IMPULSE: Companion to The PULSE Series

by Deborah Bladon

  I take more comfort in her response than I should. I'm certain that she's just confused if I'm talking about Thomas or Josh. Right now, I don't give a shit. I want the only man who has ever owned her heart to be me. I'm greedy like that. I want that to be our reality even if it's completely unrealistic. "Thomas," I answer because I have to. I can't stall this conversation because of my own insecurities.

  "Can you love someone before you know yourself?"

  I don't know the answer. "I didn't love myself before I met you." That's my truth. I was never in love with anyone until Jessica pulled me out of my selfish shell and showed me what love was.

  "I don't know if I even love myself now." Her shoulders surge forward a touch with the words. "Maybe I've never loved myself."

  "You're an amazing person." I inch closer to her on the bench before I pull my arm around her shoulders. "You're the best person I know."

  "I'm not." She shakes her head so swiftly from side-to-side that her hair bats against my shoulder. "I'm not a good person, Nathan."

  I squeeze her body into mine, trying to will away all her self-doubts. I've seen this side of her before. She's long blamed herself for Josh's grandfather's death. Jessica was alone with him when he suffered a massive heart attack. She believed the medical training she had as a paramedic should have been enough to bring him back from the edge of death. The truth was that no one could have saved the man's life. The problem was that Josh drilled his version of reality into her brain for months after. She still blames herself for that death. I see the same self-loathing seeping out of her now.

  "You're going to tell me I'm wrong." Her hand juts out into the air as if to stop me from speaking. "This time I'm right though. I've done things that good people wouldn’t do."

  I want to believe her words but I know from experience that she always views things from the edge of drama. She's likely making a mountain out of what I would consider a lowly molehill. I'm not going to insult her by telling her she's exaggerating. "We all make mistakes, Jessica."

  She moves slightly so she can face me directly on the bench. "My mistakes aren't like your mistakes."

  "I can't compare," I offer. "You haven't told me about yours."

  She recoils slightly as if the words burn through her. She holds her composure though. "What if you leave me?"

  "Have you fucked him since you've been with me?" I need to ask. It's a question that's been hanging on the edge of my tongue since I found out he was back in her life.

  She doesn't answer immediately. Her fingers tap on mine. "What do you think, Nathan?"

  Her constant refusal to answer a question with a question is alluring at times. It's fun and speaks to her need to protect her heart. Right now, in this instant, it's doing nothing but fuel my overactive imagination. "No questions, Jessica. Just tell me. Have you fucked him since you've been with me?"

  "No." There's absolutely no hesitation in the word. It's calm, it's controlled and it's heard loud and clear.

  Chapter 12

  "He was married."

  The words come from the doorway of my office. My head bolts up. She's standing there wearing the same dress she was months ago when she came to break up with me. Now, she's confessing one of her darkest sins to me.

  "Did you hear me?" She takes a step into the space before she slams the door behind her. "I said he was married."

  "I heard you." I don't get up. I did the math in my head last night after we got home from the park. I read everything I could get my hands on about the Governor. I knew that the son-of-a-bitch seduced my girlfriend, when she was an innocent teenager, into his bed.

  She sits in one of the chairs, her entire body shaking. "I told you my mistakes were worse than your mistakes."

  I stand now. I can't allow her to beat herself up over something that happened so long ago. "Jessica," I whisper her name as my lips graze over her forehead. I lean back against the edge of my desk as I look down at her. "I'm reasonably sure that at least a few of the women I fucked were married."

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head as if she's warding off the mental image of me sliding my cock into someone else's wife. "Don’t say that."

  "It's true." I lean forward. "You were too young to know better. It's all on him."

  Her fingers dart to her eyes. She pushes on her brows. "You don't know that."

  "I know his type." I kneel down in front of her. "You were available and naïve. He took what he could from you."

  Her body shifts when she pulls in a heavy breath. "It's not like that."

  I know enough about women to know that there isn't one alive who is willing to confess that she was seduced by an older man just for sex. They all want to believe that love was woven into the fabric of the relationship somewhere. Maybe that's a coping mechanism. Maybe they have to tell themselves that so they can get over the fuckers once they're dumped.

  "He didn't seduce me, Nathan." I hear the denial in her tone. She needs to believe that. It's very hard to picture a teenager Jessica not being on the receiving end of a lot of male attention.

  I don't want to press this, but it's pushing a wedge between us. We haven't fucked since we got back from the wedding. She's been avoiding me and it's killing me inside. "He did."

  She taps her hand on the arm of the chair. "You're wrong. You don't know."

  I hear the tempered anger in her tone. She's trying to control herself. "I know his type," I hiss the words out. If she's going to fight me on this, I'm going to fight back. We're clearing the subject of Thomas the Governor off our collective intimate plate right now. I'm not going to let that bastard interfere in my relationship with Jessica another minute.

  "I seduced him." She tips her chin out. "I made him want me and then I'm the one who fucked him."

  I stand and lean back on my desk. My fingers curl over the edge of it, as much for steady balance as to curb my desire to clear everything off of my desk in one fell swoop. There's no hiding my anger at this moment. I just listened to the woman I love confess to seducing a married man. Sweet and innocent Jessica Roth just left the building. No wait. She just fell off the fucking planet.

  "You don't know what I was like when I was eighteen."

  I don't. She's right. I only know what she's like the past year and a half. I know that the woman I met at the club was anxious and nervous about having a one night stand with me. I know that she used her body in ways that surprised me given the limited experience she claimed to have. I know that she can suck cock better than anyone who has wrapped their lips around me. Maybe I don't know her as well as I think. "Did you know he was married?"

  She pushes herself back into the office chair as if that's going to help her gain some distance from the question. "That's not important."

  There's my answer. It just slapped me across the side of my face. "You knew."

  She shakes her head slightly. "I knew he was involved with someone. It was right around the time they got married."

  It's enough to placate me. I don't fucking care if he was married. That's on him. He should have kept his dick inside his pants if he was planning a walk down the aisle. "When did it end?" Again, it's a question that has no bearing in the here and now. Why the fuck does it matter when it ended? Why can't I just accept that the woman I'm hell bent on marrying has more of a sordid past than I realized?

  "Months after it started." She shuffles her heels against the carpeted floor.

  "Who ended it?"

  "Why does that matter?" Her head tilts to the side. "It's over now. It's been over for years."

  I know she's right. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't but I need to know. "Who ended it, Jessica?" I repeat the question as if I've heard nothing she's said in response to the first time I asked it.

  She skims her hands over the skirt of her dress. "It was mutual. We both ended it."

  That's not what I wanted to hear. The jealous part of my heart wanted her to say that she dumped him because she realized he was all wrong for her. I want her to tel
l me that she knew she'd find someone better and then I came along.

  "I didn't know he'd be at the wedding, Nathan." Her hand brushes over the leg of my pants. "I wouldn’t have gone if I knew he was there."

  "Is that why you were so reluctant to agree to it?" The question first occurred to me when she told me that Thomas had been at the wedding. All the pieces of the puzzle had finally fit together. It made sense that she'd try to avoid going to a celebration where she knew he'd be.

  "No." Her hand drops from me back into her own lap.

  "You should have told me that night, Jessica." I try not to sound as annoyed as I am. "You should have told me you saw him."

  "You see women all the time that you fucked."

  I hate when she pushes my past back at me. I cringe when she uses it as a tool to hide behind her own flaws. "I saw one once." It had only happened once. For a split second in time, a woman I fucked back in Boston was working as a waitress at Axel NY. Her name is Alexa. She couldn't even register our night together in her mind. Jessica and I had laughed about it together later that night.

  "You only told me about the one, Nathan." She holds up her index finger to exaggerate her point.

  I cross my arms over my chest. Her need to divert during every important conversation is exasperating. I'm not going to pay forever for the sins she thinks I committed before we met. "Jessica. Why is he in New York?"

  "He's here for me." She doesn’t even attempt to sugar coat it. "He came here to talk to me."

  "I want to meet him." I step back behind my desk and reach for the phone on my desk. "Do you still have his number? Give it to me."

  "I don't have it," she says it too effortlessly for it to be a lie. She always hesitates before she says anything that isn't one hundred percent the truth. "He tried calling me I think but I didn't answer it."

  "You don't have his number?" I ask. I don't even try and hide the surprise in the question. I assumed, because of my overly active jealous imagination, that they had been in constant contact since the weeding.

  "No." She reaches down and pulls her small tan purse into her lap. I watch in silence as she shifts through it. "You can check my phone and see for yourself."

  It's a gesture born out of her need for transparency in our relationship. After she'd stumbled on a phone I kept filled with women's numbers, I've left me phone within her arm's reach whenever we're in the same place. We have an unspoken understanding that she can pick it up and scroll through it whenever she wants. I have nothing to hide.

  "Take it and see." She pushes it towards me.

  I don't give in to the overwhelming temptation I feel to rummage through it at warp speed. I need to show her that I believe in her as much as she believes in me. "I don't need to." I want to. I fucking want to rip that phone out of her hand and search every single text message, email and call.

  "You don't need to talk to him." It's a statement that's ripe with unspoken innuendo. "I told him not to contact me anymore."

  "When did you tell him that?" I cock a brow.

  "Yesterday."

  I want to probe her about why she didn't mention it to me before now, but I bite my tongue. "Did he leave New York?"

  Her gaze falls down to her hand. I watch as she taps her index finger and thumb together. "I don't know. I told him to stay away from me."

  "Jessica." I kneel down now, my left knee touching the floor. "When you don’t share things with me, my mind jumps to places it shouldn’t be going."

  She nods in understanding. Her hand glides over my cheek. "I know, Nathan."

  "If you would have told me at the wedding about him, we could have cleared it up that night." It's wishful thinking on my part. She didn't bring him up because she wasn't ready to. That's what I'm telling myself. It may have much more to do with the fact that she wanted to talk to him before she shared any of it with me. I want to believe that she's as much an open book as I am, but these past couple of weeks aren't doing anything to bolster that.

  "I love you so much." Her thumb pad skims over my lips. "I knew you'd blow your lid."

  I smile at the words. She's right. I've proven that to her. The past few days I've been on edge just holding within me the knowledge that she was talking to a man she once shared a bed with. "That's why you should have told me right away," I press. "I could have blown my lid back in Connecticut. I would have helped you when he showed up here."

  "I didn't need help." She stares at my lips. "I needed to handle it myself."

  I nod in understanding. I want to press her about why she skipped work and what was so important that he had to travel all the way from Connecticut to see her. The questions are all sitting there, in queue, waiting for me to ask them. I can't right now. All I can do is accept what she's told me. Pushing her more now won't get me any closer to what I want. I want this woman to be my wife and if that means accepting that she has a few skeletons in her closet, I'll do it. I have to. I can't live without her.

  Chapter 13

  "Mr. Moore, unless you get me some results soon, I'm going to have to find another attorney."

  Threats aren't my thing. Correction. They are my thing if I'm threatening Jessica with the promise of a mind blowing orgasm. Technically, you might argue that it's not a threat at all. I know, for certain, she'd argue that it's not a threat. I need to make her come. I'm going to stop by the restaurant tonight to whisper sweet nothings all about fucking in her ear.

  "Are you even listening to me, Mr. Moore?" His voice breaks through my fantasy of licking Jessica's beautiful, round tits.

  "Mr. Wilkinson." I try to focus on his face. It's jarring after the gorgeous images that were just dancing in my head.

  He taps his cane against the carpeted floor and it does little for effect. The sound is muffled. "I can find someone else to help me if you aren't willing."

  He can't. He may think he can but the contract I had him sign is air tight. He's not going anywhere whether he realizes it or not. "There's no need for that," I offer in a half ass genuine tone. The man had been chasing me down almost every hour upon the hour for the last two days. I've had my secretary soak up much of his ill placed attitude. He's frustrated with the limited progress I've been making on his case. I can't blame him. It's slow going but I'm getting somewhere and with a little patience, he may just see at least some of his money back in his hands within the next year or two.

  "I'll have more to report at the end of the week." I stand, indicating that the meeting is now adjourned.

  Mr. Wilkinson doesn't move at all. "We're not done."

  "We're done." I nod. "The more time we spend chatting, sir, the less time I have to work on your case." I just pulled that out of thin air. I'm impressed.

  "Good point." He teeters helplessly in the air for a brief moment as he pulls himself to his feet.

  I walk around my desk to offer a hand but he swats it away. I don’t take offense. The man is proud. I've sensed that the first moment he walked into my office. "I'll call you on Thursday," I say as I open the door and watch him walk through.

  "You're Moore?" An unfamiliar voice from the left pulls my gaze away from Mr. Wilkinson at the bank of elevators.

  I tilt my head to the left. My hands immediately jump into the pockets of my pants. If I let them roam free one of them is going to connect with his face. It's him. Governor Thomas Lane is standing less than two feet away from me.

  ***

  "I thought you left town." I don't motion for him to sit. I don't care if he stands. I just want the bastard out of my office and my girlfriend's life as soon as possible.

  "Jessie told you that?" The name is remote and ill-suited to her. I've never viewed her as anyone but Jessica. Jessie is the person she was back in Connecticut. I've heard countless other people call her Jess or Jessie. I've always struggled to connect with that.

  "Jessica told me she asked you to leave her alone," I say in an even tone. "Why the fuck are you still here?"

  He chuckles. I stare at him as he finally
lowers himself into the chair Mr. Wilkinson was just sitting in. I can see why Jessica was drawn to him. It's obvious he's attractive. He's older than me. I'd guess by more than a decade. His brown hair is showing the first touches of grey. His blue eyes are honed in on me. "You're an attorney."

  It's a statement, not a question. He's either heard about me from Jessica or the man has done his research. "That's not news, Governor."

  He tips his head in my direction. "Jessica told me about you."

  I feel a rush of pride at the comment. She didn't try and hide the fact that she was involved with someone. "Why are you here?"

  He leans forward in his chair. His voice takes on a whispered tone. "Did she explain the confidentiality agreement to you?"

  I try in vain to temper my reaction to his words. He didn't just say that there's a confidentiality agreement in place? I scratch my finger behind my ear trying desperately to find something to say in response that isn't going to make me look like he just threw a sucker punch at me and hit me square between the eyes. "We don't have secrets."

  "You do." He rests his elbow on the arm of the chair. His simple gold wedding band catches the overhead light as he shifts his hand. "If you don't, Jessie is in a lot of trouble."

  I hate every single word that just came out of his vile mouth. I hate that his mouth has kissed her and touched her in places I have. "Is this why you came to New York?" My hand flies behind me to the bank of windows that overlook mid-town Manhattan. "You came here to intimidate Jessica?"

  "I came here to remind her that she needs to keep her pretty little mouth shut." He snaps his fingers together with a loud pop. "She brought up something at the wedding that she's not permitted to talk about. I came here to remind her of the consequences if she shares that information with anyone."

  There's no way in hell he's talking about their affair. I need clarification about what's going on. "Jessica signed an agreement?"

  "She signed an agreement," he begins as he taps his index finger on the edge of my desk. "She also took a huge check for her …" his voice trails. A thin smile takes over his lips. "She took money in exchange for her silence. There's a small matter regarding our affair that she can never talk about."