Page 7 of Sweet Spot

WYNN

I let upa silent prayer of gratitude when I walked into the breakroom and instantly smelled freshly brewed coffee. A few years back, when Jase had first relocated the headquarters for Hyland Steel to Tennessee, he and I had been the only two employees in our new building while we waited for the rest of the people preparing to make the move.

The peace and quiet might have been nice for a while, and it was easy to get my work done when people weren’t stopping by my desk every fifteen minutes with a question, but it got old really fast. It was especially creepy being the only one in the building on the evenings I worked late. But the biggest downside was the coffee wasn’t made unless I made it. The kitchen wasn’t stocked unless I stocked it. The printers didn’t have paper unless I filled them. It had gotten pretty damn tedious.

Now that the transfer was complete and the building was full, I could always count on a fresh pot of coffee in our breakroom every morning before I walked in.

Lori, the head of accounting, stood motionless by the counter, looking seriously worse for the wear. She held a steaming paper cup in her hand, but her eyes were closed and her breathing was audible, in through her nose and out through pursed lips.

I watched her cautiously as I pulled my mug down from the cabinet above the sink and moved to the coffee pot. “Hey, Lori. You good?” I asked as I filled my mug halfway, leaving room for the heaping amount of creamer I always drank it with.

She let out a pained groan. “Iwas.” She peeled her eyelids open partway, squinting against the florescent lights as she glugged back her coffee. “Had a hell of a weekend. That’s the problem.”

I pulled out the oversized carton of creamer I kept stashed in the fridge and doctored my coffee to perfection. “Ah. I see.” Using a wooden stirrer, I pointed to another cabinet across the room. “There’s a bottle of ibuprofen up there, that should help with the hangover. Also, lots of water and a greasy breakfast, trust me. It’ll work.”

“Thanks, Wynn,” she offered blandly as she got out the bottle and shook a few capsules into her palm. She downed them with another swallow of coffee and started out of the breakroom, back to her department. I stopped her just before she made it out. “Go ahead and take the bottle. I think you could use it most of all, and I can replace it on my lunch break.”

Lori heaved a sigh, her smile a bit more genuine this time. “Bless you, woman. You’re a freaking angel.”

I laughed and gave my coffee a quick stir and took my first sip, letting out a contented breath as the sweetness of the creamer and slight bitterness of the coffee hit my tongue. That first sip was always perfection, and I liked to take a moment to really appreciate it before I got started with my day.

The tips of my high-heeled shoes let out a dull thud as I moved along the carpeted hallway, offering smiles and nods to those I passed along the way to my office. A couple years back, Jase had informed me he was promoting me from his assistant to some fancy new position with the words Executive, Vice, and President in the title. Considering I’d already been doing the work, the only real change was the fact that the numbers on my paycheck went up even more and I got myself a sweet corner office right across from the boss man’s that offered incredible views.

The red light on my phone blinked, alerting me to a new voicemail that must have come through while I was in the breakroom. Setting the mug down, I rounded my desk and sat down in the chair behind it, picking up the receiver and keying in the code for my voicemail box.

The instant I heard the voice on the other end of the line, my mood went to shit.

“Wynnie, it’s me. We really need to talk.” I should have known my ex would start bothering me at work after I’d blocked him on my cell. It had been months, and the son of a bitch still hadn’t given up. He’d never been one to give up when he wanted his way. It was one of his many,manyflaws I’d ignored when we’d been together. It was amazing the things you overlooked when you thought you were in love. Say, a bazillion red flags.

He huffed a frustrated breath across the line. “Look, you can’t keep ignoring me—”

“Watch me, asshole,” I muttered to myself before slamming the phone back into the cradle. It felt so good I did it again. And again, letting out a frustrated growl as I continued to bash the pieces of the phone together.

I knew exactly why he was still calling, even months after our breakup, and it had nothing to do with missing me or regretting how things ended between us.

After I caught him cheating—with a woman at least ten years older than me, no less—things got a little... out of hand, I guess you could say. To be honest, the whole thing was kind of a blur. There was yelling and cursing, things breaking all over the place, most of it by me. I made a scene to end all scenes, freaking the other woman out to the point she’d run out of Darrin’s apartment only half dressed—if that.

Once I was finished trashing his apartment and yelling until I was hoarse, I packed what little I had left behind before my move from Connecticut. I’d left those belongings for when I came to visit, some pieces of me I’d wanted him to have. I guess I was ignorant enough to think seeing them regularly would make him miss me, and if he missed me, he’d stop finding excuses to delay his move to Tennessee.

Looking back, it was so easy to spot all the red flags, and I couldn’t help but feel foolish for believing that lying, cheating piece of shit.

The only reason he was still calling me was because I’d managed to cram a few of his precious keepsakes in with my stuff before I left, some things that were worth a pretty penny, such as his lame-ass baseball card collection.

However, after a booze-fueled bonfire in my backyard—spurred on by my equally inebriated friends, we’d set fire to everything of his I’d taken back with me from Connecticut. Sure, I could have sold those cards and seriously added to the nice little nest egg I had going, but the feeling I got watching his treasures go up in flames was indescribable. I wouldn’t have traded it for all the money in the world.

“Jesus. What did that phone ever do to you?”

I lifted my gaze at the question. Jase stood in my doorway, one brow cocked as he worked to hide a grin.

With my hissy fit interrupted, I gently returned the phone to its cradle and blew a huff of air past my pursed lips. “It owed me money,” I deadpanned. “Can I help you with something?”

He moved deeper into my office, not the least bit concerned by my outburst. After years of working together, he’d grown more than used to my moods. He snatched up the stress ball I kept on my desk and took a seat across from me, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He was the picture of casual in a bespoke suit and Italian dress shoes that probably cost more than most people’s mortgage, but for a man who ran a company worth billions, small-town living had taken a good bit of the starch out of his collar. Sure, he still liked nice things, but since moving to Redemption, he was no longer afraid to get his hands dirty.

It was a refreshing change from the unrepentant playboy he used to be, that was for damn sure. Jase had never been a bad guy. Far from it. But trying to control him was like trying to wrangle a herd of cats that had gotten into a barrel of catnip. He’d calmed down significantly since taking control of his family’s company. Then he met Poppy and gone was the man who reporters and paparazzi loved to follow around snapping pictures. He was well and truly a domesticated family man now, making my job a million times easier. It was an added bonus that his wife turned out to be so freaking awesome.

“You know you’re responsible for any office equipment you break, right?”

I gave him a deadpan look. “You can take it out of the Christmas bonus you don’t know you’re giving me yet.” I arched a brow. “Just a heads-up, it’s going to be twice as much as last year’s.”

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