The Rebound Guy (21 page)

He wouldn’t allow a woman—any woman—to get that close again, especially one who had just ended a long-term relationship. He doubted Asia would go running back to Cortland—she hadn’t loved him enough the first time around to give that asshole a second shot.

But that didn’t matter.

She was a threat to his plans for his business, a danger to everything he had been working toward. He would not jeopardize his future for something that could end in a heartbeat.

He’d been there before; he wasn’t foolish enough to put himself through it again.

***

Asia waved at Ben as she passed him on her way to the community coffee area. Several of the administrative assistants had petitioned for a setup that rivaled anything found in a coffee shop.

Seconds later, Ben came running up to her.

“Why didn’t you buzz me? I could have gotten your coffee.”

“I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for,” Asia said. “And I’m capable of getting my own coffee every now and then. Go back to studying for your exam,” she whispered.

Asia laughed as his face instantly reddened, as if he’d been caught cheating on a test instead of studying for one.

Shaking her head, she turned to the display of individual pods containing various coffee blends, mochas, hot chocolates, and teas. She selected a chai latte, positioned her cup underneath the spout, and stared in clueless fascination at the bevy of buttons. She had no idea how to make her own coffee.

As she was about to call for Ben, one of the administrative assistants whizzed by, pressed a button on the machine, and continued walking, calling a breezy, “You’re welcome,” over her shoulder.

“Thanks,” Asia called after her.

As she waited for the machine to perform its magic, she focused her attention on the LCD screen across the hall, which had replaced the old cork bulletin board last year. Asia tried to concentrate on the messages scrolling up the screen, but her brain wouldn’t fall for her latest defense mechanism.

Actually, none of the tactics she’d tried had worked to block out thoughts of Dexter. It had made for a dreadful morning.

She glanced at the time on the clock above the coffee area. Make that a dreadful afternoon, too.

After hours of deliberating over how she should proceed with him, Asia had finally thought back to why she’d hired him in the first place.

Making Cortland jealous was no longer a priority—she honestly could not care less about the man she was, until three weeks ago, preparing to spend the rest of her life with. But her ego was still bruised, and saving face in front of her and Cortland’s mutual friends was still high on her priority list.

However, any embarrassment she might face by attending the wedding alone didn’t come close to the torture she would endure spending the next two days in close quarters with Dexter, pretending to be in love.

Because, for one of them, the “being in love” was no longer pretend.

Asia closed her eyes tight against the unwelcome thought.

The coffee machine sputtered the last drops of her chai latte into her mug, but she was no longer in the mood for coffee. She dumped the drink in a nearby sink and returned to her office.

She tried to jump back into work, but she’d already delegated her current projects to other people on her team. She’d vowed not to work this weekend; Dexter had coaxed the promise from her.

Asia pushed away from her desk and hopped out of the chair. She paced back and forth, trying to figure her weekend dilemma out in her head. She’d told herself that she could deal with the fallout of facing Dexter after sleeping with him. She could shore up her defenses against him and get through the weekend.

But why put herself through that torture? Why suffer the pain that had been eating away at her since he walked out of her apartment last night?

She should end it now. She should send him his remaining five thousand dollars and cut off all communication.

A clean break.

Asia picked up her personal cell phone and stared at it for several moments.

“You want to do this,” she said.

She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath before pulling up the last text she’d received from him yesterday, before dinner with his parents. God, was that really less than twenty-four hours ago?

Just as she was about to text him, Lizzie’s phone number popped up on her screen.

“Lizzie,” Asia said. “Why are you calling me? Shouldn’t you be elbow deep in wedding preparations?”

“I am,” Lizzie answered. “But something came up that couldn’t wait.”

Asia’s heart skipped at the dread she heard in her friend’s voice. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Cortland just called Rodney a few minutes ago,” she said. “He’s planning to propose to his new girlfriend this weekend.”

Asia waited for anger to take hold of her, but it didn’t come. She felt...nothing.

“Cortland wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t be usurping our spotlight, and of course Rodney told him it was no problem. I swear he can be such an idiot at times.”

“No, no,” Asia said. “Don’t blame Rodney. I’m...I’m okay with it, Lizzie.”

“Are you really?”

“I am,” Asia reassured her, but even as she said the words, her stomach knotted at the thought of the looks of pity that would be cast her way.

She was certain her dignity could handle the blow of people knowing that Cortland had left her for another woman. But his proposing to that woman less than a month after leaving Asia? That was different. That humiliation could bring her to her knees.

It was like the humiliation her mother had faced after it was revealed that her father and his mistress had welcomed twins into the world just two weeks before India had been born. It was bone-crushing humiliation.

Could she handle it alone?

Asia ended the call with Lizzie and tossed her cell phone on the desk. She cradled her head in her hands, trying to decide which would be worse: facing the pity of her friends in public, or dealing with Dexter and the emotions he stirred within her in private?

Chapter Fourteen

His garment bag strapped over his shoulder, Dexter arrived at Asia’s building at 7:45 a.m. on Saturday morning, bearing gifts of coffee and fresh bagels—a means of assuaging his own guilt under the guise of breakfast.

He didn’t recognize the doorman manning the lobby, and Dex realized that he had only ever been here at night. He walked over to the desk, unsure whether Asia had alerted the new guy that she was expecting a guest, but just as he was about to speak, she rounded the corner.

Dex’s stomach clutched at the sight of her.

“Good morning,” she said. Was her voice as cold and unfeeling as he thought it was, or was he projecting his own assumption onto her? He cocked his head to the side, trying to read her.

“Hellooo...Earth to Dexter.” Asia waved a hand in front of his face, a smile on her lips.

A bolt of relief crashed through him at the sight of her smile. He was definitely projecting. Maybe he should lay off the psychology manuals.

“Sorry. Good morning,” he said. He set the cup tray and the bag of bagels on the welcome desk and reached for her luggage.

“Thank you,” she said, handing him the dark brown bag that wasn’t quite a duffle, but not a regular suitcase either. “I can carry this one,” she said and pointed to her garment bag.

Dex lifted the strap from her shoulder and gestured to the coffee and bagels. “You can take those,” he said, then he turned toward the lobby’s automatic doors.

“Have a good day, Mike,” Asia said behind him.

They crossed 24th Street and went into the garage. Asia popped the trunk open using her key fob from several yards away, and Dex deposited their bags. By the time he slipped behind the wheel, she’d already started the car using the push-button keyless ignition.

But Dexter didn’t put the car in gear. He was trying to decide whether they should just get it all out in the open now.

“Asia, I—”

“The directions—”

They both stopped. Dexter gestured for her to go first.

“I was just going to say that the directions to the inn are already programmed into the GPS.” She pressed a few buttons and the dashboard came to life. “Were you going to say something?” she asked.

Dex stared at the illuminated computer panel for a moment, then brought his eyes to hers. Like a damn coward, he shook his head without saying a word and backed out of the parking space, grateful for the reprieve. He and Asia had an entire weekend together. Why rush a conversation that was sure to be uncomfortable as hell?

Dex hopped onto the FDR and drove up the east side of Manhattan. Because it was a Saturday morning, traffic was relatively light, and they made it to the Triboro Bridge and off the island in hardly any time.

They both munched on bagels and sipped coffee, completing the first hour of the drive in relative silence, with nothing but the emotionless voice of the GPS guide filling the space. Once they crossed the state line Dex decided to man up and introduce the issue they were both avoiding, because if he had to go through the entire weekend in this state of anxiety, he would go out of his fucking mind.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Still peering out of the passenger side window, as she had for most of the drive, Asia said, “About?”

Dexter’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel. Here was his chance to back down; they could continue on as if nothing had happened. He could just suffer through this weekend and be done with it.

But that was not how he operated. He refused to walk on eggshells the entire time they were together.

“I’m not going to play any games, Asia. That’s not my style. It’s not yours either.”

“You’re right,” she said. She twisted in her seat, looking straight ahead. “So talk.”

He paused to take a breath. “In the beginning you said there would be no sex. Obviously, that no longer applies. We need to discuss how we’re going to move forward.”

“Exactly what are our options, Dexter?”

That was just it. They didn’t have many options, and the ones they did have made his gut twist.

They could spend the weekend living in this dream world where they kept up the pretense that they were the loving couple, both in public and in private, and then on Monday, go back to New York and part ways. Or they could go with the original game plan of carrying on the pretense when they were with her friends, but cut off all physical contact when they were alone together.

Dex knew which one he’d prefer, although his choice was based more on selfishness than logic. He decided to take the coward’s way out again and dump the decision in Asia’s lap. She was the client, after all. She called the shots.

“It’s as I said on Thursday. It’s up to you.” Dex chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye. Her impassive expression gave nothing away.

Tension tightened his chest as he awaited her answer.

After an uncomfortable silence, she finally, in a monotonous tone, said, “Thursday was a one-time thing.”

Dex’s stomach seemed as if it would turn in on itself at her pronouncement. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, the struggle to reign in his disappointment almost too much to withstand.

He’d left the decision up to her, and she’d made the right choice. The
smart
choice. So why in the hell did it feel so wrong?

“Sex complicates things,” she continued. “It blurs lines.”

Dex flinched as she threw his own words back in his face. But those words were as true now as they were when he’d said them. Making love to Asia hadn’t just blurred the lines, it had obliterated them. It had jumbled the rational and emotional parts of his brain, to the point where he couldn’t decipher which feelings were real and which were just a part of the act.

“I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I don’t see the harm in it now.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “I nearly called this entire thing off—having you join me in Connecticut,” she clarified. “I was going to go to the wedding alone and tell those friends who met you the other night that you were just a fling—a rebound guy, if you want to put the correct label on it.”

Dex swallowed past the revulsion lodged in his throat. Having her use that moniker to refer to him left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He had to clear his throat before speaking. “So why didn’t you?” he asked.

He heard her shift in her seat, felt her eyes on him.

“Because Cortland is planning to propose to Nina this weekend. It shouldn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t really; he can do whatever he wants. But the thought of having to face looks of pity from some of the other guests—the ones who know about me and Cortland—it’s just too much. I’m a strong person, Dexter, but I’m not sure I can summon the strength to face that this weekend.”

She folded her arms over her chest and expelled a resigned sigh. “I weighed which would be more uncomfortable, being there with you or having to go through the entire weekend feeling like the girl who was stood up for the prom. I decided you were the lesser of two evils.”

He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Am I supposed to feel flattered?”

“Your feelings didn’t factor into my decision,” she said, her voice calm, emotionless, even. “This is supposed to be about me, remember? You’re my paid rebound guy. I expect you to do what I hired you to do.”

Dexter’s jaw worked as he tried to tamp down his annoyance.

This is
exactly
what he should have wanted. Instead of becoming clingy and making more out of the sex than it really was—his biggest fear whenever he became intimate with a client—Asia was making it easy for him, giving him the out that he needed to bring their relationship back to a professional level.

His head knew she had made the right decision, but his heart felt as if she’d reached inside his chest and squeezed the muscle with her bare hand.

“Are you still on board?” Asia asked.

He looked over at her, wondering what she would say if he told her no, he wasn’t on board with just being her paid rebound guy.