She was his path, his direction. He’d never been more sure.
“Where are you going?” Piers demanded.
Jeremy froze, three tables away. “Back to my business.” And back to Vanessa, to start to make things right.
“But you drove me here.”
Dammit. He did. And as much as he’d like to cut the ties with Piers completely, Yessir was still one of his major customers.
Jeremy turned. “Come on then.”
Piers tossed back the last of his drink and followed him to the door.
In the lobby of Two Union Square, Jeremy held out a hand to shake goodbye. Instead, Piers shook his head.
“I need to hit the can. And if I remember correctly, your restroom is a hell of a lot cleaner than the one in the lobby.”
“Really, Piers?” Jeremy sighed. He strongly suspected this was another game, but he could live with it for now.
They rode the elevator in stony silence, stepping onto the fifty-sixth floor after the office had cleared out for the day. Somehow the afternoon had slipped away, and out the windows, the skyline was aglow. In the distance a seagull wheeled between the buildings, wings spread, wind in its face.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremy caught a glance of Vanessa’s gorgeous curves. He directed Piers to the restroom before walking across the floor to her.
“Everything okay?” Vanessa asked. She smelled edible, like more than just her regular vanilla and coconut. She smelled like…sugar. And cake?
Relief crashed over him. She was still here, waiting for him. “Absolutely.”
Vanessa peered over his shoulder, and uncertainty transformed her pretty face. “So Piers is the good news?”
Jeremy wanted nothing more than to kiss the crease between her eyes, but he settled for a smile. “I’ll tell you just as soon as he’s out of our hair.”
Piers emerged from the restroom at that, drying his hands on his slacks. When he saw Jeremy, he straightened to his full height, smoothing a hand over his graying hair.
Jeremy knew in an instant it had been a mistake to bring him here, for Vanessa to see him like this—slightly drunk and sufficiently pissed.
“I’ve got to say, Jeremy, I’m disappointed in you.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened as she looked between Jeremy and Piers. As the old man continued, everything crumbled in slow motion. “I always saw this as a family business one day. You, Amy. Maybe a litter of kids.”
Jeremy stepped forward, trying to shield Vanessa from Piers’s words. But they landed anyway—he could see it in the way Vanessa’s spine stiffened, her cheeks going red. She closed her eyes and opened them, glassy with tears.
Piers sniffed, uncaring. “Not that that’s my thing, but I would have supported you. Pass on the family genes.”
“That’s enough, Piers. It’s time for you to catch a cab.”
Piers shook his head, lancing Jeremy with a sharp look. “I thought you knew what loyalty was.”
“Get the fuck out of my office, Piers.”
At last the old man turned to go. But it was too little, too late, and all of Jeremy’s secrets spilled on the marble like blood.
Chapter 45
Vanessa looked away from the closing elevator doors and fixed her gaze on the man beside her. Her body trembled, and she could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips, but the rest of the world swirled away into a blur.
“Why would Piers say that about you and Amy?”
Jeremy’s eyes squeezed shut as if he was truly pained. His voice was thick with emotion and quiet, as if, by speaking softly, he could make the words less true. “I used to date her.”
The world stopped.
Vanessa had spent her whole life since her mom’s affair trying to avoid liars, and here was one standing in front of her. And to think, she’d almost said yes to him.
“You used to date Amy.” She couldn’t help repeating it back to him like a stupid parrot, but it was the only way she could process the words. “But you told me there was nothing between you.”
Jeremy’s jaw ticked. “There’s not. Those texts were strictly professional.”
She remembered them now, her stomach lurching. I’ll have everything ready for you when I see you. Hard, deep, and everything in between.
Oh god.
He was such a fucking liar.
Her insides went cold, and then a rush of heat flooded through her as she made the next connection. “You kissed me on the same day you took me to see her?” She might puke all over this pretty floor.
Had she fallen for just another line by the guy who was so good at getting women in bed? Because she had fallen for him, hadn’t she? Silver tongue and all. But maybe her feelings were lies, too, and she was just a stupid woman getting played by a player. She couldn’t even trust her judgment anymore.
“It wasn’t like that.” Jeremy took a step toward her and reached for her hand. She yanked it from his grasp.
“It wasn’t like you were making a fool out of me?” Her voice stretched tight, and everything inside her screamed to run.
“No.”
Her mind flashed to Amy’s model body, her important job. “I like Amy, Jer. I don’t want to compete with her.”
“There’s no competition. And I didn’t bring you to Yessir to make you feel like an idiot. Yessir is a legitimate account, and they wanted you there.”
The blood drained from her face. “Is Amy the reason you hired me back?”
Jeremy froze, and that said everything in the world.
“Oh god.” She turned away, struggling to breathe.
“Vanessa, I’ve never lied to you. Yessir wanted me to hire you back. You knew that when we made our deal.”
“I didn’t know you were trying to make your ex-girlfriend happy,” she bit out. “And that you were going to trot me out in front of her like some stupid show pony.”
Jeremy’s face pinched. “Enough about what Yessir wanted. I wanted you back in the office.” He stabbed a finger at his heaving chest. “I wanted you on that trip. And I didn’t know what was going to happen with me and you. I didn’t know I was going to fall for you.” His voice broke, and he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “There was also another deal on the table I needed to feel out during that meeting. Something much bigger. I was going to tell you about it tonight.”
She was the biggest fool in the world. It wasn’t just about Amy, and it wasn’t just about the fact that she’d thought she had fallen for Jeremy. She should have never mixed business with pleasure, especially with her boss. Why did she think it would be fine, that they would figure it out and there wouldn’t be consequences either way?
If she hadn’t stepped into Jeremy’s hotel room that night, she wouldn’t know what she was missing now by ending this. She wouldn’t feel like everything she’d wanted was slipping away.
Vanessa’s throat constricted as she squeezed out the words. “It’s too late, Jer. You lied to me. You know that’s my hard line.”
She’d put her emotions and her body in his hands because she’d thought she could trust him, but her stupid, soft heart didn’t even have the sense to protect itself. And now she was bleeding out.
Jeremy followed her across the building as she stormed toward her desk. She hauled her purse onto her shoulder and turned to push past him.
“Vanessa, wait.”
“Why?” she volleyed back.
“Because I love you.”
Oh, dammit. Not now. The words whispered like a siren song. If she followed after them, she’d surely drown.
Vanessa yearned for those words, needed them. But this was not how she was going to go down. After all, what had she tried to teach her girls at GROW? To be confident in what they wanted, to believe in themselves. A few pretty little words weren’t going to sway her now, no matter how much she wanted them to be true.
She tightened her jaw and glared at Jeremy. He looked so damn good in a white button-down shirt that hugged his muscles and exposed his forearms. Arms that s
he now knew were perfectly capable of up-against-the-wall sex. Should she rip the shirt off of him or rip into him?
She chose the latter. “Please consider this notice of my resignation.”
Jeremy flinched. “I don’t accept it.”
She shook her head. Why was he making this harder for her? Didn’t he know it was killing her to stand here and bleed all over the floor? “It’s not your choice, Jeremy. I quit.”
Jeremy’s face hardened. “Please don’t walk away from this. Your ten weeks aren’t over yet.”
“Oh god. Are you really going to use that against me?” Was it all going to come back to the job, and not to the fact that he’d wanted her? Apparently, the fact that she’d slept with him, given herself over to him, meant nothing. “There’s less than a week to go, Jer.” She’d counted, so afraid of what would happen when their time was up. The irony wasn’t lost on her now.
“If you leave I won’t be able to turn over that contact name.”
Vanessa shook her head, her spine stiff. After all this—after saying how much he cared—he was going to hold back on the one thing she’d truly wanted.
He didn’t love her at all.
Betrayal set her skin on fire, made her heart pound. She wrapped an arm around her nauseous stomach.
“Holding that back isn’t going to change anything. I can’t keep working here with you.” Vanessa didn’t need to torture herself by walking past the office where she and Jeremy had had sex. She didn’t need to walk into the restroom and stumble across the flowers he stocked for her. She didn’t need any reminders of any of the fact that this had all gone up in flames. She wanted to nurse her wounded heart in peace.
Vanessa clenched a fist around the strap of her purse, pulling it to her like armor. She swept her eyes over the clean, modern lines of the X Enterprises office one last time, saying a mental goodbye to the cozy desk chairs, the seductive photographs hanging on the walls.
It was really too bad. She’d come to love this place after all.
“Goodbye, Jeremy.”
She would not let him see her cry.
Chapter 46
One of the advantages of having gobs of money was that when you wanted to escape your failures, money gave you the opportunity to both run and hide. Ever since Vanessa had left Jeremy in the lobby on Friday, Vegas seemed like the perfect place to do both.
The city, to Jeremy, had always shimmered with potential. The potential to be anyone, to do anything. That feeling of possibility was why he’d built his manufacturing plant here. That and the low taxes. And after Friday, he needed to remind himself why he had started.
A few hundred bucks and an airplane ticket later, he was in Vegas in time for the Monday morning production call with Seattle. Bex hadn’t blinked an eye when he’d walked into the lobby yesterday morning, but she did ask if he was feeling okay. And if even his toy designer had noticed the circles under his eyes, then he had to look bad. Shit.
If Jeremy was being honest, jumping on that phone call was a way of torturing himself. He’d hoped to hear Vanessa’s voice, but he wasn’t prepared for the shockwaves of pain that echoed through him when she hadn’t been there at all.
If he thought about it too much, he wanted to slam his fists into the bar. Instead, he ordered a drink. The Mandarin Bar was one of his favorite haunts in Vegas, with walls of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking The Strip. From the twenty-third floor, everything else seemed far away.
Jeremy took a healthy swallow of his drink, waiting for the buzz to crash over him. He couldn’t believe Piers had gone and spilled the beans about Amy. He’d know goddamn well what he was doing, too, the smug sonofabitch.
The worst part was it wasn’t entirely Piers’s fault Vanessa had walked away from him. What had Jeremy been thinking, threatening to hold back the University contact from her? All he’d wanted to do was give her a reason to stay. Just a little more time and he would have been able to fix everything, to prove he was worth another chance. Instead, he’d only pushed her away.
He’d been on the brink of having it all, and he’d lost it.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Jeremy turned to find Amy slinking across the room to him, an indecently short dress clinging to her body. “I called into the office, and they told me you were in town.”
He nodded and turned back to his drink. If Amy had called for him yesterday, she would have had to jump on an airplane last night or drive out through the desert to be here today. She’d come here for him.
Jeremy felt her approach, but when she slid her fingers onto his arm, he stiffened under her touch.
Amy looked down at her hand like it was a foreign thing. She withdrew it smoothly, running her fingers through her hair and fanning it over her bare shoulders. Half the guys in this room probably thought Jeremy was about to be a lucky bastard. They had no idea.
“Can I get you a drink?” Amy purred.
He rattled his tumbler, even though at this point it was mostly ice. “Already covered.”
She ordered a white wine and took the seat next to him at the bar, not noticing the leave me alone vibes he was throwing. Or not caring.
It was just like how Amy always was. If she didn’t like your game, she’d pretend you were playing a different one. Or pretend your game was her idea all along.
God, what did he ever see in her?
“We need to talk.” Amy pitched her voice low, so Jeremy had to lean in close to hear her.
He pulled back. “All set.”
She continued anyway. “My father and I have discussed it with the Board, and while we’re not pleased you’re playing hardball, we’re willing to up our offer.”
“So you’ve come to deliver it in person?”
Amy crossed and uncrossed her legs, giving Jeremy a show of skin that she knew he could see. A faint, satisfied smile played on her lips. She’d also come to deliver herself.
Amy slid a scrap of paper to him, an enormous and irresponsible number written on it.
He swallowed hard. That money could mean so many things, but it was still a noose around his neck. “The answer’s no, Amy.”
“Come on, Stud. I know you’ve wanted to make your place in this world for years. This is your chance to do it.”
Jeremy shook his head. “You don’t know me anymore.” There was a big difference between knowing what someone looked like naked and knowing what was really inside them. And while Amy wasn’t entirely wrong about what he had wanted in the past, he wasn’t that same person anymore. He continued, “Nostalgia may have its place, but not in business. Business is about evolution. So is life.”
“Don’t make me beg.” Amy breathed into his ear, dropping a hand onto his knee. “Or maybe you would like that?”
He pushed back from the bar, disgusted. This may have been his favorite place in the past, but he couldn’t remember why he’d ever liked it. He couldn’t remember why he’d ever liked Amy.
There was only one woman for him, and he couldn’t keep hiding across the country, pretending she never existed. Just like everything else in his life, if he wanted Vanessa, he was going to have to fight for her. He’d never done that before—it had always been other people chasing him. But there was a first time for everything. Vanessa deserved to be cherished. And he was going to show her that. He just needed to figure out how.
“Where are you going?” Amy demanded as he paced toward the door.
“Back where I belong.”
“If you walk away from this, there’s no going back. This is our best and final offer.” Amy’s warning slid down his spine like ice, but Jeremy didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. Best and final wasn’t going to be good enough for him. Not this time.
Chapter 47
A text message pinged through on Vanessa’s phone, and she groaned when she saw the name on the screen.
Bea looked up from the cookie she was frosting. “Another one?”
Vanessa sighed. “Looks that way.”
&nb
sp; She really should stop opening the damn messages, but every time she received a new text from Jeremy she couldn’t help but think maybe this one would hold the words that would change things for her. The words that would let her forgive him.
So far, nope.
It had been almost two weeks since she’d stormed away from his lies, but she still missed him. She’d cried every night, furious with herself for how sad she was, angry that she’d let her feelings for Jeremy spin so deep. The pain of his betrayal was like an internal wound—you couldn’t see it on the surface, but every time she moved, the pain ripped through her anew.
Vanessa sucked in a breath as she opened an image of Shark cuddled against Jeremy’s naked chest.
We miss you.
Oh crap.
She could have maybe, mayyybbbbeeee ignored the tempting sight of Jeremy’s body, and she could have possibly overlooked the vulnerability in his words. But using the cat against her was a low move.
No fair, Glass.
If he kept this up, he was going to weaken her resolve, and she needed to be strong right now.
Vanessa set the phone on the kitchen counter, and Bea made a sympathetic face. “Want a cookie?” Apparently, she’d ignored the concept of leaving your work at work, and she’d baked Vanessa a pity batch of sugar cookies this morning.
“Why not?” Vanessa reached across the counter for a cookie decorated like an ugly Christmas sweater. Why Bea had chosen such a seasonally-inappropriate design was beyond her, but all Vanessa cared about was that the sugar was a tiny balm.
She perched on the kitchen barstool, forcing herself to ignore everything else in her life except for the sweet taste of the dough and frosting in her mouth. It was better than facing reality: not only did she not have the social work job she so desperately wanted, she didn’t even have the temporary job from X Enterprises. Unsurprisingly, Vanessa’s mother had opinions about all of it. None of them good.
His Distraction Page 24