Flirting With Forever (9 page)

The light changed and I pulled away, charged across the street and into the hotel lobby. If I couldn’t outrun him, I sure as hell could lock him out of my room.

The elevator door opened and I stepped inside. A businessman reading his newspaper started to follow, but Jake threw his arm across the door, stepped inside, and punched the button.

“Talk to me, Tara.”

I swiped at my tears, trembling hard. “Go to hell, Jake.”

“Lou’s the best at what she does.”

And just what does she
do
for you? “You promised you wouldn’t tell anybody, Jake, and then you told her. Why would you do that to me?”

“Look, I did what I thought was best.”

“Not for me, you didn’t. You were just trying to protect your job.”

“I was trying to protect you.” He closed the space between us, pinning me against the wall. His mouth slanted across mine, hands threaded in my hair as he kissed me. And I kissed him back. Greedy. Devouring. Terrified that he could make me feel so hurt and angry. Wanted.

The elevator opened. I pulled away and ran for my room. The damn key card wouldn’t work, or maybe it was my hands that wouldn’t work. He was pressed against me, hands caged on either side of the door. I swiped the key in the lock over and over again. The stupid red light mocked me, and my body betrayed me, arching into his.

“I’m so sorry you thought I was trying to hurt you, Tara.” His lips pressed just above my ear. “I would never hurt you.”

Finally, the key worked. I fell into the room, slammed the door shut, back pressed against it, heart beating out of my chest. And that’s when I knew the real reason I was running from Jake Randall.

‡

J
ake wanted Tara.
Plain and simple, but after what her asshole husband did to her, it seemed wrong to start something with her now, especially with the tour and those damn theater gigs. Who knew how those things would go? Janzen had never done anything like that before, and on paper they looked like a nightmare. But Tara was good with people, really good and if anybody could make them work, it was her. And she’d made it clear she needed this to work. Nope, the next twenty-five days were going to suck. He’d do his job and keep his hands off of her, which right now seemed impossible. Definitely a lot of cold showers in his future.

And telling Lou about Jim Jordan? Jake was just trying to help Tara. Lou might be a bitch, but she knew the business and had an uncanny sense for how the public reacts to scandals and how to fix them. Besides, he was just doing his job, preserving Tara’s brand, only what he felt went beyond that. He didn’t just want to protect her damn career, he wanted to protect her. But he hadn’t protected her, not from Lou. He hadn’t counted on Lou’s claws coming out. She seemed to enjoying hurting Tara, and now Tara didn’t trust him.

Still, he shouldn’t have kissed her. He didn’t know why he did. No, that wasn’t true, he knew exactly why he’d kissed her. He’d wanted to since the day he first met her. Even if he lost his job, it had been worth it to feel his hands tangled in her hair, her body pressed against his. Her lips, her tongue. And she’d kissed him back, that was for sure.

But she wasn’t answering her phone, wasn’t answering the door. Through the adjoining door, Jake could hear her banging around. Was she packing? He called the front desk. “Jake Randall. I need to leave a message for Tara Jordan in room 704.” If that annoying little red light was flashing on the phone in her room, maybe she would listen to what he had to say.

“I’m pretty sure Ms. Jordan checked out, Mr. Randall; she called the front desk a few minutes ago and said she was leaving. She might still be there, can I try her room for you?”

She was there all right, she just wouldn’t pick up the damn phone or open the door. “No. Thanks.”

“I see your rooms are on the same credit card. Will you be checking out as well?”

Was he really going to chase after her? Christ, he’d only known her for a few days. No he’d let her go. He’d catch the Braves game by himself. But the idea of her leaving—him. His heart jolted at the thought. He massaged the little nerve twitching above his eye. If he was this bad after four days with this woman, he was so screwed. “Yes. Sure.”

“Of course, I’ll email the bill to you, Mr. Randall. The car Ms. Jordan ordered will be here soon.” Car? Shit. He needed to get his ass downstairs. “Twenty minutes, maybe less.”

He thanked the woman, slammed down the phone, and shoved all of his shit into his bag, the urge to straighten and organize nearly killing him. He heard her door slam, zipped his bag and headed down the hall just as the elevator door was closing. He jammed his finger into the button and waited for the next elevator.

When Jake stepped into the lobby, a red compact car was parked in front of the entrance. The rental car guy was talking to Tara, seemed to be going over the agreement, checking the car out for dents and dings. He put Tara’s bag in the trunk and closed it before tossing the keys to her.

“Got it. Thanks,” Jake said, intercepting the keys and throwing his bag into the back seat. The car guy looked like he wasn’t too sure about Jake. “It’s okay, she’s with me.”

“You really know how to piss a woman off,” Tara gritted out. Jake got in the driver’s seat, which was a feat at six-four. She got into the car and slammed the door hard enough to make the paint fall off.

“Where to?” he asked.

“The Isle of Palms,” she snapped.

Of course. Only a three hundred mile deviation from the itinerary.

Jake seemed relaxed
and didn’t press me to talk. I stared at the infamous Atlanta traffic that was backed up for miles.

“I’ve only told three people about Jim.” Four if you count the cop who tried to arrest me for DUI. “I’m sorry I blew up at you; I know you had good intentions.”

“No, I’m sorry, Tara. I should have asked for your input or at least told you before we got to Lou’s place.”

“How do you know her, Jake?”

“I was a senior in college and worked for her as an intern.” He paused. “We had a thing, but it was over years ago.”

“Like two years ago?” Because she sure made it look like she was into him, or at the very least was still a friend with benefits.

“The end of that summer, Lou was accused of sexual harassment by a guy who worked for the firm, and she was fired. Lou comes from money and the guy was just looking for a big fat settlement. Said he had specific dates that she’d come on to him. Knowing Lou, she probably did, but the guy was an idiot. He probably had a pretty good case, but he was an idiot, about eighty percent of those dates, she was out of town.”

“With you?”

He nodded.

“What happened to the guy?”

“When I was deposed, it didn’t look great for Lou that she was sleeping with an intern, but it debunked most of the specifics in the guy’s claim. His lawyers had taken the case on a contingency, they dumped him, I guess. Anyway, Lou turned around and sued the company for wrongful termination, sexual discrimination, you name it. With what she already had, she won enough money to buy the company and rebranded it.”

I probably should have thanked him for being so honest except it made me sick to think of him in bed with Lou. Was I really mad he’d told her about Jim? More embarrassed than anything else. And jealous of her. But I didn’t have any claim on Jake Randall.

“Tara, Lou’s business is built on confidentiality; you don’t have to worry about her telling anyone about your husband,” he said. “I hate to bring this up in the car, but at least you can’t run away from me.” He looked at me long enough to make me nervous, and then back at the road. “Are we going to talk about the kiss?”

Traffic was still stalled. It would be risky, but I could jump out probably without a scratch. Or I could have a grownup conversation with Jake Randall.

“Look, Jake, since Jim left, I’ve been such a mess. Then I started the tour and I began to feel like, I don’t know, like I was somebody. Not just some woman who got dumped by her husband. But the truth is, I’m still a mess.”

“I don’t see it that way. But can you at least admit we’re attracted to each other?” I’d offered him an out, but he wasn’t taking it. “But I think it’s better that we don’t do anything about it. For now.”

Okay, so he was taking the out. My stomach pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I sucked at rejection, which probably explained why it took me so long to get published. I looked at the cars beside us, the buttons on the dashboard, anywhere but at him.

“I understand, Jake.”

“No, I don’t think you do. I like you, Tara, and it’s hell trying to keep my hands off of you. But if we’re involved, it’ll be harder for me to do my job.” Jake Randall likes me? But where does that leave us? “You need this tour, so let’s start out as friends and see where it goes.”

“Friends.” I repeated.

“Wait. That didn’t come out the way I meant. What I should have said was, let’s use this time to get to know each other.”

You can learn
a lot about a new friend when you’re cooped up in a car with them hours on end. Turned out Jake had been a swimmer and a baseball player in high school but swam butterfly and freestyle in college at the University of Wisconsin.

“And girlfriends?”

“How far back do you want to go?” he asked.

“Serious girlfriends?”

He wasn’t laughing now. “One, in college. Kate.”

I had shared my sad story with Jake, but I could tell by his tone, he wasn’t ready to share his with me. “Next question. Where did you grow up?”

“I was raised on a horse farm about twenty minutes west of Milwaukee. My parents still live there.” He looked at the smile plastered on my face from the image of Jake on a horse in a pair of tight, low slung jeans. Cowboy boots. Maybe a hat. Maybe not, but definitely no shirt. “What? You think that’s funny?”

I shook my head, red faced, laughing so hard I snorted. “Just picturing you on a horse, that’s all.” Naked.

“Between chores and school and practice, I worked my ass off.” I told him to take the exit to I-95 North. “So do you want to tell me where we’re going?”

“Guess.”

“Your place on the Isle of Palms?”

“How did you know?” I socked him in the arm.

“Lucky guess.” He shrugged. “Tara, I read your bio. I read your website. I read all of your blog posts.”

“Nobody has read that blog. I shut it down over a year ago.”

“The internet is forever, Tara. Remember that.” He said it playfully but there was an edge to his voice. “So is it my turn to grill you?”

“I thought you knew everything there is to know about me.”

“I do have one question.” He paused like he was trying to find the right words.

“I read the blog post you wrote when you and—when you bought the beach house. I know what it means to you. So why are you taking me there?”

Turns out Jake didn’t know everything. Most of my blog was about the best parts of the Lowcountry and how much I loved our home. I didn’t write about how Jim and I built the house with the intention of furnishing it and flipping it as a high-end beach rental. By the time we got it ready to sell, the bottom had fallen out of the market. We were stuck with a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month second home mortgage payment and the bank had our seven hundred thousand dollar nest egg. We never intended to hold onto the house this long, but the market was so bad, even selling it now would mean a huge a loss.

A little over two years ago, Jim’s company restructured and his commissions were cut in half. Things got hard financially; Melissa rented the beach house for us to at least try to cover some of the expenses. That was when I started hating the place.

I hated the taxes that came with the house, the six different kinds of insurance we had to buy every year that totaled thirteen grand. It was the real estate version of an albatross, which is what Marsha and I always called it. Then one morning, I got up before Jim to walk on the beach, watch the sun come up. The dolphins were playing along the shoreline, putting on a show. The sunrise was so spectacular, it made me cry. I was angry that I’d hated the house so much, I’d missed such a beautiful sight every morning. I decided then and there, I wouldn’t take anything I had for granted again.

There were things I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to have kids, but that wasn’t happening. I wanted to publish, and since nobody wanted to read my romance novels, I went back to the house and started writing the book that ended up changing my life.

“You missed your beach trip when you got me, Jake.”

Oh, that grin that always made my knees wobbly. “I got lucky when I got you.”

‡