by Avery Laval
Grant sighed and shook his head. “How can I make you understand? You say you’re not so naive anymore. But then why was it so easy for me to drive you away with a few well-chosen remarks?”
Jenna dropped her arm and froze, her mouth open in a gasp. “You did what?” Staggered back a few paces.
Grant stopped, seemed to catch himself, reached out as if he could catch her too, though she felt miles away from him now. “Forget I said anything,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean that.” He took a step closer to her, but it only made her back away more.
“Everything that happened between us was just your way of getting rid of me, wasn’t it?” she asked, not questioning so much as disbelieving. “It meant nothing to you at all.”
Grant shook his head fiercely. “It did mean something,” he said. “But… it shouldn’t have. It was a mistake.”
“You’re right about that,” she said. “It was all a terrible mistake.”
“Jenna—”
“Stop,” said Jenna, knowing exactly what was coming and not wanting to hear it. A meaningless apology. A promise to help her find some other job. Regret, maybe, that things had gone so badly.
None of it mattered. All that mattered was that he’d never cared for her. Never would.
She realized then, at that moment, that she couldn’t stay here, in this office, another second. Despite everything, despite how hard she’d worked and what she’d been through, she’d have to break the promise she’d made to her father after all.
And knowing what she now did of her father’s business foibles, she knew he’d understand, looking down on her from wherever he was today. He’d have never wanted her to be miserable. He’d put the business ahead of her and her family too many times. He would have had to see that now she was putting her own happiness ahead of the business at last, and it was the right thing to do.
She was free. Painfully, inconsolably, free.
“Grant,” she said, looking into his dark mysterious eyes and seeing only regret. “It’s time for me to go. You don’t want me here, and I don’t want it anymore either. It’s too much.”
His eyes roamed over her face, as if he were searching for something there. But what, she didn’t know. “It’s for the best,” he finally said with a tiny nod. Now his voice was soft and almost caring. Like the way he’d talked to her after they’d made love, she thought bitterly. “You were a good hire, Jenna. You’ve truly done your best.”
But it wasn’t good enough, Jenna finished for him in her mind. No matter what she did, she’d never convince him that she was anything more than what she’d been at the age of twenty-one.
It was time to give up any hope. She plucked up her bag, leaned over to shut down her computer, then took a quick look around and started for the exit.
“Jenna.” Grant’s deep voice called for her from just a few feet behind, and she swiveled, locked eyes with him, and felt her heart break all over again. He said nothing for a long moment, just stared into her eyes, and she remembered how easily it had been to get lost in his gaze. “Don’t forget your flowers,” he said at last, and handed her the Gerbera daises in their beautiful green vase. “There was a note—” he started, searching around her desk for the white envelope she’d found earlier.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. One look at Grant’s face and she knew it was a Dear Jane letter. She didn’t even have to read it to know what it said.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked tenderly. Like he cared.
“I’ll find another job, I guess. I can waitress to build up my résumé.”
Grant shook his head no. “I’ll find you something better. At another company. Where you’ll be happier.”
Jenna would have rather chewed glass than taken a favor of him now. “No, thank you,” she said, moving faster still toward the door. “I’ll be just fine on my own.”
“You’re being foolish,” Grant said. “Let me help you.”
She shook her head empathically. “Maybe I am foolish, but isn’t that exactly what you expect from me?”
Grant said nothing, but stood perfectly still. She felt his eyes on her back as she left.
As she walked out of McCormick Jewels with her heart in pieces.
15
The moment Jenna walked out of his office, Grant felt the loss of her. She was gone, out of his life, once and for all, and hadn’t that been what he’d wanted all this time? To be rid of her? But now that he’d fully succeeded, he felt himself only wishing she would come back.
Numb, he stared out the beautiful floor-to-ceiling view of the city. There was the strip, sprawling under him, twinkling and winking even in the crisp morning light. There was the hustle and bustle of happy tourists and high-stakes gamblers, mixing together, shopping, dining, and basking in the excitement of the casinos and luxury hotels.
And somewhere in the mill of traffic and highways was Jenna’s car, winding back to the North Vegas suburbs, to her little dingy apartment where she’d struggle to forget him and get back on her feet.
She’d move on, he reminded himself. Faster than he liked to think about, she’d get over him and go get a new job and make a life for herself that had nothing to do with him or his company.
But would he get over her? Without knowing how it had happened, she’d blown into his life and turned his whole world upside down, made him question his independence and freedom, make him long for something more. Long for her, in a way he’d never wanted any woman before. He wasn’t sure he’d get over that.
Wasn’t sure he wanted to.
But he would have to, wouldn’t he. For he’d said things to her that she might never forgive. Things that guaranteed that she’d be out of his life for good.
He’d never see her again first thing in the morning, sitting at her desk, looking beautiful and fresh and ready for whatever came her way.
He’d never again kiss her lips and feel the rush of heat as her body leaned into his.
He’d never spend another weekend twisted up in her arms, with nothing to do but focus on every sweet, soft inch of her.
Hell. Maybe in another life, but not in this one.
Life just didn’t get to be that perfect.
But even as he thought that, he heard a sound at the door and caught himself hoping it would be her, coming back for some reason—any reason that would give him a chance to make things right. He turned away from the view and fixed his gaze on his office door, but instead of seeing Jenna standing there, bright and pure and good, he saw the embodied opposite, unwelcome as a horseman of the apocalypse.
“Didn’t I just tell you to leave?” Grant said, advancing on his father.
“I know, I know,” said the man, his head sinking low in remorse—or an approximation of the emotion. “And I almost did, but there was something I had to tell you first. Something important.” He took a step into the office, hesitantly, and the air instantly became crowded and tense.
“Why would I listen to a word you say?” Grant scowled, not backing off an inch.
His father put his hands up in front of himself protectively. “Look, son, I know we’ve had our differences, and I know I’ve made some mistakes.”
“Some mistakes!” Grant scoffed.
“Now, the last thing either of us want to do is rehash all that again, am I right?”
Grudgingly, Grant nodded once, his mouth set in a tight line. “It may be the only thing you’re right about.”
“Good. So sit down and hear me out. It’s for your own good.”
“Where have I heard that before?” Grant asked dryly, but he moved to his desk and took the seat behind it, and spread his hands open wide to urge his father to get on with it.
“You mind if I sit, too?” his father asked, helping himself to the chair opposite Grant. The same place, he caught himself thinking, where Jenna had been when she’d come to him for a job.
A job he’d only used to hurt her.
“It’s about that assista
nt of yours,” Grant heard his father say, and the words brought him back to the present conversation like lightning. “There’s something about her you don’t know.”
Grant inclined his head toward his father slowly, interested. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, don’t trust her. She’s got an agenda. This morning, she was pumping me for information. Stuff about her dearly departed dad—details she has no need for. She’s clearly trying to figure out where the bodies are buried at this company, if you know what I mean.”
Grant narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I do.”
“What I’m saying is, the whole, ‘I had no idea who he was’ thing was a big act,” his father said, putting on a squeaky falsetto to mock Jenna’s voice. “I saw the recognition in her eyes the moment I walked up to her desk and asked to see you. She stared at me for a good long time, and then started in on the whole charade. She knew exactly who I was. And she tried to use that against me.”
Grant thought back to the moment he’d walked into the hall and heard the unmistakable sound of his father’s laugh, and then that laugh echoed by Jenna. Of the rage that had filled him at the thought of her and his father laughing together. And then how the rage had exploded when he’d heard them discuss his highly confidential land deal.
“And what exactly did she discover from you, pray tell?” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Very little, I’m pleased to tell you,” his father said, a proud little smile playing across his features. “But not from lack of trying. And I don’t mind telling you that she made a move.”
“What sort of move?” Grant asked, leaning forward.
“She gave me her phone number. Told me to call her if I thought of anything I’d want to discuss about your past. Now why would she say such a thing if she didn’t know exactly who I was, I ask you.”
Grant kept his face utterly blank, so his father reached into his pocket.
“Here, you skeptic.” He rooted through his wallet and pulled out a yellow slip of paper with handwriting in black ink. He passed it to Grant like he was giving him a check for a million dollars. Grant took the paper and looked down on it. On it was written Jenna McCormick and then her office number. It was in Jenna’s wide, casual handwriting.
Grant looked at it for only a second before he pushed it aside. Then he looked his father right in the eyes, giving absolutely no hint of what he was thinking. “So you’re telling me my assistant is trying to get away with some kind of, what, corporate espionage?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” his father said, nodding vigorously. “Look, it only takes a moment to see what’s going on here. You think she’s here typing your letters because she’s been dying to be a personal assistant her whole privileged life? Hah! The girl’s trying to get the company back, and she’ll do whatever it takes to succeed. A brat like that is used to getting her way, you know.”
Grant nodded, slowly, as if he were comprehending this himself. “And you’re telling me all this because?”
His father shrugged, nonchalantly. “Well, I suppose I thought you might see fit to reward my loyalty, now, son. Might want to, you know, show your father a little consideration in exchange for me not calling this McCormick girl right up and telling her whatever she wants to know. Although on second thought, I think I’d prefer to set up a personal appointment. She looks like she would be a lot of fun to get to know better.”
With that, Grant could bear the farce no longer. He pounced to his feet and sprang around the desk so fast his father didn’t have time to blink, much less get up. Grant grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him to standing, anger surging through his body, and pulled his face close to his, close enough that the man could see the fierce seriousness of what Grant was about to say next.
“Let me tell you something about Jenna McCormick,” Grant said, his voice so low it was barely more than a rumble. “She is nothing like what you say she is, and she would never, in a million years, try any of the garbage you’re telling me right now.” He pushed forward as he spoke, and his father stumbled back in response. Then Grant froze. “If you ever, ever, mention her name to me again, I swear to you, your old minimum security prison will seem like the Garden of Eden. Do you understand me?”
His father stepped back and reached for his neck tie, straightened his collar. “Well, well, well,” he said. His voice shook just a touch from his son’s heated reaction, but his expression was as guarded as ever. “Ten years ago, you told me you’d never trust anyone ever again, thanks to me. But it seems to me you’ve gone and fallen in love with this girl.”
Grant watched his father scuttle backwards out of his office like a frightened lizard. He stalked him, matching him step for step until his father was standing on one side of the door and he on the other. “You know what, Dad?” he said, grasping the door handle as he spoke. “It seems I have.”
And with that, he slammed the door in his father’s face for what he hoped would be the last time.
The moment the slam of the door had stopped its echo, Grant’s head began to race. He had fallen in love with Jenna. His father’s pitiful little con had made him see it plain as day. Made him see that even a million-dollar deal—a deal he knew in his heart she would never purposefully jeopardize—was nothing compared to the way she made him feel when they were together.
He knew, like he knew his own name, that she wasn’t what his father said she was. She was worthy of his trust, and so much more. He knew as surely as he knew his father was lying.
Maybe in the beginning, Grant had been trying to make Jenna soften towards him, but he’d softened instead. And now it was up to him to make sure she knew that he’d fallen for her, and know it with the same piercing clarity as he did.
He shot back to his desk and grabbed for his phone. As soon as he found the number he was looking for, he punched the send button and waited for the ring. Finally, a woman answered.
“Hello?” she said sleepily. “Grant Blakely, is that you on my caller ID again?”
“You better believe it,” Grant said, a confident smile spreading over his face. “Marissa Madden, are you ready to become my accomplice?”
“I’m pretty sure the checkout girl at the grocery store thinks there’s something wrong with me from the way she was staring,” Jenna said. She smiled at Marissa as she unloaded first one, then two, then a whopping six tubs of ice cream out on Marissa’s large island counter. It was Saturday, and Marissa hadn’t had to drag her over for movie night after all. “I mean, all I had in my cart was enough ice cream to feed a developing nation, plus one avocado,” Jenna said. “Is that so unusual?”
Marissa laughed. “Mocha Fudge, Peanut Butter Swirl, Mint Cookie Crunch, Strawberry Cheesecake, Toffee Dream, and…” She grabbed for the last pint container on the island and flipped it around so she could see the label. “Neapolitan?”
“Hey—hands off! That one’s all mine,” Jenna said. She snatched it up and put it away in the freezer first, following it with the other containers, one after another. “In the mood I’m in, just one flavor per bite won’t do.”
“Wow! This must have been some breakup to need an entire trio of flavors all to yourself.”
Jenna blushed. “Who said anything about a breakup?”
“No one had to. All it takes is one look at your grocery cart. And anyway, I figured something was up last weekend when I called and heard your voice. It was a tad wobbly, you know. I hope I’m not being too nosy to ask how you’re feeling?”
“Better,” Jenna lied. “I’m getting over things. It’s only a matter of time.”
Marissa raised an eyebrow, plopped down on a stool that lined up with the island’s marble breakfast bar. “Really?” she said, not disguising an ounce of the doubt in her voice.
“Really,” said Jenna with finality. She didn’t want to talk about Grant. She’d done nothing but moon over him for the last week, ever since she’d walked out of his office. And she’d spent a little of that
time wishing she’d done something differently. Yes, his words had stung, badly. But even so, he had gotten at a truth—he’d worked for everything he’d ever had. She wished she had worked harder for what she wanted. Why had she given up on him so easily?
Some part of her had known, just from the look in his eyes when she told him she was leaving, that she had meant more to him then he was admitting. Why hadn’t she fought a little harder? She’d lived and relived her decisions a thousand times over in the past few days.
And that, she reminded herself, was the crux of the issue. While she spent every waking moment wishing things could have been different, wondering what she could have done to make their time together turn into more, he was probably off wheeling and dealing and giving her not even a second’s thought. No matter what his heart might have told him, his mind was made up about her. To him she was nothing more than a decent secretary and a pleasant tumble in the sheets.
She should never have fallen for a man who was too stubborn to change his mind about something, or someone. Life was too short. Justin had taught her that. Cherish what you had, and try to ignore the people who can’t love you for you.
But she couldn’t ignore her feelings for Grant. They were too powerful to forget for even a moment. She wondered if they’d ever, ever fade away.
“Well, I can tell you’re not going to talk about it, so no sitting here musing silently for the rest of the night,” Marissa said with a smile in her voice. Jenna gave silent thanks that someone had come into her life to be a friend when she most needed one. “The hungry hordes will be here any second. You get to work on the guacamole and I’ll start shakin’ my world-famous margaritas.” She did a little hip shimmy and turned to the bowl of sliced strawberries and ice she’d lined up next to a bottle of tequila. The blender cranked on and Marissa went to work, while Jenna started slicing cilantro and limes for her secret recipe. The noise from the blender and the chop chop chop of her chef’s knife was loud but comforting.