by Claire Ayres
“I intend to.” Luka smiles.
“Let’s sort out the lanes and some drinks,” says Jay, saving any more awkwardness.
Luka and Jay walk off to make arrangements and buy more drinks leaving the girls gossiping. It’s also a great opportunity to get to know Jay a bit better and find out a few things that Luka has been unsure about.
“She seems to have perked up after Friday,” Jay says, concern lining his voice. It’s clear after how he helped on Friday and by the concern in his voice now that he genuinely cares about Jess, and Luka appreciates it.
“She is better, what happened with Ade seems to be really bothering her. She’s only admitted it to me, and then purely because I pushed her on it.” Luka feels relieved to open up about his concerns. That friendship hole where Mark used to be gaping again, reminding him why he is a fool for trusting Jess because it will only end in tears.
“Jess bottles things up. It could be that Ade really shook her up and she’s processing. Give her some time and let her know you are there for her. Hopefully, if there is anything more she will say something to you or Katie, then it can be dealt with,” Jay says, paying for the drinks. “Look, I’ll be honest. We didn’t like Ade, he never really treated Jess well, he was pretty neglectful and controlling. He’s also the cause of a lot of her self-esteem issues. We’re really glad she’s met someone who seems to be more genuine and honest.”
“Thanks, Jay, I appreciate that. Jess said you knew Ade from before?” Luka asked.
“Yes, Ade was my best friend... then we met the girls, when I saw how he treated Jess we quickly fell out. I can’t abide men who treat their partners with disrespect.” His eyes are glowing with repressed anger and it’s clear there’s a lot of unspent rage still on this subject.
“I can respect that, Jay. I would be the same,” Luka responds. “For what it’s worth though, I’m sorry you lost your best friend. I know what that’s like.” Jay smiles a sad smile, nods, then grabs two of the drinks and walks back to the lane ready for the group to play. Picking up the remaining drinks, Luka strides back, and joins the group saying, “Are you all ready to get your asses handed to you, then?” to which Jess doubles over in hysterical laughter.
Chapter Thirteen
Jess
On Monday morning Jess receives a call from one of the recruiters telling her they have a temp job for her. Relief washes through Jess who was getting terrified about how to pay her mortgage. She takes the details, kisses Luka and dashes back to her apartment to get ready so that she can be there as soon as possible. Apparently, this company was left in need of a PA as soon as possible, and there is a chance of a permanent job.
This is what Jess needs; she knows that if she can get this job then everything would start tying together. She puts on a fitted A-line dress that comes to barely above her knee. It’s white with large red flowers on it. Suitable for the office, while still feminine. She pairs it with red heels, slipping on her jacket and grabbing her bag. She opens the door as Luka raises his hand to knock, a smile forming on his face as their eyes meet.
“I wanted to wish you luck properly, you left this morning far too quickly,” he says, grabbing Jess around the waist and pulling her into him. She looks up into his blue eyes, smiling. “You look beautiful, Pinky.”
She barely has time to squeeze out, “Thank you,” before he kisses her, long, deep, thoroughly. Pulling away, she’s stunned and breathless at the voracity of the kiss and the way he is making her feel possessed by him.
“I hope this job is everything you want it to be, Jess,” he says, his voice that gritty husk he uses, making her forget all about the job: instead all she wants is him, her core tightening and knees wobbling. She holds onto his arms tightly in fear if she lets go she’s going to fall in a crumpled heap to the floor.
“M… Me, too.” She stumbles over her words, Luka completely having taken her breath.
He leans into her neck, his mouth at her ear. “I’ll miss you,” he whispers, and Jess trembles, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“You, too,” she says. Jess looks at him and knows her feelings run so much deeper, she is terrified of telling him how she really feels.
She pulls back tucking a strand of pink hair nervously behind her ear and he has a huge grin on his face, his dimples almost disappearing like deep caves. She kisses his cheek, whispering goodbye, and walks off hoping that this job is worth the separation from Luka... and knowing Luka will permanently be in her thoughts after that.
--!--
Jess arrives at Andrews & Martin Finance and asks for Marion, her contact. After a few minutes, a middle-aged woman comes out from the elevators. “Jessica Davis?”
“Hi, that’s me.” Jess tentatively waves her hand, standing up and walk towards her. She’s a formidable looking woman and Jess feels a little intimidated by her. She visibly looks her up and down and Jess starts thinking she should have dressed more formally in a suit and her ex-bosses words about her pink hair run through her mind leaving her worried she isn’t appropriately attired for this job at all.
“I’m Marion, the HR Manager, follow me.” They start towards the elevators, and she continues her dialogue, “You will be working for one of our finance directors. His PA left recently, and he urgently needs support.”
The doors to the elevator close and she presses the button for the 12th floor before looking at Jess more closely. Her lips pinch together momentarily before she starts speaking again.
“Adrian is one of our best managers, he specifically asked us to get you in, so I only assume that you are one of the best PA’s around, although we did have awful trouble tracking you down. Follow me.”
Exiting the elevator, the women start walking through a busy office. Jess feels eyes on her, people looking up from their screens, as she follows Marion through the maze of desks.
“I’m sorry, Marion, you said he asked for me? I don’t know anybody who works here,” Jess questions, very confused.
“Well, he certainly knows you, and he insisted that we hire you, wouldn’t let us bring in anybody else. Ah, here we are.” She knocks on a door, “Adrian, Jessica is here.”
As they walk into the office Jess feels the world slow around her and it all becomes perfectly clear how Adrian knew who she was; she doesn’t know how he knew she needed a job, but she needs to get out of here, now!
“Hello Jessica, it’s wonderful to see you!” He looks at Jess with a smug grin on his face, his arms folded as he leans back in his chair, ensuring he holds a position of power.
“Ade…Adrian…of course.” Jess starts to turn, ready to leave. This is not what she signed up for.
“Hold on, Jessica. Thanks, Marion, I’ve got this, could you close the door?” Marion promptly leaves, closing the door and making Jess feel trapped like a caged animal. She turns back, her face holding a look of fire and fury.
“You’ve changed companies then?” she spits at him, angry at being tricked, angrier at being forced into a situation where she’s having to speak with him in a situation she can’t control; part of her wishing Luka could save her, part of her relieved Luka doesn’t know about this.
“Yes, after we broke up. Please, come sit down.” He gestures to the chair in front of him. She pulls it back as far as possible, then sits in it sideways making sure the skirt of her dress is covering as much as possible. She feels uncomfortable and aware of every bit of exposed skin.
Jess looks around his office, trying to take in what she is seeing. He has done well for himself; it is a glass corner office, the kind he always said he wanted. It is decorated with modern office furniture with a sofa in the corner, some nice artwork and a view of Bristol from a bank of windows. A sure step up from where he was when they were together. The desk she recognises; it was one they had hand-picked together as his dream desk when they were together, one solid piece of wood that curved onto the floo
r at one end and rested on a block on the L-side. Jess can’t resist leaning forward and running her hand along the wood, feeling it. She knows how much this desk costs and seeing it in person is astounding. She pulls back, composing herself. When she looks up, he catches her eye and smiles.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I never forgot when we picked it, ready for an office like this.”
“It does fit perfectly.”
“I wanted to show it to you as soon as I got it, show you we did it.”
“No, you did it, Ade. This is all yours.” He looks dejected, then his eyes come back up ready for another go. Does this man ever stay down? “What is this, Ade?”
“I need a PA, you need a job.” He smiles like butter wouldn’t melt. Having known Ade a long time Jess knows that he is up to something.
“How did you know I need a job, Ade? I certainly never told you.”
“I called your office, they said you didn’t work there anymore.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat; he knows he’s digging up some dirty secret here.
“When? I only saw you on Friday night and it’s Monday morning now, so when did you find the time to call them? They are closed for the weekend.”
“Last week, I was trying to see you, for your birthday.”
Jess sits back in the chair, stunned, shaking, angry. It crosses her mind that it’s really starting to look like Ade might have been stalking her, which given his role as dumper in the whole break up makes absolutely no sense at all.
“Ade, how long have you been checking up on me?”
His eyes widen in surprise. It’s clear he wasn’t expecting her to ask him this.
Well tough, she has. “Not long, a few months maybe.” Not long! That’s almost half the time they’ve been split up. Jess can’t believe what she is hearing.
“But why? You’re the one who left me, remember?”
“Yes, and I’m an idiot. I missed you, so I thought checking in and making sure you were OK would make it easier.”
“You really are a piece of work; do you know that?” Instantly angry; Jess tells herself to forget worried and shaken up, which is how she has spent the weekend. She now wishes she could push him out of one of those rather beautiful windows he has in his office.
He rises from his chair and walks around his desk, leaning against the front of it so that they are inches apart.
There is no denying he is a good-looking man with his dark cropped hair, chiseled jaw, and chestnut eyes. He’s more well-built than six months ago - he’s been going to the gym. He fills his suit out in all the right places, but he is not Luka though. If Luka looked at Jess the way Ade was looking at her right now, she would be a sopping mess in his hands. She looks Ade in the eye, waiting for what he is going to say, refusing to let him make her feel inadequate.
“I didn’t know how to tell you how sorry I was, then on Friday we were in the same place and you looked so…so beautiful, so happy and I realised you were going to slip right through my fingers. Of course, you’re angry with me, I was awful to you. I should have held you that day, on all the days, told you how much I loved you, instead, I walked out and left you alone. Let me show you I’ve changed.”
“You should have done those things, but you didn’t, and you can’t undo that now,” Jess says, her voice cracking with emotion and a little impatience. She reminds herself that she came here for a job, not an emotional ambush.
“I needed to see you, to speak to you, to tell you how I feel, what you mean to me.” He picks up her hand and crouches, so they are on a level with each other. Oh boy. “Jessica, I never stopped loving you, please let me in again.”
Jess wrenches her hand away from his. Those eyes of his are like big puppy dog eyes, and when she remembers what they once had when they were happy, it tugs at her heart. She almost told Luka she loved him a little over an hour ago and now she has Ade dredging up old feelings and making her wonder what to do.
“You know what I think, Ade? I think you only want me now because I found somebody new. You’ve had months to change your mind, months where I would have taken you back no questions asked. Instead as soon as I meet somebody new you suddenly decide I’m fair game again.”
“No, that’s not it. And what do you mean you’ve met someone new?” He looks stunned, like she’s slapped him. For someone who seems to know far too much about her life, this piece of news knocked him sideways.
“Well, you seem to know everything else about me, I figured you would know I have a boyfriend.”
“You weren’t with anyone at the concert, and it was your birthday so if you had a boyfriend then he should have been with you,” he babbles, taking her hand. Jess pulls it away from him again.
“My God, Ade, are you actually stalking me? It’s not for you to see me with him. You didn’t see me sitting with him on Friday because he was in the orchestra, he’s a musician. And because of you, I missed half of his bloody concert. Not that it’s any of your business.” Her chest is heaving as she tries to gather breath, her fists clenched with her nails digging into her palms, biting the inside of her cheek. Everything is in the small hope she can stop herself from crying. This man has pulled enough tears from Jess’ eyes.
Ade looks like she’s punched him in the gut. She thinks he genuinely thought she was making Luka up. Now he realises there is somebody else and he’s intent on doing something about it. Jess can see it in his eyes, he sees Luka as competition.
“I’m not stalking you, Jessica. I love you and I will get you back, whatever it takes.”
“No, Ade, you won’t. Now I’m going to go. I do actually need to find a job and I don’t want to deal with any more of your nonsense.” Jess starts to stand, and Ade puts a hand on her shoulder and pushes her back to the chair, which does nothing to help her mood.
“Jessica, I really do need a PA, this is a real job. Putting my feelings aside, the job is yours if you want it.”
Jess pauses and thinks things through. The reality is that buying Ade out of his share of the apartment took every single penny she had in savings and has meant she’s been living month to month ever since, struggling to pay the remaining mortgage. Without a job, she can’t make her mortgage repayments and she didn’t get much of a settlement from the last job to tide her over. Working for Ade is going to be a recipe for disaster: she knows in her heart that she’s asking for trouble if she takes this job. Ade is looking to cause her problems. He as good as admitted it five minutes ago. Luka and Jess are potentially onto a good thing, but if neither of them is comfortable with being in a relationship, is adding a grenade like Ade to the mix a good idea?
Jess sits stirring over this problem, and she wishes Katie was there with her. She knows her friend would tell her exactly what to do, and she would probably punch Ade in the nose for good measure. The thing that keeps coming back to haunt her is that she needs to pay her mortgage. Without the money for that, things are going to go nuclear for her, rapidly. If she doesn’t tell Luka who she is working for there shouldn’t be a problem, and as soon as the agency find a different job, she can get out of here.
She looks up at Ade, squaring her shoulders, making sure he knows she means business.
“OK, I’ll work for you. But, Ade, this means nothing. You and I are over. You made sure of that, and I don’t want any more talk of us getting back together.”
“Cross my heart,” he says, offering her the lopsided smile he knows she used to love, the bastard.
He leads Jess outside his office where his PA’s desk is. He helps her get set up and she starts working. They make a good team for this, thanks to how well they know each other, and Jess is ploughing through the backlog of work in no time. A little before 1 pm her phone pings with a message from Luka.
Luka: Hey Gorgeous, I brought you lunch. Can you get away?
Jess puts her head around the door into Ade’s office.
/> “Do you need anything before I pop out for lunch?”
He looks up from what he is doing and smiles at her. “No thanks, Jessica. I forgot to say you look stunning today.”
“Ade!” she warns, and he smiles before looking at his work again.
Picking up her phone, she quickly replies to Luka.
Jess: I’m on my way xxx
Jess steps outside the office and looks around, unsure quite where Luka is, then feels arms wrap around her from behind. His face nuzzles into her neck scattering kisses that are making her feel all sorts of tingles and vibrations she shouldn’t be feeling in broad daylight on the street. She slowly turns and wraps her arms around his neck, popping up onto tip-toes so that she has better access to kiss him slow, long, and deep. After that morning she is so happy to see this face, to kiss these lips that she pours all her feelings into the kiss. When she pulls away, her hands frame his face while her eyes drink him in.
“Hello to you too,” he says, breathless from their kiss, a smile on his face.
“I missed you,” Jess replies, knowing this is the truth but that she also needs to cover for her deceit. That she can’t tell him the full truth behind that kiss.
“Me, too, that’s why I’m here,” he says, taking her hand. He leads her across the road to Castle Park, where they sit down on the grass and eat. He has bought a sandwich for each of them and has remembered her favourite filling. As they are sitting cuddled together talking about their mornings, Jess purposely leaving out the details about Ade, the man in question comes walking through the park in front of them. He stops, looks right at her and smiles, sending her heart into palpitations feeling on the verge of a panic attack. Here she is, lying by omission to her current boyfriend about working for her ex-boyfriend who is now standing 20 meters away staring at them. Her phone rings with a text message from Ade a few minutes later after he has walked away.
Ade: He doesn’t look like your type Jessica. You can do better.
What would he know? He is comparing with himself and he worked out so well for her, she thinks, as a tirade of thoughts overtake her brain. She quickly deletes his message before Luka sees it, the panic overwhelming her body.
