Chapter 6

Thanks for the reviews again, I honestly don't think I can stress just how much I appreciate them. Sorry for the longer wait but I had a hard time with this chapter, I was going to do a flashback to the proposal but I couldn't get it right so I'm going to keep trying with it and put it in when I can. Therefore this chapter was kind of thrown together quickly and probably won't be great.

Two weeks.

That's how long they'd been living together and they had barely spent any time together at all, unless you count the phone conversation that they'd shared with Nathan and Haley to inform them of what exactly was going on. As expected Haley hadn't exactly been thrilled with their decision to stay married for publicity, Nathan on the other hand had been quiet. Probably considering the possible outcomes of the recent development concerning his brother and his now sister-in-law. Peyton had the feeling that when Haley had told Jamie that his uncle Lucas and aunt Peyton had got married it had been as punishment since the six year old had suddenly been begging the two of them to visit Tree Hill. They were adamant that they wouldn't have Jamie around this sham of a marriage but then he had given her the puppy dog eyes over skype. Their flight was booked for next month.

Other than that it had been two weeks of silence at the apartment so to avoid being there she had taken to working at all hours of the night in a vain attempt to fix this label. At first she had been encouraged by the band that had been introduced to her as the label's newest recruit, that was until the band stopped playing and the lead singer started talking. His name was Jason and he was probably Peyton's least favourite person on the planet, maybe with the exception of John Knight. Work became just as stressful as home and she felt trapped in a never-ending cycle of misery.

The pregnancy symptoms didn't exactly help either, in the moments that she didn't feel like she was about to start crying she was more than likely to be sleeping.

Then the morning sickness started. It was one day at work when Jason (of course it was him, only he could manage to piss her off without even trying) brought in a cup of coffee, she just couldn't help but run to the bathroom and throw up. When she returned she was back to her composed state with the exception of her eyes which threw a dirty look at Jason before snapping at him to get into the recording studio. Nobody dared to mention her hasty trip to the bathroom.

Luckily she hadn't been at Lucas' apartment enough for him to notice her getting sick, she spent all of her time at work and whenever she happened to be at the apartment he usually wasn't, she had no idea where he was to be honest. She'd assumed that a writer would spend most of his time at home, you know, writing or something but apparently that wasn't the case. She was thankful for it though, whatever it was that was keeping him out of the apartment, because it only made things easier for her.

It was one day after work that she came into the apartment only to hear laughter coming from the kitchen, clearly Lucas had a guest and by the sounds of it that guest happened to be female.

"God Luke, you always know how to make me laugh."

Peyton raised her eyebrows as she heard this woman giggle at Lucas, she could just imagine her batting her eyelashes and twirling her hair. She thought Lucas had better taste than that.

Without hesitating Peyton plastered a smile onto her face and walked into the kitchen, prepared to play the loving wife in front of whoever was stood in the kitchen flirting with her husband.

As soon as she walked in she noticed Lucas step back slightly from the random woman in their kitchen, the woman turned to follow Lucas' gaze and Peyton couldn't help but enjoy the guilty expression on her face.

"Peyton, this is Lindsey," Lucas introduced them casually. "You know, my editor?"

"Nice to meet you," Peyton said with a forced grin as she stepped forward to shake her hand. It turns out Lindsey wasn't the platinum blonde slut that she had been imagining, in fact from her appearance only Peyton would actually say she seemed intelligent, apparently that didn't stop her from giggling like a school girl in front of Lucas though.

"You too, in person anyway, I learnt so much about you from Lucas' novel," Lindsey informed her with what Peyton took as a smug grin on her face, okay now she seemed less intelligent.

She already knew what Lindsey must think of her if she was judging her purely from Lucas' novel so she decided she wasn't going to stick around much longer and walked over to the cupboard to retrieve a glass that she then proceeded to fill with water.

"Oh Peyt, Lindsey and I were just about to open a bottle of wine if you want a glass?" Lucas offered.

It was so tempting, getting drunk would surely take the edge off her confusion over the evening's events however she had to politely decline and return to her room to take the prenatal vitamins that she had bought a couple of weeks ago and sip her water alone.

She took a deep breath before walking into the apartment, praying to anyone who was listening that she wouldn't walk in only to see Lindsey sipping her wine and giggling over Lucas as she had been the previous three nights. She slowly entered the apartment and was pleasantly surprised when the only person in sight was Lucas who was reading an old book that appeared to have been read many times before.

Okay this was the perfect opportunity to talk to him, they were both in the apartment for once and they were alone without Lindsey who was beginning to challenge Jason and John Knight for the top spot of her least favourite people list.

"Luke?" she asked quietly as she sat next to him in the hope that they'd have a normal conversation.

Judging from his expectant expression and unfamiliar silence she decided that he didn't want to talk to her but would put up with it if she had something interesting to say.

"I was just thinking that if we're going to be seen, you know, in public together well this marriage has to look real so I was thinking that…"

"You need a ring?" he half asked and half stated.

"What?" she asked in confusion, she had just been about to talk to him about their personal boundaries.

"You need a ring, people might get suspicious if you don't have one," he stated very matter-of-factly.

"Um… I…" she stuttered, surprised at his very factual way of thinking about these things.

"Don't worry about it, I have a ring," he murmured, clearly referring to the ring that he had proposed to her with five years ago.

"Luke…" she breathed, she didn't even think of how she would respond to his statement before she began speaking.

"Look I'm sure you can manage to wear it now, it's not like it means something," he told her coldly.

She felt like she'd just been slapped in the face, that ring meant everything. It was the one that Keith proposed to Karen with, the ring that he'd proposed to her with and whether he admitted it or not she knew that Lucas would only want to give that ring to someone he truly loved. At least that's what the old Lucas would want.

"I know it's not an actual wedding band but we can get you one of those another time, it'll do as an engagement ring though," he stated monotonously.

"Yeah, I um… yeah," she stammered before uttering something about leaving something at work and walking hurriedly towards the door.

When Lucas woke up the next morning the first thing he heard were some birds chirping outside, the second thing he heard was the sound of someone vomiting, that wasn't exactly the noise he had wanted to hear that early in the morning. After a couple of minutes he decided to go and investigate, maybe he and Peyton weren't on the best terms but he wasn't so heartless as to leave her alone if she was sick and needed help.

"You okay?" he asked cautiously as he entered the bathroom.

"What are you doing in here? This is my bathroom," she hissed at him as she walked towards the sink, she couldn't even recognise the fact that he was being nice to her, God she was so stubborn.

"I heard you throwing up," he told her in a patronising manner and after he recognised her expression of shock he continued, taking advantage of the fact that she was struggling to find words. "So what was it then? Have a bit too much to drink last night? You know at least you didn't manage to get yourself married this time; that would have made things just a little bit more complicated."

All he received was a glare and silence.

"Peyton are you-" he began to speak but at the same moment she decided to speak as well.

"Just leave me alone," she requested firmly as though she might hit him if he started talking again.

"Whatever Peyton, in the future though can you please keep it quiet when you're throwing up?" he just couldn't resist messing with her one last time before backing slowly out of the bathroom, watching her face the mirror and then put her head in her hands out of frustration.

So I know it wasn't a great chapter and I don't deserve it for taking so long but I would still really love reviews?

Also to respond to the guest who reviewed a couple of days ago, Peyton isn't planning on hiding her pregnancy forever, in my opinion she just wants to feel in control of something in her life. Also you mentioned that Lucas was very OOC, I know that he may seem that way but remember that so far this story has basically been written in Peyton's POV (except for the tiny bit of Lucas above) so you're seeing her biased opinion of him and her interpretation of his actions. The book will also be explained at some point although I will say that Julian had nothing to do with how it turned out.