I didn’t want to give up our friendship. But I knew it would never be the same.
And that was my fault.
It was all my fault.
Jamie had stuck to the rules of the game. I was the one who had broken them.
* * *
On the plane to Los Angeles, Jamie showed me our latest stock portfolio numbers.
I was surprised to find we were flying first-class. Not that I didn’t like it. I liked it a lot. But it seemed like an extravagant waste of money.
So he’d pulled out his phone.
I’d stared at the numbers, thinking there had to be a mistake.
He’d laughed at my astonishment. Then he’d teased me about having too little faith in Jamie’s instincts for trading.
Then he’d given me a half hug and told me he’d booked a five-star hotel.
So here we were at the Chatham-Brix Downtown, checked into a suite with a sweeping view of the city.
I had mixed feelings about sleeping with Jamie again.
Oh, I wanted to sleep with Jamie again. No matter what else was going on in our relationship, the sex was off the charts. And I hadn’t had a lot of off-the-charts sex in my life. I’d really never had much at all.
I’d certainly never had any that came close to Jamie.
But the friends thing was hard. I was lying now when I called us friends. My feelings for him had gone way beyond friendship. And when the sex stopped, when everything stopped, as it would as soon as he moved to LA, it was going to hurt so much.
I’d done heartbreak once, and I had no desire to do it again.
I told myself Tasha could handle it better than Nat. But myself didn’t really believe it. It was going to be even worse this time because what I’d felt for Henry was nothing, nothing compared to what I felt for Jamie.
“Marnie arranged all three viewings for this afternoon,” Jamie said, coming in from the wraparound balcony. “Traffic looks busy, so we better get going.”
I knew the houses we were going to see. I’d helped Jamie pick them out on the real estate website before we’d left Seattle. They were all in Santa Monica. One was even on the beach.
We ended up going to the beach home first. It was a sleek modern condo on the ground floor with a patio walkway to the lush green lawn across the road from a sandy beach. It had a lot of white walls, glass features and stark marble countertops, both in the kitchen and bathrooms.
The master bedroom had a gas fireplace, which I loved. And the patio had a fun wraparound sofa and gas fire pit. I could see it would be cozy on cool evenings. But the neighbors were pretty close, as was the traffic noise.
When we saw the second house, I thought I understood the real estate agent Marnie’s strategy. Away from the beach, you could get a whole lot more for your money.
The second house was bigger. It was private, with a big yard and hedges that screened the neighbors. There was a pool and patio out back, and beautiful landscaping in the front. It was also on a quiet street.
It had a white interior with lots of archways and some wrought-iron features. The floors were beautiful hardwood with scattered area rugs. Paned doors and windows into the backyard let in enormous amounts of light. And the kitchen was a dream, tons of counter space, cupboard space, and glass-fronted feature cabinets. An octagonal breakfast nook stuck out into the backyard. I could picture Jamie having coffee there in the morning.
The master bedroom was roomy and beautiful. But I couldn’t bring myself to linger there. While I could picture myself in the bed with Jamie in the hotel room, here in what might be his new house, I could only picture faceless, nameless other women in his arms.
I pretended to check out the guest bedroom.
Marnie had assumed we were a couple, and Jamie hadn’t corrected her. It made it worse when she talked like I’d be cooking in the kitchen or swimming in the pool, or showering in the en suite. But I tamped down my flailing emotions and played along. What else was I going to do?
The sun was setting by the time we made it to the last house. My first impression was of warm lights on the palm trees decorating the front yard. Around and above the front door were two stories of glass walls. The polished maple ceiling colored the glow from the entry hall.
The house was a roomy open concept. Walls were painted white, but the maple trim and maple flooring warmed the atmosphere. The kitchen had stainless appliances and gray speckled countertops. It opened to a big, furnished deck with a built-in fireplace, barbecue and kitchenette. You could see the ocean in the distance.
I could imagine entertaining here. I could see friends and family—Jamie’s friends and family, of course—spilling out from the family room and kitchen, onto the deck on a warm summer night.
The master bedroom had a peaked maple beamed ceiling and its own private sundeck. I told myself not to linger in it, but my toes curled into the plush carpet, and I kind of fell in love with the steam shower and gloriously huge bathtub.
“What do you think?” Jamie asked, coming up behind me.
“There’s a lot to like,” I said.
“Values in this neighborhood have steadily climbed for the past three years,” Marnie said. “There’s no end in sight.”
“What do you like?” Jamie asked me.
“What do you like?” I said instead.
He glanced around. “It’s the new me.”
I told myself Jamie deserved this.
Whatever came his way next, he wasn’t the James who’d been left at the altar. He was confident and decisive, great looking and a very exciting man. He had a new job, soon a new house, all his new clothes and hobbies. I was sure they had rock climbing in California.
The world was his to enjoy.
I had to be happy for him.
“I think you’ll love entertaining on the deck,” I said.
“Do you love the deck?”
“I do,” I said. “And the yard. There’s room out there to garden and to lounge. And you can’t beat that en suite.” I gestured to the attached bathroom.
“Is it a buy?” he asked.
“It’s pretty expensive.” It was also really big for one person.
“That’s the beauty of short-term trading,” he said. “What was unaffordable two months ago is now completely within range.”
“I have you to thank for that.” I was thinking I really would go condo shopping back in Seattle. It would give me something to focus on for the next few months.
I was going to get through this.
I knew I was going to get through this.
I’d refuse to do anything else.
“We’ll take it,” Jamie said to Marnie.
She looked shocked, but she recovered quickly. “I can help you write up the offer. Did you have a price in mind?”
Jamie looked at me. “Should we start low?”
“Do you want to dicker?” I wasn’t a fan of the negotiating process.
Maybe Tasha would like to bargain. I didn’t really know. It was getting hard to tell what the Tasha me would want versus the Nat me.
“Not really,” Jamie said.
“If you go twenty-five thousand below asking, I can pretty much guarantee they’ll accept.”
Jamie looked at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. The game was over. It was his decision, his money, his life.
“Done,” he said to Marnie. “Write it up.”
“Subject to financing?” she asked.
He smiled and shook his head. “No need. I’m sure I can arrange the financing.”
Marnie beamed. “Then congratulations. I’m guessing you want an early closing date.”
Jamie squeezed my hand. “The earlier the better. They want me to start in the LA office on Monday.”
I forced myself to smile, to keep up the facade for Marnie’s sake.
I wanted to cling to Jamie and never let go. At the same time, I wanted to get the heck out of LA and never look back. I knew in that second that I couldn’t stay the night. I couldn’t make love to Jamie one last time in that opulent hotel suite. It would kill me.
“I’ll get started.” Marnie dialed a number as she left the bedroom.
“This is terrific,” Jamie said to me.
I pretended my phone buzzed and pulled it from my purse. “I should take this,” I said.
“Sophie?” he asked.
I nodded. I don’t know why I thought a silent lie was better than a verbal lie, but I did.
I moved a couple of paces away. “Hi,” I said into the phone.
I waited a minute, feeling terribly, utterly awful about what I was doing.
I scrambled for a viable reason to leave.
“She did?” I said into the phone. “Uh, okay.” I looked at Jamie to find him watching me. “I can. If you think so.”
“What?” he mouthed.
I held up one finger, trying to stall as I solidified my plan. It was shameless. It was probably unforgivable. But I didn’t have a better idea, and I was running out of time.
“As soon as I can,” I said into the phone. “Bye.”
“What?” Jamie asked.
“It’s Brooklyn,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Sophie wants me to come back to Seattle.”
Jamie clamped his jaw.
I knew he wouldn’t ask about Brooklyn. It was the one thing he’d stay miles away from.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t go.”
“I have to.” I wanted to cry. I wanted to collapse into a puddle of guilt. But mostly, I wanted to throw myself into his arms for as long as he’d have me.
We could hear Marnie’s muted voice outside the room.
“You don’t need me for this part,” I said.
He opened his mouth, but I kept on talking.
“I’ll book a flight in the cab.”
“You’re going now? Right now?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“How soon can you come back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll come back as soon as you can.”
I nodded, another silent lie. I’d come up with more excuses later if Jamie pushed it.
He might not push it. He probably wouldn’t push it. He’d get settled here in this great new house, with his great new job, and a great new girlfriend within a week or a month, surely not longer than that.
He’d have the life he’d wanted, just like we’d planned.
“My assistant has started on the paperwork,” Marnie said brightly as she came back into the master bedroom. “We can swing by the office and sign, and I’ll present the offer tonight.”
“Good luck,” I said to Jamie. I was already calling a cab.
Twelve
Five days, thirty texts and seven missed phone calls later, I decided I had to bring Sophie in on my deception. Jamie was more persistent than I’d expected, and I was afraid he might reach out to Sophie. If he did, he’d discover my lie.
I didn’t want him to know I’d lied. For some reason, that was important to me.
I poured Sophie and me each a glass of merlot.
“We got another big order today,” Sophie was saying.
She’d kicked off her shoes and curled up on one end of my sofa.
“Congratulations.” I thought about recorking the bottle, but I had a feeling we’d finish it off before the evening was done.
“Japan was for sure the place to go. Cash is starting to flow in, and we’ve gone into actual production. Ethan’s looking at expanding the facility to the space next door.”
“I’m so glad it’s working out.” I really was.
Sophie’s success was a bright spot in my dismal-feeling life.
“I’m not ready to quit The Blue Fern yet. Neither is Bryce. But we’re talking about approaching the general manager with a proposal to job share. We’d each work half-time, and hire another person to take up the slack. That way, we don’t need to take a full salary from BRT, but we’ll have more time to devote to building up the company.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” I wished I could focus on Sophie’s company, but I was painfully distracted.
I handed her one of the glasses and took the other end of the sofa.
My shoes were already off, and I turned sideways to face her, leaning my back against the arm.
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?” I told myself to take the opening and plunge right in, but I didn’t know how to start.
“What’s going on?” She took a sip. “Oooh. That’s good.”
“It’s not too expensive,” I said, taking a drink myself.
Inwardly I was kicking myself for being a coward. I had to speak up already.
“I did something,” I said.
Sophie’s brows went up, and she stilled. “Do tell.”
“I lied.”
She looked surprised by that. “To me?”
“No. Not to you. But it was about you.”
“What did you say? Something good, I hope. Did you tell some guy I was really smart and rich and hot?”
I knew I shouldn’t smile, but I did. “No.”
“Too bad. I could have faked that, at least for a little while.”
“You are smart and hot.”
She coughed out a laugh. “Maybe a little smart. And maybe a little hot. I’m sure not rich.”
“Not yet.”
“No, not yet. But back to your lie...”
“Right.” I’d been framing up my words for the better part of a day. I didn’t know why I was trying to rephrase them on the fly right now. “I lied to Jamie about you calling me to say Brooklyn had a problem.”
“Who’s Jamie?”
“James. I mean James.”
Sophie looked completely baffled. “What are you talking about?”
I took another drink. “I’ve been seeing James.” Okay, that had come out all wrong. “I mean, not seeing him, as in seeing him. Just, well, with Brooklyn leaving him, and Henry leaving me, we kinda got to talking one day, and we’ve done a few things together.”
“What kind of things?”
“Rock climbing, for one.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“And James.”
“Yes.”
“Rock climbing?”
“We did. We took lessons and everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? How is that a secret? Was it illegal rocks? Were you trespassing? Did you steal something from...I don’t know...Olympic National Park? A treasure or something?”
“We didn’t steal anything.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
I knew I had to get to the point. “While we were in California, I—”
“You and James went to California?”
“Last weekend.”
“Okaaay...” She drew out the word. “Did you, like, climb some California rocks?”
“No. He has that new job. We were house hunting.”
Sophie sat back. She took a drink of her wine. “You do know you’re not making any sense at all.”
“I know.”
“Tell me more about the lie.”
“In California, in LA, I pretended you phoned me. I pretended Brooklyn had a problem. I knew he wouldn’t ask any questions about Brooklyn, so I thought I’d get away with it.”
“Did you get caught?”
“No. Not yet.”
“I don’t know, Nat. You’re acting like this is a big thing. It doesn’t sound like a big thing to me. I’ll lie for you if you want me to. I’ll tell
him anything you say.”
I knew she would, and I loved her for it.
“But why did you lie? What did it get you?”
“Out of there.”
“Out of LA.”
“Yes.”
“You needed an excuse to leave?”
“I...thought I did in the moment.”
Sophie sat forward and stared at me straight in the eyes. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “Some things I can’t tell.”
I wasn’t sure if Jamie wanted to keep our makeover plot a secret. It didn’t seem like such a big deal if we told people at this point. But I didn’t want to break my word without getting his permission.
“What things can you tell me?”
“Jamie and I became friends.”
“Jamie? He’s Jamie now?”
“It’s a nickname.”
A knowing light came on in Sophie’s eyes. “Like Tasha is for you. What have you two been up to?”
“Nothing... I mean...” I couldn’t look at her.
There was awe in her tone. “Holy cow.”
I could feel my face heat up.
“You slept with James Gillen? Nat, you slept with Brooklyn’s fiancé?”
“They weren’t engaged anymore. And it was nothing. It was a friends thing, friends with benefits thing.”
“You have benefits with James?”
“Only a couple of times.”
“Is that what happened in California?”
“No. It didn’t happen in California. It would have. If I hadn’t left.”
“And you didn’t want it to.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question, so I moved on. “And now he keeps texting and calling.”
“Hang on,” Sophie said, holding up a finger. “It sounds like you’re saying you wanted to have benefits in California. So why did you leave?”
An ache formed in my stomach. “I didn’t mean to tell you all this.”
“Of course you meant to tell me all this. You must have been dying to tell me all this. Why did you wait so long to tell me all this?”
“It was a secret. It was a thing. It was a secret thing.”
The Dating Dare (Gambling Men Book 2) Page 18
