Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series)

by Melanie Shawn

  There was a knock on her door, and she looked up to see Martin, her assistant, stick his head in. “Ms. Sloan, your four-o’clock is here, and she looks fierce.” Martin’s dark eyes widened as he overemphasized his description.

  Jessie smiled. She loved how, each time Martin announced someone, he gave his colorful opinion on either their outfits or demeanor. It was always something like, “He looks like he’s got a stick up his ass,” or “I don’t think this one owns a mirror.” When she’d been promoted, her only stipulation was that Martin was able to make the move with her. He was not simply an organizational and scheduling genius, he also stayed one step ahead of her (which was not an easy thing to do). And during long, arduous hours, he always provided much-needed comic relief.

  “Great. Send her in.” Jessie pulled up her schedule on her computer and saw that she was meeting with Maxine Rizzo.

  After they’d met at the boxing gym, they’d grabbed a quick cup of coffee and Jessie had been more than a little impressed with the girl’s client roster as well as her ambition, which was basically to rule the world. A lot of people in Jessie’s position might not have felt comfortable bringing someone onto a team that was so good they could easily be a threat. But Jessie had always wanted only the best people on any team she was working on or in charge of. Greatness begat greatness in her book.

  Jessie had already been sure that she wanted to hire the girl, but after the onslaught of new business that Friday’s incident had created, she needed to hire her. Now. She’d spoken to HR and gotten the official paperwork drawn up this morning.

  “And you are wearing that skirt, doll,” Jessie heard Martin comment as he opened the door for Maxine.

  “Thank you,” the petite brunette beamed up at Jessie’s six-foot-four assistant.

  Jessie grabbed her folder with the offer she planned to make Maxi and stood, rounding her desk as Martin shut the door, leaving the two women alone. Extending her hand, Jessie said, “It’s great to see you again, Maxine.”

  As the other woman shook her hand, her nose scrunched as she spoke. “You too. And please, call me Maxi. Whenever I hear ‘Maxine,’ I feel like I’m getting in trouble for something.”

  “Got it.” Jessie nodded as she motioned to one of the red leather chairs in her sitting area. “Would you like something to drink? Tea, water, soda?”

  “No.” Maxi shook her head as she sat. “Martin already offered, but I’m good. Also, can I just say, I love him! He is amazing for my self-esteem. He must have given me five compliments as he showed me in.”

  Jessie chuckled as she sat in the chair beside Maxi. “Yep. That’s Martin. But as vocal as he is with his appreciation, be warned. He’s equally vocal with his disapproval.”

  Maxi nodded knowingly. “Good to know.”

  “So”—Jessie patted the folder on her lap, getting right down to business—“I know that originally this was going to be an interview, but a lot has happened over the weekend. I don’t know if you saw that, on Friday night—”

  “I did. That was handled beautifully, by the way.”

  Jessie could see the pure admiration shining in Maxi’s cheerful blue eyes.

  “Thank you. I’m glad that it worked out as well as it did—for our client, as well as for our business. We have been inundated by requests for proposals. It seems overnight we’ve become the popular girl everyone wants to ask to prom.”

  “Oh, okay.” A little flicker of what looked like disappointment flashed in Maxi’s eyes, but she quickly recovered by pasting a bright smile on her face. “I completely understand if we need to reschedule. You must be insanely busy—”

  “No.” Jessie shook her head holding up her hand as the girl began to stand. “That’s not what I meant. We are busy. Which is why we need you on our team.”

  She handed Maxi the manila folder, and the girl sank back down on the chair as she opened it.

  “I’m offering you a job. Not rescheduling our meeting.” Jessie used to believe that she was an excellent communicator, but lately, she wasn’t sure if that was true.

  Maxi stared at the paperwork in front of her not saying a word.

  “If you want to take the week to think it over and give me your answer on Friday, that would be—”

  “No,” Maxi answered, shaking her head.

  “You don’t want the job?” Jessie must have really read this situation all wrong. When they’d had coffee, Maxine had made it seem like this would be her dream job.

  “No!” Her eyes widened in horror. “I mean yes.” Maxi paused just a beat, took a deep breath, and clarified. “No, I don’t need to take a week to think about it. Yes, I want the job.”

  Relief that she hadn’t completely lost her people-reading skills washed over Jessie. “Great. Now, do you have any questions? It’s fairly straightforward. Based on your experience, I am starting you as a lead. You’ll have a four-person team of your choosing. You can hire in-house or out. That’s totally up to you. They will answer to you. You will answer to me. Simple.”

  Tears were forming in Maxi’s eyes as she nodded. “Thank you for this amazing opportunity.”

  “I know a good thing when I see it. I know you are going to be an incredible addition to our team,” Jessie said as she stood. “Martin can show you to HR. They have some paperwork you need to sign, and then once your background check goes through, which usually takes seventy-two hours, you will be official.”

  Maxi stood, clutching the paperwork to her chest. Jessie turned and crossed the small space to the large, wooden double doors. Opening the one on the left, Jessie shifted back to Maxi, who was following behind her.

  “I look forward to working with you,” she said honestly.

  “Me too. Thank you again.” Maxi smiled bigger than Jessie thought she’d ever seen anyone smile.

  “Martin, can you please show Ms. Rizzo down to human resources?” Jessie asked as Maxi walked past her out the door.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Martin replied as he stood from behind his desk.

  As Jessie was shutting the door, she heard Martin ask, “Are you okay, sweet pea? You’re looking a little pale.”

  “I got the job!” Maxi said in a loud whisper.

  “Of course you did. I told you that you looked fierce. Now let’s go get you in the system so you can start getting paid, honey.”

  Jessie had to smile. If it were up to Martin, he would have absolutely hired Maxine for her fashion sense alone. Luckily, that fashion sense came with brilliant marketing and PR strategies as well a ton of connections and a solid client list.

  And she’d found her thanks to Zach. Just one more thing to add to the list of things that made him impossible to resist. Great.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Have you seen her naked yet?” Billy asked, winking at the redhead who was about to give him a massage as he lay back on the table. At Billy’s flirtation, a blush crept up the girl’s china-doll skin.

  “No,” Zach answered, trying his best to tune his friend out.

  He needed to relax and let his masseuse work out his strained muscles. Relaxation was impossible to achieve if he let himself think about Jessie. Especially Jessie naked.

  Zach breathed in deeply, oxygenating his body. He tried to clear his head as he reclined back onto his own table so that he could get the most out of this therapeutic massage. Thinking about the blond beauty he currently lived with made his chest constrict and left his body strung tighter than a rubber band pulled tautly between two fingers, about to snap. Another drawback to allowing thoughts of Jessie to take up residence in his brain was that he didn’t think popping wood beneath the thin, white sheet that covered his junk, was really the best move. To avoid that from happening, his mind needed to be free of all Jessie-related thoughts.

  As he lay flat on the table, his masseuse Talia began moving her oiled fingers across his shoulders and chest. Zach closed his eyes and tried to focus on what he needed to be focused on—his next fight. He’d been studying videos all morning,
and even though his opponent did have some glaring weak areas, he also had stamina like no one Zach had ever fought before and a left hook that had taken down men no lesser than himself. Zach was acutely aware of the fact that, if he didn’t go into this fight firing on all cylinders and bring his A game, he could easily walk out of that ring with his first loss, and that was an unacceptable outcome.

  Sure, he would be paid for this fight no matter if it went down in his ‘W’ column or not. He’d worked to the point in his career that, win or lose, he made decent money. But Zach didn’t want decent money. He needed more than just enough to survive on. He needed enough to pay off his mom’s medical bills and start a savings account.

  No fighter ever knew when their last fight would be. Injuries that took you out of the game happened all the time—suddenly and without warning. If Zach didn’t start setting himself up for a life after boxing, he could end up in bad shape. Which he could deal with if it were just him. But it wasn’t. His mom was happy—finally. She was properly cared for—finally. He didn’t worry about her twenty-four-seven—finally. Zach would do whatever it took to make sure that she remained at Avalon and the bills were paid.

  “I can’t believe you, Zach Courtland, a.k.a. Playboy, have lived with a woman who is a smokin’-four-alarm-fire, burn-you-up-from-the-inside-out hot for forty-eight hours and you haven’t seen her naked yet. You’re slippin’, man. Slip-pin’.” Billy emphasized the two syllables for maximum effect.

  Zach was slipping, but not in the way Billy was referring to. He wished it were that simple. It would make things a hell of a lot easier if Zach had just lost his panty-dropping mojo and Jessie were not the least bit interested in him…but that was not the case. In reality, every time she looked at him with those huge brown eyes and he saw arousal flickering just below the surface, it chipped away at his steely determination to keep things platonic with a capital ‘P’.

  “I mean, come on. Let’s keep it real. You know you’re going to hit that,” Billy challenged.

  “No. I’m not.” Zach gave Billy the same answer he’d given him the hundred other times his friend had asked him if he was going to have sex with Jessie.

  “Bullshit,” Billy said, lifting his hand to cover his mouth as if he were coughing.

  Zach did not give a rat’s ass if his friend believed him or not. It wasn’t going to happen. Sleeping with Jessie, no matter how tempting it was, was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  Not solely because it could make their living situation awkward or worse, but also because Zach didn’t trust himself not to get wrapped up in her and distracted from the one thing in life he couldn’t get distracted from. His career.

  As it was, he was having a hard time (literally!) because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her deep-brown eyes haunted him. They held so much emotion. Even though most of the time Zach suspected Jessie was trying to disguise it. Never before in his life had he ever met someone who kept things as close to the vest as Jessie did. She was carefully guarded with her words and her actions. The one thing she couldn’t seem to mask was what he saw in those dark-caramel pools beneath her long, inky lashes.

  Then there were her lips, which were hands down the most sensual pair of lips Zach had ever seen, which drove him crazy with desire. To the point that he’d even become jealous of inanimate objects. Her bottom lip was fuller than the top, and it made him want to suck it into his mouth and run his tongue along it before nipping it with his teeth and repeating the same trail with his tongue.

  As Talia began applying more pressure, digging her fingers into him as she continued his deep-muscle massage, Zach tried to think of the least sexy image of Jessie that he possibly could. Since not thinking about her was obviously not working out, he thought that maybe he could redirect his Jessie thoughts into a less sexually explicit direction. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter what she was wearing. Business wear, casual wear, or sleepwear, she managed to be the epitome of his fantasy girl come to life. Zach was pretty sure that she could wear a burlap sack and still pull it off as sexy.

  The other night, when he’d come home to find her working, her clothes were baggy and he was sure that she hadn’t worn her oversized Snoopy shirt, sweats, fluffy slippers, and glasses in an attempt to be seductive. Somehow the fact that her sex appeal was so innate and organic, made her appearance that much sexier.

  In Zach’s life, females had always tried for his attention. Even before he’d been a professional fighter. Sometimes to the point that he had even felt embarrassed for them over how they were behaving. They threw themselves at him with no regard for their own well-being.

  Jessie, in contrast, was self-assured, contained, guarded. It made him want to know what she was like when she dropped her defenses, when she let go. Something told him that, since Jessie didn’t easily let people into her world, once you had the privilege of her trust, it was an amazing thing.

  Zach felt like a lust-Jessie-fog was filling his brain. That or his mind was just so clouded because he hadn’t been sleeping for shit. Friday night, his sleep had been bad because he’d been on a couch that hadn’t been designed for sleeping. But the last two nights, he’d been in his bed. His king-sized, comfortable bed. The bed on which he normally fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

  Except the last two nights. The second his head hit the pillow, the citrusy scent of Jessie’s perfume filled the air. Visions of her lying in his bed, in his shirt, filled his head. He knew he could wash his sheets—even though it wasn’t technically ‘his laundry day’ until Thursday—but he didn’t want to. He liked the fact that his sheets smelled like Jessie. Which was one of the reasons that he knew he couldn’t sleep with her.

  He was feeling way too much for this girl. Too much desire. Too much connection. Too much affection.

  “Hey, have you guys seen my dad?” He heard Maxi’s voice and heels as she stepped into the locker room, where Billy and Zach were both laid out on massage tables.

  “Office,” Zach directed her. He’d seen Charlie back there with Lloyd about ten minutes earlier.

  Billy let out a high-pitched wolf whistle as Maxi walked in front of the massage tables on her way to the back offices, her heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floors. “Damn, girl, you look good enough to eat!” Billy exclaimed.

  “Thanks,” Maxine replied happily.

  Zach lifted his head to make sure that Maxi wasn’t just making nice and saying thanks to lower Billy’s defenses before she socked him in the face—or worse, below the belt. Maxine Rizzo never let guys get away with saying stuff like that to her, especially Billy.

  “You’re in a good mood. What’s got your tail wagging, beautiful?” Billy asked, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

  Maxi’s face lit up so bright she was beaming. Her sparkling eyes widened and she looked like she could barely contain her excitement. Her olive-toned cheeks were flushed and she was radiating happiness as she smiled from ear to ear. Clasping her hands together at her chest, she explained, “I just got hired at SPC. I start Friday. I’ll be working directly for your girlfriend. Or um…fake girlfriend… Or whatever, who is such a badass by the way. And I’ll have a team of four people. That. I. Get. To. Choose!”

  Zach had never seen Maxi this excited before about anything. She’d been happy when she’d been hired by Magic Media right after she graduated, but she always said that she wanted to end up at a larger firm like SPC.

  Zach remembered that she made a vision board, which at the time he’d thought was a little hokey, and on it, she had all the things she wanted in her life. At the center of the page was a picture of the building that SPC was in. He wasn’t a ‘vision board’ kind of guy but he couldn’t argue with results.

  “Congrats,” Zach told her as she turned and hurried to the back offices, practically bursting at the seams to tell her dad the good news.

  “So now Maxi’s working for your girlfriend, huh?” Billy said with a smirk in his tone. “That’s cozy.”

>   “She’s not my girlfriend,” Zach clarified.

  She’s not my girlfriend. He silently repeated the mantra he’d adopted over the last seventy-two hours to ground him in some small sliver of reality once more. She’s not my girlfriend.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zach rounded the corner onto his street and adjusted the multitude of bags he held in his hands and arms. Grocery shopping was not really his thing, and he was afraid that he might have overdone it. The cold air swept over his face as he picked up the pace, double-timing it home.

  He had no idea what time Jessie normally got home since the last three nights he’d stayed at the gym until almost one a.m. Actually, he didn’t know what time she left for work either since, even with his late nights, he still got up at five fifteen, took a quick shower, had coffee and breakfast, and was out the door by five forty-five.

  The last three days had passed by in a blur. Between the early mornings and the extra time at the gym, he was feeling more than ever like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Since he and Jessie had had dinner together, he’d been trying to avoid her at all costs. Today, he realized when he’d fallen asleep on the weight bench, that his solution was not going to be a long-term one.

  His new plan was to just…be normal. Zach was going to go about his day like he normally would and not let the fact that Jessie was his roommate influence any of his actions. That was the plan anyway. Since he’d already strayed from it (and he wasn’t even a full four hours into it), he was realizing that he might need to re-strategize.

  It had been going well up until the time he’d hit the grocery store. All he’d meant to pick up was chicken, brown rice, and veggies, enough for tonight’s meal and then a meal or two for leftovers. Instead, he’d gotten enough to feed six, as well as the makings for three more meals.