“Thanks for the advice,” Jeremy said. He put a hand low down on my back, the curve of his pinkie just above my ass. “Rob, this is Adam’s sister, Marlena.”
“Lena,” I corrected, holding out my hand to Adam’s other partner.
Rob’s eyes widened. “Lena, of course! It’s nice to finally meet you. Adam talks about you all the time. You’re apparently some kind of wunderkind.”
“Ignore my brother. He’s delusional,” I groaned. Jeremy’s thumb began to rub my skin through the thin material of my dress. I tried not to shiver.
“I don’t know about that. He seems confident you’re going to take the judicial system by storm,” Rob said kindly, but then he looked at Jeremy. Then at me. Then at how close we were standing together. “We should head over there, don’t you think?”
Jeremy turned to me. “Care to join us?” He probably should have dropped his hand by now, but he hadn’t. And I didn’t want him to. I was enjoying his attention. I hoped it would lead to more.
“Sure.” I picked up my glass and followed Rob and Jeremy across the room to where Judge Franklin Randall appeared to be dozing in a chair.
I spent the next hour making small talk with members of the Southport community, acting as a liaison for Jeremy into the inner circle of the town’s more illustrious members. Having not only grown up in Southport but also having parents who were firmly entrenched in the social scene, I knew just about everyone. I was able to share fun tidbits about the people Jeremy spoke to—he particularly enjoyed the story about Janet Ludwig, the assistant district attorney’s pet pig named Gilbert.
“Wait, she actually brought the pig to court? You’re making this up.” Jeremy handed me another glass of champagne. I had lost track of how many I had had, but I wasn’t sloppy. I knew how to hold my alcohol.
We were tucked away in a dark corner at the back of the room. We sat close together on a small couch, Jeremy’s arm slung across the back, his fingers tracing circles on my shoulder. I was genuinely enjoying his company. He was witty and intelligent and charming. But more importantly, we simply clicked. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me all night and I basked in his radiance. I had dated enough guys to know that Jeremy Wyatt was something altogether different.
He was all man.
And damn if I didn’t want him.
I leaned into him, positioning my body so he had a clear view down the front of my dress. My cleavage was epic and from his frequent glances, I knew he liked what he saw.
“She did. She told the judge that he’d been ill, and she couldn't leave him at home. Now, this was Judge Latner, who also happened to be her neighbor. So of course, he let Gilbert stay. At least until he took a crap in the middle of closing arguments.”
Jeremy threw his head back and laughed. It was a rich sound that made my thighs clench. “I’m so glad to have met you, Marlena Ducate,” he said, his hand coming up to cup my cheek.
“It’s Lena. I really, really hate the name Marlena,” I told him, my eyes feeling heavy as his thumb ran along the curve of my lips.
“You shouldn’t. It’s a beautiful name for such a beautiful woman.” He leaned in and this was it. He was going to kiss me.
I sucked in a breath and tilted my head back and waited—
“Jeremy, there you are. I need to speak with you.”
The interruption was like being doused with cold water. Jeremy dropped his hand and sat back.
Adam stood there, a goddamn vag block in the flesh. I had never wanted to punch my brother more in my life.
“Lena, Mom is looking for you,” Adam said, his tone frosty. What the hell was his problem?
Jeremy, clearly picking up on Adam’s mood, stood up with a frown. “Okay, sure.” He turned back to me. “I’ll come to find you when I’m done.” His words held the note of a promise.
“I’m holding you to that,” I teased with a grin. The dark blue of his eyes smoldered for an instant before my brother cleared his throat. He really was the worst.
Adam and Jeremy walked off. I could tell by the set of my brother’s face that he wasn’t happy. My curiosity was in overdrive.
I saw my mom and dad talking to their friends and made my way over. “You were looking for me?” I asked my mother once I had reached her.
Her expression was one of surprise. “No, I wasn’t. Why would you think that?”
“Adam said—” Then it hit me what my brother had done. He was such a dickhead. “Never mind.” I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek. “You having fun?”
She wiped a hand across her brow like an eighteenth-century lady. “I am but I’m so tired. I think we’re going to have to call it a night. Are you coming home with us?”
I looked around the room. Adam was back with Chelsea, but there was no sign of Jeremy. I was sure he was around somewhere. I didn’t want to leave with unfinished business hanging between us. I had plans to get that kiss Adam interrupted. And maybe more. “No, I think I’m going to stay a bit longer. I won’t be late though; I need to get back to school first thing in the morning.” I gave my parents both a hug and said goodnight.
I slowly circuited the room, trying to find Jeremy. When I found him, he was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Lindon who owned Jessie’s Diner.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said to him after greeting the Lindons. I was surprised and more than a little hurt when he barely acknowledged me. Instead, he continued chatting with Mr. Lindon about zoning regulations inside the town limits.
Feeling like an extraneous limb, I stood there like a moron for several minutes waiting for Jeremy to say something to me. Mrs. Lindon, picking up on my awkwardness, attempted small talk, but I had a hard time focusing on what she was saying.
After a few minutes, Jeremy ended his conversation and walked away.
Without ever looking my way.
Jeremy spent the rest of the night totally avoiding me. I attempted to talk to him several more times before my pride kicked in. I had never been the sort of girl to the moon after a guy, hoping he’d talk to her. Screw that. My bruised ego quickly gave way to anger. What had crawled up his ass? I thought we had been getting along. I knew he was into me. He made that pretty damn clear. What was with the whole “I’ll come to find you” nonsense if he planned to blow me off the rest of the evening?
There was only one answer for Jeremy’s sudden withdrawal. I cornered my traitorous brother just as he was about to slip outside to make a phone call. “Wait right there!” I called out, hurrying after him into the cold March night.
Adam looked surprised to see me. “Hey, I didn’t know you were still here.” He put his arm around me and gave me a quick squeeze.
I wiggled away from him. “What did you say to Jeremy?” I demanded.
Adam blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, freezing my butt off, but refusing to let on how cold I was. “When you came over and said you had to talk to him. What did you say to him?”
Adam frowned. “It was about the caterer. They overcharged us around five hundred bucks. He was the one who signed the contract, so I needed him to sort it out.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you care?”
I glared at him, wondering if he was lying to me. But Adam didn’t lie to me. That’s not how our relationship worked. My anger seeped out of me and turned into despondency. If Adam hadn’t warned him away from me, that meant—
“It’s nothing,” I said softly, feeling like an idiot.
Adam’s expression softened. “Don’t waste your time on him, Lena.”
I squared my shoulders defensively. “What do you mean?”
Adam gave me a sad little smile. “Let me guess, you thought he liked you. He told you he’d find you later. Then he completely blew you off.”
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Adam, picking up on my mortification, gave me a hug. “Jeremy Wyatt is the biggest man whore I’ve ever met. He plays with women. He’s a great attorney and a decent friend but he�
�s an ass to women. He’s all about the conquest, then he loses interest. He’s notorious for using and losing.” He kissed the top of my head. “You’re too good for a guy like Wyatt. And I don’t want to have to break his arms for messing with you. You’re young, Lena. And a little naive. A man like Jeremy would eat you up and spit you out.”
Even though I bristled at Adam’s description of me, I couldn’t help but feel like the world’s most stupid female. I had always prided myself on not falling for a line. I didn’t go for guys who were only after one thing. I was known for my ability to see through male patented bullshit.
I guess my douche meter was on the fritz.
“It was nothing. I would never take a guy like Jeremy Wyatt seriously. You don’t need to worry about me.” I put my arms around Adam and hugged him tightly. He may be annoying, but I knew I could always count on him.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Now get inside before you freeze to death. I need to make a phone call.” Adam shooed me inside.
“Who are you calling?” I asked, being nosy.
“Just an old friend I haven’t spoken to in far too long.” He gave me a gentle shove. “Now go and give me some privacy.
“Are you calling Meg?” I asked excitedly, hoping he was finally extending an olive branch to the girl he had been friends with up until he decided to hitch his wagon to Chelsea’s hoe train. I loved Meg; she had been like a sister to me. I sure hoped he was finally talking to her again after so long.
“That’s none of your business. Get lost, Sherlock.” He gave me a sad smile that only talk of Meg brought out. He hadn’t called me Sherlock since we were kids. Meg gave me the nickname when I was seven because she claimed I was the smartest person she knew.
“Alright, tell her hello from me if that’s who you’re calling,” I said, hurrying back inside.
Now that I had no reason to stick around, I was more than anxious to leave. Even though I had just told my brother that I was fine, I was anything but.
It was more than my pride that took a bruising. The truth was I had liked Jeremy. And I had really thought he liked me. I couldn’t have been imagining it. We had genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. There had been a spark between us. A connection. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something there.
I should just talk to him. Maybe it was some sort of miscommunication. Maybe I had given him mixed signals. Maybe he thought I was the one not interested.
I’d find him and ask him what’s going on—
“Oh, sorry.” I came up short at the sight of a man and woman pressed against the far wall of the hallway. I had been trying to find the coatroom, not expecting to stumble on the beginnings of a bad porno. One of the woman’s legs was wrapped around the man’s waist, her dress riding up her thighs high enough that I could see her pink underwear. Her hands were in his dark hair, his mouth on her neck. One of his hands was between her legs and she was making high-pitched mewling noises in the back of her throat that reminded me of a cat in heat. Whoever she was, she sounded ridiculous. I had to smother my laughter.
Forget it, this was too funny not to laugh my ass off.
The woman getting fingerbanged looked over her partner’s shoulder, an expression of annoyance marring her pleasure. I recognized her as Nicola Bennett who had graduated two years ahead of me and now worked at the clerk’s office. I wasn’t surprised to find her half-naked with some random guy’s fingers inside her underwear. Nicola definitely got around and made no secret of it. I appreciated a person who knew what they wanted and went after it. You had to respect a woman that didn’t care what anyone else thought of her.
So, good for her. I wasn’t about to slut-shame her for enjoying herself.
I gave her a thumbs up in a show of female solidarity and began to slink back down the hallway as quietly as possible.
Then the man turned around. And I froze. He froze.
That fucking bastard, cock sucking dickface.
“Hello,” I said, loathing dripping from every syllable.
That douchey, rat-faced assmunch.
Jeremy moved away from Nicola, dropping her to the floor. She whimpered in protest, grasping at his shirt, trying to pull him back towards her. He frowned and pushed her hands away.
“Marlena,” he said, taking a step towards me.
“It’s Lena,” I growled as I imagined dismembering him very, very slowly—penis first.
The expression on Jeremy’s face was hard to read. There was an embarrassment, sure. There was perhaps irritation at being interrupted. But I thought there might be something else there. Contrition, maybe. Regret, possibly.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. My brother was right.
Jeremy was a piece of shit man whore and I was thankful I hadn’t dropped my panties as quickly as Nicola had. I hated feeling like a fool. And Jeremy had definitely made me feel like one.
“Could you give us some privacy, please?” Nicola’s voice was grating. As if she were trying to be seductive—all husky gravel and breathless words. The effort made her sound as if she had been gargling broken glass.
“Of course, don’t let me stop you.” The acid in my voice was obvious. I met Jeremy’s eyes one last time, letting all of my disgust and disdain radiate out towards him in one powerful, hostility filled thrust.
He appeared to flinch. He turned his back on Nicola, straightening his shirt and smoothed his hair.
“Hey,” Nicola whined, zipping up her skirt and wiping the smudged lipstick from her mouth. Jeremy ignored her. It was as if she wasn’t even there.
His blue eyes were trained on me. To think only an hour before I thought they were sexy and deep and beautiful.
Not anymore.
Stupid, stupid Lena.
Jeremy opened his mouth as if to speak, but I didn’t want to hear whatever it was he was about to say.
I was done with Jeremy Wyatt. I would never make the mistake of being wooed by him again.
“Have a good night,” I said icily, turning on my heel and walking with all the dignity I could muster down the hallway and out of the building.
I would never be taken in by a pretty face and smooth words again. I hated Jeremy Wyatt. More importantly, I hated that he made me think I was special.
Forget him. I was better off. I didn’t need any complications. And getting involved with a man like Jeremy was most definitely a complication.
So why was I disappointed when he didn’t follow me?
Chapter 1
Lena
“Marlena Rose Ducate.”
I walked across the stage, hoping I wouldn’t trip on my gown. One step. Two steps. Three steps. I took my diploma from the school’s president and made sure to remember to shake his outstretched hand. It wasn’t until I was back in my seat that I looked out into the audience to find my family.
There they were. Mom, Dad, Adam and his fiance, Meg Galloway. I saw my best friend Hannah Quinn, my old college roommate Jenna Phelps, and Robert Jenkins, Adam’s partner from the law firm too. I gave them a wave and a big smile. My mom was dabbing at her eyes and my dad’s smile was so wide it looked as if it would split his face in two.
Adam gave me a double thumbs up and Meg waved back at me. Each of their faces glowed with pride and that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I noticed, though I really wished I didn’t, who wasn’t there. The third member of the Jenkins, Ducate, and Wyatt law firm team.
Dirty, whore-faced bastard.
I turned back in my seat and focused on the rest of the commencement ceremony. I had worked my butt off to graduate from law school in two years instead of the usual three. The accelerated JD program had just about killed me. On top of the insane hours I put in to graduate early, I had worked part-time at my brother’s law firm to pick up much-needed experience. Because of my commitment and near-perfect grade point average, I had risen to the top of my class.
The future felt full and bright and I would be damned if anything would ruin my good moo
d.
Certainly not a man I did not care about in the slightest.
Nope, not one little bit.
**
“I really enjoyed the speaker. She was very passionate,” Mom said politely, covering her salad in dressing. Dad nodded in agreement, though he did so with a smirk. Dad usually went along with whatever Mom said. It was easier that way.
“Except for the dozen or so times she blew her nose,” I added, twirling pasta around my fork. My family, plus Hannah and Jenna, were sat around a large circular table at my favorite restaurant in the city. Lorenzo’s had the best seafood alfredo I had ever eaten. It was full of butter and a million carbs. I wasn’t the type of girl to give two shits about calories. I ate what I wanted. Life was too short to freak out about my waist size.
Jenna was my exact opposite. She sat on my left, poking at a wilted looking salad while stealing longing glances at my pasta. She worked in Pittsburg as a nutritionist and it seemed she took all that schooling a little too literally. She had a boatload of anxiety around the food she ate and the “poisons” she was ingesting. She drove Hannah and me more than a little crazy with her endless lectures about good and bad fats and the dangers of too much processed food. The problem was, Jenna made herself miserable more than anyone else. By being so rigid, she tended to push away most people in her life. Except for Hannah and me.
Finally, I put the woman out of her misery and scooped a pile onto her plate.
“I can’t eat that,” she protested weakly.
“Just shove it in your face already.” I tapped her plate with my fork. She didn’t take much encouragement, she dug into the calorific food with relish. She must have been hungry. There was nary a word about the effects of butter on the system or whatever. Hannah rolled her eyes. She never had any patience for Jenna’s constant dieting that never had any effect, mostly because she couldn't give up beer.
Meg, my soon to be sister-in-law, laughed beside me. “It was hard to pay attention to what she was saying through the snot running down her face. Poor woman. I almost ran up there and handed her a tissue.” She made a face and reached for the garlic bread.
Say You Love Me : An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 2
