Janie (The Casanova Club Book 15)

by Ali Parker

  With that, I hung up and blocked the number. At that very moment, someone poked their head through my half-open office door. I glanced up and squinted at Shawn Bowen, my assistant, who narrowed his eyes as I tossed my phone down on the desk.

  “Was that who I think it was?” Shawn’s blond curls were tight and still damp. He must have just arrived at the office because he usually showed up earlier than everyone else and let his hair air dry over the first half hour of the day. His eyes were bright and blue and there were no purple bags beneath them like I was sure there were beneath mine. Shawn was a young, energetic, somewhat frantic young man who had no off-button and relentless energy that I had to admit I was mildly envious of.

  I sighed and paced around my office to the coffee bar, where I began brewing a pot. I held it up in way of offering Shawn a cup.

  “No thanks, sir,” he said.

  I shot him a dark look. “I thought we established that you don’t call me that anymore.”

  Shawn smoothed down the lapel of his gray suit. “Sorry, sir. I mean Max.”

  “Better.”

  Shawn chewed the inside of his lip and gazed pointedly at my phone on my desk. “So it was her?”

  “Sienna? Yes.”

  “Not to overstep but I think you might need a restraining order, sir—sorry. Max.”

  “She’s not worth the trouble.”

  Shawn blinked. “Cold.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  The coffee finished brewing and I poured myself a cup. I sipped it black, scalded my tongue, and appreciated the burn for bringing me all the way around to being fully alert.

  The last thing I needed was Sienna Cuthbert circling back around like a vulture ready to pick at my bones once more.

  She and I had a six-week-long relationship near the beginning of the year but I’d quickly put a stop to things when I realized she wasn’t the kind of woman I wanted in my life. She was beautiful, to be sure, and when things first started between us, I’d fallen for the big doe eyes, the curtain of luscious blonde hair, and the voluptuous figure. She’d reeled me in with sweet words and pretty smiles and tricked me into thinking she was someone she wasn’t.

  After Piper, I wanted to believe there were other women out there with hearts like hers and maybe that had made me a little more vulnerable than I used to be. And naïve.

  Sienna, it turned out, was legitimately unhinged.

  After just four weeks, she started talking about marriage and asking me if she could borrow my credit card for shopping sprees. She didn’t take kindly to the word “no” and spiralled off the deep end and unleashed unholy hell on me and my house like a spoiled teenager. That little episode sealed the deal for me that she and I were over. I broke it off and sent her packing, and the following evening, she’d showed up in my driveway drunk as a skunk with a baseball bat and beat the shit out of my McLaren, a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car.

  At the time, I didn’t know if I was more furious or confused.

  I never saw that kind of backlash coming. Sure, I’d had my fair share of bad breakups, but Sienna took the cake when it came to crazy ex-girlfriends.

  After trashing my car, my sister, who’d been at my house that night so we could call my grandmother over video call together, had called the cops. Down at the station, I was presented with the option of pressing charges or not. Holly insisted I use the law to my advantage and charge Sienna but that didn’t feel right. I agreed not to press charges as long as Sienna got some help for herself. She agreed and I hadn’t heard from her in months.

  Until two weeks ago when she started calling me up out of the blue, begging for me to take her back. She said she’d changed. She was a new woman. She was sober. And she was sorry.

  But she couldn’t have changed that much because here she was, calling me for the sixteenth time in four days after I’d told her to leave me the hell alone.

  With a nod, I gestured for Shawn to follow me and we stepped out of my office and made for the conference room, where I had a call with several board members scheduled for eight thirty.

  Shawn hurried along beside me, taking quick steps to keep up with my long strides. “What is she asking for?”

  “She wants to get back together. And she claims there’s something important she needs to tell me. I don’t have the time or energy to listen to a word she has to say.” I sipped my coffee as we swept into the conference room.

  Shawn and I began making sure each place setting had a coffee mug and water glass. It would be a long meeting. Pastries and snacks already waited on a silver platter in the middle of the table.

  Shawn and I took our seats. We had half an hour to kill and we usually used this time to go over changes in the office or upcoming commitments of the day.

  Shawn had his schedule in hand where he kept all his notes and he flipped it open while shooting me a wary look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You slept here again last night, didn’t you?”

  I tried to fix my suit by tugging at the sleeves. “Is it that obvious?”

  Shawn nodded.

  “Shit.”

  “Maybe that’s only because I see you every day. The others won’t notice.”

  Unlikely. I raked my fingers through my hair in an attempt to smooth it down. It felt coarse and unruly, and based on the way Shawn winced as I tried to tame it, I was failing. With a disgruntled sigh, I gave up trying.

  “This is as good as it’s going to get today,” I said.

  “We need to hire a new office manager,” Shawn said pointedly.

  The reason I was stretched so thin at work was because I wasn’t only doing my job, but I was doing the work of an office manager too. It was starting to cut into every facet of my life. I was back to being at work twenty-four-seven just like I had been before Piper came along and pointed out my workaholic ways. Our previous manager had left six weeks ago to pursue an opportunity overseas.

  Since then, every day seemed to blend into the next. Sometimes I went home at night. Sometimes I didn’t.

  I needed help. Or a vacation.

  Or perhaps, all I needed was a good-hearted woman to come home to at the end of a long day. I needed someone to put her head on my chest and take a deep breath with me when I walked through the door and help me check out of work mentally and check in to being home with her. Someone with a pretty smile who could promise good company and no stress when I was with her.

  Like how it used to be when Piper and I spent the month together.

  I gave my head a shake. That felt like a lifetime ago now. I’d moved on. I truly had. I didn’t love Piper anymore and I was happy for her and Wyatt—the Casanova process had worked just as it was intended to. She found love. So did Wyatt. Now they were well on their way to achieving everything Piper had ever dreamed of, including becoming a mother. I just considered myself lucky to have been part of that journey.

  However, I wasn’t immune to a bit of jealousy as I longed for what she and Wyatt had. I’d give anything to have that feeling again. For a brief period after the wedding, I thought I almost had it with Piper’s maid of honor, but that didn’t pan out how I’d expected, and it was best if I didn’t dwell on that loss for too long.

  Maybe that was why I’d let myself get caught up with Sienna in the first place. Desperation.

  I tried to shake that thought away. It didn’t sit well. I wasn’t a desperate man and I refused to think of myself as one.

  Perhaps it was loneliness. That was an easier pill to swallow.

  If my grandmother ever knew I’d dated a woman like Sienna, she would have smacked me upside the head and given me a piece of her mind. She’d remind me who the hell I was and what I deserved, and it certainly was not a self-indulgent, ignorant, spoiled, selfish woman who only cared about her image and status and would do whatever it took to upgrade her life.

  Shawn cleared his throat and I looked up.

  “Did you hear me?” Shawn asked, his eyebrows knitting together. He
had a pen poised over the calendar in his hands and had likely just ran me through what my day looked like, and here I was, zoning out on him.

  “No,” I admitted. “Sorry, Shawn. I’m not sleeping well these days.”

  “A desk makes a shitty pillow,” he said.

  “Yeah, it does. Run that by me again. I’m listening now.”

  Chapter 3

  Janie

  I had to use my hip to push my front door open after struggling out in the hall with my keys for what felt like an eternity. In one hand, I had the golden ticket to making my solo night at home (like every night at home) better—a bottle of cheap red wine. In the other hand, I had a bag of takeout vegetable chow mein and some mini spring rolls. Neither would solve any of my problems but they would help drown them out, if not just for the night.

  And the nights were always the worst.

  I started my routine the same as always. First, I went down the hall to my bedroom, where I traded my pencil skirt and deep red blouse for a summery pajama set. I kicked off my heels and padded barefoot to the bathroom so I could scrub my makeup off and slap on some moisturizer. After a half-assed attempt at a skincare routine, I returned to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of wine, and brought the takeout containers into the living room so I could plop down on the sofa, throw on my favorite sitcom, and eat straight out of the plastic to-go box.

  I washed every second bite down with a sip of wine. Did the much-too-sweet bottle of shiraz go with the chow mein? Not really. But once I was halfway through the bottle, I didn’t seem to notice that much.

  I spilled wine on my pajama set and chow mein on the sofa and just kept on going. The TV distracted me from the guilt and shame as I overate and overdrank—both of which helped erase the woes of the day.

  How much longer would I be able to keep going like this?

  In hindsight, I should have quit or at least spoken to Jackson Lee when I fell out of love with my work. When I was his assistant, I loved going into the office. I liked the hustle and bustle and being the middle person for him. I liked how every day looked different and I had flexibility with my work. The pay was mediocre but at least I was happy.

  After taking the promotion, I knew things were shifting in a way I didn’t like. Each day was the same as the last. Every morning was spent with the same routine. I’d get ready and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror wondering who the hell the girl was staring back at me.

  I didn’t recognize her.

  When had that started happening? When had the girl in the mirror become someone else? Someone sullen, spent, and exhausted? Someone who’d lost her edge?

  I wished I had answers to those questions. Maybe they would help me find my way now.

  I stared morosely at the bottle of wine on my coffee table and poured yet another glass.

  “Who needs answers when you have wine?” I asked the characters on my TV screen. They didn’t answer me, of course. They carried on with their scripted lives. I took a healthy swig and set the glass down a little too hard. For a moment, I thought I’d cracked the glass, but luckily, it was still intact. “You need to get a hold of yourself, Janie. What would Piper say to you if she saw you like this?”

  Piper would have run me a bath, taken the chow mein away from me, and told me I deserved to treat myself better than this.

  But did I really deserve more?

  I was the one to blame for ending up here alone, exhausted, and empty.

  The only thing I had going for me was the job I hated. I cried putting my makeup on most days, thinking about going into the office knowing I’d rather be anywhere else. I cried driving home. I cried lying in bed.

  Maybe the tears weren’t only because of the job. Maybe it was because of a whole list of reasons and the job was the thing that pushed me over the edge because I had to confront it every damn day.

  If Piper still lived with me and I had someone like her to come home to, I doubted I’d be struggling this much.

  I hiccupped as another glass of wine went down.

  “I need a change,” I whispered.

  What options did I have? I could quit my job, but then what? How would I pay my rent? How would I keep moving forward without work? And what kind of work did I even want to do?

  All those questions paralyzed me. I had no clue where to start. It was so much easier and safer to just come home, watch mindless television, drink wine, and turn my brain off until I had to get up again in the morning.

  I can’t keep doing this forever.

  The wine bottle was empty before nine o’clock. My stomach was heavy and full from the greasy chow mein and my head was spinning, so I stumbled up from the sofa and made my way into the bathroom where I ran myself a bath and drunkenly pretended Piper was doing it for me.

  I pretended to be her as I poured my favorite bubble bath under the stream of water and set up some little candles on the edge of the tub. Next, I lit said candles and nearly dropped the match into the bathwater. When all was said and done, I tossed in a bath bomb that frothed and fizzed and spun end over end. As it dissolved, I stripped out of my wine-stained pajamas and stepped over the tub.

  The water was a little too hot.

  It burned, but I sank beneath the surface anyway, plunging all the way under so that the sounds of my apartment became muffled, muted, faraway sounds. I’d left my TV on. I could hear voices but they sounded like whales talking.

  When my lungs started to hurt, I popped up for air and slicked my hair back.

  Settling against the pillow suctioned to the back of the tub, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths.

  Things could be worse.

  I could be unemployed. I could be struggling to feed myself. I could be plagued with health issues.

  I was not.

  I had my health, a roof over my head, benefits, and full-time work that wasn’t going anywhere. I had no reason to feel this way.

  And that almost made it worse.

  “You’re weak,” I said, opening my eyes and glaring up at my ceiling. “Be better than this.”

  The words stung.

  My vision blurred and the tears started spilling over. I didn’t even know why I was crying. I told myself over and over that this was silly, that nothing was wrong, that I had nothing to be sad over, but the tears kept on coming, threatening to overflow the tub.

  That was a little dramatic but it was how it felt.

  Feeling like I was going to drown, I reached over the side of the tub for my phone on the floor. I could hardly see the screen as I pulled up my contact list and desperately searched for Piper’s name. The tears and the wine made it hard for me to be sure I had the right person, so I sniffled and tried to get my emotions under control as I held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.

  Please pick up.

  It rang a third time.

  I just need to hear your voice.

  A fourth time.

  Please.

  A familiar, deep, masculine voice spoke my name. “Janie?”

  Shit!

  “Oh fuck,” I hissed. “Max, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you. What time is it there?”

  “It’s almost seven.”

  Right. He was three hours behind me. I groaned and ran a hand down my face. “I’ll let you go.”

  He called my name as I went to hang up. God, did it hurt to hear him say my name.

  I brought the phone back to my ear and tried not to sniffle. “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You don’t sound okay,” he said. His concern poured through the line. “Where are you right now?”

  “Home. In the tub. I meant to call Piper. I… I needed to ask her something.”

  “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  Yeah, well, I don’t feel like myself either. “I’m fine, Max.”

  He was quiet for a minute and I prayed he would let me go. Hearing his voice hurt more than I ever imagined it could. When was the
last time we spoke? Six, seven, eight months ago? Something like that.

  “Janie, I know you well enough to know when you’re lying. And right now? You’re lying.” I heard him close a door in the background and assumed he was at his office. He was always at his office. “Have you been drinking?”

  “No.” The word fell from my lips a little too quickly.

  “Janie.”

  “Fine,” I spat. “Yes, I’ve been drinking. Is that what you wanted to hear? I’ve had a shit day and I just needed to talk to Piper because she’s the only one who can cheer me up when I’m feeling like this. I didn’t mean to bother you. I know you probably have your hands full and—”

  “You’re not bothering me,” he said calmly.

  The bubbles were beginning to disappear on the surface of the water, which wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been when I first got in. “Do you promise?” I asked, hating how weak the question sounded.

  “I promise. Why do you need cheering up?”

  “I…” I trailed off. What was I supposed to tell him? That I was heartbroken because of my own choices? That I was lonely because my best friend was doing so well? That I missed him?

  No.

  “I’m struggling with work,” I said. “It’s not a big deal, Max. Nothing I can’t handle. I’m just going through a rut or something right now and need Piper’s no-holding-back advice to help me see through the storm. You know how good she is at that.”

  “You want this advice while you’re drunk?” he asked skeptically. “In my experience, that’s the worst time for tough love.”

  Why did he have to know me so well? “I can handle myself,” I said.

  “You’re drunk in a bathtub on a Tuesday night,” he said. Even though those words would sound judgmental coming from anyone else, they didn’t from Max. They were pointed, sure, but he didn’t sound like he thought less of me.

  “How do you know I’m in the bath?”

  “I can hear the water and the echo of being in the bathroom.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s really going on, Janie?”