* * *
Mary never said a word. He’d underestimated that woman’s class. Even more amazing was that she treated Emily the same as she always had—as a trusted colleague and coworker, even though she could have treated her so many other ways. He knew Mary was overprotective of him, and she could have easily used that as an excuse to treat Emily like shit, but she didn’t. Clay couldn’t love that woman more. He might have been the shittiest interviewer on the planet, but he’d managed to pick the best possible employee ever. He was convinced he could have the opportunity to interview hundreds of other people and wouldn’t be able to find someone else as good as that woman.
She did say one thing to him one day, though, just one thing. “Don’t fall too hard, boss.”
He smiled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She put her hand on his chest. “Just protect your heart. You’re a good man.” She’d patted his chest then and walked around him, getting back to work. He knew what she meant, but she had it all wrong.
A couple days later, he wanted to ask Emily what she thought of him getting an Instagram page. Brian had been talking about his again while they’d been fine-tuning a song. “Shit. They just fall all over it.” Clay didn’t need the admiration of rabid female fans, but he did know he wasn’t as good about self-promoting as he should be. Well, he still wasn’t. Now Emily did it for him. He didn’t want to give her more work to do, but he wanted to see what she thought. That might even be something he could do just when he felt like it.
So he wanted to run it past her and walked down the hall to the office. She wasn’t in there, but he could hear her voice behind a closed door. He turned his head. Her bedroom was closed. He heard a man’s voice and for a moment, he felt a green rage flood his head…until he realized she was on the phone with the guy who might still be her fiancé. Then it just hurt.
He should have just walked away. He knew that. But he couldn’t make himself do it. In fact, instead of turning around, he took a few more steps closer to her bedroom.
“Listen, Em, I’m just asking you for a little forgiveness.”
“Just? Do you even hear what you’re saying?”
“I don’t care what it sounds like. Just hear me out.” Nothing from Emily. He figured they were on Skype, and the douchebag could see her face. “Those women? They meant nothing to me, okay? I just…miss you so much, kitten, and it’s so hard here without you. You have no idea.”
Clay felt his blood getting hotter. God, he’d love to put his fist into this guy’s teeth. Not only did he not have the balls to apologize properly to his girlfriend, he was trying to make her feel like it was her fault. He should have been on his hands and knees begging and then reconciled with himself when she told him to fuck off.
But she wasn’t. She was letting him talk.
Did that motherfucker still have a hold on her?
“Bryce, it’s not that easy. You say you have no idea. Well, same here. I already told you we’re through. I’m just talking to you now to be nice.” Clay felt his heart lift a little when he heard those words, because that made douchebag her ex. In the back of his mind, he realized that still made him rebound guy, but it was a less tenuous position.
“Just…give it more thought. Don’t do anything rash, Em.” She didn’t say anything. God, Clay would love to see her face. “My dad is holding a position for you if you still want to work for him this fall.”
“I don’t know, Bryce.”
“You know he’ll pay you more than anyone else for starting out. You won’t find a better deal than his. No matter how you feel about me, you should take it.” Clay wanted to run in her room and tell her it was bullshit, that the guy wanted her close by so he could win her back. He couldn’t, though. He knew he should really walk away, but then Bryce started talking again. “I’ll be home near the end of August, and I hope by then you’re ready with an answer.”
“What? I thought you were coming back the first week of August.”
“We were, but there’s so much here left to see. You have no idea how huge Europe is until you get here. It’s amazing.” Yeah, and the guy was probably scoring pussy every step of the way, just wrecking Emily. Why couldn’t she just tell the guy to fuck off?
Clay knew why. She’d said it herself a while back. She had that mountain of school debt to pay off, and it was driving her decisions. Maybe that too was why she felt like she couldn’t tell her ex-douchebag to just kiss her ass.
He walked away from the door, because he knew if he stayed much longer, he was going to walk in uninvited and say a lot of things he’d never be able to take back.
Chapter Twenty-six
UNBELIEVABLE. AT FIRST she’d thought Bryce was just messing around with her, but the first week of August came and went, and he was still in Europe. That told her just about everything she needed to know. He didn’t care enough about her to come home and discuss their future together.
It wasn’t like she’d been clinging to the thought of marrying him anymore. His father had even sent her a cursory email (likely typed by his assistant) with a tentative start date for her at her new job—the second week in September. She had responded with a simple Thank you, but she didn’t know that she planned to follow through.
Still…Bryce had told her the job was hers even if she called off their marriage and relationship.
She was coming close to a crossroads, and she still didn’t know which road to take.
Yeah…she really liked being with Clay, whether he was playing Jet or himself (an invisible line that didn’t exist as much as he thought it did), but she knew he wasn’t keeper material. She almost cringed even thinking that, but then all she had to do was imagine her dad’s reaction if she were to introduce Clay as her boyfriend. Her father was quite conservative and had on more than one occasion commented on her “hippy music,” seeming to cling to the notion that she would someday “outgrow” her taste for rock and metal music.
So she agonized over the decision that lay before her. She was starting to care for Clay a lot, but she knew it was going to end soon.
Meeting his daughter made it worse. The first of August, the girl had spent a week at Clay’s house, and Emily had fallen in love with her. Jasmine was a funny, happy child, shy at first, but once she warmed up to Emily, they had no problems talking. Jas helped Emily cook dinner a couple of nights when Clay didn’t insist they go out to eat. She was ten years old and smart. She told Emily about her little brother and her new baby brother on the way, and Emily’s heart ached for Clay. After what he’d told her about his love for Abby, she knew that the woman building a new family had to cut deep.
Still, he seemed to have moved on. Emily enjoyed seeing him with his daughter. They played videogames a few times, and it was fun to see how they interacted with one another. At first, Emily thought Clay was letting Jas win some of the games they were playing, but then she became convinced that Jas was just that good.
Jas and Mary got along well too. Twice Mary made some of Jas’s favorite breakfasts—once was chocolate chip waffles and the second time was bacon and eggs. Emily ate a grapefruit on the day of the waffles, but when she made herself some toast the next day, Jas asked why she didn’t eat the breakfasts Mary made. That’s when Emily told the child about her eating choices and what led to Jas helping her make a couple of meals. There was no helping the bond they formed over that week.
Emily hadn’t ever gone through all the rooms on the ground floor, but she discovered that one of them was Jas’s bedroom, and Emily was wowed. The child didn’t spend much time at Clay’s house, but it looked like she lived there full time. It was crazy the things in that girl’s room.
Needless to say, Clay and Emily tried to forego sex for the week but found it next to impossible, so twice they met late at night in the guest bedroom in the basement. She still felt the need to be as quiet as possible. She knew it wouldn’t help Clay out at all if his daughter found out he was sleeping with his assistant.
; She was almost as sad as Clay when he left to take Jas home to her other life. She was a great kid, and Emily loved that the child had her father’s smile and dimples. It just made her love the girl more.
Caring for his child made her decision that much more difficult. And her usual tactic of writing down pros and cons wasn’t helping. Her heart was too entwined in both outcomes, and she couldn’t settle.
No, that wasn’t true, and she knew it when she let herself really look at her situation. No—her heart wanted one thing, her rational self, quite another. And neither was budging.
So, instead of deciding, she continued to hope that, as the days got closer to September, a clear choice would present itself, one that would make a decision easy and swift to make.
Meanwhile, she was emailing back and forth with the band manager and communicating details to Clay. The band was going to be recording their next album in October, somewhere in Portland, Oregon. Clay had asked if Emily wanted to come along and she asked if he’d really need her there. He said he’d love to have her come along and said she’d have plenty to do. He’d buy a laptop so she could continue to do whatever she normally did, but he thought she’d love to see the recording process. That…and he admitted he didn’t want to be away from her that long. He said, if she was okay with it, that she could just stay in his room with him, but they had to book the flight, so he needed to know as soon as possible—like yesterday.
She asked him the obvious question—why didn’t they just record in Denver? She did the research and knew there was at least one good recording studio nearby.
It was already a done deal, he said. The manager had already booked the studio, and they’d heard it was a kick ass place. All they knew is they didn’t want the usual haunts in New York and LA where everyone else always went. They wanted someplace different and out of the way. Emily didn’t say it, but Portland sounded about as out of the way as it could get. She imagined part of it was because it was different and new, and she imagined that kind of energy could be good for the band.
One afternoon, still unable to come to a decision but close to telling him no, she walked outside to get the mail. She’d finally set up most of Clay’s bills to be deducted from his checking account automatically, but she still had to go through the mail. She was getting her mail at his house too, so oftentimes, there would be something for her she had to deal with.
As she walked in the house, her eyes adjusting from the bright sun, she started flipping through the envelopes and one of them was addressed to her from her student loan company. She was beginning to find their notices irritating. She knew she still had a few more months before she had to start making payments, but they continued sending her information and notices. When she got back to the office, it was the first envelope she opened. As she read it, though, her jaw dropped, and she moved from annoyed to angry.
She needed to find Clay.
* * *
He was working on the last song that he thought they’d squeeze onto the next album. It was something special, something secret, something he’d been working on for close to a month now. He’d played part of it for Emily just before she’d tied him up, and she’d liked it. He hadn’t been lying to her when he said he’d written it for her.
The problem now was writing the lyrics. He’d never been a word man.
Still…he didn’t want Devil writing the words to something that meant so much to him. He didn’t care if Devil sang it, but he wanted the words to be his.
So, he was thinking about everything Emily was starting to mean to him when she came into the music room…looking more pissed than he’d ever seen her. He wondered if maybe she’d had another conversation with Bryce, but he sensed that wasn’t it. He put down the pen he’d been holding and set it on the notepad on the loveseat beside his leg and asked, “What’s going on?” She looked pretty emotional, and he sensed she might need some comforting, so he propped the guitar on the floor in front of the loveseat as well.
“This.” She waved a crumpled sheet of paper in front of her, but he couldn’t see it.
“What is it?” He was starting to feel tense. She was angry with him.
She took a deep breath of air and managed to keep her voice steady. “Do you want to explain to me why you paid off all my student loans?”
He relaxed then. “We talked about it, Emily. You don’t need that shit holding you back from what you really want in life.”
“No, Clay, we didn’t talk about that. Not about you paying it all off. What the hell? Why would you do that?”
He stood then. “Because I care about you. I hate to see you running off to do something you hate just because you have all this debt you’re buried under. It’s ridiculous.”
She was barely audible. “It’s not ridiculous. It’s what adults do. We take responsibility and do what we must.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s bullshit. I see in you…a light, and it burns bright and steady. But if you go do this shit for the man that you feel like you have to—well, I’m afraid that light will be extinguished.”
“Don’t you get it, Clay? That wasn’t your choice to make. It’s mine. Mine. And now you’ve taken that choice away from me.”
So he could see where she was coming from, but he didn’t understand why she couldn’t just thank him. Honestly, he hadn’t known she’d have a reaction like that, or he wouldn’t have done it in the first place without her knowledge. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, well that’s easy to say now. Do you know how it makes me feel?”
He shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”
Her eyes were aflame. “It makes me feel like your whore, Clay, like your kept woman. And that’s a shitty way to feel.”
Aw, shit. “Honey, I never meant for you to feel like that. Swear to God.” He sighed. Somehow he always managed to fuck up the most important things. “You can pay it back if you want. But you can do it when you feel like it. I don’t need the money.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes, as if that solution wasn’t good enough. “Or, better yet, just consider it a bonus. You really are an amazing PA. I owe you a lot more than I pay you.”
“Not thousands of dollars, Clay.”
He sensed her defenses breaking down, and he placed his hands on her waist. She struggled a little but not enough that he stopped. He stared her down. “I don’t want you chained to your ex’s family just because you have some stupid loans. If you want to go work for them now, you do it because you want to, not because you have to. If you decide you really want to work for a big corporation, great. That’s something you can decide. You won’t feel like you have to. That’s all I wanted for you—not for you to be pissed at me just because I tried to do something nice for you.”
She let out a breath. “Fine. But I am paying it back.”
“Fine.”
“And if you ever do anything like that for me again, I will kick your ass.”
“Mmm. I look forward to it. In fact, you can do it now if you like.” He hoped his hard on digging into her convinced her he was serious as hell.
Chapter Twenty-seven
A FEW DAYS later, Clay popped into the office after four. “I know you’re putting it off, and I get it, okay? But I need to know if you’re going to Portland or not.”
Damn. Emily had known the day was coming and didn’t know if she’d have an answer for him. He’d somehow thought paying her student loans off would make her feel free; instead, it made her feel indebted to him. “I don’t know, Clay. You really don’t need me there.”
“That’s what you think. How will I make it to recording sessions on time?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I—I just don’t want you wasting your money on a flight if I change my mind.”
He came around the desk and sat on the area where the drawers were, away from the computer, but close to her. “Then don’t.” The look in his eyes was heavy, significant. It was obvious he didn’t understand what she was feeling internally. She knew for sure she didn�
��t want to explain it to him.
She considered telling him no, but on a whim she said, “Fine.” If she were still there, she would have made up her mind to stay, and she would want to be with him.
It wasn’t a question of Bryce. She’d already decided she didn’t want him anymore. The last several conversations they’d had, he indicated he didn’t have any real remorse. It was all a put on. He expected her to be the good little girlfriend ready to become the good little wife who just overlooked his transgressions. She started questioning why he’d ever wanted to be with her. His mother hated her, always had. All she could figure was it was because his dad liked her and really did want her to work for his company. The man had had enough conversations with her to know. He’d told her earlier in the year that she had “just the head for business” that he was always on the lookout for.
No, her indecision was based on, instead, two other questions that kept her from fully committing to Clay’s permanent employ. The first was Bryce’s father’s offer. If she chose to go into business and stay there, he had offered her an incredible opportunity. She wouldn’t be starting at the lowest level of the company and she would be mentored. That said, she wondered if Bryce’s dad was considering pulling the offer away because Bryce hadn’t said anything. That was possible. So maybe the job wasn’t as sure a bet as she’d thought.
Then, though, there was the other issue, and that was of Clay’s decision to pay her loans off without her permission. Yes, at its most basic level, it was a sweet gesture. He’d wanted to do something nice for her. But he hadn’t thought it all the way through. He hadn’t thought it all the way to fruition. In that way, it had been a child-like gesture, and as much as she’d wanted to stay angry with him, she couldn’t. Still, she didn’t know that she wanted to become the girlfriend of a guy who felt he needed to rescue her at every opportunity. One of the things Emily had always prided herself on was her fortitude. Clay’s little (or not so little, really) gesture had undermined that, and she was having a hard time rectifying it in her mind.
Feverish (Bullet #3) Page 19