Actually the truth was he’d felt it in his gut the moment he first allowed himself to think of Jessica in a sexual light.
* * * * *
“What do you mean you’re taking the boys to Santa Cruz for the weekend?” Ruby’s eyes started to ache. She’d waited all week for Clay to come home, and when he did, he was leaving again. “We need to talk about this,” she insisted.
Clay stood in the front hall, his features resolute. “There’s nothing to discuss, Ruby. You knew how I felt last weekend.”
She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Men didn’t leave; she left. They didn’t decide when it was over; she did.
“But I’m sorry about Bradley.” Did she actually sound whiny? “How many times do I have to apologize?”
“None,” he said implacably. “I don’t own you. You’re free to leave whenever you don’t like the constraints I put on you.”
She put her hand on his arm. Thank God he didn’t throw her off. A million things to say and do ran through her mind. She could beg. She could tell him she loved him. She could accuse him of wanting Little Miss Muffet. But Ruby didn’t beg any man, Clay wouldn’t believe that she loved him, and he’d accuse her of spying if she said she’d seen him with Jessica. Mentioning her would be a huge tactical error.
But, oh God, was he leaving her for the insipid woman? It couldn’t be. It was his house. Ruby had nowhere to go, and she liked her life the way it was, where she paid for her own personal expenses, contributed to the household costs, bought him generous gifts as a thank-you for everything he did. Give all that up?
She shut down all that emotionalism, all the jealousy. What was needed was raw truth. “Clay, I’d like another chance. What we have is good. I understand how much the rules mean to you, which I didn’t before, and I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
Something flickered in his eyes. She was horrified to think it was pity.
“It was good,” he said. “But it’s over now.”
Panic rose up, clutched her chest, squeezed the breath out of her. “It doesn’t have to be.” God, even her voice quivered pathetically.
“It already is.”
She couldn’t mistake the finality in those words. Ruby wanted to scream. It’s her, isn’t it? But Clay would only walk out. “Maybe we should take a break for a while.”
“No, Ruby.” If there had been pity in his gaze, it was gone now.
The thing she’d always admired about Clay was his ability to make a decision and stick to it. She’d never been able to wrap him around her little finger. If she had, well, she’d probably have been long gone. But it worked against her now.
“I’ll have the boys in Santa Cruz for the weekend. If you need more time to make alternative arrangements, that’s fine. Or I can put you up at a hotel.”
Put her up at a hotel? Well, thank you very fucking much. Yet Ruby was too stunned to say a word. He’d closed the door behind him before she could react. When she heard his car start, she grabbed the closest thing and threw it. The vase—something she’d found at a wine festival two years ago—shattered against the door, splinters flying out, stinging her cheeks.
Then she stormed back to the bedroom, grabbed her largest roller case out of the closet, threw it on the bed, and began cramming clothes inside.
If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d make that bitch pay for stealing Clay.
Chapter Sixteen
Jessica didn’t know how she was going to face Clay today, yet another Monday after a momentous event between them.
She would never learn to play the game correctly. Clay wanted her only if she gave pieces of herself to other men. It wasn’t about the sex, because of course she could do that. It was about feeling that she was good enough only if she did this for him. It was too much pressure.
This was why you never did your boss. You screwed up your love life and your job.
But dammit, she couldn’t hide in her office forever. She had things to do and decided to tackle accounts payable first. She poked her head into the first cubicle. “Hey Yuan, did you get all the paperwork you needed to put the Wrainger invoices on the checkrun?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Yuan spoke fluent English, but her heavy accent made phone calls difficult. She was excellent at handling issues through email, but the accounts receivable girl at Wrainger was terrible at responding to anything other than a phone call. Jessica sometimes had to step in to help.
“Great.” Okay, that wasn’t so bad. She could do her work despite what had happened Friday night. She moved on, offering a comment, a little praise, answering a question. She didn’t micromanage, but employees needed to feel appreciated, that you were available, and they could come to you with anything. Otherwise little problems became big issues.
She couldn’t say when she became aware of the whispering. It was like the previous Monday, when the halls buzzed with news of Bradley’s resignation, but on a lower level. As if everyone wanted to hear, but no one wanted to be accused of spreading this particular gossip. Then she started to get the gist of it through snatches of conversation.
“You’re kidding. They had sex?”
“Right there in the office.”
She started to feel sick.
“Holy moly, he can’t get it up anymore?”
“He actually pays people to screw her.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I swear.”
“What a sicko.”
“That’s total crap.”
Buzz, buzz, buzz. How did gossip travel so fast? It was all over the office. Until she realized it wasn’t about what Clay had done to her. It was about Ruby and Bradley, and that Clay was impotent so he paid other men to take care of Ruby. And he liked to watch.
Oh. My. God.
There seemed to be equal distribution between those who believed and those who thought it was bullshit. The problem was that half of what was being bandied about was true.
Huddled around the coffee machine, no one heard her enter the break room. Roger from engineering—what was he doing over here in accounting?—her G/L accountant Willard, Grace who did payroll, Lisa from customer service, and good Lord, Rochelle from the warehouse.
“What is going on here?” Despite the sickness in the pit of her stomach, she glared at them. “Don’t you have jobs to do? Gossip is totally unacceptable, especially malicious, unsubstantiated stuff.”
Everyone scuttled past her until she was blessedly alone. Her ears were roaring. She couldn’t think.
All she could she wonder was how it would affect Clay? Did he know about it? And really, who’d started all this?
* * * * *
“Jesus Christ,” Clay growled. “Who the hell would spread that around?”
“Your girlfriend?” Holt asked dryly. He leaned back in a chair, hands behind his head, ankles crossed, his heels propped on Clay’s conference table.
“Ruby’s not that stupid.” Clay paced in front of his desk. Christ, he was pissed. “It’s that asshole Palmer. He’s been talking to someone here.”
“The good thing is,” Holt said, “it’s so out there that no one’s going to believe it.”
“Except that it’s true.” For the most part.
“No one’s going to believe you’re impotent,” Holt snorted.
Clay laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Or,” Holt went on, “that you’d actually have to pay someone to do Ruby.” Ruby didn’t make it a secret that she loved sex. Or that she was very, very good at it. “I do have to admit she’s pretty damn bold for having sex right on your desk.” He ended with a raised brow.
When Clay had gotten wind of the rumors, there was no way he couldn’t let Holt in on the situation. Now Holt understood why he was staying at a hotel. The only thing he hadn’t mentioned was Jessica’s role. He wouldn’t bring her name into it. It wouldn’t be fair to her. This was about Ruby and him. And that asswipe Bradley Palmer.
“By tomorrow,” Holt said, “it’ll have blown over.”
“You’re pretty damn nonchalant about it. I don’t like this kind of disruption to the work flow.”
Holt put his feet down, slapped his hands on his knees, and leaned forward. “Face facts, Clay. Gossip exists. You can’t shut it down. If you tried, you’d feel the hostility building. I accept that it’s just another outlet. As long as shipments are on time, invoices go out, we get paid, and the stock price keeps going up even in a down market, I’m not going to mess with things.”
“This is worse.” Not because it was about him, but because Bradley had left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth since he’d walked out. Now the asswipe was trying to bring Clay down, but he was damaging West Coast in the process.
“I’ll take care of it,” he told Holt. He would not let his personal life mess with the company.
That’s why you never screwed a coworker. Or a subordinate. His actions could very well have on effect on Jessica, too. Christ, he should have listened to himself. Ruby was not the only screw-up here.
* * * * *
“Well, if it isn’t Little Miss Muffet,” Ruby drawled.
Jessica stood her ground. Clay’s office door had been closed when she trotted by. Behind Ruby, she could see that Holt’s office was empty.
Maybe Holt was upstairs telling Clay about the gossip. Maybe Holt was firing Clay.
This couldn’t be happening.
She concentrated on Ruby. The other woman didn’t bat an eyelash. She looked unconcerned, as if she hadn’t heard what people were saying. She looked...malicious.
She looked as if she were the one who’d started it all.
“You did this, didn’t you,” Jessica accused, soft and low, so that her words didn’t float down the hall to human resources or out into the front lobby where the receptionist could overhear.
“What are you talking about?” Ruby’s lip curled in a slight snarl. She wore a short cream blazer that exposed too much cleavage. Why did Holt let his secretary get away with dressing like a slut?
“The gossip,” Jessica stated flatly. She didn’t know why Ruby would have done it, but it had her grubby fingerprints all over it. She was angry Clay had walked out, and this was payback.
“What gossip?” Ruby asked mildly.
“You know every dirty bit of gossip anyone ever dredges up.”
“For your information, I sit at my desk, mind my own business, and do my boss’s bidding.” Ruby flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Is that what you do, Jessica? Your boss’s bidding?” She stood. Her skirt was halfway up her thighs. Snatching a file from her desk, she yanked open the cabinet, and stuffed the folder inside. Then she stood with her hip cocked, her arm resting along the drawer. “How far would you go to be controller, Jessica?”
“I do my job well, that’s how far I’d go.”
“Right.” Ruby stared her down. “And that’s why you were at the Marriott on Friday. Just doing your job?”
Jessica stepped back as if Ruby had slapped her.
Ruby rounded the end of her desk, stalking Jessica. “Oh yeah,” she went on, “Clay told me all about your little visit there when he came home to me on Saturday morning.”
“Home to you?” she echoed.
“Yeah. Home. To me. I told him to have a fling to pay me back for what I did with Bradley on his desk.” She smiled. It never reached her eyes. “Now we’re even, and things will go back to the way they were.”
Jessica’s heart hammered, her hands felt clammy, and her eyes ached. She blinked. She would not cry in front of Ruby.
“I should thank you.” Ruby went on turning the knife. “He was so worked up, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on me.”
It’s not true. It couldn’t be.
“Then why did you tell everyone about Bradley?” Jessica whispered. “Why did you tell them Clay was impotent and he paid men to have sex with you because he can’t get it up?”
Wide-eyed, Ruby stared at her if she’d gone completely mad. “What are you talking about?”
“The gossip. What everyone’s saying in the halls.”
Ruby’s jaw dropped. Jessica would have laughed if the whole thing wasn’t so horrible—from the malicious gossip to Clay screwing her to pay back Ruby, then returning to Ruby the next morning.
“Who is saying that?” Ruby finally managed.
“Everyone.”
Something began to smolder in the depths of Ruby’s irises, then she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips until tiny lines spread out from her lip liner like whiskers. “That bastard. I should have known he’d screw everything up.”
Of course. Jessica should have known, too. The rumors didn’t have Ruby’s panache. The payback currently making the rounds of West Coast Manufacturing was Bradley’s.
Chapter Seventeen
Clay hated personal business at work. It wasn’t the place. But Holt had gone over to manufacturing, and Ruby was alone. The problem needed immediate attention.
Seated at her desk, Ruby had chewed off her lipstick, a very unRubylike thing to do. When you stood back and looked at her, from a purely male perspective, she was an extraordinarily attractive woman. Hitting forty hadn’t diminished her sex appeal. She’d come into her own, from her dark hair to her gorgeous breasts to her gym-trim figure. Not to mention that she was pretty in a classic Lana Turner sort of way. You didn’t get much better than Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Yeah, that was Ruby, gorgeous on the outside, rotten on the inside, though as yet she hadn’t exhibited murderous tendencies.
She was full of secrets and smoldering sensuality. Jessica was the girl next door dying to be naughty for the bad boy down the street.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ruby said.
“What could possibly be wrong, my dear?”
“You were just standing there, staring at me. It’s unnerving.”
He reached back and closed the door to her annex outside Holt’s office. “So I hear it’s being bandied about that I’m impotent and I pay men to fuck you.”
She shot out a breath. “That’s not my fault.”
He raised one brow at her, then folded himself into a chair at the side of her desk. “So you have no clue how it all started.”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe Jessica Murphy wants revenge on me.”
He stared at her until she dropped her gaze.
“All right, it wasn’t her. It was Bradley.” She looked at him once more, her pretty brown eyes turning poignant and apologetic. “You were right. I was an idiot. I messed everything up. I’m sorry, Clay.”
“It was foolish.” He shrugged and decided not to ride her into the ground. “But he went overboard. Do you have his address or do I need to get it from human resources?”
She pushed back from the desk, her lips working a moment before she said, “You’re going to see him?”
“He needs to hear from the heavy.” He’d squash the guy like a bug.
She held up her hands, her manicure perfect. “That will make it worse. We need him to start another rumor about how he made it all up because—” She stopped.
“And why would he say he made it all up? Because he’s pissed at me? That’s another bad rumor, Ruby. It all has to stop.”
“Clay, please,” she begged, and he realized she was actually in earnest. “I need to talk to him. I can’t have you do it. I screwed this up, and I need to fix it.”
She was right, she needed to fix her own fuckups. Then she wouldn’t do it again. “Fine.” He held her gaze pointedly. “But if it doesn’t stop, then I’m going to deal with him.”
“I’ll take care of it.” She laid her hands flat on the desk. “Then everything can get back to normal.”
“Ruby,” he said, “we can’t go back.”
“Oh, oh, I don’t mean that. I know things have to change.” She tapped her chest. “I have to change.”
It was too late. He’d already done the changing for both of them, and t
here was no going back. “Ruby—”
She held up her hand. “Just let me fix this. Then we’ll talk. Please, Clay?”
He sighed, rose from the chair. “All right. Fix it.” But there would be no talk. He was done.
* * * * *
Jessica stared at her email inbox. The human resource rep at the company Vince was contracting for had scheduled an interview with her for five-thirty. Jessica had sent Vince her resume last Thursday, and he’d passed it on to his buddy: now this. What had she done? She’d climbed the corporate ladder, made her choices all about furthering her career. That came first. Until she’d seen Ruby in Clay’s office. Then she’d completely lost control of everything.
Her phone rang, and Jessica jumped. The readout came up with Clay’s extension. Oh God. She picked it up, her hand shaking. “Yes?”
“Got a minute? We need to talk.”
His voice actually created a physical ache inside her. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be right there.” In her crimping belly, she knew whatever it was had to be bad.
He was seated at his conference table, binders and folders strewn out before him, one foot propped on the opposite knee where a pad of paper rested as he made notes. “Shut the door.”
Yep, it was bad.
With the door closed, she could smell his aftershave, a subtle aroma that was spicy rather than sweet. The scent had been on her Friday night as she tried to fall asleep. When she closed her eyes, she could still smell it, whether he was there or not.
“I’m sorry I lied on Friday. I didn’t think of it as a lie at the time, just a fantasy.” She didn’t mention that she’d stalked him. Essentially that’s what she’d done by showing up at his hotel.
He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the pad on his lap. “I overreacted. You’re not like Ruby.”
That didn’t make her feel better. It was a preamble. She could hear the but, and more than anything, she didn’t want him to say it. So she gave him her own speech. “I’ve been mixed up over the last week, and I did some things I wouldn’t do under normal circumstances.” She cleared her throat, then allowed herself a deep breath. “Especially since I work for you.” Her eyes ached and her chest hurt, and suddenly it was hard to breathe.
Revenge Sex: A West Coast Hotwifing Novel, Book 1 Page 11