouted after her knowing that calling her Peyt would annoy her, he didn't know why he'd made it his mission to annoy her but it had become a kind of game for him and he was loving it.

"What?" she asked him with her irritated glare firmly in place which made him smile, in a way it reminded him of the first time they'd spoken. He remembered how infatuated with her he was, if his sixteen year old self knew that one day he'd be married to Peyton Sawyer then he'd probably have had a heart attack. Admittedly it wasn't a typical marriage but legally they were married.

"Do you want to have breakfast?" he asked quickly, not quite sure where the question had come from.

"Did you really just ask me that?" She stared at him in astonishment, didn't he want what she wanted? To just forget it ever happened.

"I just thought it would be nice to catch up a little bit, you know we're probably going to have to spend time together throughout this whole annulment thing so we should probably at least try to get along," he said without thinking through the words he was saying fully. It was as though his mouth was moving without his brain's permission. Although he had to thank his mouth for whatever words that came out of it when he saw the corner of her lips curl up slightly.

"You do realise that I can't stand to be in the same room as you right?" she asked him with slight exhaustion evident in her voice although her face said otherwise as she couldn't contain her smirk.

"I know but maybe we can change that." He smirked and she almost laughed, that smirk hadn't changed in the four years since she'd last seen him but it seemed like he had. As he turned around again and walked towards the elevator she bit her lower lip before following him.

She just couldn't help it.

"This is weird," she commented as they ate their breakfasts mostly in silence.

"Yeah I know, I can't even remember the last time we had breakfast together."

"Hmm," she mumbled as she looked down at her plate, she could remember the last time they'd had breakfast together, it had been a couple of months before that dreaded night in Los Angeles. They'd spent the night together at Peyton's dad's old house and with neither of them in the mood to make breakfast for themselves they'd strolled over to Karen's café and had matching breakfasts with Lily joining them and taking turns to sit on each of their laps. She didn't know how she felt about the fact that he didn't see that as a memory worth remembering, that was one of the moments missed the most, that feeling of family that she'd never really had growing up.

"So what are you doing in Las Vegas?" he asked her, proud that he found something for them to talk about so that they could get out of the awkward silence that had enveloped the room.

"I came to see a band a couple of days ago but Brooke encouraged me to stay and relax, she seems to think I work too hard," she told him, clearly not agreeing with Brooke. She knew that she worked hard but it was what she had to do. Yes, maybe she didn't always agree with the way that things were done at Sire Records but overall she was happy with her job, comfortable.

"So you still work at the record label?" He was surprised that she hadn't moved on and started her own label yet; it was what he always assumed that she'd do.

"Yeah I do," she said slightly guarded assuming that he was being patronising, "so why are you here?"

"Oh I just had a meeting about locations for the movie," he told her like it was nothing but the smirk that graced his lips gave away the fact that he knew it was a very big deal and he wanted her to know that too.

"Why Vegas? I may have only read it once but I'm pretty sure there are no scenes set in Vegas, or am I missing the last scene where Peyton goes to Las Vegas to become a stripper instead of Los Angeles to work at a record label?" she asked him half sarcastically and half seriously, who knows what history he would rewrite this time.

"You know I didn't say that Peyton was a stripper, don't blow it all out of proportion," he said too proud to act embarrassed of his portrayal of Peyton in his novel.

"Out of proportion? Luke have you read your book?" she asked him angrily, how could she not be angry at him even after all this time? When she read An Unkindness of Ravens for the first time she was expecting to read a novel about a love story between two characters called Lucas and Peyton, she prepared herself by getting the tissues ready and then she set about reading the book written by her ex-boyfriend. When she read the book she didn't find the love story that she expected and honestly was hopping for too because maybe that would help her believe in their love again and that maybe they could find their way back to each other one day.

"Look there's nothing I can do about it now," he claimed but he found it too hard to regret his novel, it had given him some amazing opportunities after all.

"Tell everyone it was a lie," she suggested even though she knew he wouldn't do that.

"Peyton," he sighed, "you know I can't do that with the movie and everything, nobody will watch it if they think it's a lie."

"So you're just going to let them think that I'm a slut instead?"

"Yeah pretty much," he told her with his stupid smirk still testing her patience.

She was about to reply when suddenly two young women walked up to them, interrupting their tense breakfast.

"Hi guys," the first one said cheerily.

Lucas and Peyton both looked at each other as though they were trying to figure out if the other person knew this girl who seemed to know them.

"Um... Hi," Peyton said as brightly as she could although she was confused as to why this girl was talking to them and Lucas seemed equally as puzzled.

"So how was last night?" one of the girls asked expectantly.

Peyton looked at Lucas and then the girls extremely confused.

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked carefully.

The girls looked at each other and giggled before the other girl responded. "She means did you guys actually get married?"

Lucas looked at Peyton and saw the shock in her eyes, he also saw that she was about to deny it but he got there first.

"Yeah we did," he grinned at the girls before smirking at Peyton who looked like she could murder him any second so he took her tense hand in his to annoy her even further, knowing that she wouldn't move it away with the girls stood there.

The girls simultaneously let out high pitched squeals which caused both Lucas and Peyton to wince in pain from their throbbing heads.

"OMG this is so amazing, I always knew that Lucas and Peyton were meant to be together even though a lot of people say they weren't because, you know, Peyton's kind of a slut," one of the girls informed her. Clearly these girls that they had apparently befriended last night were fans of Lucas' book and she wasn't used to this happening but Lucas looked much more relaxed than her which gave her the impression that this had happened to him before.

All Peyton could do was stare at them dumbfounded; she knew that her character wasn't liked by everybody but to have somebody that she didn't even know call her a slut was an incredibly surreal situation. She was about to say something to the girls but then she remembered that it wasn't their fault that her character had come across that way, it was Lucas'.

And that was why she felt like crying the one time that she read that book; Lucas had given up on their love even to the extent that he had written her character as the worst version of herself and transformed their love story into a tale of cheating, jealously and lies.

Unfortunately I won't be able to update again until I'm back home on British soil. I'm having a really great time in Florida but that means that I have no time to write so you'll have to wait just over a week for it until I'm back and have recovered from the jet lag.