Chapter 31
LINDSAY
Jaxon’s golden gaze locked on mine, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. I could practically hear the thoughts screaming in his head, but he didn’t voice them. He thought I was overreacting. Perhaps that I was being unfair.
Maybe I was.
If any other person had walked through my doors, I wouldn’t have been treating them like this. I definitely wouldn’t be throwing them out of my office before we’d even gotten to the purpose of the actual meeting.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t any other person. He was the guy who had walked out on me just days ago. The guy who had been instrumental in showing me new heights—and I wasn’t just talking about parasailing—and then left me lower than I’d ever been.
I couldn’t treat him like I would anyone else. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
The proper thing to do would’ve been to kick his case to a colleague and let them deal with him. If I was capable of rational thought while being pinned by those eyes, I’d have handed over his file and been done with it.
As it always did when I was anywhere near Jaxon though, my brain was malfunctioning. No matter what he’d done to me, that humming electricity was still present between us. Especially when neither one of us was willing to look away.
A long minute, or maybe more, passed before he thrust his chin up, shook his head, and turned on his heels. There was a distinct frustration in the sharp, almost robotic movements of his body, but that wasn’t my problem.
I knew he’d seen how hurt I was while he looked at me. There was no way I’d have been able to hide it from him when he stared at me like he was peering right into my heart, and he still hadn’t said anything. Still hadn’t acknowledged it in any way.
Gripping the door handle so hard his fingers turned white, he paused for a second without turning back to me. His shoulders rose like he’d sucked in a deep breath, and when they fell, he twisted the handle and strode out of my office with his spine rigid.
I brought my fist to my mouth, and my eyes narrowed as I let out a silent scream. The door slammed shut behind him, and just like that, Jaxon was gone again.
The fresh, masculine scent of him permeated the air like he’d left it behind on purpose to be a painful reminder of all the times I’d breathed him in. The very oxygen I was breathing was now tainted by him.
Asshole.
My heart was going crazy, my blood pounding in my ears. I felt like I’d been hit with a battering ram in the stomach, and my arms shook when I wrapped them around my torso. I knew I wasn’t literally about to fall apart, but I still felt the need to hold myself together.
I have to calm down.
I’d never gotten this upset in the office, and I wasn’t about to start now.
A soft click when my door opened sent my pulse into a frenzy again, only to hit rock bottom when Anna walked in.
Stop it, body. We didn’t want it to be Jaxon anyway. Stop reacting like we’re disappointed it’s not.
I turned to face the window to hide the expression I was undoubtedly wearing, but it was too late. The sound of Anna’s heels clicking against the tiles stopped abruptly, and there was a brief awkward pause.
“Lindsay? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Alarm rang out in her tone. “Let me alert security. Hang on a second.”
Before she could leave, I swiped my fingers under my eyes and shook my head. “No. That won’t be necessary. It’s not what you think. There’s no need to get security involved.”
My voice was strained, but at least I’d stopped her from calling in even more people to witness my emotional wobble. I cleared my throat and walked back to my desk slowly, moving like I was in physical pain.
“Did you need something?”
Confusion and uncertainty flashed in her eyes before she shook her head. “No, uh, I just wanted to find out if you wanted to do the progress report for his manager. We can do it later.”
Fuck.
I’d forgotten all about that. “There’s nothing to report at this time. I’ll have to investigate further and update them when I’m done.”
Her brow creased. “I’ve been looking at the manual, and it says that after every meeting, we have to?—”
“I know what the manual says,” I snapped at her. “I wrote it. I just need some time.”
Once again, a tsunami of guilt slammed into me and I softened my features. “I’m sorry, Anna. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m just… it’s a personal matter. I’m going out for lunch early. When I come back, we’ll get into the rest of the day.”
I hadn’t been planning on going out, but now I couldn’t stay in here for another minute. I needed fresh air—air that didn’t still have his presence lingering in it. Gathering up my things, I stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder.
“I’ll see you in an hour or so.” I managed a small smile before giving her a curt nod of my head, leaving her standing in the middle of my office.
On my way out of the building, I fished my phone out of my purse and texted Ember. My friend lived for early, long lunches and she somehow always made it work.
Before I even reached the parking lot, she replied with a string of grinning emojis and sent me the name of a restaurant I hadn’t been to before. I didn’t really care where I met her, though. I just needed to get out and she was the only person I wanted to see.
Thirty minutes later, I walked into a modern bistro with a few rustic elements blended in here and there. The atmosphere was lively and friendly, and when I saw Ember waving at me from the patio, I already felt the tension bleeding out of me.
I was here. I was fine. I’d come face to face with Jaxon after he’d left me there naked and vulnerable, and I’d come out the other side with my dignity mostly intact.
My friend’s smile disappeared when I got closer to the table, her eyes narrowing to slits as her gaze flitted over me. Already on her feet when I stopped in front of her, she pulled me into a bone-crushing hug.
“Work or Jaxon?” she asked once we were both seated.
“Both.” I took the carafe of wine she’d ordered, filled a glass with the tangy white, and took a giant gulp. I’d need a mint and some perfume before I went back to the office, but as long as I didn’t turn up wasted, I wasn’t breaking any rules.
Ember’s nose twitched. “What do you mean ‘both’?”
“I mean Jaxon came into work today. My work, which also happens to be his place of work.” I took another mouthful of wine while her eyes went wide, nodding as her rapid blinking told me she was getting it. “Yep. In a cruel twist of fate, it turns out that he’s a pilot for my airline.”
For once, my friend was so shocked that she was speechless but it didn’t last long. “How did you not know that?”
“We didn’t really talk about work, much more than asking what the other did for a living on our first day. When he said he was a pilot, I guess I just assumed he didn’t fly commercially. He sure as hell doesn’t look like the rest of our pilots.”
“He never asked where you worked?”
I shook my head. “I told him I was a senior consultant in human resources and the conversation went in a totally different direction after that. In fact, he made a comment about my relationship with Will a few minutes later and I blew up at him.”
“It never came up again?” she asked, eyes still wide. “How?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, even though she was right.
I felt like a total idiot for not having asked him about it again.
“I think maybe because the conversation about our careers ended the way it did? Jaxon promised he wouldn’t ask about Will or say anything about my relationship with him again.
That promise was the only reason I agreed to spend more time with him.
We steered so far clear of that subject that I think, even if it was subconsciously, the job thing just ended up in the same category. ”
“Did he keep his promise?”
“Mostly.” A waitress came to take our order, and I asked for the first thing I saw when my eyes landed on the menu in front of me.
Ember ordered the smoked salmon salad too, then motioned for me to continue when the waitress left.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We talked about it eventually, but we never went back to the job thing. There were so many other things to talk about and it didn’t seem important.
Our last day, he mentioned something about how his work would be calling him back soon.
It reminded me that I still didn’t know, and I was about to ask, but he beat me to it.
Instead of asking about work though, he asked about my brother. ”
“Wait.” She frowned, her pursed lips moving from side to side. “Your last day? That was when you phoned me and said you were in town alone.”
“Yep.” I tapped the side of my nose. “When I got back, he suggested we live in the moment for the night and not talk about leaving or anything else that was painful. And again, the job thing was linked to the conversation about my brother.”
“So you just never got around to talking about it,” she finished for me. “It makes sense, I guess. If you clicked with him the way you did, I suppose there were never any awkward silences to fill with small talk about the real life you were taking a break from.”
“Exactly.” I released a breath through my nose. “In hindsight, it was stupid. As soon as he told me he was a pilot, I should have asked him.”
She gave me a look. “You said he told you that on your first day, which means you’d have been jetlagged, traumatized after having been stood up, and then claimed as the wife of a total stranger who’d just told you he’d be sharing your room.
I think you can forgive yourself for not making the immediate assumption that just because he was pilot, he had to work for the same company you do. ”
“Yeah, but I should have asked him what kind of pilot he was at least. I think knowing that he used to be Air Force just made me automatically assume that he was still in some way affiliated with a company contracted to the military.”
“It’s not an unreasonable assumption to have made.
” She tried to defend my stupidity, but when I lowered my chin and lifted my eyebrows at her, she conceded.
“Okay, so it does feel like the kind of thing you’d have eventually thought to ask about, especially considering that you work in aviation yourself, but it wasn’t exactly the easiest week of your life. ”
“What, being left on my wedding day and then falling in lust with a hot, alpha asshole on my supposed honeymoon is an excuse for being completely dim?”
She laughed but it wasn’t mocking or judgmental. “Well, if anything’s going to be an excuse for an oversight or a lapse in logical thought, I think that’s a pretty decent one.”
I snorted softly. “Thanks. Strangely, that doesn’t make me feel much better.”
“What brought him to human resources?” she asked, moving her glass out the way when our salads were delivered.
“Oh, that’s the best part of all.” I grinned, and I knew I looked more than a little unhinged in that moment. “He never got approval for the time he took off to go to Fiji. They sent his file up to us for termination.”
“What?” She dropped her silverware with a clatter, a wicked gleam in her eyes as she shot me a wide grin of her own. “What are you going to do? Are you going to get him fired?”
“I don’t know. I thought about it all the way over here. I fucking hate the guy with a passion, but he did try to get ahold of us before he left.”
Her grin grew even bigger and she lifted her hands to rub her palms together as if she was a real-life villain. “Who cares? You have the power now. The only question that remains is what you’re going to do with it.”