Page 43 of The Enemies With Benefits Deal

As she picks at the crust, I lean back and look at the lights shining over the city. It’s nothing compared to the view at her place, but I love it here, especially when she’s sitting beside me.

“You didn’t take the chance away from me.” I reach for my beer, taking a sip. “If any of my ideas really were that good, Dad would have implemented them a long time ago.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” Jade says, her voice soft as she looks over at me. “You’re a smart man. You may not be the most creative person in the world, but you have a good head for what people will and won’t like.”

“Is that a compliment I hear?” I say, tone teasing as I lean closer to her. “Can I get that in writing?”

Laughing, she shakes her head. “Not a chance in hell.”

Her smile sends my heart racing as she reaches for her own drink. “Do you ever see yourself settling down and having kids one day?”

It’s a well-aimed knife to the chest, slipping beneath my ribs and poking me in the heart.

I sigh. “I’ve thought about having a family, but to me, the family business always had to come first. I thought that if I was ever going to get it off the ground and back to what it was, I had to put the rest of my life on hold.”

“It sounds like you regret making that choice.”

“In some ways, I do. I know we’re only thirty and there are still years ahead of us, but I think I regret not taking the time to find my person.”

Her eyebrows raise as she twists to face me, still hugging her knees to her chest. “You believe in finding your person?”

“I do. I think there’s somebody out there meant for each of us. I don’t know if we always end up with our person, though.” The corner of my mouth twitches as lights across the road shine bright. “Before she passed, my mom used to say that there was someone out there for everyone.”

“When did she pass?”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Right before sophomore year of college.”

And just like that, I know I’ve gone too deep with Jade.

She’s going to hear that comment and the journalist in her is going to start piecing the story together. She’s going to see the real reason why I was so horrible that year.

Instead of saying anything, she gets up and moves over to me, tapping my thigh until I part my legs wide enough for her to sit between them.

Her back presses against my chest, her head leaning against my shoulder. “It’s been me and my mom for as long as I canremember. She says that my dad didn’t want to be much of a dad.”

“That must have been hard growing up.” My voice is still a little choked, but I’m grateful for the subject change.

As if she knows I need it, Jade grabs my hands and pulls my arms around her, encouraging me to hold her while I fight back memories in my mind.

She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know about that. You can’t miss what you never had, right? Mom and I might have been broke, and I might have put myself through college on a massive academic scholarship while working three jobs through the summer, but I was happy.”

“Are you happy now?”

Jade looks at me over her shoulder, those blue eyes piercing straight through to my soul. “I think I am.”

Those four little words send me into a tailspin.

In that moment — after that small sliver of vulnerability she showed for the first time since I met her — I know that there is no leaving Jade.

It isn’t as simple as seeing her for the flawed person she is and deciding that she isn’t worth my time.

I thought that way in college. But I’m willing to bet that back in those days, she needed the internship more than I ever did.

This time, I can’t see the darker parts of her and decide it’s easier to not deal with that.

Not again.

We both deserve better than that.

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