Foreplay with the Boss: Billionaires of Boston

39. Kat

After staying up all night and catching a power nap, I decided to walk around Boston and say goodbye to the place before climbing into my car and making the drive home. The plan was to hit the road before the news broke about the Hartford Branch, that way I could use the excuse of “I was driving” to avoid the endless phone calls that would inevitably flood in. Dad might still be the boss at the office, but a lot of people called me when they wanted information since I was more likely to answer.

At first, I was just going to stare out at the harbor a few minutes, the way I’d done yesterday, but I found myself wandering toward the New England Aquarium. Stepping inside was so bittersweet. This was part of Jameson’s and my first official date. It was where I’d seen a little deeper into who he was—who he could be if he let himself think about something besides work for just a little while.

It was the day I knew that I was a goner; the day I’d dared to hope.

Hope was beating me up a bit lately. I’d had it yesterday evening, and I’d poured through reports and charts and added and subtracted figures until the wee hours of the morning, trying to find a way to save the Hartford Branch. It sucked that I hadn’t found one, but in a lot of ways, running the numbers again and again had been good for me.

It showed me that Jameson wasn’t just being a ruthless businessman. Our branch had consistently lost money, and I wondered why Dad never told me how bad it’d gotten. Didn’t he realize that between figuring out a way to fix how much money we were hemorrhaging and learning how to be a bolder boss, getting our company out of the red would’ve been more important?

Not that I’d give up this past month for anything, but still. If I’d taken over, I’m sure everyone would say I ran the company into the ground, even though it was flattened before I even had a chance to take the helm.

I stopped at the giant tunnel part of the aquarium and stared at the giant grouper I’d dubbed the Godfather of the Sea. “I feel less vengeful than yesterday, so I won’t ask you to whack anyone, but you wouldn’t happen to have any advice on how exactly to move on, would you? I mean, you’ve probably seen a lot of your fishy friends come and go through the years.”

The aquarium was nearly empty this time of day, so I didn’t have to worry about people thinking I was crazy. Today I was letting that flag fly.

Naturally, the Grouper didn’t answer. He just hovered, his fins moving as he looked around at the nearby fish like he was suspicious of everyone.

A “trust no one” motto might keep me from getting hurt again, but it wasn’t me. From now on, I was going to try my hardest to be the best version of me. Someone who was kind and understanding but didn’t let herself get walked over.

And part of that was thanks to Jameson.

My phone rang, and my heart stopped beating as I wondered if he was calling again. I didn’t think I could resist answering this time. I’d meant that email as my final goodbye, but I wished I could have a better one with him, even though it’d also hurt like hell.

Steeling myself, I pulled the phone from the pocket of my sundress. It’sjustDad. Of course it wasn’t Jameson. He was running the board meeting right now. Then again, Dad should be there, too, because there was no way it only took…I glanced at the time—fifteen minutes.

I glanced around to make sure I was alone enough to not bother anyone with a phone call and then answered. “Hey, Dad. Are you okay?” I felt a little guilty I hadn’t warned him about the branch closing, but I would’ve felt guilty telling him, too. My loyalties had gotten all tangled up, along with everything else.

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s been a strange couple of days. JT took me to dinner last night and told me he was going to recommend closing our branch to the board, but at the meeting, he told us he needed to postpone. The board members are all grumbling.”

I clenched my phone tighter and bit my lip. “And what’s Jameson doing?”

“Trying to find his girl so he can beg her to give him another chance,” a deep voice said from behind me, and I jumped, my phone slipping out of my hand and falling to the floor.

Jameson scooped it up and extended it to me. I vaguely noticed the screen wasn’t cracked, but I didn’t get a close look because I couldn’t stop staring at the guy standing across from me, noting the same things I did the first time I met him. Dark hair, a little less perfectly styled than usual, blue eyes so clear you could practically see yourself swimming in them, although they also showed strains of stress, and one of those dimples in the chin that made you want to run your tongue over it—and boy, had I.

A giant lump rose in my throat and settled there. “I’m pretty sure delirium is kicking in. I thought I woke up from my nap, but I must still be asleep.”

“And this would be a good dream or a nightmare?” He rubbed the side of his neck, looking unsure for the first time ever.

“I guess it depends on what happens next.” I realized my dad was still on my phone and told him I’d call him back before disconnecting and slipping it in my pocket. “My dad just told me that you postponed your big meeting.”

“I did.” Jameson slowly reached up and trailed his fingertips across my cheekbone, almost as if he wanted to make sure I was real, and it was all I could do to not throw my arms around him and melt into him it felt so damn good.

“This is like torture,” I said, trying to swallow and finding it impossible. “Being this close, knowing that we’re over…”

He cupped my cheek and shook his head. “But we’re not over.”

“Jameson.” A sharp pain went through my chest, and I blinked at the tears trying to form. “You weren’t supposed to… This is just making it…” My brain was having trouble finding the right sentence because all of them were sadder than I wanted them to be. “Wait. How did you even find me?”

“I, uh, just had this feeling like you’d be here.”

I lowered my eyebrows, packing the skepticism I felt into the look I shot him.

“Fine,” he said. “I called in a favor to a friend and had him put a trace on your cell phone. I just needed to know you were okay, and then…well, I needed to talk to you, and it couldn’t wait. It worked out nicely that the aquarium’s so close to the office.”

“Yeah, well, it seemed like a good place to be alone with my thoughts. Not that I’m completely alone. Lately I’ve been talking to a lot of creatures. Seagulls, fish…” I looked him up and down. “The devil incarnate.”

“Funny.”

“I thought so,” I said, but then I cracked, and a tear ran down my cheek.

“Shit, Kat. Please don’t cry.” Jameson wiped the tear away with his thumb. “I already feel like the biggest asshole, and knowing I made you cry? Well, I’m about to reenact a scene from FightClub and kick my own ass.”

“Hey, why do you get all the fun? I want in on that action.”

“Go ahead,” he said, spreading his arms wide.

All that did was make me want to hug him, but then I’d forget that this wasn’t going to work, so I hugged my arms around myself instead. “I can’t do this. I can’t set myself up to get hurt all over again. I won’t. So we’ll call this ending on a positive note. We can say a proper goodbye where we wish each other the best with wherever our lives take us. Then I’ll go back to my life, and you’ll go back to yours, and once in a while, we’ll cross each other’s minds, and we’ll smile and go on with our days.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said, his voice snapping in the stern, no-nonsense voice he used during meetings. “There’s no going back to life, at least not for me. You got to say your piece in that email, but you didn’t give me a chance to say mine. I’m not a robot. Anyway, not since you came into my life. And honestly, I don’t know what to do with all these fucking feelings?—”

A woman gave us a shocked look and pushed her children by us in a hurry.

“Sorry,” Jameson muttered, then he dragged me to a more secluded corner. “Because of what happened with my dad, I’ve always looked at feelings as a weakness, one I couldn’t afford. I worked so hard to shut them down that when I couldn’t, I didn’t know what to do with them. But I have them. For you. They’re overwhelming and frustrating and amazing at the same time, and I postponed that meeting because I didn’t want to risk doing anything that would make it impossible for us to be…us.”

“And what are we? Do you even know?”

Jameson backed me up until I was flat against the thick plexi- glass. “You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

My heart clenched, trying to block off the rising hope that would make the fall that came afterward even more devastating. I glanced down because it was too hard to look at his face. “Are you sure you don’t just miss your sex toy?”

“Don’t do that,” he said, tipping my chin up and locking eyes with me. “You know that you’re way more than that to me. You’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about as I drift off to sleep. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t want to.”

He crowded even closer, so close that my chest bumped into his every time I took a shallow breath that never seemed to reach my lungs. “You once said that you thought people only had so much passion to spread around, and you had to choose. I think you can have a lot of passion for a lot of different things. But there’s definitely one thing I’m more passionate about than anything else, and that’s you. I choose you. I need you.” He slid his hand behind my neck, his blue, blue eyes boring into me. “I love you.”

The rest of the room spun out of focus, and I reached up and wrapped my hand around his arm, needing him to keep me steady. “You do?”

He nodded and rested his forehead against mine. “I do. It took me by surprise, just like you did. I want you next to me when I’m watching TV. I want you cuddled up next to me at night. I just want you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make us work.” He brushed his lips across mine. “Say you want me, too, Kat.”

I blinked back tears. “I want you, too.”

“Then we’ll work out the rest.” He slanted his mouth over mine, parting my lips with his tongue and kissing me with a feverish urgency that echoed through me.

“Dream,” I whispered, and he pulled back and looked me in the eye.

“What?”

“You asked if it was a dream or nightmare, and it’s definitely a dream. The best kind of dream.” I wrapped my arms around him, molding my body to his. “And I love you, too.”

He didn’t waste any time boosting me in his arms and kissing me like he planned on making up for all the kisses we’d missed, and I was fully onboard and then some.