‘Jonny, what the hell is going on? We still need to talk about Evan and what happened at Haselini three weeks ago. Are you ever going to return mine or mom’s calls? You know she’s worried sick about what’s happening to you.
I’ve called your cell, been to your apartment, and I’ve been turned away at your office, too. Call me as soon as you get this. Jess.’
As much as I didn’t want to, the truth was that I owed them both an explanation. I owed it to Jess to explain just exactly why I’d punched Evan and what we were even doing out without inviting her along.
I ran a hand down my face, sighing as my phone rang and Helen’s line flashed up.
“Yes?” I answered.
“It’s Jessica again,” she said gingerly.
“Tell her I’m in a meeting with Carlton.”
“Jonathan, I think…”
“Helen, can you just tell her I’m busy, please?”
She paused momentarily.
“Very well, I’ll tell her now. Thanks.”
She hung up, and I slammed my fist down on the table. The whole messy situation had spilled out from my personal life and was now affecting my work relationships.
I picked up the phone and dialed Kate’s number, as I had done over the past few weeks, but it rang and rang, and just as her voicemail clicked in I slammed it back down again, angry because there was so much I needed to say to her and so much to explain.
I’d made a promise to Anna that I wouldn’t say anything to her until she was ready, but I had to wake up and realize that her secret wasn’t worth losing Kate over. It wasn’t worth risking the wedding we’d planned.
I spun my chair around to the window to look out at the skyline. Everything had been so damn easy when Kate had just been another business partner, when she’d been someone that I could have just easily walked away from and replaced, but the thought of walking down the aisle with anyone other than her wasn’t an option now. Now it wasn’t just an arrangement.
I’d been given a taste of how amazing she was, and no one was ever going to compare to her.
I heard a heard knock on the door and Helen walked in before I could say anything.
I turned to her, sighing at the scowl on her face.
“What now?” I asked, resting back in my chair.
“You’ve got to snap out of it!” she scolded, approaching me. “It’s a busy week for DavenCorp, you can’t lose your head!”
“If you hadn’t…”
“No!” she cut me off, holding her hand up in front of my face boldly. “You only knew her for a fleeting second, Jonathan. She’s not worth losing your company for. Evan made me arrange a little blind date for you with one of my friends from the church and…”
“Oh that’s just great!” I mocked. He’d somehow forgotten to add himself into the mix...
“Hey!” she frowned in false offence, “my girls aren’t that bad. I think you’ll find them loving and loyal in all areas.”
“Well, seeing as it was Evan’s idea initially, I’m not going alone. You’ll have to arrange for him to come along or something…”
“So it’s a yes?”
I thought about it and thought about how the press, and not to mention my mother, would react if a photo broke out of me with some other woman when I was supposed to be marrying Kate.
“I don’t know…” I sighed, shaking my head.
“It’ll be good for you,” she pushed. “I’ve never known you to go so long without dating someone or going out for dinner with a woman or…”
“How do you know I haven’t been out with anyone?”
She laughed.
“Jonathan, you’re here till late almost every night and I haven’t had to send anyone any ‘sorry you woke up and I was gone from your life’ flowers in a long, long time.”
I nodded, it was true but somehow I felt like I’d changed, like I’d finally woken up to real life and put an end to the games.
“Fine, I’ll do it!” I announced. “What harm will one evening of drinks do? As long as you stress that we’re just going out as friends and you arrange for Evan to come along too!”
“Yes, yes… got it!” she wrote everything down before chewing the end of her pen looking at me.
“Any choice of venue? I have a swanky new bar in the center that are dying to have you visit?”
“Somewhere slightly more out of town. I don’t want paparazzi to take photos and get the wrong end of the stick and I want to stay pretty anonymous.”
“Are you sure? There are countless places that would pay you to go there.”
“Positive.”
She nodded and closed her notepad.
“To get over someone is to do exactly that… move on. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
She left the room and I sat for a moment pondering on her last words.
Move on? I wasn’t sure if I was ready to completely give up and walk away from Kate yet. Moving on would mean that I would need to forget about her and welcome someone else into my life. It was easier said than done because the woman I was supposed to ‘get over’ wasn’t just someone ordinary. She was the only woman in the world that I had dated and couldn’t get enough of.
I had to see her one last time before I could confidently say that there was no chance of ever bringing back what we had, and to do that I had to bring Anna in because it was time that Kate knew the truth. Only then could we potentially put this bad situation behind us.
Chapter Ten
Jonathan
Evan sat with me in the limousine, looking out of the window at New York passing us by.
“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” he asked, turning back to me. “I mean, out of all the women she could have chosen for us, Helen’s picked carbon copies of herself?”
I laughed and shook my head.
“We’re just meeting them as friends and that’s all. She thinks it’s somehow going to take my mind off Kate, but right now I’m not interested in anyone else and I’m pretty sure these women aren’t going to turn my head in any way.”
“I think she’s right, though.”
I looked over at Evan. We’d been friends since he’d turned up at business school, setting up our first company together back when neither of us knew the potential grasp we’d command over the female population.
I knew it wasn’t in my nature to be so wound up over one woman. Normally, I would have been on to the next few by now and Kate would have been a distant memory, but there was something about her that I just couldn’t give up on, something that continued to draw me back to her when I knew the best thing for me was to meet someone else and get her out of my mind. I wouldn’t have expected Evan to understand what it felt like to have those kind of feelings for someone.
He rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.
“You never know, one of these ladies might be the one. Maybe a religious woman with values and morals might be exactly what we need?”
“You think?” I looked at him and smirked. “I’m pretty sure they’re the type to have sex just to make a baby and then once quarterly, if that, thereafter!”
Evan threw his head back and laughed heartily.
“I don’t know, sometimes a change of direction just works. Maybe we’re getting too much sex?”
I turned to the window without responding because Kate had been my change of direction and I hadn’t had sex with anyone since the last time we’d been together. The need for it didn’t even cross my mind. She’d been the type of woman that I’d never previously been interested in, wild hair with a fuller figure and barely any makeup. On paper, that was the complete opposite of what I found attractive, but now it was all I wanted. I wanted her in a baggy t-shirt and sweats. I wanted her messy hair tied up in a bun with a bare face, and I wanted to feel her body against mine. Her vulnerability to love and be loved was everything to me, and I suddenly realized that I wasn’t doing enough to get her back. I had everything at my disposal; all I had to do w
as go and get her.
“Can you turn the car around?” I asked, banging on the screen separating James from us in the back.
It disappeared and I saw him turn slightly.
“Where to? We’re almost there, Sir.”
Evan pulled me back towards him.
“Think about it, Jonathan,” he said, his voice low in my ear. “You’re going to cancel on a couple of ladies right before we pick them up? I know people think we’re lotharios that don’t give a damn, but we’re better than that. Let’s just get through this evening and reevaluate in the morning.”
I relaxed and took a deep breath as the car pulled up outside an apartment block.
“Fine, we’ll stay, but this is nothing more than having a few drinks with friends, okay? We’re not taking anyone back home with us tonight or…”
“I get it,” he interrupted. “They’re not my type either. I’m here because Helen said you wanted backup. I’m sure these women are good fun and intelligent conversation. It makes a change from the usual, right?”
I nodded as James opened the door and we both got out onto the sidewalk, but before we had a chance to get to the entrance, it opened and there standing with two of the biggest smiles on their faces were our dates.
“Hi ladies,” Evan offered, taking a step towards them once he realized that I’d become mute. “I’m sure Helen has told you our names but just for the record, he’s Jonathan and I’m Evan.”
He gave them both a kiss on their cheeks and they giggled nervously.
“I’m Maria,” one said with a little wave.
“And I’m Kira.”
I nodded at them both from where I stood and Maria, her long dark hair skimming her ass, came over to me and touched my arm slightly.
Normally I loved long, smooth, shiny hair on a woman, but now, even with her hands around my forearm, I felt nothing. That was how I knew completely that I wasn’t ever going to stop, settle, or be with anyone apart from Kate, I just had to convince her that I was worth another chance.
Kate
“Hey babe! You wanna slide along over here and entertain my friend and me?”
The sound of his thick New York drawl echoed around my ears again and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to calm myself down before turning to face him.
He was grossly overweight, perched on the edge of the bar with his swollen, red, blotchy face twisted into a drunken smirk. I disliked him instantly.
“Can I get you anything else?” I offered, doing my best to remain professional.
“Why? What you offering?” he laughed, and his friend nudged him. “You doing any extras in the back for VIP’s? Do these drinks come with a happy ending? We pay good!”
They both laughed heartily though through his eyes I saw the disrespect. He meant it. If I’d said yes, he would have taken me back to his place without a second thought.
I leant over the bar top as close as I could get to them, the annoyance brimming underneath my skin.
“Listen,” I said through gritted teeth. “You don’t know a thing about me. You’re disgusting and I’ll have you removed if you don’t stop. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to…?”
“Kate?” I heard the voice of my supervisor, Stuart, behind me and I straightened up, realizing what I was doing. “Is there a problem?”
“Um…”
“I’ll tell you the problem,” the man announced pointing at me before I had a chance to finish. “Your bar woman, here, hasn’t got a sense of humor. It was only a light joke, you know, just a friendly flirt while we had a drink. That’s what’s wrong with these establishments, too many feminists behind the bar! You should be grateful for the attention!”
“What? Excuse me?” I fumed at him.
“Exactly!” he exclaimed smirking at me. “Ridiculous!”
He knocked back the rest of his drink and stood up.
“I think you owe Mr. Kramer here an apology, Kate,” Stuart said, gesturing to the swollen man.
“What?”
“Kate…”
“Screw this job!”
He raised his eyebrow as though warning me not to embarrass him, but instead I turned to walk away into the back of the bar, undoing my apron ferociously.
Stuart followed me, hurrying in and closing the door behind us.
“What the hell just happened out there, Kate? What was that? Do you know who he is?”
“I don’t care who he is. Did you just see and hear the way he spoke to me?”
He sighed and sat down.
“Kate, he’s one of our biggest customers. He spends a lot of money in this place. We need him.”
“It’s not all about money,” I said quietly. “You want to ignore the needs and protection of your staff to please him? Just for money?”
He glared at me.
“Listen, we don’t all have billionaire fiancés to fall back on. Some of us have to actually make money! Yeah… don’t think I haven’t realized who you are by now.”
“How dare you! What the hell do you think I’m doing here working?”
“I dunno. Maybe he cut your allowance or he’s testing to see what level of gold-digger you really are?”
I sat glaring at him, stunned that the words were coming out of the mouth of someone who’d been kind enough from the start to give me a job and let me work as much as I needed to claw back every cent I owed.
It took the wind out of me, and I stood up. I could have told him that Jonathan and I were no longer together, but I couldn’t. The contract had barred me from talking about our relationship or marriage unless the publicist had briefed me first, and yes, Jonathan had hurt me the worst way possible, but that didn’t mean I’d turn into a monster and do him over.
“Shit, Kate. I didn’t mean that,” Stuart said shaking his head. “I just got riled up, that’s all. Business is dying, and my old man has given me targets to reach or I lose the place.”
I tried to find sympathy for him, but I couldn’t. If I couldn’t even trust my boss to keep me safe at work, then I really was alone in this world.
I picked up my coat from the hook and got my bag from the locker.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t think I can stay here anymore,” I said, more to myself than him.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what I was thinking there.”
He followed me back out to the bar and I turned to him.
“It’s just been a crazy month and my head’s all over the place.”
“Fine, have the rest of the night off, but come back tomorrow. We’ll talk it over.”
I nodded, not sure if I would ever return, because all I could think about when the man had been talking to me was how Jonathan had stood up for me back when we first met. He’d come to my aid, and that was one of the things I liked so much about him. He was direct, protective, and forceful, and honestly I missed everything about him. I missed knowing he was there and I missed that fact that I had someone who cared.
I pushed the doors open out into the cool New York night, contemplating whether it was a good enough investment to get a cab home or if a bus would be more practical and economical.
The papers had labeled me as a gold-digger, but if only they knew that I had walked away from Jonathan and left every penny behind that he’d ever given me, they’d see me completely different. I had to start over with nothing whatsoever, yet people still assumed that I wanted him for nothing but money.
They didn’t know the way my body reacted when he touched me, or the way my heart skipped a beat when his fingers traced lines up and around the back of my neck. They didn’t know the connection we had and now, they never would.
I reached into my pocket, gathering the lose change I had, hoping that it was enough for a cab so I could just get home and disappear under a hot bath with candles and bubbles, when there in front of me, his frame dressed in a long black overcoat, was Evan. He was ushering two girls to the sidewalk who’d just st
epped out of the limousine with him. They were wearing colored twinsets with perfectly coiffed long, sleek hair. I could have sworn they were Mormon.
His eyes caught mine and he gave me an awkward, shocked half smile.
“Kate?”
He left their side and came hurrying over to me, still surprised.
“What the hell are you doing all the way out here?”
I pointed behind me to the bar, embarrassed slightly that he had to see how far I’d fallen since calling the engagement off.
“I’ve just finished work.”
He looked back to the limousine uncomfortably, then at me again.
“You want to join us for a drink or something?”
“I can’t. I should go,” I pointed to the two women huddled together in the cool air looking at us. “Besides, you have two lovely dates waiting for you…”
“Yeah, about that. We’re only…”
The rest of what he said faded into my subconscious because behind him, stepping out of the car and buttoning his suit jacket up, was Jonathan, still as chiseled and handsome as I’d remembered him. My heart jumped, and I put a hand on Evan’s arm to steady myself as our eyes met. He looked at me, the cool, calm smile falling from his face and he stopped still.
Seconds passed that felt like minutes or hours, and just as I took one step towards him the voices of the girls on the sidewalk brought me back to reality.
“Jonny, are you coming?” One of the girls laughed. “I’m freezing!”
Jonny?
I pulled my coat around me and Evan rested a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s not how it looks. Just stay,” he said firmly under his breath
I shook my head. Jonathan’s actions spoke louder to me than any words could, and it proved that I didn’t really mean anything to him at all. All those things he’d said that night were empty. Just words to make sure I kept ending up in his bed each night and not back out of the contract. He’d just fed me everything I wanted to hear, and the moment I walked away he’d replaced me. He’d already moved on and found another suitably boring woman to marry him instead.
Keeper (A Billionaire Romance) Page 14