by Piper Lawson
“How was the reception?”
“I charmed the hell out of them. Took them at least four minutes to realize I wasn’t you. You going to bother to show up for the presentations?” Dom’s voice came down the line.
“You know, I just might.” I went to my closet for the second time that day. Jordan was already out in the living room. “Listen Dom. I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hope whatever you had on was worth it.”
“It was.”
I clicked off and finished dressing in jeans and a mint green button down.
I’d expected to feel anxious about missing the previous night’s meeting. But I didn’t care nearly as much as I’d thought I would.
The girl waiting in the other room, on the other hand…
Her I cared about. Could see myself caring more about. And when she let me in, all I wanted was to have her smile, her trust, her—
The familiar sound of a small engine whirring broke into my thoughts.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded as I emerged from my room.
Jordan, dressed in yesterday’s shorts and one of my T-shirts, set a glass on the island with a flourish. “It’s breakfast,” she declared.
My attention fixed on the contents, and I looked between them and her. “It’s…green.”
“So?”
“So you don’t like green.”
Her smile was the cutest thing I’d seen all week. “It’s for you.”
I reached for the cup, inspecting it, then taking a smell. Judging by the color, she’d pulled some kale from the freezer. Celery. Maybe an apple.
Shit.
I’d never expected to be brought down by a green monster. But there it was.
I was glad when she turned to put the blender back on the counter, because something was trying to escape my chest.
God knew what was happening on my face.
“Jordan, why are you leaving?” I blurted.
The words were out. I couldn’t take them back, despite the tightness in my chest.
Jordan stilled. “You need to get to work. And so do I.”
“No, I mean to New York after the wedding. Why are you going back. To your father, who spends all his time outside the country? To your asshole ex?”
“To my friends. To my company—”
“Which you’re trying to open here.”
Jordan let out a long breath. “I came with a purpose, Ethan. It always had an end date.”
I rounded the island, closing the distance between us. My fingers threaded in her hair, my hand cupping her cheek.
The intimacy had her eyes widening, but I couldn’t stand not touching her. Like any second she could just float away if I wasn’t there to hold her down.
“Just forget about that for a second,” I insisted. “Tell me today didn’t mean something to you. Last night. That this whole time, you and me, doesn’t mean something.”
“For how long?” she murmured, her eyes searching mine. “A month? Two?”
“Does it matter? I want to play this out, Jordan. I can’t tell you I know what it will be, or won’t, because I don’t know.”
Her hand covered mine, and it was sweet as hell because I knew she was doing it for me. “We’re both people who like to see the upside. To imagine things as they could be. And we both know how it feels to have that bite us in the ass. I have responsibilities. So do you.”
“You think it’s selfish of me to ask you to stay,” I translated, letting my hand fall to my side.
“No,” she said under her breath. “But it’d be selfish of me to say yes.”
I hated knowing she was partly right, but I wasn’t ready to see her walk away. I knew what it felt like to be walked away from. It sucked.
My phone beeped and I cursed. “Let’s talk about it. Tonight. I’m taking you out for dinner.”
“Burritos?”
“Nice try. We’re going classy this time. White table cloths. Real napkins.”
“Do I need to wear a dress? I only have the one.” She tapped a finger against her mouth, frowning. “You can machine wash silk, right?”
I loved that she could tease me.
I shook my head, swallowing. “Wear anything you like.”
“Full disclosure. This wasn’t the presentation I’d planned to give.” I looked around the room at the four men and one woman reclining in their chairs around the boardroom table. “I was going to tell you how this is the most exclusive development in LA and we’re going to makes sure everyone knows it.
“But that’s not what this is about.” I pressed the clicker in my hand, and the slides on the screen behind me advanced. Dom and I had worked on them all week.
I’d changed them today.
“It’s about style. But it’s also about substance. Everyone in this city wants to be an individual, but they also want to be part of something. Through its cutting-edge environmental conservation attributes—” my eyes landed on Barlow, who didn’t move “—Aqua gives them a chance to build on a positive future for themselves and everyone around them. The views beyond their windows remind them every day of the natural world they’re investing in.”
“So you’re proposing selling this building strictly on its merits,” one of the other execs asked. “What does that mean, sending out flyers?” He raised a brow.
“Not at all.” I clicked again, and began laying out my plans for the launch party. “It will highlight the attributes of this unique development. But this party will be one hundred percent LA. Glamor, with a conscience. We will not only hook prospects but build commitment to the ideals of this project. Any other condos investors view after Aqua simply won’t stack up. In other words…it won’t feel right to go with something else. And we all know resale value is important, but residents of Aqua need to feel like it’s home.”
After fifteen minutes of questions, I closed the door after me and left the developer’s building. I’d done everything I could do. If they liked it, great. If they didn’t…
I wouldn’t change a thing.
The short drive between offices was refreshing. The sun felt extra warm and I rolled up my sleeves, leaning an arm out the window.
This was the damned life.
“Dom, can you get your feet off my desk?”
He straightened as I strode into the office. “How’d it go?”
“I laid it out for them,” I said honestly, taking a seat in the visitor chair. It hadn’t been the pitch I’d planned to make a week ago. But maybe I wasn’t the guy I was a week ago. “I don’t know what they’re going to do with it.”
“Ethan.” Dom and I glanced toward the door to see Patrick, another young realtor from the office. “Can I get a number from you? Quentin Talbot. You dated his sister Harlow right?”
“Sure.” Dated wasn’t the right word, but Patrick didn’t need to know that. “Dom, I need the key to my desk.”
“Sixteen.”
“What?” Patrick asked, confused.
“Sixteen days he held out,” Dom determined as he fished a set of keys out of his pocket and tossed them to me. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m not calling a girl. But if I have Quentin’s contact it’ll be in my other phone.”
Dom’s skeptical gaze bored into my back as I unlocked the drawer and fished out my phone.
“What, you only have privileges every other week?” Patrick asked, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“He locked his phone away,” Dom explained. “Swore off women. This is a supervised visit.”
I ignored them both, plugging in the phone—which had since gone dead—and flicking on the power. The screen lit up with hundreds of messages.
Shit.
Normally I’d be impatient to look at them but today, I didn’t care. I flipped into my contacts, found the one I wanted, and forwarded it to Patrick’s number.
“Thanks man.” Patrick vanished down the hall and I dropped the phone back in the drawer.
“Key?” I asked
calmly.
Dom looked at me like I’d grown another head.
“That phone is a national treasure. You can’t lock that up again. How many girls are on that?”
“You want it?”
“No. But neither do you.” He shifted back in my chair, eyes widening. “I think I get it.”
“Get what?”
“You don’t need those numbers because you’ve found someone.”
“I told you I was with someone last night,” I said, uneasy.
“No. You were with the one. She means something to you. I’ve never seen this. Shit. Are you…” He leaned in. “Do you love this girl, Ethan?”
I rose, pulling the door closed like I was afraid someone outside might hear our conversation. “That’s bullshit,” I replied when I turned back. “Dom, I’m not—” I pressed the heels of my hands to my face. “You can’t fall in love with someone in three weeks.”
But the idea took hold in my brain, and I could deny it but I couldn’t dispel it.
The next hour it continued to eat at me.
After I kicked Dom out of my office.
While I scoped new listings.
During two calls with clients.
My phone buzzed, startling me out of my introspection. I answered.
“Ethan, this is Todd.”
“Todd.” I straightened. “How—”
“You got the job. The development. It’s yours. I’m not going to lie, it was a close vote. But the team loved your presentation. We look forward to putting your ideas in place. I’ll have my assistant follow up with you. There are a ton of meetings to book.”
“A ton of meetings. Right.”
“Clear your calendar for the next month. I hope you don’t have any plans because as of now you’re on this 24/7.”
“Sure.” I clicked off, striding to the door. “Dom!” I shouted down the hall. My chest squeezed in anticipation.
He stuck his head out of an office partway down.
“We got it.”
His face dissolved into a grin.
“Hell yes!”
32
Jordan
I put on jeans and the leather jacket I’d taken from Ethan’s and rode the Ducati to his office, leaving the helmet on the bike when I arrived.
I re-read his messages as I strode down the street to his office.
Can you meet me here after work? There’s a great little restaurant down the street
White tablecloths?
800 thread count
A tall, tanned guy with dark hair flashed a thousand-watt smile at me when I walked in the front doors. “Can I help you?”
“Are you reception today?”
“No, but I’m on the way to the photocopier and I’m within twenty feet of reception. So…can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Ethan—”
“Wait. You’re her. Jordan.”
“Huh?” I had the vague sensation of feeling like an it girl.
“The one he’s obsessing over. Don’t tell him I said that. But it’s true.”
Warmth spread through me. “Dom, right?”
“Yeah. He just ran across the street to get something, but he said he’d be back soon. You can wait in his office if you want.”
“Sure, thanks. Hey, can you tell me something—he got the development, right?”
“He did.”
“No shit.”
Pride bubbled up. The feeling was as bright and satisfying as if the success had been my own.
We might not have been ready to open Travesty this year, but Ethan was killing it. And I cared about that. I knew if our positions were reversed, Ethan would be happy for me.
“Hey, I was sorry the place on La Brea didn’t work out. It was cute. But I guess it wasn’t what you wanted.”
I stilled. “What do you mean?”
“When Ethan said you were retracting the application, it was disappointing. I get it though.” The grin flashed again. “A woman’s prerogative to change her mind, right?”
I flashed back to the hotel room in Vegas. “The deal fell through.” Ethan’s face, the contrition.
“Dom,” I said slowly. “You’re saying it didn’t go through because Ethan—because I—changed my mind. Not because our application wasn’t accepted.”
“Right.”
I was halfway to the door when I collided with Ethan.
His handsome face split into a broad grin and my chest tightened. “Hey, you came. I’m glad you’re here. The place down the street normally doesn’t do reservations on short notice, but I went in person to ask—”
“Ethan. I need you to tell me something.”
“Anything.” The grin faded.
“Tell me you didn’t cancel the application on La Brea, and then lie to me about it.”
His mouth opened, but he paused. I could give him as much time as he needed. Time to say that I’d got it wrong. That Dom was mistaken.
Instead he said, “Jordan, listen…”
Humiliation and betrayal burned the back of my throat. “Don’t say that. I’m not a kid. I’ve had enough people treat me like I can’t be trusted to make my own decisions my whole life. I don’t need you to do that too.”
I stalked out to the sidewalk, not sure what I needed except air. Ethan caught up to me, cutting off my path.
“Let me go.”
“No. Not until you hear me out.” Ethan rubbed a hand through his hair, frustration plain on his handsome features. “It’s not what you think. You wouldn’t have been happy with the space.”
The words coming out of his mouth sounded like another language. “That’s for me, and Ava, and Lex to decide. I know you think you see people, and know what they want, and most of the time you do. But dammit, Ethan. You can’t take someone’s choice away from them.”
“Come on, you’re overreacting. What if that space hadn’t come up in the first place? Nothing would have changed.”
“But that’s not the point.” I fought the stinging at the backs of my eyes, the disbelief swelling in my throat. “You engineered this.”
“I couldn’t help it. You weren’t making the right call. Plus…hell. I wanted you to stay around.”
“Then you say something. You don’t just change the world to make it how you want. Because the store fell through, Travesty’s delayed its launch in LA. Do you even know what that’s going to do to our business?” I squeezed my eyes shut, leaning my forearms against the building. Betrayal burned in my stomach. “Dammit, Ethan. I trusted you.”
Hurt flashed across his face. “You can trust me. I only ever wanted what’s best for you. I didn’t mean to go behind your back,” he insisted, an urgency beneath the surface.
I blinked up at him. “Do you know what it feels like to be manipulated by everyone in your life? My dad shipped me off to boarding school because he thought it was best. Colt fired hundreds of people in my name because he thought it was best.”
The blank expression on his face told me he didn’t. He couldn’t possibly.
I wanted to scream. Not at Ethan, just at the world, because this wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to find the one guy who made me feel something, then have it slapped away from me the next instant.
I’d been called a lot of things over the years. The rich girl. The cold girl. I’d take all of it.
But I refused to be the stupid girl.
Which was exactly what I’d be if I ignored this. If I smoothed things over, pretended this never happened.
Ethan shook his head slowly. “Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking, Jordan, don’t. I care about you. Don’t throw this away, because it doesn’t happen every day. That much I know.”
There were so many parts to that stunning statement, but with my hands shaking in fists at my sides, I could only focus on one.
“Ethan,” I murmured, “you can’t say you care about someone and lie to them. We don’t lie to people we care about.”
His expression tightened, panic edging
in. “Jordan, stop. Come on. Let’s go for dinner, we can talk about this.”
“No. I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.” I tried to find a smile and came up short. The look of horror on his face didn’t help. “Congratulations on the development, Ethan. You deserve it.”
33
Jordan
Coming home is a strange thing. People write books about home. Songs. The idea that when you come home, you’re yourself again. Whatever weight’s been on you magically lifts off and you’re surrounded by truth and love and unicorns.
Or at least that’s how it works in the movies.
When I’d come home from boarding school for breaks, it’d always felt a bit like that. Maybe not the unicorns, but like things got a little better.
So when I stood in the doorway of my dad’s house, the brick colonial I grew up in, I waited for the familiar feeling of relief.
Nothing.
Maybe my six hours on standby at LAX, the cross-country flight, and the fact that I had a massive headache got in the way.
I dropped my suitcase by the door and padded through the house and up the stairs to my room.
We’d had a cook when I was growing up, and Anna used to make me muffins after school. Not just elementary school, I’m talking when I was home for breaks from private school, and later, college. I missed the smell of baking wafting through the place—without it, it felt even emptier.
Passing the first two doorways, which led to a guest bathroom and the master, I pushed open the door of my room.
It hadn’t changed in the months I’d been living with Lex in midtown. The walls were yellow with white woodwork—not soft, New Englandy yellow, but bright like sunshine. Band posters that’d covered the walls were taken down and there was an empty spot in the corner for my guitar stand, which was at my apartment.
The walls were covered with photographs printed on canvas. Objects, people, and landscapes I’d gravitated towards. Candid shots, mostly.
At the time I’d thought they were pretty and interesting. But I could tell now they’d made me feel less alone when my dad was traveling.
I curled up on the bed, coming face to face with two pictures on the bedside table. One was of my mom. The other was me and Colt.