Page 88 of Wildly Inappropriate

“I’m fine, Sam.”

“Then why did you break up with Lila? Did you know she calls me on a regular basis now? We’re friends, but that’s beside the point. She calls me to check in on you. She’s worried about you after you left her alone in a hotel room after she told you she loves you.”

“I didn’t leave her alone. I told Jameson and Bryn to go over and be with her.”

“Semantics, JT. You love that woman, and you walked away from her. Telling yourself you have to throw your life away to pay your parents back for their sacrifices—the ones they made when you were a child and they were adults, for the record—that is the thought process of a man who is not okay.”

“Lila’s better off without me.”

“She’s devastated without you.”

“She’ll move on.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she will if you refuse to pull your head out. She’s in love with you, but she also knows her worth. If you don’t get your shit together, she won’t wait around forever. Is that what you want? For Lila to be happy with someone else? And do you really think some other guy will make her happy like you did? Do you want to curse her to a life of what-ifs and half-loves?”

“I…I don’t know.” My head is spinning. Was this a mistake? Am I so broken that I pushed Lila away to focus on something that, at the end of the day, is just a job rather than fighting for her—for us? Did I push away the one person who saw me and never asked me to be anyone but who I am?

“Do you love her, JT?” Sam asks, his tone finally softening.

“Of course I do.” I don’t even need to think about it. If anything, her absence over the last few weeks has made me realize just how much I love her.

“Then turn yourself into the man she needs you to be. And that’s not the one who feels so guilty about his parents’ decisions that he is willing to sacrifice anything to make them happy. It’s the one who puts in the work, every day, to be the guy she deserves. Loving someone doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, you just need to be willing to try, even when it’s hard—especially when it’s hard. You’re going to mess up. A lot. Therapy is going to help you figure out how you can still love yourself when you do so you can keep loving her.”

He turns and walks out of my shower, stopping on the bath rug to peel off his drenched clothes. “Oh, and I’m moving into your guest room and will be traveling with you until you prove to me that you remember your body needs food and water on a regular basis.”

“Thanks, Sam. I don’t deserve you.”

“You do, JT. And you have a lot of other people in your life you deserve as well. I just happened to be the one who was elected to stage the intervention. Kelsey hadthoughtson the best way to get you to pull your head out of your ass. And can I just say that I am in love with that woman? She is terrifying and smart, and…I really hope we can get a brunch group or a book club or some kind of travel friendship lined out…I need more Kelsey Harper in my life.”

And with that, he walks his naked ass out of my bathroom.

Chapter forty-two

Lila

“Okay, here are thefinal copies of the presentations. Yours is the one with the forest green cover, so make sure you don’t hand it out to Jaxon Steele,” I say as I release a small squeal and hand off the spiral-bound presentations I’ve been spending way too much time on lately. We were selected as finalists despite submitting our proposal at the last hour.

“I cannot believe you get to meet Jaxon Steele! I’ve always wanted his song ‘Forever Starts Here’ to be the song I walk down the aisle to.” I let out a small sigh, realizing that day may never actually come for me, but that’s okay.

I’m learning to let go of the unhealthy expectations I set for myself, including the ones regarding finding and falling in love. If I learned anything from my time with JT, it’s that love sneaks up on you sometimes. Lightning strikes just the right spot and the flames spring to life as if from nowhere. Looking for the fire before the lightning is a fool’s errand.

Kelsey gives me a sympathetic look, but then raises her eyebrow as she asks, “You do know I already know Jaxon, right?”

“WHAT? How am I just finding out about this now? We’ve been working on this for months.”

“He grew up in Wild Bluffs.”

“What?!” I ask it again because it feels like this is information that should be blasted across the internet, and it is not. I would know, too. I did a lot of research and deep dives on Jaxon Steele throughout this process.

Kelsey just shrugs. “He’s very security conscious.” She taps our ninety-eight-page security proposal as if proving her point. “And he didn’t graduate from here, so it’s a lot easier to scrub from his history.”

“Wait, why does he want to scrub—”

“Oh, there’s my dad. Wish me luck!” Kelsey says before climbing in the passenger side of her dad’s pickup. Ken, like the saint he is, is giving Kelsey a ride to the airport at six thirty in the morning. There’s a chance there will be hail in Denver this weekend, and she didn’t want to risk her car getting damaged in the airport parking lot. I think they just like spending time together, and the thought makes my heart ache a little, wishing my parents lived closer.

I sit down at my desk, staring at the task list on my screen, wondering what I should dive into first. As excited as I am that the final presentations for Jaxon Steele are here, I’m dreading how much my workload is going to be lightened. I shoot a quick message to Brian, the head of Information Security, asking him for an update on a recent breach we detected in one of our clients’ systems. I’m coordinating our rapid response team with our team who will do a deep dive into the system, and I need to make sure our final penetration testers have what they need to both replicate the attack and try to anticipate the next iterations of the attack. I’m not an expert in any of these things, but I know enough to get by. Plus, my project management skills are top-notch, so Kelsey has been shifting my job more and more toward that side of the work.

I sit at my desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard as I wait for Brian’s response. My mind keeps drifting back to the conversation with Kelsey.Jaxon Steele. In Wild Bluffs.It’s wild to think someone so famous, whose music has touched so many, grew up in this small town.

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