Seaside Sunsets

by Melissa Foster

  Jessica’s apartment was dark, but Jamie heard the faintest music playing inside. He knocked lightly on the door, and a few minutes later the door opened a crack. Jessica was looking down, and he couldn’t see her face.

  “Hey, sorry I’m so late.”

  She opened the door, eyes trained on the floor. Jamie followed her in and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She shrugged.

  “Babe, why aren’t you talking to me? Are you that sick?” He turned her in his arms, and his stomach plunged. Her eyes were swollen and red, her nose was bright pink, and her lower lip was trembling.

  “Jess? What happened?” He pulled her against his chest.

  She fisted her hands in his shirt, and her body trembled. He realized she was still crying. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to the couch, and held her, safely enveloped against him, as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Jessie, what can I do? What happened?”

  She shook her head, and he stroked her back, hoping to soothe whatever ache she had.

  “Did something happen to your father? A friend?”

  Again she shook her head.

  Jessica sucked in a jagged lungful of air and lifted her head from his tear-soaked shirt. The minute their eyes met, she burst into tears again.

  “Shh. Whatever it is, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it. We’ll get through it together.” He stroked her back, while his own chest tightened with worry. He surveyed the apartment for clues about what was going on. Her cello was propped against the wall in the corner; her laptop and phone were on the table. The small kitchen was tidy, and he had a clear view into the bedroom, and other than the bed being rumpled, everything was in its place. The sounds of her sniffling and the feel of her trembling against him made his gut clench tight.

  “Jess, please tell me why you’re upset.”

  She pushed away from his chest again.

  Jamie wiped her tears with his thumbs.

  “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m…sorry.” A lone tear accompanied her whisper.

  “Jessie, don’t be sorry. It’s okay to cry. I just want to help fix whatever’s wrong.”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’m afraid to tell you, but I want to.”

  “Tell me what? You can tell me anything.” He searched her eyes and saw so much worry and sadness that he couldn’t imagine what was causing her so much pain.

  “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise me to be one hundred percent honest, even if it’ll hurt me.”

  He cupped her beautiful cheek, his chest tight and his heart in his throat. He wished he knew what the hell was going on. He had nothing to hide from her, and to think she was this upset over something about him knocked the wind out of him.

  “I promise. I’ll always be honest with you. Always.”

  She shifted her body so she could sit up straighter and inhaled deeply. She pressed her lips together and nodded, as if she were nodding to herself, telling herself she was okay. Her eyes fell to his chest again.

  He was ready to crawl out of his skin with worry.

  “Baby, please,” he whispered.

  “Tonight, after the concert was over and you were helping Vera…” She drew in another uneven breath. He felt her fingers grip his shirt. “Mark said…”

  His body flashed hot. His muscles constricted. Mark? Motherfucking Mark caused this? He clenched his jaw to keep from raising his voice.

  “What did Mark say to you?”

  She swallowed hard but held his stare. “He said that…” Her breath hitched and she swallowed again, then gripped his shirt—and chest—tighter. Her jaw began to tremble again.

  “He said that you’re just playing around with me and that you can have any woman you want. That I’m no different from any other woman you’ve been with and if I don’t want to be responsible for the demise of your career, I should back off.”

  She spoke so fast it took him a minute to process what she’d said. Breathing harder as understanding dawned on him, he was powerless against the rage that filled his veins. His hands fisted and his biceps flexed. Without a word, he lifted Jessica off of him and set her on the couch.

  “Jamie?” Tears streaked her cheeks as she huddled on the couch, looking small and fragile and so damned broken it killed him.

  Every muscle tensed. Fire seared his veins, but beneath that rage was his love for Jessica, and it battled the anger. He was afraid to touch her, afraid to get too close for fear that his anger toward Mark might move him to act too roughly.

  “I’ll be back.” Blinded by anger, he moved for the door. He had to fix this shit, had to get to Mark and beat the living shit out of him for hurting Jessica—for putting any doubt in her beautiful mind.

  “Jamie, wait!” She scrambled off the couch and followed him out to the deck. “Wait. Is it true? Was this all a game to you?”

  “A game? Is that what you think? Do I act like it’s a game?” A fucking game? This is anything but a game.

  “No, but—”

  He stilled, his gut burning. “But?”

  “I am a distraction. I know I am, so the most important part is true,” she whispered with a trembling voice. “I could cause you trouble in your business. I could make you fail.”

  He closed his eyes to try to gain control of the storm brewing inside him. When he turned to face her, she looked impossibly small and scared, like a wounded bird. And goddamn Mark was the one who’d wounded her—and it was Jamie’s fault. He’d left her alone with a shark. What the hell had he been thinking?

  “You’re not a distraction.” He hated that his teeth were clenched and his face was probably red, but the words were true, even if the emotions putting them forth were misconstrued. He wanted to hold her until she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loved her—but he was incapable of being gentle at the moment. This was the best he could do. “You’re the woman I love. The only failure was mine, for letting him near you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  JAMIE SPED DOWN Route 6 and was at the Sheraton in less than five minutes. He cut the engine and gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white, wondering what the fuck he’d been thinking to let Mark anywhere near Jessica. He had too much fucking faith in Mark; that much was clear. His muscles corded tight, frustration brought his fist down on the dashboard, once, twice, three times—and after he’d cracked the damn thing—a fourth.

  “Motherfucker,” he seethed.

  More than ten years of friendship, and this was how Mark paid him back?

  His eyes dropped to the stone on the ring on his right hand. Black. Nothingness. Angst so deep you can’t push your way out of it. He breathed heavily, his chest aching with anger and love and all the out-of-control emotions in between. He stormed from the car and into the hotel, nearly blasting through the glass doors that opened so damn slowly he wanted to shatter them. He blew past the reception desk, oblivious to the greeting of the woman behind it, and stalked down the hall, head bowed, blinded with rage.

  Room 189 was in the back of the building, which was good. No one would hear him killing Mark. He pounded on the door, rattling it on the hinges.

  “Open the fucking door, Mark.” He didn’t care that it was midnight, or that there might be families sleeping in the nearby rooms. He couldn’t have registered such a coherent thought if his life depended on it. He felt the weight of his anger like a two-hundred-pound gorilla, digging its claws into every muscle, snaking into his body and electrifying his nerves until they burned so hot, he could barely see straight.

  He banged on the door again. “You have three seconds before I break it down,” Jamie seethed.

  He heard the slide of the lock, the chain rattle, the doorknob slowly twist. He thrust the door open and grabbed Mark by his white T-shirt, lifted him off the floor, and slammed him against the wall, barely registering the door clicking closed behind him or t
he woman screaming in the center of the bed as she scrambled to pull sheets over her naked body.

  “What the fuck?” Mark hollered.

  “What. Did. You. Do?”

  “Nothing. Jamie, what the hell?” Mark’s body shook; his eyes shot to the bed.

  Jamie turned and looked at the bed, his knuckles digging into Mark’s chest. “Leave. Now,” he said to the frightened woman, then turned back to Mark, ignoring her as she whimpered and cried, gathered her clothes, and tore out the door.

  “Jamie. Put me down. We’ll talk.” Mark’s eyes were wide and fearful.

  “Pleading is ugly on you, motherfucker, and talking is the last thing on my mind.”

  Mark touched his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Jamie. It’s me, Jamie. We’re friends, remember? Put me down. We’ll talk, and then if you still want to rip me to shreds, you can.” He dropped his eyes to his bare, limp dick between them.

  Fuck. How the hell had he missed that? Jamie shoved him toward the bed. “Put some fucking pants on.” He paced the hotel room. Mark’s clothes were thrown over a chair, a woman’s high heel was beside the dresser, and a half-empty bottle of wine was beside the bed. Goddamn it. He spun around as Mark pulled on his khakis, fear in his eyes, but beneath that, Jamie saw the calculating eyes of the manipulator that he’d always known was there but had chosen to ignore. Jamie never imagined Mark would use that sleazy, manipulative side against him.

  “What the fuck did you say to Jess?” They stood a foot apart, Jamie’s hands fisted, ready.

  “What? That’s what this is about?”

  Jamie landed one punch to the side of Mark’s jaw, then grabbed his tee as he reeled sideways and yanked him up, so they were nose to nose. “Don’t fucking play with me.”

  Blood dripped from Mark’s nose. His eyes went dark as he lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”

  “Say it. I want to hear it from your fucking mouth.” Jamie’s arms shook from the storm blazing through his body.

  “Let go. I’m not saying a fucking word until you do.” Mark held his stare.

  Jamie threw him backward. He stumbled into the large, low dresser. He touched the blood streaking over his lips and chin, grabbed something that was bunched up on the dresser—a shirt, pants, who the fuck knew or cared—and he wiped his face.

  “Assaulting an attorney isn’t smart.”

  Jamie closed the distance between them and pinned him to the floor with another dark stare.

  “Fine, fine.” Mark went to the chair by the small wooden table beside the bed and sat down.

  Jamie paced, his anger leashed by a fraying thread. He planted his legs like pilings in the earth and crossed his arms over his chest, locking another dark stare on Mark.

  “I told her the truth, that you need to focus on your business. Jamie, you don’t even know her.”

  Jamie reached for Mark’s shirt and Mark held his hands up. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think I know. What the fuck else did you say to her?”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” He wiped the blood from his nose with his forearm. “Fuck that hurts. I told her that she was no different from the other women you dated, and you’re not some fucking knight in shining armor who’s here to save her. You’re a businessman who needs to focus before you lose everything you’ve worked for.”

  Jamie put one hand on each arm of the chair and loomed over him. His voice was cold as ice. “And what makes you the expert on what I feel?”

  Mark blinked up at him, rearing back as far as he could from his seated position. “Jamie, I’m your best friend. I’ve known you for years. You trust me with everything. I protect you. Jesus fucking Christ, without me you’d have lost half your business years ago.”

  There was an ounce of truth in what he said. Fuck, Jamie hated that. Mark had saved Jamie too many times to count.

  “She’s the woman I love, and I don’t need your protection from her.” Jamie pushed away from the chair and paced again, hands fisted by his sides.

  “The woman you love? Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Get a grip here. How long have you known her? A few days? A week?”

  He spun around, venom in his voice. “I don’t give a fuck how long I’ve known her. What makes you think you have the right to say any of that shit to her?”

  “Because I’ve never seen you turn your back on your business, and someone had to think with their head instead of their dick.”

  Jamie stepped closer, and Mark held his hands up again.

  “Jamie, you didn’t run a check on her. What do you really know? What she told you? You’ve been down that path before. She could be playing you like a two-dollar fiddle, for all you know. How many women have told you they were models when they were working at some rancid topless bar, looking for a sugar daddy?”

  “You fucking heard her play. She’s not lying about what she does for a living.” He had no proof, but he didn’t feel like he needed it with Jessica. Sure, she’d been a little cagey giving up that particular information, but he understood her reasons, just as he kept his own career from most people.

  “Okay, so she plays the cello. BSO? OneClick will tell you if that’s true in five seconds or less. What else do you really know about her? Where does she live? What do her parents do? Has she ever been arrested? Holy hell, Jamie. Do you even know how many men she’s slept with?”

  Jamie stopped pacing and stared at Mark. He didn’t know any of that shit, except how many men she’d been with. But he knew he loved her. Damn did he ever love her.

  “Jamie, your look tells me that you have no fucking idea about any of this. Well, maybe the sex part. If she’s inexperienced, she’d be a novice in the bedroom, but…”

  A novice in the bedroom. He remembered the way she’d watched him as she took him into her mouth and took him higher than any woman ever had. The way she climbed on top of him and rode him, brushing her breasts against his face until he was ready to explode, and how she’d enjoyed being restrained by his strength. She’d told him it was all new to her, and her eyes had been full of truth and such depths of emotion that he hadn’t questioned it.

  No, he refused to believe she’d lied about that. He’d felt her—been inside her, felt her tightness, saw the heady excitement of newness in her eyes. No way had he misread those things.

  “Let me do one quick search. Right now. Just one. It’ll tell you what you need to know in under five seconds. I can run a full background check later, but let’s just see if she’s with the orchestra.” Mark moved toward his laptop.

  “No.” He grabbed Mark’s arm. “Don’t fucking search her name. This is my life, not yours. I appreciate your concern, but if you ever…” He pulled Mark closer and tightened his grip on his arm until he saw pain in Mark’s eyes. “If you ever say one word to her again, I will kill you with my bare hands.” He tossed him to the bed and stormed out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  JESSICA PUSHED HER coffee cup across the small table. She couldn’t stomach looking at it, much less the smell of it. It smelled like the acid swirling in her stomach. She glanced into the bedroom at her unmade bed. Tears welled in her eyes as quickly as if someone had struck her with a hot poker. She turned away and shuffled across the floor in her sweatshirt and underwear. She was cold to the bone despite the warm seventy-five degrees of the second-story apartment and the sun-drenched air blowing in through the open window. She sat on the couch, then rose to her feet again. Nothing felt right anymore. Would it ever? Was this her window into reality? That life outside of the orchestra could be blissful and heavenly and then barf her up like a bad meal without ever looking back? She didn’t want to believe it, but all night she’d waited for Jamie to return. She’d even turned on her stupid cell phone in case he texted or called.

  She hadn’t heard him go jogging this morning, and she’d sat with her ear to the goddamn window from dawn until ten minutes ago, when she dragged herself into the kitchen for the rancid cup of coffee that nearly made her curl into a ball and remain there.<
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  With a loud sigh, she headed for the bathroom to shower. Even the girls hadn’t come by this morning. Of course they wouldn’t. They were his friends, not hers. They hadn’t come by to go skinny-dipping the night before, either. Jamie probably filled them in last night when he got back.

  Her cell phone rang, and her chest filled with hope as she ran to answer it. Her heart sank when the orchestra manager’s name appeared on the screen.

  “Good morning, Charlie.” She tried to sound like she wasn’t drowning in sadness.

  “Millicent. How are you, dear? You sound deathly.”

  It took her a minute to recall her professional name. Had it been that long? Had she tossed aside all that she’d worked for that easily? She forced herself to answer.

  “Just a little off this morning.” Deathly. How perfect.

  “Well, I hope you can shake it off, because your substitute has taken ill. She can’t shake it off, and we need you back by tomorrow.” Charlie said this like it was a given that she would agree. It had been part of their agreement. If there was an issue with her substitute, she’d return within twenty-four hours.

  But she didn’t know she’d be heartbroken.

  How could her fingers even work when the ache of missing Jamie was pulsing through her body with the force of a tsunami? She couldn’t push it away, could barely breathe through it.

  “Millicent?”

  She cleared her throat and held on to the table for support. “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Tomorrow morning. Rehearsal’s at ten. You might want to come in early, as the others will want to welcome you back, and you know how pitiful reunions can be. You’ll have to relive every detail of your little vacation fifteen times over.”

  He ended the call before she could say another word, and really, what would she have said? I’m not sure my arms will work well enough to pack my bags?

  WHEN THE SUN rose over the horizon, Jamie was still sitting on the dunes at Nauset Beach, where he’d been since he’d left Mark at the Sheraton. He wanted to be as far from him as he could, and even the Wellfleet beaches seemed too close. Fucking Mark. Nauset was serene in the early dawn hours, which he needed to balance the fury within him. The sand was cool on his bare feet, and the dune grass swished in the morning breeze. He’d walked far across the dunes, past the homes overlooking the water, past the divots where teenagers slid down the dunes, leaving a butt-shaped path all the way down to the beach. He’d walked until he’d come to an island of untouched dune grass, where he’d been sitting ever since, thinking about all the things he’d learned with his own OneClick search. There was no Jessica Ayers listed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra—or in Juilliard, for that matter. He no longer knew what to believe about Jessica, but his heart felt as though it were coming apart inside him, leaving shards of glass etching her name, her touch, her image, into him.