All Shook Up

by Ashley Bostock

  Of course all of them were willing to take on interns and train women who proved capable and committed to having a job in their specific workforces. Hell, maybe this was all for show and wouldn’t work out quite the way they all wanted—they fully realized anything could change with the tide—but they were committed to figuring it out and rolling with the punches.

  They would do whatever it took to see the women of The Francesca Project succeed.

  They’d already gotten tremendous support from other groups in and around Denver as well as private donations, even though the complex had yet to be built. The project was going to be a success. He could feel it in his bones.

  Cole rubbed a hand over his eyes. All of this was great, the best he could hope for, but truth be told, after sharing so much of it with Jillian, it was a little empty without her. He’d wanted to go after her, damn it. But what would he have said, what could he have done to convince her to not only stay at Lacie’s but to stay with him?

  He drove to the groundbreaking ceremony that was happening today. He managed to find a parking space amidst a few news vans, four police cars and loads of vehicles. Even though it was chaotic and there was a great turnout, it already felt…boring. It was more exciting when he knew Jillian was at his side affirming that what he was doing was a good thing – to have her look at him with those silvery eyes of hers as she called him cocky or arrogant.

  He was cocky.

  Mostly arrogant.

  Only it didn’t feel like that now. Since she had walked out of his office yesterday, he had been feeling everything but cocky.

  “The man of the hour. You ready to get this thing going?” Justin handed him a yellow hard hat and one of the fake gold-plated shovels.

  “Ready as can be.” All things considered. This was an exciting moment, damn it. It was Francesca’s moment that he’d been waiting for, for months. Guilt ate at him, knowing he should be more excited than he was and because of that, he faked it. He straightened his shoulders and put on a wide smile for the cameras. One small crack in any of their demeanors and all the support and trust they’d garnered could crumble. Business face intact.

  When the cameras started rolling and the five men stood around with their shovels, news anchor Greta Bunya asked them all questions.

  “There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the founders of The Francesca Project. Let’s allow them the honor of getting this amazing project on its way!” Greta said with a flourish of her hand.

  On cue, the five men used their shovels and dug some dirt. The crowd applauded and the news anchor continued, “Congratulations! The Francesca Project is officially underway thanks to Zander Morgan, Michael Vilander, Justin Hollinsworth, Dylan Truex and last but not least, Cole Carrington.”

  The men shook hands with one another including the mayor and representatives and gave their thank to the news anchor and local newspapers. Cole glanced around. He itched to get out of there. Which shouldn’t be the case and he felt guilty for thinking it.

  The men walked around the grounds, Cole mostly quiet as he thought about the last time he’d been there with Jillian. The story she’d told him about pulling all the stakes out of the ground when she was a kid. She was sassy for sure, but it was hard to envision that naughty child as the sweet woman she was now.

  She didn’t seem to have a naughty bone in her body. Well, naughty of the bad kind. She was plenty of good kinds of naughty and his lower half tightened at the thought of how naughty she was. He’d memorized every damn inch of her body, her curves and freckles so well, that he could draw her from pure thought. His lips tingled at the way her skin had felt against his mouth.

  Had she signed the papers already? Claiming her ownership to Party Panties. Well on her way to her dream? It’s business. Those words coming from her mouth gutted him, because that was his line. He didn’t care for it being used on him.

  When she’d hired the new assistant for Lacie’s, she made it a point to deal with Raymond and had actually called back one of the other, more qualified applicants to take over her position. Once Raymond gave his blessing, Raymond had informed Cole that morning that she was going to train them both, before her departure.

  Willow wanted her at Party Panties as soon as possible so Jillian worked it out with Raymond to train the new hires and go to Party Panties when time allowed. Thankfully, Raymond was in Colorado to help with this new situation and was allowing Jillian the time to leave during the day when she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

  It was all working out just fine for everyone. For Jillian. For Raymond. The new hire. For Lacie’s Lingerie. It was Cole that it wasn’t working out for.

  Damn it.

  He knew better than to get involved with an employee. He’d successfully avoided women After Francesca and Jillian had barged into his life like a freight train. Would he have fallen in love with her if she hadn’t come on board to Lacie’s? He’d thought about her after their first meeting for sure, but there didn’t seem to be a way to get back into her good graces after forcing her to move out of the building.

  So while he’d like to think they would have gotten to know one another outside of Lacie’s, he wasn’t so sure. But God, how he was in love with her.

  I’m so in love with her.

  Yeah. Damn. He was.

  He was in deep.

  He grappled with that a few long moments as he drove ninety down the interstate. He was in love with Jillian Winters. A montage of Jillian flashed through his mind. The very first time they’d met and he walked in there to come face to face with the sexiest woman he’d ever seen and she didn’t flinch when he fingered her lingerie. When he was undercover as Levi and he watched her practically befriend all the clients that came into the shop and use her intelligence to make Lacie’s a better store. When she had her open house and she started to realize that she did know what she was doing and The Peekeasy wasn’t a failure.

  Instead of driving down the interstate, he should be turning around and heading toward Lacie’s to tell Jillian how he felt. It was probably already too late. Meaning she’d probably already signed the papers to make her co-owner of Party Panties. Then, all this love he felt and a chance to show Francesca that he could settle down and actually wanted one woman, would be lost.

  He gunned the Maserati up the closest off-ramp and cursed at himself when he got stuck in traffic. What felt like hours later, he emerged from the ramp and got turned around, headed down the on-ramp and got back onto the interstate, heading toward downtown.

  He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. He hated being nervous. He’d never done this in all his adult life. At thirty-five years old, Cole had never told a woman he’d loved her—except his mother and Francesca of course—and he was determined to tell her no matter how nerve-wracking it was. What if she already signed the papers? Worse, what if she didn’t harbor the same feelings toward him as he did her?

  Was there something he should do? Buy her flowers? Take her somewhere fancy, like a nice restaurant? It was big enough news, life-changing, and he wondered if there was a certain protocol – a moment where the timing was right versus a place or moment where it wasn’t.

  “Fuck. Call mom.” He spoke into his Bluetooth. The ringing phone surrounded him as he contemplated how this should go down. It wasn’t business and he wasn’t a pro at how to handle non-business matters. He was much more proficient in the former.

  “Hello?” His mother’s soft voice filled the inside of his car.

  “Mom. It’s Cole.”

  “I know, honey. You’re my only son. Your number shows up and if it didn’t, I know your voice.”

  “Right. Well, I was wondering…” He stopped at a light and watched as a group of women headed across the sidewalk.

  He revved his engine. Just for another test.

  Every single one glanced over their shoulders toward his car. Two smiled, the third one shyly lifted her hand in a small wave and the fourth one nudged the one who’d waved with her e
lbow and all their smiles widened before they turned back and walked on.

  “Cole?” His mother sing-songed over the car.

  Would that revving work on Jillian?

  “Cole Andrew?”

  Cole shook his head to focus on the task at hand. “Mom. Is there a protocol to tell someone you love them?” he asked.

  His question was met with silence. Crap. There was! He should have known.

  “What do you mean by protocol?” she asked wearily.

  “Like rules or something. Are there any rules? Tell me what they are.”

  “Did you fall in love? With who?” she asked eagerly.

  “Mom,” Cole said a little less patiently. He was pulling into his normal parking spot near the store and wanted to get in there to Jillian as quickly as possible. “Do I need to like, take her something? Or say it over dinner? Help me. Jesus Christ, please help me.” He breathed.

  “Why, honey, no. Absolutely not. You say it when your heart knows it’s right. When you get to that point that you think all else will be lost if you don’t get the words off your chest. You say it when—”

  “I got it. Mom? Are you listening?” He raised his voice because she was still talking over him saying something about stars aligning.

  “Oh, Cole,” she gushed. “Who? At least tell me who before you hang up.”

  “Jillian Winters. She works at Lacie’s Lingerie. I have to go.” Then right before he went to click the phone off. “And thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.”

  The first thing he noticed when he walked in the back door of Lacie’s Lingerie was that it was lacking the vibrant, uplifting attitude only Jillian gave it. Raymond stood behind the counter. It felt strange being in there and not hearing music playing.

  “Looking for Jillian?” Raymond asked.

  “I am. How is everything going here?” Cole glanced around the store and everything looked as it had when Jillian and he worked together. The camisoles he’d tagged and she’d hung were still in the same spot. The barely-there panties he helped her lay out on the shelving on the north wall, still reminded him of her. Jillian was nowhere in sight, yet she was everywhere he looked.

  She was everywhere. Including his heart.

  “Everything here is great. A little slow this time of day. Jillian had something else to do so she left. I was just reading the article she wrote. Pret-ty ballsy to write if you ask me, but a decent article. Hard to look at her in the same way, to be honest.” Raymond held up a magazine, fanning the pages.

  “What article? I didn’t know Jillian wrote articles or…anything else for that matter.”

  “Oh. Well here. I’ll give this to you. There are a few more copies on the counter so I’m sure no one will miss this one.”

  Cole reached out and grabbed the magazine. Dish the Dirty. The majority of its readers were women. That much he knew.

  Perhaps Jillian wrote an article about the store. Even more intriguing, maybe she poured her heart out about how a corporate prick came in and forced her out of business only to start working for him a few months later. Knowing Jillian and her spirited attitude toward everything that was in her path, it was going to be a great article.

  “Thanks. I’ll check it out later.”

  Cole folded the magazine and stuck it under his arm as he walked back to his car. Once inside, he laid the magazine on the passenger seat. Ah, what the hell? If he read it now he’d be able to compliment her when he went over to her house. He’d be able to use her emotions about The Peekeasy and Lacie’s Lingerie as a pawn to get her to see that she belonged with him. That the two of them together was an excellent idea.

  He thumbed through the magazine, idly noticing some competitors ads for women’s sunglasses and designer handbags. He admired one of Deluxe’s own ads which featured their newest fall line of women’s jackets. No, he wasn’t interested in how to keep your man happy in bed. Nor was he interested in The Dirty Dish on Sex – Alone. He was looking for lingerie. Anything on entrepreneurship, women’s undergarments, what the hell?

  He backtracked through the magazine, one page at a time. A recipe for Tequila Sunrises, an article about the pros and cons of CrossFit – and that was when he found it. The Dirty Dish on Sex – Alone by Jillian Winters. With the small print of her name, he could see why he missed it the first time.

  Then in bold beneath her name: Adult Toy Reviewer Extraordinaire.

  No fucking way.

  Did that mean exactly how it sounded?

  His blood began to heat his body exponentially as he started reading the article. In the recesses of his mind, as he read, a multitude of questions ran through his brain. The top being why she never told him that she reviewed sex toys for a living. She got paid for it! The nights she spent in his bed where he touched her in all those places, would have been a great time to bring that up. Or so he thought.

  She was a pro at giving herself orgasms? A dry, sardonic laugh came from his throat. What about all the orgasms he gave her? What about writing an article about her troubles with The Peekeasy that turned into forty percent ownership of Party Panties? He set the magazine aside and leaned his head against his seat, unable to finish reading the entire article.

  She’d fit in well at Party Panties with the at-home toy parties they did. Since when had dildos become a staple to sell at parties like make-up or kitchen accessories? How long had Jillian written reviews and articles about such items? Cole wasn’t against them per se. What a person did in the confines of their own home was up to them.

  Writing an article about it though? About masturbation?

  Christ. That was too much. Literally. Too much.

  It put a big stop on his heart.

  His life was Deluxe Posh. He was Deluxe Posh. The lines ran together so closely that there was no end or beginning between him and his company. He was his company and his company was him.

  It was his life and it was what he lived for and woke up for every day.

  How would he ever live down the fact that he was in love with a woman who wrote sex reviews about adult novelties? And never thought it was important to tell him.

  Who would take him and his company seriously? What was worse? Being in love with a woman who was going to become his direct competitor or being in love with a woman who hadn’t come clean with him that she tested and reviewed sex toys? Not only that, but he felt…like a failure. He thought the hot sex between them had been so great and she was on the side giving herself multiple orgasms. What did that say about his approval rating?

  To think he had been on the verge of pouring his heart out to her, too.

  It was difficult for Cole to assess why he was hurt by the article. Yes, it was because he felt like a failure. But it was more than that. He was hurt that she kept it from him. Of course he would have been shocked by her uninhibited ways, but she didn’t know that.

  Or had she?

  He never agreed to sell her leftover toys from The Peekeasy inside Lacie’s and perhaps she knew he would be judgmental. Why did it bother him that she pleasured herself with toys? Correction: that part didn’t bother him - he felt the beginnings of his dick hardening at the thought of Jillian touching herself. It bothered him that she hid it from him. That she didn’t tell him about the article she wrote nor had she trusted him enough to tell him that she tested such products.

  But she was damn-well okay telling the whole world.

  Change of plans. He was not going to Jillian’s house to pour his heart out.

  That was obviously a one-sided emotion that he was not going to admit to being the one whose heart was all in.

  Love required trust and she sure as hell hadn’t trusted him.

  At least not enough.

  The surround sound in his car filled the silence with an incoming call. Zander.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’d you run off so quickly? We’re at Michael’s eating. Get your ass over here. I ordered you the Pork Noisettes.”

  Cole looked over at the magazine sprawled ope
n in his passenger seat. “Fine. I’ll walk over.”

  What else did he have to do? His schedule was blatantly empty. He walked a brisk pace to Michael’s building where Together.com had its offices. The top floor was Michael and Sophia’s penthouse and the rest of the building made up all the offices for his employees. Talk about never having to leave work. Or leaving home.

  “Cole. It’s so good to see you!” Regina greeted him outside of Michael’s office. Music was playing in a hushed tone in the background and he hated that the first thing he thought was how Jillian would feel in his arms as they slow danced to this song together.

  “How’s my lady?” Cole bent his head and kissed Regina on the cheek, putting thoughts of Jillian away. Regina was such a sweet woman and almost like a grandmother to him. She reveled in his attention and he enjoyed how she always smelled sweet. “Have you been frosting those famous sugar cookies of yours?”

  Regina blushed. “There’s some in Michael’s office. I knew you’d join the boys and I made them especially for you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be sure to grab a few.”

  When he walked in Michael’s office the guys were all seated around Michael’s work table that overlooked downtown and were in the middle of discussing why they were and weren’t excited to attend The Snow Ball, which The Hollinsworth Hotel put on every year.

  “It’s your party. Aren’t you practically required to be excited?” Dylan asked Justin as Cole took the only empty seat.

  “It’s getting old. It needs something new. It’s the same old crap with the same old people. It used to be exciting—something that people weren’t quite sure what to expect—now, it’s just…dull,” Justin said.

  “Hire a party planner,” Cole chimed in. He folded open the aluminum cover on his meal and was swamped by instant hunger that he hadn’t been feeling moments ago.