Page 28 of The Hot Mess

“Jack mentioned something to me.”

I shifted in the chair. He wouldn’t have told her about us, would he? He was the one who insisted we didn’t breathe a word of our affair to anyone.

“Oh? What’s that?” I continued acting breezy and oblivious.

“I hear that Lucas extended him a full-time offer. A good one too. If he takes it, he’d stay here in the city for at least the next five years or so.”

My heart leaped just thinking of the possibilities. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. Lucas mentioned promotions, but…I didn’t know he offered anything to Jack.”

“Hmm,” Isabella thought it over for a moment. “But you see Jack sometimes, right?”

“Around the office,” I answered dismissively.

“Has he mentioned it to you? Or said anything about moving back here permanently?”

“No, he really hasn’t,” I admitted honestly. I was just in the dark as she was. More so, actually.

“I won’t beat around the bush.” She uncrossed her legs, crossing them again in the opposite direction. “I’d love it if he’d take the job. To be honest, it’s been lonely for me since our mother passed away. Jack is the only family I have left. It’d be nice having him around all the time.”

No kidding,I thought. “I’d love it if he’d take it too.” I felt Isabella’s eyes shoot over to me. “I mean, he’s a great worker. He has genius ideas for the company. It’d be great to have him around to implement some of them.”

Isabella seemed content with my answer. Surely she didn’t think her brother would ever actually be into me…much less that he’d make me one of his regular lovers.

Knowing there was a possibility of him sticking around town, working at Heartstring no less, made all of my naive hopes about a future with him explode to a whole new level that was harder to push down and ignore or talk myself out of.

But what would it really mean if he stayed? Accepting things as sex and nothing more was easier right then because we were still having sex all the time. When he stopped coming around, and I was suffering withdrawals from him and everything he did to me, would it hurt to know he was getting all of that somewhere else? Seeing him around the office every day and never having more of him?

“Where is Jack right now anyway?” I ventured to ask her. “He’s been taking a bunch of days off, and it seems like he’s going out of town. But he never says where.”

“I thought you two didn’t talk much.”

“I see him around the office, like I said. And I hear Lucas mentioning things.”

She was quiet for a moment, then scoffed with a smirk. “Knowing him, he’s probably chasing some model around in his spare time. Or a few of them, for that matter. I told you he’s a womanizer. It’s not above him to hop on a jet across the country just to spend one night with a woman he wants, only to fly back again the next morning and never talk to her again.”

Her words cut into my heart like a knife. I knew all of this about him, even though he never mentioned any of it. But we had barely slept the night before. I made him cum more times than he knew he could, and he did the same to me in return. Surely he was too spent to hop on a plane and go see someone else for sex.

“What, is he like some kind of sex addict or something?” I blurted. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s your brother. I’m sure you don’t want to discuss his sex life.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she shrugged. “But no, I don’t think he’s an addict. He just likes the chase and the challenge of it all. When he gets what he wants, he loses interest.”

The waiter came by and asked if I wanted anything. Perfect timing. I was finding it harder to mask my true feelings.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” I pointed to Isabella.

What she was having was a Long Island iced tea, which was stronger than I anticipated. The quick buzz it brought on only made the sinking feeling in my gut worse. I didn’t know what to believe about Jack anymore, especially when it came to his feelings for me.

“Be careful, Jada,” Isabella said all of a sudden. “Jack is charming, but he’s a heartbreaker.”

I feigned a shocked, innocent look. “Huh? Oh it’s none of my business. He can break all the hearts he wants. It has nothing to do with me.”

Her skeptical eyes kept burning into me. She wasn’t buying it anymore, and I was doing a horrible job of convincing her. She could see the anxiety written all over my face.

“Office romances happen,” she stated.

“Not for me they don’t,” I defended. “You forget I work with my two older brothers and my big sister.”

“Oh, so if Jack asked me about you…I should say there’s not a chance in hell?”

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