by Avery Laval
And now her passage came alive and began to massage his cock with the beginnings of release, and it was too much. He let go of her legs, trusted his weight and his lift and the support of the shower wall to keep her in place, and pressed both hands, fingers splayed, against the wet marble above her head. He was braced for his own orgasm, and when it came it wrecked him, shook him, ran up his spine and through his eyes and finally he knew he had to pull away before it was too late. And when he lowered her to the earth and the aftershocks began to ripple through them both in the steamy glass shower, he clung to her. Desperately.
He could not seem to let her go.
Late that evening, when Grant was quite sure Jenna was fast asleep and sated enough to stay that way for some time, he slipped out from under the covers and made his way to his home office. He had work to do, and besides, sleep would have been impossible the way his mind was racing, the way he was warring with himself. In all his escapades and affairs, he had never felt this complete loss of perspective—until her. Hell, if he didn’t know better, he’d think he was losing himself in this woman. But of course, that wasn’t possible. Was it?
He needed to get his focus back and concentrate on things that truly mattered. Maybe the sex with Jenna was fantastic—God, but it was—but it was still just sex, nothing more.
Business, on the other hand, needed his full attention. He’d have to pull himself out of this ridiculous mindset if he was to get any work done.
He turned on his laptop and propped open a bulky binder of graphs and tables, determined to chase away all thoughts of Jenna McCormick.
But it was of little use. He managed to skim a few pages, but instead of synthesizing the information and getting a feel for the particulars of this land deal, his mind wandered again and again to the woman sleeping in his bed only a short distance away. The way her parents’ death had made her so tough, so independent, but she had never lost the playful spark of her former party-girl life. The way she could hold her own against the cattiest women in the city and still turn so gentle and sweet and trusting when she was in his arms. The way she could incite such desire in him, and then hold that desire like a flame that didn’t burn.
She was like no woman he’d ever met before.
Focus, dammit! Grant flipped back two pages in his document to start over again. His usually sharp mind seemed useless today. Normally, he’d breeze through the thing and have his decision about the land made in no time flat, and be one hundred percent certain that what he was doing was the right thing. That was how he preferred to spend his weekend, lost in his work, the hours flying like minutes. None of this endless back-and-forth over a woman, thinking of all the things he’d rather be doing than burrowing through reams of paper and whipping up P&L statements.
Grant raked a hand across his jaw, exasperated. Yet again, he regretted the choice he’d made that first day in his office when she’d begged him for a job. If he’d never hired her, never given her a PA job, never challenged her to prove she could be a good worker—and a good worker indeed she was—he’d be living his life as normal. He’d be right here in his office, and she would be, where? Anywhere but here.
He cringed. The sensation of regret was one he went to great lengths to avoid. His careful decisiveness was what made him so successful, and he wasn’t used to looking back on his decisions at all, much less regretting them. The last time he’d done that had been right out of college, for the man he thought he could trust more than anyone else in the world.
Angered at the very thought, Grant stood to pace, sat down again to work, stood and paced some more. He was restless and ready to pounce on something, anything. His life had been so carefully organized and assembled to prevent exactly these kinds of entanglements. He interviewed his employees endlessly before hiring them, called each and every reference and drilled them until he felt satisfied that they were the best at what they did, and trustworthy, too. He researched each investment as if it were his first, never taking an advisor’s word for anything, trusting only his own expert judgment.
In every decision he made, he needed to see with his own eyes exactly what he was getting into. That kind of cautious preparation was the secret of his success. And now he was sitting here jeopardizing a million-dollar deal. And because he could only think about a woman he’d taken to his bed just an hour ago? A woman who, after all was said and done, might yet be interested in him only for his power and position?
Furious at himself for his idiocy, he paced away some of the fierce energy coursing through him, then sat back down to the tablet to try again to focus on his work. This time, he was able to forget Jenna for five pages before the thought of her writhing under him, the sound of her moan reverberating on shower walls, echoed through his head.
Progress, he supposed, grimly. Concentrate, man! He turned to his laptop and began typing furiously into a massive spreadsheet of profit factors.
Then he heard footsteps.
Her footsteps, of course. Bare feet on a long hardwood hallway. She was coming to him again. At the very thought, his groin tightened in anticipation. Damn his traitorous body.
“Grant, are you in here?” she asked as she neared the doorway of his office. “What are you doing up?” Her voice was sleepy. She’d woken to find him gone, he realized, and then gone padding through the suite she once called home, curiously searching him out.
“I’m here,” he said, and closed the window, wondering if he had yet been cured of his need for her, or if he yearned for still more—and knowing the answer instantly from his body’s reaction. He was beginning to think there was no sating his desire for Jenna McCormick. The thought infuriated him yet again.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” she asked from the hall, then stepped inside the room and found him at last. He reached up with one hand to flick off the monitor of his laptop. Her eyes followed his hand, suddenly sharp and wide awake.
“Are you…” She looked down at the tablet under his arms, back at the screen where a spreadsheet had previously been open. “Are you working? In the middle of a weekend of passion, while I wait for you upstairs?” Her voice rose, just one note, but enough.
Grant didn’t answer at first, the question too obvious to acknowledge.
“You are,” she said, something dawning on her. “Of course you are.” She forced a smile, but he remembered what she’d said about her father—how little time he’d had for his family. Grant was not that man, far from it. But, like Jenna’s father, Grant was always going to choose work over a woman.
“This is what I do, Jenna. I work.”
She furrowed her brow. “I suppose that’s why you had to bring me here. Not because you wanted to hold me in your arms all night long. It was because you wanted to have all your precious documents close at hand. Were you down here last night too? While I slept off what you made me feel?”
At that moment, Grant knew. Heard it in her voice, in the hurt she couldn’t disguise. She’d fallen for him. And now, before he got himself in too deep, it was time to him to nip this in the bud.
It was what he had to do. It was who he was. So he shrugged, unapologetic. “I have a million-dollar deal coming to a head on Monday,” he told her. “I’ve got to be prepared.”
“As if you’re not already overprepared,” she scoffed, but there was an edge behind her teasing. “I see that massive binder on your desk. You probably had your management team running around like chickens with their heads cut off to supply you with all that information, only to redo all their work yourself to be sure it’s correct.” She looked to him for a response, and when tilted his head in acknowledgement, she added, “Can’t you trust anyone besides yourself?” She sounded nervous as she asked. As if she truly—desperately—wanted to know.
Grant looked at her, and tried to rearrange his features to an expression of tedium. She was setting herself up for this, he told himself. Had it coming, after a life only on the periphery of real business. “What would you have me do, lounge around all weeke
nd with you, take you shopping or watch you paint your nails? How would I stand the boredom?” It was a low blow, but he wanted to lash out, wanted to get his message across loud and clear. He had to protect himself from this longing.
Her face was tight but unwavering—she refused to show hurt. “You know full well my life has been about much more than manicures and shopping ever since my parents died. Why do you keep throwing my past in my face like that?” Her voice rose again and shook just slightly—clearly she was fighting to stay composed.
“Even if I knew nothing of your celebutante past,” Grant said, as coldly as he could muster, “I know full well that you know nothing about business, and yet you insist on marching in here and telling me how to run a company. A company your own family failed to run.” He hated the words, even as he said them.
Jenna sucked in a breath. “That hurt,” she said.
It was what he’d intended. But instead of feeling triumphant, he felt shame. He tried to push it away and failed. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, and then lowered his voice. She deserved better than this. But now he was in too deep. He had to end this in a way that stuck. He dug deep for the thing that would send her away for good. Then found it:
“Jenna, it’s time for you to face the truth of this weekend.”
Her eyes glistened. “Which is?”
“You know as well as I do. Look at the straits you’re in. You’ve got no money, a disaster of an apartment, and an ailing brother who needs full-time care that doesn’t come cheap. I know you’re not the party-girl anymore. But that doesn’t change the truth that a romance with a CEO is a far more pleasurable solution to your problems than some crappy assistant job.”
She blinked. “Are you joking with me right now?” she asked. “Because I don’t find this line of humor very funny.” Now her voice was dangerously quiet.
“I’m dead serious.”
Her jaw dropped like a brick. She stood staring at him for a long moment, searching his eyes for something he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let her find. And then she started in, wildly, seething with fury.
“You are a real piece of work, you know that? You can’t see anything that hasn’t been proven by your precious research. Like the fact that my feelings about you are real. Your private investigator may be able to tell you how hard I struggled to keep my brother safe. How I lost friend after friend and had to make do on my own for the last six years. How much it killed me to go to you for a favor, when I was so determined to get through this on my own. But he can’t tell you what’s in my heart.” Jenna stalked closer to him, right into his face so he could see the pain in her eyes. “But even knowing that wouldn’t change anything, would it? Because once you’ve made up your mind about someone, nothing in the world will change it.” Her voice cracked, and Grant knew she was on the verge of tears. But she kept going.
“You asked me to change my feelings for you in with a snap of your fingers when you dropped that bomb on me about my father and the business. And my feelings did change,” she admitted. Grant turned his face away from her at those words, not wanting to see another speck of her raw emotion, unable, he found, to bear it.
“But you,” she pressed on though tears now leaking uncontrollably from her eyes. “You can’t budge from the judgment you made of me the moment I walked into your office six years ago. No matter what we’ve had together, what we’ve shared, you’ll always think the worst of me. And nothing I say or do will ever change that. Certainly nothing that we shared in the last week. You’re untouchable.”
Grant told himself to ignore her words. They were spoken in hurt, meant to injure him in the way he’d injured her. But then, why did they ring so true? And why did he regret hurting her so badly? Wasn’t it all for the best?
Or had he gone too far?
But it was too late for him to apologize, even if he’d wanted to. She was already walking away.
“There’s no need to see me out,” she said over her shoulder as she moved out of his office, leaving him still sitting there, reeling. “I know the drill. I’m sure Martin will not be surprised to see me.”
And just like she was gone. Leaving Grant shaking with fury. Worst of all, all the fury was directed at himself.
14
That night was hard for Jenna. Her head hurt and stomach was clenched tight. Had she eaten a bite in the last day? Probably not. How could she eat when she felt so miserable?
How could she do anything but curl up under the covers of her little bed and relive the horrible mistakes she’d made in the days previous?
Mistake number one: going to that man for a job, putting herself completely in his mercy. When he had no mercy at all.
Mistake number two: letting herself believe from his kindness to Justin and his tender treatment of her that he cared about anything besides his precious work.
Mistake number three: kissing him. And kissing him, and kissing him. And kissing him again.
Mistake number four: falling in love with the man.
Of all the things she regretted about the last week, none was so bitter a regret as the fact that despite everything, she had fallen madly, deeply, in love with Grant Blakely. A man who could see only who she had been, not who she had become, no matter what she did.
He was a workaholic. A commitment-phobe who’d never had a real relationship with a woman in his life. Who’d never gotten to experience the importance of family or the power of trust. That was who she’d fallen in love with.
Really, Jenna? she asked herself. You couldn’t have picked anyone more appropriate, like, say, a serial killer?
But love wasn’t something you could feel on an rational basis, as she well knew. She’d fallen in love with the way he’d taken care of her when she needed him, the warmth and safety she’d felt in his arms after they’d been together, the look in his eyes just before they kissed. And there was no pretending it wasn’t so. Because if she didn’t love him, why had she spent last night wide awake in bed, completely heartbroken by his cruel rejection?
A rejection that at least one other person knew about, now, thanks to Marissa Madden’s fluke timing. Because while she’d been wallowing in grief and reliving the horrible fight over and over again in her head, the phone had rung, and stupidly, Jenna had pounced on the receiver without even looking at the screen.
It has to be Grant, she thought. He’s calling to apologize. To beg me to forgive him for the terrible things he said.
“Grant?” she gasped breathlessly into the phone.
To which she heard a brief silence, and then a soft voice asking, “Jenna, is that you? It’s Marissa Madden….”
When Jenna said nothing, only sank back into her pillows, humiliated, Marissa pressed on. “From the party? Remember?”
“Of course,” Jenna said at last. “Hi, Marissa. How are you?” Even she could hear how thick her voice was with tears.
“I’m very sorry for the late hour. But you sound…” The sentence dropped off tactfully. “Are you okay? I mean, should I call back at a better time?”
When would be a better time, Jenna wondered? How long before her heart stopped breaking? “No, no, I’m fine. It’s nice to hear from you,” she said, and the truth was, it was nice to hear from anyone kind in her miserable, lonely state.
“Thanks!” Marissa said, clearly trying to be perky in the face of Jenna’s sullenness. “I was just calling because I loved catching up with you at the party last week and now I’m trying to rope you into a social affair of the highest order: movie night with the girls at my place. No need to break out the pearls. It’ll just be a few buddies and a yummy chick flick and plenty of popcorn. You can even wear your jammies if you want.”
“Oh, Marissa, that is so sweet,” Jenna managed to get out. “I would love to.” She meant that. She would love to. But only if it was say, seven years from now, when she next planned to leave her bed. “When were you planning this gala?”
“I’m thinking next Saturday, so we can all have time to nomina
te our favorite movies. Doable?”
Next Saturday, Jenna thought. She should be able to stop crying by next Saturday, right? “Um…can you just put me down as a maybe for now? I’m so sorry, but I might…” She searched around for some brilliant excuse, but her brain was too fried to come up with anything. “I might be busy that night.” Busy eating about three pints of ice cream, she thought but didn’t say. “I’m just not sure yet.”
“Well, sure. That’s fine,” Marissa said, but she had a touch of disappointment in her voice. “Would Friday be a better option?”
Oh, hell, thought Jenna. She couldn’t go and turn down Friday too and make Marissa think she wasn’t interested in a friendship. When she was, very much. Or at least she had been, before the fight with Grant, back when she was interested in anything.
“The truth is, I don’t really have a conflict on Saturday,” she admitted. “It’s just that I’m not feeling very well today and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take before I feel better.” It was the truth, though it didn’t tell the whole story. She was feeling downright awful.
“Not feeling well?” Marissa repeated. “Jenna, can I ask you a personal question?”
Jenna groaned inwardly, but said “Go ahead.”
“Were you crying when I called?”
Oh, hell. “Honestly, I might have been crying just a teensy bit,” she admitted. And when she did, she felt a tiny lift in her sadness just because she wasn’t feeling so alone. Even that tiniest lift was better than nothing. “Okay, I was sobbing my head off,” she said. “I’m having sort of a bad night.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Marissa. “I’m not trying to be nosy, I swear, but is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”
Jenna smiled through her tears. “That is such a kind offer. But I’m afraid there’s not much anyone can do about my present state of affairs.”
