by Amelia Wilde
There would be no chance to end it with Charlie—not until Charlie satisfies his own greed. Which could be never.
All I can do is tell Jett.
Which is why my hands are shaking when I go up to his office and ask his secretary if he’s busy. She looks me up and down, then makes a decision. “Go on in,” she says, her voice kind, if a little wary.
Jett is on the phone when I knock at the doorframe, and he holds up one finger, not looking toward me until he’s finished the call he’s on. When he sees me, his face brightens.
“Hey, sweet thing,” he says, a term of endearment that would make my flesh crawl if it was spoken by anyone else. When Jett says it, my chest fills with warm pleasure.
But it doesn’t last, because I know what I have to do.
He kisses me, then closes the door to his office. While he’s out, I arrange the food on his desk, hands trembling, heart jumping.
I don’t want to do this, but I have to.
I want him to keep looking at me the way he did when he saw that it was me and not his secretary at the door.
I want him to love me. It’s fucking stupid, and it’s a pipe dream, but I want him to love me...and not because I’ve seduced him, but because I make him happy.
The food I’ve brought—burgers from my favorite hole-in-the-wall a few blocks from the Sisterspark offices—stick in my throat. I don’t make it until we’ve finished.
When I abruptly put my burger down on the paper plate, Jett looks at me, his brow furrowed. “Are you all right?”
“No.”
He puts down his burger, turns to face me. “What is it?”
Just then, my phone buzzes. Hadley wanted me to be available this evening in case more news broke on the LinkLove story, which she’s also covering on her website.
“I’m—just one second, Jett.”
I slide my phone out of my purse and my heart plummets straight through the floor.
Your brother was never supposed to leave the city.
Then, Do you think we can’t find him, wherever he is?
Then, Do you think we won’t?
The blood drains from my face, my mind going into overdrive. What the fuck am I going to say to Jett? I thought Adam was safe at home, away from the city, but maybe that was another stupid assumption.
There’s no way I can tell him now, not when my brother’s life is still at risk—and Charlie is angry. If the money stops coming in....
“Angelica?”
“Yeah? Yes.” I drop the phone back into my purse.
“What’s bothering you?”
“I—”
The silence stretches out as stressful heat floods my face. In the end, I have no choice to settle for half of the truth.
“I know this is just supposed to be a fling, but...you should know that I...I have feelings for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jett
Angelica’s eyes are watery, like she’s on the verge of tears, and she’s clearly uncomfortable with telling me this, though in this moment I can’t fathom why. We’ve been sleeping together, with her staying at my penthouse, for upwards of two weeks. I bailed her out of an inconvenient situation. I’ve given her everything, including practically unlimited access to me.
This should not be a fucking surprise, but my heart thuds against my rib cage.
Are we at this point already?
My mind spins out of control. It doesn’t seem to matter that seconds ago I was thinking how terrible it would be if she were ever out of my sight. It turns out I’m still torn.
I don’t know what to say.
I stall for time.
I smile at her with a cocky confidence I don’t feel. Underneath I’m a damn tidal wave of some emotion I can’t name, that I’m not even sure I want to name. “What kind of feelings?”
She looks down at her hands in her lap. “You know.”
Her bottom lip quivers, just slightly, and I want to take her face in my hands and pull her in to me and kiss her until her smile is radiant, comfortable, secure.
My heart twists in my chest, battling against my head.
The truth is....
The truth is....
Angelica is the opposite of Emerald in every way. She’s not in this for my money. She’s shown no sign of using me for my money. She’s ridiculously delighted with everything I do for her.
Far from hindering my obsession with taking control at the office, she’s tacitly encouraged it.
No. No. This is exactly the kind of thinking that made me miss crucial red flags with the merger because I was in London with a gold-digging bitch. I was sure that Emerald was a good woman.
I promised myself when I came back to the city that I wouldn’t get involved. That I wouldn’t let a woman get so close to me that she’d have the power to influence my business decisions, take the focus off my work. Angelica brought me dinner and was more than accommodating when I canceled our plans, but that’s not enough to go on to assume that in the future she’ll....
This is ridiculous, and the longer the silence goes, the redder Angelica’s face gets. She’s put herself out there for me. If I can’t even admit this small thing, then I should tell her to take a cab back to her place, or to the Sheraton, or wherever it is she needs to stay until the repairs are completed on her apartment.
It’s at that moment that Connor bursts through the door without knocking.
“Brandon, the PR team wants—”
“Connor.”
His eyes jerk toward us. “Oh—I’m sorry,” he says, giving Angelica a once over so fast I’m sure he thinks I don’t notice it. “Emily was saying something about dinner, and I just assumed that—you know what? This can wait.” He holds up both hands, grins an apology, and heads for the door. Angelica’s eyes are back on her folded hands, so she doesn’t see when Connor pauses, gives me a thumbs up, and mouths “Oh, my God!” before he steps out of the office, closing the door gently behind him.
His entrance cleared my head, that’s for damn sure.
I’m still in control.
I can still make changes at any time.
Angelica is not trying to destabilize my business. She’s not jealous of the time I spend at work. And I want to be with her.
I might—it’s fucking terrifying to even think it, but I can’t ratchet down the intensity of the memories speeding through my mind when I look at her, can’t disregard how it feels to have her body pressed against mine, can’t dismiss the way she’s vulnerable in front of me—I might even love her.
I’m sure as hell not going to admit that—not here, not now—but I can set her free from the unbelievable awkwardness of this moment.
“I have feelings for you, too.”
She looks up at me, her face lit up with surprise. “You do?”
The only possible answer? I give in to the urge to kiss her, long and wild and fierce, pulling her up from her seat so that I can dip her back in my arms, exploring her mouth with my tongue, giving her another taste of the power I can have over her.
And Angelica—she gives herself over to it completely, melting into my arms like it’s the only place she’s ever wanted to be. She throws her arms around my neck, holds on so tight that it makes me think she’s weak in the knees. From the way her hands still tremble, maybe she is.
It doesn’t matter. I keep kissing her until we’re both gasping for breath, and when she finally pulls away, her eyes are bright, dancing.
“Damn, Jett Brandon,” she says, patting the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. “You had me going there for a minute.”
“You’ve had me going for a lot longer than that.”
She bursts out laughing, then narrows her eyes. “Now that we’ve...had this talk, is it going to be awkward if I keep staying at your place?” Something flickers across her face, but it doesn’t last long enough to disrupt the teasing smile that she can’t seem to wipe off.
I kiss her again, harder this time, faster, rougher
, and then lock my eyes on her. “Angelica Chandler, if you leave right now, I’ll never forgive you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Angelica
After our talk in his office, Jett goes into overdrive planning a weekend getaway for us.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks me as we leave his office for the evening. I’d had to wait another half hour for him to finish up whatever crisis management strategy they were formulating, but then he told his secretary to call him with essential updates and headed for the door. Stuart was bringing around the car. “Anywhere you want.”
“I have to go to work on Monday,” I giggle through the knot forming at the base of my stomach. My heartbeat won’t slow down, won’t relax. Hadley would be irate if I took another unscheduled day off, but Charlie....
God knows what Charlie would do.
“The Hamptons it is,” Jett said, and he reels off several instructions to Stuart as he climbs out of the driver’s seat to open the doors for us.
All weekend at Jett’s absurdly large mansion in the Hamptons, I have to stifle the urge to tell him everything and beg him to drive me to the airport. Charlie might not know where my brother is, but I do—and if you know where to look, he wouldn’t be hard to find.
Maybe I should have told Adam to hide, to go somewhere nobody would think of looking, but of course that hadn’t been on my mind. I was the idiot who thought that silence meant his involvement was over.
I compromise by calling Adam on Sunday while Jett’s in the shower. He picks up on the third ring, laughter in his voice.
“What’s up, Angie?”
“You haven’t seen anybody following you, have you?” The moment I hear my brother’s voice, all of my carefully planned words fly right out of my head.
“No. Why?” I can hear him swallow worriedly over the phone. “Did...did something happen?”
“Charlie found out you left the city, and he’s not happy.”
There’s a short pause, then, “I’m coming back today.”
“Don’t!”
“What the fuck, Angie? You can’t expect me to stay here while you’re all—”
“What are you going to do, Adam? Be a sitting duck in your apartment, or at the bar?” I take in a deep breath, let it out. “I don’t have a lot of time to talk, but… listen, it’s taking longer than I thought to resolve all this, and if you’re here, Charlie’s just going to use you against me. Just… be on the lookout. He made it seem like they were trying to find you.”
“Okay,” Adam says, his voice tight. “But what the hell? This was supposed to be a one-time thing.”
I can’t keep the exasperation out of my voice. “We both know that’s bullshit.” I hear the shower turn off in the bathroom. “I have to go. Be careful. I love you.”
“I will. Love you, too.”
“Angelica?”
I drop my phone guiltily onto the surface of the bed as Jett strides in from the master bathroom, gloriously naked, ripped abs on full display, toweling off his dark hair and grinning at me.
“Hey,” I say. No matter what’s happening, the sight of him like this takes my breath away. It would break my heart if I let it—the thought that sooner rather than later, this is all going to come crashing down around me like a plane that’s lost both of its engines.
“You’re still dressed,” he says, pursing his lips, then steps over to me and takes the end of the belt of my robe in his hands.
I look down as if I’m just now noticing the blushing pink silk robe I threw on over my naked self when we climbed out of bed earlier this morning. “I guess I am....”
“Don’t worry,” Jett says, undoing the belt and sliding the robe off my shoulders. “I can help.” He kisses me softly, tasting minty and happy, and for a minute I forget myself in the depths of his kiss. The robe drops to the floor and pools around my feet.
“Now I’m totally naked,” I say, curling my arms around his neck.
“You’re right. We should get back in bed.”
He scoops me up in his arms and deposits me, laughing, onto the rumpled sheets, then he climbs in after me. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care about what?”
“That we’re going to be late getting back to the city.”
Jett laughs, then leans down and runs his tongue along my collarbone before kissing his way up the side of my neck. “Late? Do you have plans?”
Yes. I need to download the latest information from your computer and then make plans to give it to the leader of a crime ring.
“Just being with you.”
“That’s the only plan I’m interested in.” He traces a finger around my nipple, making it stand out from the swell of my breast, and his skin against mine sends an electric jolt of need straight down between my legs.
It’s several hours before we actually leave for the city.
After all of this, Monday hits me like a sucker punch.
The instructions from Charlie come in at noon. A different cafe, 5:15. The flash drive burns a hole in my purse. He doesn’t mention Adam or my mom. Is that a good sign or not?
I push the fearful thought out of my head and bury myself into the latest work project, generating content for one of the websites that is scheduled to go live at the end of the week. Hadley must be busy saving Sisterspark from imminent bankruptcy because she doesn’t interrupt me once.
I think I’m home free until 5:05, when I hurry through the front doors of the high rise where Sisterspark’s offices are housed...and find Jett leaning against his Town Car, arms crossed over his chest, smiling at me like today is the best day of his life.
I’m smiling back at him before I can stop myself, even though my entire body goes hot at the prospect of standing Charlie up. Hot, and then ice cold.
“Jett Brandon,” I say, stepping up to him and kissing him hard. “This is a surprise.”
“I left early to pick you up.” He reaches down and opens the back door of the Town Car. “It occurred to me that we ended the weekend too early.”
“Damn right.”
While Jett is sliding in beside me and pulling the car door closed, I slip my phone out of my purse and send a hasty text to Charlie. The answer comes back right away.
Have it to me before the sun comes up.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jett
Something causes me to wake me up in the middle of the night.
The digital clock integrated into the smooth surface of the bedside table reads 3:17.
Angelica is not in bed.
It’s the first time in weeks I’ve woken up without her next to me. Not that I’ve been waking up at night. She’s insatiable. We fell asleep around midnight after our final round of sex, one in which she reveled like a woman possessed.
She was riding me, lifting her hips up and down so powerfully I thought I might come right then. Angelica ground down onto me, her muscles clenching around my cock, and then, with a gasp, she rolled over onto her back.
“Pin me,” she said breathlessly. “My arms. Please....”
What was I going to do, deny the lady’s request?
There was a kind of desperation in her eyes, a kind of hope, but there was no way in hell I was going to stop to chat.
Her final orgasm of the night was a shuddering, ecstatic thing, and afterward she’d curled away from me, sighing, stretching, burrowing herself underneath the covers.
It was the most natural thing in the world to fit my body to hers and fall asleep.
Which is why it’s so jarring that she’s not here.
I squint into the dark. There’s no light coming from around the bathroom door.
Maybe she left it off. It’s the middle of the God damn night, after all.
But there’s no sound from the bathroom, no door opening, no padding feet.
Where the hell is she?
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, wiping the sleep from my eyes. If something’s wrong, why didn’t she wake me up? I don
’t need that much fucking beauty sleep, for God’s sake.
The boxers I discarded before our little marathon are bunched on the carpet next to the bed. I could hunt for her without them just for the pleasure of watching her eyes sparkle when she looks up and down my naked body, but if something is wrong—maybe she’s sick and embarrassed about it—then that approach might fall flat. So I pull them on and grab a fresh t-shirt from one of the drawers in my walk-in closet.
She’s not in any of the rooms in the master suite. The bathroom is empty and still, and so is the den.
That leaves the rest of the penthouse.
The running lights at the baseboards illuminate the floor just enough for me to make my way through the penthouse. She’s not in my office, or the second bathroom, or the guest bedroom. In the living room, ambient light from the skyscrapers of Manhattan casts a glow to the room.
No Angelica.
She’s also not in the guest suite on the opposite end of the floor, or the kitchen, or the massive pantry.
I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen listening to the silence when I hear the front door swing open.
My heart beats faster.
The door clicks as she closes it behind her, and then there’s a beep as the lock engages. I told her what the code was the day she worked from home in case she needed to go out without me.
For some reason I’d been holding out hope that Angelica had fallen asleep in one of the many overstuffed armchairs I’ve got scattered throughout the penthouse, but when I cross the living room toward the foyer, she’s fully dressed and slowly, carefully hanging her purse back on the hook, taking her shoes off without a sound.
When she turns to creep back through the penthouse to the bedroom, she catches sight of me in the dim light and gasps so sharply it could be a quiet scream. Her hands fly to her mouth.
It takes her a moment to recover.
