At that moment nothing seemed as important to her as sating their need to join together, but what Jake was saying should be right. She grabbed for the phone, trying to ignore the unsettling knowledge that this was the second time in so many days someone else had stepped in to keep her on point.
Her focus locked on the small screen in her hand, where tiny letters were strung together, making up the words she’d been waiting to read. She blinked, blinked again, feeling her vision tunnel, her heart accelerate and her stomach plunge.
Jake nudged his hips between her legs, his smile glinting in her periphery. Fingers splayed over her bare thighs, thumbs lightly circling her inner flesh. “What’s up?”
She peered at him, too many conflicting emotions overwhelming her at once. Too many questions taking on an urgency she hadn’t acknowledged until this instant. Suddenly she wished she’d left the message unread—given herself a few more minutes in Jake’s arms to soak in the contentment and peace of a simple Saturday morning—because now everything had changed.
“I’m going to London.” The words were past her lips, riding the air between them, before she thought to consider her phrasing. It wasn’t a question or a possibility she’d put forth, it was a statement of fact—a subconscious dare or plea to the man in front of her to shake his head tell her no. Give her a clue as to how he felt about her leaving.
Only shock had wiped all expression from his face, leaving it blank for the space of a heartbeat. All it took for him to regain control and pull his features into a mask of composure. “Congratulations, Cali.” He stepped back, crossed his arms over his chest. “I never doubted you’d get it.”
So that was that. Okay. At least she knew.
“Thank you,” she answered, managing a thin smile through the welling hurt as she slipped off the counter. “There’s a meeting in an hour to discuss the details. I need to shower and get ready.” Spend a few minutes with her own thoughts, trying to sort out her emotions. Get herself to a place where she could be happy.
She took a step toward the hall, but Jake caught her wrist. She turned, hope burning through her like a flash flame at his touch.
“Breakfast, sweetheart.” He stuffed a wedge of toast between her lips and ducked to drop a kiss at her temple. “A few bites’ll keep you sharp for the meeting. And then we’ll celebrate tonight, with dinner someplace special.”
She stared for a second, until Jake let out a short laugh, spun her around and sent her off with a light swat on her derrière. “Get moving, sweetheart. London awaits.”
London awaits, she thought heading down the hall on feet she couldn’t feel, chewing toast she couldn’t taste, preparing to celebrate a victory she couldn’t enjoy.
No. Couldn’t enjoy yet.
She was numb from the shock, was all. London was everything she’d wanted. Everything she’d been working for. Years of hard work and effort paying off. And Jake supported her in that. Understood how much it meant to her.
She was lucky. There weren’t any tough choices ahead of her. No questions that needed answering after all.
Lucky. Lucky. Lucky.
Bathed in the soundless blue glow of a late-night movie, Jake reclined against the headboard, absently stroking Cali’s tumble of wild curls as she slept against his chest.
His hand moved over the dark cherry and ginger waves, his fingers sifting into the soft disarray. She snuggled closer, her breath and lips tickling his abdomen with unintelligible murmurings.
Talking in her sleep again.
Usually it was just a few words, if that. Sometimes she said his name. He could gauge the quality of her dreaming based on the sounds that followed. A breathless laugh. A languorous moan. Being the ego-driven ass that he was, the moan was his favorite, and he rarely suppressed the answering urge to wake her and make the dream reality.
Tonight he found himself listening closely, willing his heartbeat to quiet as he tried to decipher her words. What he was listening for he didn’t know. Answers to questions he hadn’t asked, maybe?
Ten days. They were pulling her out of Chicago in ten days. Not even letting her finish the project here. She’d gotten far enough ahead that they’d decided to bring in someone else to tie up the rest, so Cali could get started in London.
She was getting what she wanted.
They both were.
He’d known from the start Chicago was nothing more than a stepping stone in the path of Cali’s career, and it was that very lack of permanence which had allowed him to give in and relax with her the way he had. But, even knowing it was coming, he’d received the news of her assignment with a disturbing mix of relief and distress. And so soon? He’d thought he had close to a month, but she’d come back from the meeting that had run well into the afternoon with a stunned expression, sixteen pages of notes, and a time frame of ten days.
He felt cheated. Angry just anticipating waking a few short days from now without her stretched beside him, all rumpled and warm.
When he came home at night there would be no one to meet him with little stories or silly jokes or soft kisses or quiet company.
He’d date. An endless series of superficial, short-lived encounters that never would have seemed hollow before Cali gave him something to compare them to.
It had been years since the solitude of living alone had even registered with him. When Pam had left, sure, it had been hard. His marriage might not have been the romance legends were made of, but for more years than not Pam had been his friend. He’d liked sharing a life with her—until he’d discovered she’d been sharing it with someone else as well. But being alone after that companionable existence—it had taken time and some drastic measures to fall back into the comfort of bachelor living.
Measures like the obnoxious TV, mounted sports-bar-style in the living room. The exercise equipment side by side with his couch. The steady stream of take-out dinners and take-out sex. And it had worked. He’d adapted to his new lifestyle so completely that once he’d found his groove he’d spent years avoiding anything—anyone—with the potential to disrupt it.
Until Cali. Everything was different with her, and had been from almost the first minute he’d met her.
He’d been looking for ways to have her that didn’t conform to the mold of his life. Thinking that because she was supposed to leave he’d be able to have his cake and eat it too. Enjoy that forbidden comfort of emotional and physical intimacy blending together as day chased night round and again. Thinking he’d be able to let her go simply because it had been the plan from the start.
Only he already knew what it felt like to be without her.
Fisting his hands against his eyes, he let his head fall back against the pillows.
Everything was playing out just as it should, except now he didn’t want it to go this way. Suddenly her impending departure didn’t feel like the free pass he’d once thought it to be. He didn’t want her to leave.
His breath held.
Was he actually considering this?
A soft sigh feathered over his navel, tightening every muscle in his body.
Hell, yes, he was.
“Cali.” He pushed her hair from her eyes and stroked her shoulder before he could come up with a reason not to. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
“Hmm?” She shifted against his chest, resting on her chin to face him. “You okay?”
“Do you ever think about picking a city to settle in?”
A tiny furrow drew between her eyes as they blinked in confusion. “What?”
What did she see? Some jackass leering at her with a phony smile? What had happened to the man who’d made her moan in the phone booth of a bar?
“Chicago. Staying here. With me.” There’d been a hesitance in her eyes when she’d gotten the news. He’d seen it, made sure he didn’t offer even one thing to feed into it. But now that felt like a mistake.
She pushed up from his chest, but he took her arms and laid her back on the pillow, then braced himself on one elbow beside
her.
The sleepy fog cleared from her gaze as she focused on him. “What are you asking me, Jake?”
His hand slipped beneath the sheet to cover the smooth, soft plane of her belly, where he traced light patterns over her skin. “We make each other happy. What we’ve got feels good—too good to let it end when it’s barely just begun.”
Cali blinked owl-wide eyes at him. This was a subject carefully avoided up to this point. He could feel the tension coiling within her. “What does that mean? Are you asking me to—?”
No.
“I’m asking you to stay, see how this thing between us plays out.” He took her hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. “I know your plan’s been to go international, but is it so important to go now? Come on, Cali. You feel it too—we haven’t run our course yet.”
The long muscles of her throat worked as she swallowed. She sat up and scooted back, blocking the emotion in her eyes as she slipped from his grasp to leave his hand on the cooling sheet where she’d been. She tugged the edge of the comforter up around her breasts and held it there, her body language conveying the words she seemed to struggle to voice. “I’m committed to this assignment.”
People changed their minds all the time. “The job hasn’t started yet. MetroTrek will find someone else.”
Cali froze, the skin tightening across her body as another man’s words rang through her mind. “It’s just a job, baby. They can get someone else.”
She shook it off and took a deep breath before returning his gaze. Jake wasn’t Erik. This wasn’t the same. Not really. Erik was a selfish bastard. A liar.
Jake wasn’t. But what he’d offered her—a chance to let the relationship run its course—wasn’t enough. Not even close. And it had taken everything in her not to wince from the hurt of such a limited offer. “I have goals, plans for myself.”
“I know you do, but there’s such a thing as compromise. Some of those goals could be met here,” he urged. “You’ll transfer within the company.”
Cali stared up into the deep blue of Jake’s eyes, where his emotions played a peek-a-boo game in the flickering light of the television. Arguing with him was the last thing she wanted to do. She reached out to touch the line of his jaw, felt the muscle jump beneath her palm. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to tell her he loved her. Give her something solid to hold onto. Not this half-promise to let their relationship “play out”. To try for London some other time. She’d done that once already…and it had led her right back here. This time she owed it to herself to follow through.
Her stomach twisted anxiously as she opened her mouth, but Jake put a finger to her lips, shook his head. “I shouldn’t have started this tonight. Neither of us are thinking clearly. Let’s get some sleep and talk about it tomorrow.”
He eased down into the pillows, pulling her with him. Emotion clogged her throat as the circle of his arms tightened and his lips pressed at the top of her head. There was no denying how good it felt to be in his arms. Just like there was no denying that Cali had nearly thrown her career away once before, gambling on a relationship without a future. And, no matter what Jake said the next day, she couldn’t let herself do it again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MOUNTED on the outer rail surrounding the rooftop deck, lamps flickered and glowed in molten hues against the darkening sky. A perimeter of flames danced in the rising wind, illuminating the MetroTrek crowd gathered at a co-worker’s Bucktown loft condo to bid Cali farewell. It was Friday night, and she was booked on the eight-fifteen, flying out Saturday evening.
Rubbing her arms against the evening chill made worse by the incoming weather, Cali watched the crowd at the bar laugh at something Jake said, while a strawberry-blonde threw her head back and then pressed her chest forward, gripping his arm for support. Jake gave her hand a quick pat and then gently extracted himself from her hold, turning back to Matt.
Women wanted him. All the time, it seemed. Everywhere they went hair swung in provocative fans, beckoning him closer. She knew he noticed, was probably so used to it he simply expected it. He certainly hadn’t been flustered any of the times he’d called her out for so blatantly gobbling up an eyeful of his good looks.
He wouldn’t be alone for long once she left. Not even one night—not unless he wanted to be.
A dull ache rose in her chest as she wondered if that was how he would deal with her leaving. The idea of his hands on another woman killed her.
Unreasonable. She knew it. Tried to tamp down the cacophony of emotions rattling her every nerve, shaking her confidence. Her faith.
What was she doing?
Jake pushed a wayward hank of his dark hair back from his brow and glanced up from his conversation with Matt. Their eyes met. From across the space of a building she felt his stare run hot over her cool skin, sparking the smolder of lust low in her belly. Her bar-side savior. Tall, dark, and more devastating to her heart than she’d ever believed possible.
Only one more night.
Oh, God, this hurt. She quickly looked away, trying to hide the pain in her eyes, but Jake was already crossing the deck. Within seconds his hand had closed over her hip, and he’d pulled her into the warmth of his chest.
“Look at me, Cali,” he rasped, somehow making it both a plea and a command.
Her eyes met his. Soulful blue stared back at her, and the first tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Stupid. She shouldn’t have let him see. Shouldn’t have given him another opening to start a conversation that had to end the same way.
Jake’s hold tightened, the muscle in his jaw jumping with strain in his face. “Don’t go. I can see you hurting, but you don’t have to. Just don’t go.”
He didn’t understand. Maybe he didn’t even want to. She loved him, but she would never forgive herself if she didn’t leave. “Please—”
“You’ve turned this job into something it shouldn’t be. London is just another city. It’s not your whole life. You could have success here. Hell, Cali, I’ll set you up with your own firm if that would make you happy. I’ll give you any kind of business you want. I don’t care if you work at all. Volunteer. Quit altogether and take up yoga.”
She blinked, stunned and confused, trying not to laugh. “You’re trying to set me up as your kept mistress? Do I get my own town house and a yearly income too?”
But for once Jake didn’t share her humor. He shook his head, staring at the sky as he gritted out words she was certain he wanted to yell. “There are other solutions than running a quarter of the way around the globe to make a point just because I won’t—”
She waited, knowing he wouldn’t say the words. Love her.
She should have been used to it by now, but somehow every time she had to register why she needed to leave it was harder to face than the last. As if she kept expecting at any minute he would see reason and realize he loved her.
“Don’t do this now,” she pleaded. Pulling herself free, she turned away from him, dragging the breath into her lungs.
“Then when, Cali? You’ve been working from six in the morning until ten at night for the last week. You’re leaving tomorrow and we’re spending our last hours together with a bunch of your co-workers who look like they’re more excited about getting liquored up than they are about you actually going to London. You can’t put me off any longer. We need to talk.”
One hour later they were home. Cali watched as rain pelted the windows of her mostly packed apartment, hammering home the fact that her existence in Chicago had nearly been washed away. Jake stood behind her, more ominous than the thunder rolling across the blackened sky.
“You won’t even commit to a visit.”
She turned on him, demanding understanding. “All I asked was that we wait to see how you feel after I’ve been gone for a while before making those kinds of plans.”
“See how I feel? I’m the one who’s telling you not to go! I think it’s pretty damn clear how I feel.”
She co
uldn’t keep going round with him this way. Her head was spinning, heart aching, and all she wanted to do was spend the next dozen hours soaking up the feeling of Jake’s arms around her. They weren’t getting anywhere, but he wouldn’t let it go. “You feel that way now, but once I’m gone—”
“So don’t go! Don’t give me the chance to forget about you if that’s what you’re so sure is going to happen.”
“Right!” she lashed back, unable to stop the words spewing from her mouth. “So I give up everything I’ve been working for, for years, and then what happens the next time Pam drops out of the sky with some crisis and you’re suddenly reminded of your commitment issues? The next time you decide you don’t like what you see in my eyes? That I’ve overstepped the bounds of our relationship?” She should have stopped, but he’d pushed her, refused to let it go, and now something inside her wouldn’t allow this to remain unsaid. “There’s one thing I can’t forget, no matter how much I’d like to, Jake. You might not have been able to let me go…but you wanted to.”
They both stilled. Cali held her breath. Waited for the impact to dull, the words to dissipate into nothing. Only they hung heavy around them, pushing against the backs of her eyes, tightening her throat, weighing on her soul.
She couldn’t even say his name. Try to take it back. Her voice would crack; her tears would spill.
His hands slid over her shoulders, up her neck to cup her jaw in his palms as he rested his brow against hers. “Cali….”
“I can’t fight with you.” Couldn’t he understand? “I can’t bear for things to end like this.”
“Okay. I know. You’re going.” Jake’s gaze, as dark and stormy as the night raging beyond the glass, slid over her. There was hurt there. And acceptance. “Just give me tonight. We’ll end it right.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“THIS isn’t going to cut it, Marcus. I need the forecast revised to include all of these factors.” Cali turned back to face her computer before he cleared away from her desk, and didn’t bother to watch him close the door behind him. The guy had been pushing her buttons since she’d arrived in London. He was getting careless with his work and becoming a liability to the project. She’d need to make a decision about him quickly.
Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring? Page 15