Page 36 of Let Me Say It Again

As if reading my mind, Karoline came up next to me and swept my hair away from my neck, bringing it up in some sort of twist. She was holding it in place. “You look like her,” she said, smiling.

I shook my head. “I look like my mom?”

They both nodded, but it was Maria who answered, “There’s no question about it. And you know what?”

I looked back at her in the mirror. “What?”

Grinning from ear to ear, a light chuckle escaped her. “Your training is done. You’re ready to be the fashion editor.”

I didn’t want to stutter on my words, so when my eyes widened so much it looked like they were practically bugging out of my head on their own accord, I didn’t say a word. Finally, I took a deep breath and ran my sweaty hands over the dress. Oops, maybe that was a bad idea. Okay, we were going to ignore that. “What do you mean?” I didn’t think I understood what Maria was saying. I heard her, sure, but she couldn’t mean that, could she? “What changed?”

Maria and Karoline exchanged a knowing look. “Because you get it. That look you got in your eyes when you saw yourself in the mirror spoke volumes. Fashion matters not because the clothes matter. No, what’s on the outside pales in comparison to what’s on the inside. And that’s what fashion is all about—heart. It’s about making you happy, like truly happy, and feeling the way everyone else sees you.”

“Bitchy,” I mumbled.

She must have caught it because she rolled her eyes. “Beautiful.”

“Welcome toBellissima, Jade. You’re going to make magic, I just know it.” The way Karoline said that, and with that whole speech Maria had given me, I was starting to think that even though I didn’t have a plan for my life, it was possible I was exactly where I was meant to be.

And now I was sounding ridiculously sappy.

“All right, someone help me out of this dress,” I said, walking away and making a beeline to the dressing room, Maria hot on my heels.

Chapter Fourteen

Reddington

I rubbed myeyes that I’d swear were glazed over. Work was kicking my ass today. Whoever said being CEO was easy was a lying son of a bitch.

Okay, maybe that was overstating it a bit. Being CEO wasn’t that bad. Just some days. Today, however, happened to be one of those days. Unfortunately.

I just wanted to go home.

Not to an empty house, though.

Nope. I wanted to go home to Jade.

But after my mother had given me her two cents, I’d gone back and forth on this topic so much I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it anymore.

Besides the fact that I knew Jade would never go for it, and more than that, I was a lot of things, but a masochist wasn’t one of them, I’d be in a constant state of arousal. I’d walk around with a massive hard-on. I’d spend most of my day jerking off to fantasies of her. Talk about lack of productivity. Lyons Enterprises would suffer.

Really, by ignoring my mother, I was doing her a huge financial favor.

You know what I needed?A stiff one?No, I needed to get Jade out of my head. The only way to do that would be to go a few rounds with her. Not in the bedroom. Although, that would probably do the job, too. Because if there was anything more attractive than her body—damn it, just thinking about her pussy was making my cock twitch—it was her mouth. I wanted it onmine and then on my cock, wrapped around it as I fucked her, and she took all of me like a good girl. I wondered if she’d be the type to let me come down her throat, if she’d take every last drop I’d give her. But we were getting off track here because I was thinking about a few verbal sparring rounds, not sexual ones.

I heaved a sigh and picked up my phone from my desk, pulling up my thread with Jade and texting her.

Reddington:I gave my chef time off.

I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going with that, but it opened the door, right? Shit, how pathetic was I? See, if she still worked here, then all I had to do was call her into my office, and we could have a conversation. I could get whatever the hell it was I wanted and she could be on her merry way. Bottom line: no waiting for three dots to appear.

I hated those three dots.

But then they popped up before I exited the app.

Lucky for me, I’d never known Jade to think twice and delete anything before hitting send, so the dots would only go away because she’d responded.

Jade:Poor baby.

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