“That may be true, but you’ve got a unique ability to cut me off, and I’m not sure I can live with that.”
“You’re cutting me off now,” he accused. “You cut me off earlier tonight.”
“So once again, we’re both handling this badly. Maybe that’s a sign. Listen, I’ve got to get some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow. Okay?”
He cupped my nape. “Sleep with me. I’ll keep my hands to myself if that’s what you want.”
I ached to do what he asked, but I also worried that we’d just be putting a Band-Aid on something that needed a lot more work. “I want to sleep in the guest room.”
I pulled away and left the room, feeling his eyes on my back as he stepped out into the hallway after me. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quickly, despite having damp hair and a painfully tight chest.
Sometime during the night, I felt Jax slip into the bed with me. I rolled to my side, hugged my pillow, and went back to sleep.
8
IT WAS A relief to arrive at work the next day.
I woke up next to a brooding and uncommunicative Jax. The rest of our shared morning had been thick with tension. On the walk to the subway, I texted my dad, asking him to call me when he could, then I scrolled through my email. Adrenaline surged through me when I saw Deanna’s name. I’d nearly forgotten about the favor I had asked of her. Once reminded, I couldn’t help but hope for news.
“Please have something for me,” I muttered to myself as I arrived at my station and hurried up the steps to reach the street. I was damned near desperate to have something—anything—that would give me insight into the man I loved.
Unfortunately, her email only read to call her, and I reached Deanna’s voice mail when I tried. I didn’t hear back from her before I reached Savor, where I had to silence my smartphone and tuck it away.
“Good morning,” I greeted Lei when she arrived.
“Good morning.” She tilted her head to the side. “Everything all right?”
I blinked, startled by the question. “Everything’s great.”
She hesitated, then said, “Come into my office.”
I followed her, taking a deep breath in preparation for whatever might be coming my way.
Lei bypassed her desk and settled into one of the gray club chairs in the seating area, looking younger with her hair hanging straight and loose, even with the wicked cool streak of silver. She waited until I took the matching chair before beginning. “Things have been...strained between us the last few weeks. I really regret that.”
The tension left my shoulders. “I do, too.”
“I’m concerned for you...and I have my reservations about Jackson...but really—” she swiveled her chair to face me directly “—the problem is with me. I’m projecting my own experience onto you.”
“You mean Ian.”
Her red mouth curved without humor. “It must be obvious that I loved him. He was my whole world. If you’d asked me then, I would have told you that he’d never betray me. That he didn’t have it in him. I would’ve told you he loved me too much to do anything like that.”
“What happened?” I had never broached the subject before, but now that she’d opened the door, I was dying to know what had helped shaped my boss into the woman she was today.
“We were working on a deal. The negotiations had been tough, but I had the advantage and Ian let me run with it.” A thoughtful wrinkle appeared on her otherwise smooth forehead. “Unfortunately, sometimes I get so focused on the hunt itself that I forget to pay attention to my prey.”
She looked out the windows at the Manhattan skyline. “I was too confident and I pushed for too much without giving enough in return. Worse, I made the man on the other side of the negotiating table feel insignificant and powerless. Somewhere along the way, he decided he’d do anything to put me in my place.”
“What place?”
“Behind Ian, instead of beside him. I think Bruce was insulted that Ian had him doing business with me. I don’t think he ever saw me as Ian’s partner, just Ian’s piece of ass, so that’s what he used against us.”
“How?”
“He kept setting up recurring meetings with me, telling me he needed clarification on different points or wanted to discuss alternatives. We met in the restaurants of the hotels he was staying in at the time, just as you and I did with the Williams twins at the Four Seasons. It wasn’t until later that I understood he’d been creating a paper trail to prove he and I had been having an affair.”
“Oh, Lei.” I felt a little of her remembered suffering; her tone of voice carried so much pain. “What did you do?”
“Nothing, and maybe that was the wrong choice. Ian is prone to jealousy, so he’s especially vulnerable in that regard. I refused to confirm or deny his accusations because I was so hurt that he’d given them any credence at all. I told him to figure it out for himself, and apparently I was tried and convicted.”
“Jeez. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged off my sympathy, but gave me a rueful smile. “It’s been over a long time now.”
I drummed my fingers on the armrests of my chair as I warred with myself about discussing Jax with someone who didn’t trust him. I valued Lei’s opinion, but it wasn’t objective when it came to Jackson Rutledge.
In the end, though, I told her because of her bias. I wanted an extreme, worst-case-scenario opinion.