by Kaylee, Katy
“Low blow,” he shot back.
“We need to stay focused. Get your mind out of the gutter and stay the hell away from Penny,” I snapped.
Carolina and Dakota looked at each other and then at me. Their blue eyes were glistening with mischievousness. It was remarkable how similar the two looked.
“What the hell is going on? The two of you pretty obviously have some history, and I’m guessing by your reaction and by the way she paled when she saw you, it isn’t good history,” Carolina said.
“Stop. I’m not talking about this.”
“You better start talking because the tension is there. We need to know what it is we’re dealing with to avoid stepping in a big pile of relationship drama. That stuff is stinky and sticky, and I want no part of it,” Dakota stated.
I rubbed a hand over my face. “I know her. I knew her brother. Her older brother and I used to be best friends. There was a falling-out a few years back, and she has hated me ever since. In fact, I have a feeling we won’t need to worry about me and her interacting at all.”
“Why’s that?” Carolina asked.
“Because she’ll probably quit. There’s no way she’s going to work for me. She hates me.”
Carolina was shaking her head. “I suggest you play really nice, then.”
“Why?”
“Because when we put this business together, our main goal was to treat our employees well. Happy employees make for better work production. She’ll get a nice severance package, and I don’t think we can afford that. Plus, we can’t hire someone of her caliber for the same wage. We’d be forced to pay a lot more for someone with her talent. We’re only getting her cheap because she has no real experience,” Carolina pointed out.
I got up, picked up my tablet, and stuffed it in my messenger bag before grabbing a few other items and shoving them in.
“What are you doing?” Dakota asked.
“I’m leaving for the day. I’ll work from home.”
Carolina scoffed. “You can’t leave!”
“Watch me. I’m the damn boss. I can do whatever I want,” I retorted, feeling a little childish.
“You have the magazine shoot this afternoon,” she replied.
I closed my eyes and groaned. “Can we reschedule?”
“No. This photographer isn’t easy to get. We need the publicity. He’s going to be taking pictures of you and the office and talking up the company. You need this. We need this. The article will be going in Vogue,” Carolina explained, her voice higher than usual.
I groaned and dropped my bag a second after I remembered my tablet was inside. “Fuck,” I uttered, hoping I hadn’t broken the electronic device.
I had completely forgotten about the interview. Seeing Penny had shaken me up and left me frazzled. I could barely remember my own name let alone what I was supposed to be doing for the day. Today was the worst day possible for her to have flitted back into my life.
“Sorry,” Carolina mumbled. “I guess I could ask if we can schedule for another time, but with the short notice, I’m not sure they’ll give you a second chance.”
“It’s fine. I’d like to be alone,” I said, sitting back down in my chair.
Carolina and Dakota both jumped to their feet and practically raced out the door. I knew I could be surly and cranky. They knew it and were used to it. I needed a few minutes alone to get my mind around the idea of working with Penny. I wasn’t sure I could do it. There was a lot of water under that bridge, and I sucked at swimming.
I leaned back and gave up my fight against the ghosts that were pushing their way into my head. They were relentless. I thought back to those early years when I had first met Penny. She’d been a skinny, somewhat awkward teenager. Her coltish legs had always made me fear for her safety while walking. I kept imagining them snapping like fragile twigs.
I used to spend a lot of time with Chance at his house. I hated being at home with my uncle, who was a real treat, especially when he was drunk, which happened to be all the time. Chance was like a brother to me. Penny did the flirty, teenage-girl thing, always trying to hang around us, batting her eyelashes at me and making a general fool of herself. It had been cute and endearing, especially when Chance would get irritated with her and make her go away.
Then, after I graduated, I happened to be at Chance’s house one day when Penny came home. She’d been out shopping with friends before the start of her senior year in high school. She’d been improving with maturity, but that day, that day specifically, her natural beauty had damn near knocked me to my knees. It was like I was seeing her for the first time. I was immediately attracted to her but knew she was not an option.
She was my best friend’s little sister and illegal for me to touch. It didn’t stop me from looking and watching. She still flirted with me a little, but she’d gotten much better at it. I remembered how jealous I had gotten thinking about the stupid high school boys touching her. I hated the idea of their clumsy hands roaming over all that smooth, luscious skin and the new curves that had practically blossomed overnight.
I had managed to hide my attraction to her, knowing I could never touch Chance’s little sister, until I couldn’t. Chance and I had been hanging out at his house when Penny came home. It was the summer after she’d graduated high school and was technically legal, even if she was still in the don’t-touch zone. She was a lifeguard at the local pool. She walked into the living room wearing a pair of tiny shorts over her red one-piece lifeguard uniform. Her curves were on full display, and there was nothing girlish about them. She had grown into a woman.
That first encounter was the first of many that summer. I made it a point to hang out with Chance often. Penny was always running around practically half-naked, clearly proud of her body and unashamed to prance around in that goddamn red suit that left me hard and aching every time I went home after spending time at the house. It was self-inflicted pain. It was all about looking at what I couldn’t touch. I used to fantasize about her getting out of the pool naked and walking toward me, wet in more ways than one.
Despite my fantasies, I never touched her. I maintained my resolve to stay away from her. Throughout that long, hot summer, I remained a good friend to Chance and never laid a hand on his sexy sister. I blamed college for the falling-out. If I hadn’t gone to college, Chance and I would still be friends. Obviously that line of thinking was a little ridiculous, but if it hadn’t been for that one night…
I closed my eyes, the memory wafting through my mind like a cool summer breeze. I’d been outside the frat house where one of my buddies lived. It was the traditional beginning of the year party with a lot of booze and young people looking to spread their wings away from the watchful eyes of their parents. Penny had breezed in, dolled up in a little black dress that left little to the imagination—at least my imagination. I had been fantasizing about her for months and had a good idea about what she would look like naked.
As usual, she spotted me in the crowd and began her usual flirting. I didn’t mind. Hell, what guy would mind the hottest girl at the party flirting with him? I flirted back, keeping it safe but still having a little fun. After all, Chance wasn’t around. While the cat’s away—
When she’d asked me to do her a favor, I eagerly agreed, following her out front. It was there my life changed courses. She kissed me. I blamed the alcohol in my system for stealing away that hardened resolve I had been clinging to all summer long. She tasted sweet, just like the Malibu rum she’d been drinking. I couldn’t stop the kiss. I told myself it was one kiss. A deep, intimate, long kiss—but just one.
That old saying you can’t stop with just one applied to that moment. The vivid memory of her asking me to take her virginity haunted me to this very day. I’d been helpless to resist. She promised we would never talk about it again. We’d do the deed and then be friends, never speaking of the act. She’d given a very convincing argument. I wanted her. She wanted me. We were two consenting adults. What was the harm in a oneti
me thing?
I remembered getting to her dorm room and kissing her. She’d been the one to initiate the first kiss, but I wasn’t the kind of guy who sat back and let shit happen. I had taken over. After all, I was the experienced one. The memory of being inside her tight sheath had me growing hard.
The knock on the door and a second later the door opening snapped me back to reality. I cleared my throat, squirming in my seat as the erection I’d been sporting made things a little uncomfortable. The glass-topped desk provided no concealment.
“What’s up?” I asked Carolina, who was giving me a strange look.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “Fine. Why? What do you need?”
“The magazine crew is here,” she announced.
“Great. Give me a minute,” I said.
“I’ll meet you in the conference room,” she said, giving me one last strange look.
With a few deep, cleansing breaths, the remnants of the erotic daydream evaporated. It was time to turn on the charm and woo the reporter. There was a lot riding on the interview. I needed to be likeable, charming, and handsome. Having friends in the media world was important in my business. I needed them to paint me in a favorable light. If I was a dick, they’d write that or not write anything at all. No press was worse than bad press.
4
Penny
There was no way I could work with a tablet. I needed a real keyboard. I was going to have to bring my own laptop to work, which seemed a little silly considering I was supposed to be working for some big company. They couldn’t even afford computers? I looked around the stark room that was my office before looking out into the rest of the think tank. It was all so empty—spacious, but empty.
I got up and wandered into the open space. There was a young woman working on the tablet with a keyboard attachment a few doors down. I knocked on the glass partition to get her attention. “Hi. I’m Penny. I’m new, obviously. Um, are there any keyboards for the tablets?” I asked her.
“There should be one with your tablet. Did you check the drawer?”
“The drawer?”
“In. Your. Desk. You’re the new head of marketing, right?”
I nodded, feeling like a complete moron. “I am.”
“Check the drawer. There’s only one on these desks,” she said, not being rude but certainly not trying to be friendly.
“Thank you,” I mumbled and walked out.
I wasn’t making friends very fast. The thought of quitting crossed my mind once again. I wasn’t sure why I was staying. I hated Jax. The woman I had just talked to wasn’t exactly giving me the warm and fuzzies. Caroline had been nice, but I couldn’t work in a hostile environment.
I nearly ran into a millennial, manbun and all, rushing passed me. I looked up and saw several more people all talking like they were discussing matters worthy of the Oval Office. Then I saw him. My heart skipped a beat. I hated that he could still take my breath away. His eyes stared into mine as he walked past me. I looked away, catching tidbits of the conversation and realizing they were setting up for a photoshoot.
I rounded the corner and stepped into my office with the glass walls that gave me a clear view of the conference room. Jax was smiling, openly flirting with one of the women I pegged to be an assistant to the photographer. I opened the single drawer and found a mouse and a keyboard. I sighed with relief and hooked both up. I tried my best to focus on the software I used for design demos but couldn’t focus. There was too much going through my head.
I casually turned to look out the glass wall and saw Jax sitting on a stool, a dark backdrop behind him. I watched as the man with the camera pointed and gestured wildly with his hands. Jax moved, giving the camera a side view. I wanted to groan and hate him for being so damn pretentious, but I couldn’t.
There was no way to get away from Jax. He’d been everywhere the last few years: the cover of magazines, billboards, and ads plastered on the sides of buses and put up in stores. It was hard to have to look at the man I hated so much, yet still crave his touch. He had the consummate bad-boy look. Women were drawn to him, young and old. It was hard to resist a man who had a cocky demeanor and the good looks to go with it.
Even I couldn’t resist him. I was the one woman in the world who should have been able to, and yet, I found myself drawn to those damn magazine ads. I hated to admit I had a shoebox full of those pages. I had secretly ripped them out and stashed them away to look back at on when I was alone. Even now, I found myself staring at him. He had a cocky smile. In many ways, he looked like a precocious boy. It’s when he turned those smoldering eyes on a girl that the problems started. It was impossible to resist, and when you were in his sights, there was no reason to resist.
I turned back around, telling myself to focus on the task at hand. It didn’t matter what Jax was doing. I didn’t care that he was hot and sexy and made me feel all melty inside. It didn’t matter that watching him pose and pout and give that cocky green-eyed stare to the camera made me tingle and think about that night.
“You need to calm down,” I whispered, almost afraid someone would see me squirming in my chair.
“Stupid glass walls,” I snapped before getting up so fast my chair nearly crashed through the glass wall behind me.
I rolled my eyes. “Who makes glass walls? That’s a dang lawsuit waiting to happen.”
I headed for the bathrooms. Carolina had been kind enough to point them out on our way into Jax’s office. I had to walk by the conference room to get to them. That was not my reason for needing a bathroom break, I told myself. I glanced over my shoulder to feign nonchalance and found Jax staring at me. He was watching me. I quickly looked away and pushed open the door to the bathroom. I locked it behind me and walked to the vanity, putting my hands on the cool marble surface and dragging in deep breaths. Thank god the walls weren’t glass for this room as well.
I turned on the cold water, running my hands under it before dabbing at my face, being careful not to smear my makeup. I quickly used the toilet, washing my hands again and feeling a little more at ease. I reasoned I could have coped with being in the same office with Jax if I had real walls. As it was, I felt exposed, just like I had been three and a half years ago.
I pulled open the office door and paused when I heard Jax’s deep voice. “This is something I’ve been working toward for a few years. I’ve always wanted to get into the design part of the business,” he said.
“How would you describe your designs?” a woman asked.
“They’re easy, casual, masculine, and relaxed,” he rambled.
I had to fight back a laugh. Those were all buzzwords. He’d clearly been preparing for the interview. I wondered who’d coached him. When I took over his campaigns, I would use more interesting words, ones that hadn’t been used a million times already.
“What inspired the designs?”
He laughed. “I would say my own experience looking for clothes that were affordable and appropriate for a hike or hanging out at home. I’m not one of those guys that likes to change clothes five times a day. I want to get dressed in the morning and go about my day,” he said as if he were just a regular guy.
“Comfort over style?” she asked.
“That’s the thing—I wanted both. My line will provide that all while being affordable.”
“Perfect. So, now that we’ve talked about your business and what you expect for the future, let’s talk a bit more about you,” the female journalist said, practically cooing.
I told myself to walk away. I didn’t want to watch or listen to the woman fawn all over him.
“I’m an open book,” Jax answered.
A soft giggle. “Can you tell me about your relationship with Lydia Lydon?” she asked.
Cold fury stole through me, settling in my belly. I had no right to be angry about him dating other women. I had seen the stories and knew he was a serial dater. He loved hot women and the club scene, although he didn’t look like he
did any real partying. I had a feeling it was more about being seen with the right people.
Jax’s easy laugh filtered down the hall. “Ah, Lydia. We’re very close,” he said coyly.
“Very close? That’s one way to describe it. You must know there are a lot of rumors about the two of you. You’ve been spending a lot of time together,” she pressed.
“We have a lot in common, and we enjoy hanging out. She’s funny, kind and we can be ourselves with one another. It can get a little hectic in this world. Having someone in your life that can relate to your busy schedule and the demands of living in the public eye. Lydia is that person for me,” he explained.
I felt the fury rise up. “Lydia is that person for me,” I mimicked in a low whisper, curling my lip with disgust.
“Is it true you and Lydia are engaged?” the interviewer asked.
My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t heard that little tidbit. I couldn’t imagine Jax married. “It won’t last long,” I mumbled under my breath.
Jax chuckled. “I don’t think I can answer that—at least not if I ever want to be the recipient of Lydia’s affections anytime soon,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes. Lydia was a twelve-foot-tall supermodel with legs that stretched on forever. Perfect boobs, perfect hair, perfect lips all on her stupid, perfect body. Of course Jax would be with a woman like that. Why wouldn’t he have the best of the best? He was one of the sexiest men in the world. In fact, he’d made the top ten on many lists declaring him most eligible and the most handsome. It made me ill.
The interviewer laughed. “I think that answer speaks volumes.”
“I am admitting nothing. Make sure that is quoted,” he joked.
I took a deep breath and moved, walking back to my office and not looking toward the conference room. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see him preening while somebody messed with his hair and posed him. I managed to get in my seat without looking back. I refused to give him the satisfaction. I knew he’d seen me.