Page 3 of Teach Me
“That’s it. I’m calling Saul.”
Jess jerked her head up. “You’re not calling my boss. I’m fine. I was cleared to work, and I’m going to work.”
“You’re not ready.”
Closing her eyes, Jess counted impatiently to ten. Cris meant well, but Jess had won this fight repeatedly in the past week—both with Cris and herself. She didn’t want to have to do it again.
She opened her eyes and stared straight into Cris’s. Love and concern radiated from her friend. So did fear. Jess was intimately familiar with the feeling. And with her decision. No way in hell would Brit take over her life. Saying no to him could very well have led to her death. If she could say it then, she could say it now, when only his memory was here to stop her.
She didn’t speak; she didn’t have to. Instead she gathered her purse and her coffee and stood. Cris tightened her lips but didn’t argue as she got to her feet. Together they made their way to the door, dumping their trash along the way.
Ignoring the slap of summer heat as she stepped outside, Jess scanned the parking lot. Cris would be doing the same, she knew. The fact that both of them worried, wherever they went, about Brit showing up pissed her off. After producing a convenient alibi for the night of her attack, Brit had walked out of the Atlanta Police Department and onto an airplane. Work, or so Detective King had informed Jess. Brit’s position as vice president of his father’s tech company—and his family’s prominent position in city politics—lent legitimacy to the story, for everyone but Jess. Cat and mouse was Brit’s favorite game, and what better way to keep the mouse on edge than for the cat to disappear? Two months after she’d last seen him, she couldn’t stop searching the streets for his face.
The not knowing had been Cris’s primary argument against Jess’s return to work. Jess had acquiesced far longer than she should’ve, far past the time it took for her injuries to heal. But she had a life to live. She couldn’t sit on her rear in a locked apartment, waiting. Wondering. Driving herself closer and closer to insane.
No. No matter what happened, she would face it on her feet, not cowering in a corner.
They came to Cris’s car first. When her friend would’ve kept walking, Jess cleared her throat.
Cris heaved a sigh. “Really?”
“Really.”
Cris faced her, looking ready to argue, but Jess wasn’t having it. “Move it before you make me late for work,” she said, her tone softened by the knowledge that Cris only wanted her safe.
Her friend’s good-bye was a warm bear hug that avoided Jess’s still-sore ribs. “Call me when you get home tonight.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Cris’s chuckle was watered down a bit by the tears glazing her eyes, but it was there nonetheless. “Hey, I’m not the one you want spanking you.”
Jess didn’t encourage her by replying. Besides, Cris didn’t need to know the idea of a man spanking her turned her stomach. She didn’t think she’d be considering erotic games like that for a long while, even in fantasy. She stepped to the side, waiting while Cris started her sporty yellow Nissan. When the car didn’t back out, Jess jerked her phone out of her pocket.
Would you go already!she texted.
A smiley face sticking its tongue out popped up on the screen, and then Cris reversed, blew Jess an apologetic kiss, and drove toward the exit. Jess walked a few spaces down to her car, still shaking her head as she fingered the Open button on her key fob.
“Well well well, look what the cat finally dragged out.”
Jess whipped around, pain shooting through her hip as it collided with the side-view mirror of the car next to hers. Speak of the freakin’ devil. Clearing her heart from her suddenly tight throat, she forced out, “Where did you come from?”
Did it matter? For God’s sake, the man who’d tried to kill her—and gotten away with it—was standing between her and freedom. But the thought was all her adrenaline-addled brain could produce.
Brit pushed his blond curls back off his forehead. That was how he’d taken her in, those innocent curls and bright blue eyes. Something Dr. Jekyll-ish would’ve been more accurate.
“Come on, Jess. Didn’t you miss me?” His perfectly polished John Lobb’s clicked on the pavement as he stepped closer. Jess backed up, wishing she was anywhere but stuck between two cars and an asshole. When said asshole’s eyes lit up, she winced.Never run from the cat, she reminded herself, but her legs weren’t listening. They took her backward again and again until the thick bushes lining the parking lot poked through her thin summer skirt.
Brit flashed that bright white smile she’d come to hate. “I’m just checking on you, Jess. Making sure you’re all right. Come here and give your fiancé a proper greeting.”
Like a kick in the balls?“You were not my fiancé. I would never marry you. Stay away from me.” She fumbled with her cell. “I’m calling the police right now.”
The smile went wide, but Brit’s eyes went dark. He clucked in mocking disappointment. “Go ahead, love.”
The sound of a car slowing behind her, readying to enter the parking lot, drew her attention. She glanced over her shoulder as an APD cruiser crawled by. Hope flared for the tiniest second in her knotted stomach. She nearly sagged in relief…until she faced Brit.
He was waving at the squad car. Unconcerned. Smiling that smile.
And why shouldn’t he be? They’d let him go before, right? It was his well-backed word against hers, and no one had believed hers. She doubted they’d even bothered to investigate his alibi. Her grip on the phone tightened until she could hear the plastic creak.
