Chapter Three
Two weeks later…
“That’s the last box, babe,” Brooke said from the living room, her voice warm and bright, a contrast to the dismal gray outside.
It had been raining all day. Not buckets.
Just enough to make the cold feel colder and move out day more depressing.
“If you want to go ahead, I’ll be right behind you as soon as we finish. ”
Despite the cold seeping through her clothes, Jo pushed up the sleeves of her hoodie and rolled the vacuum cleaner into Brooke’s empty closet—for now. She’d put it back in hers when she found a new roommate who wasn’t a total stranger.
For that reason, and because the balance of her savings was rapidly headed in the wrong direction, every choice came with a price.
She’d emailed the apartment manager about moving into a one-bedroom as soon as one became available and bought a new laptop.
Boxed samples and her resume had gone out to over two dozen bake shops and caterers.
A blowout on the interstate during those deliveries meant a new tire, so when it came down to it, replacing the mixer just wasn’t feasible.
Besides, she had her grandma’s old one. It still worked…if she held the cord just right.
So far, no call backs.
With a sigh, Jo headed back toward her room to put sheets on her new bed. No more mattress on the floor. Brooke had insisted Jo have her bed since there was no room for it in Aaron’s one-bedroom loft.
As she entered her bedroom and reached for the sheets, the steady knocking from the other side of the wall stopped her.
Ugh. Again?
A sharp cry and a long moan loud enough to rattle the vents told her she’d caught the tail end of her neighbor’s sexcapades.
With dreams of Avery Preston “making her dreams come true” every night for the last two weeks, her libido was already in overdrive. She didn’t need the added stimulant.
Her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her hoodie pocket and glanced at the incoming text.
Walt: You haven’t RSVPed.
Jo groaned, the horny couple forgotten. Not only was the text not from the one place of employment she hadn’t heard from. It was from her dad, and though they were only words, she could hear the angry disapproval behind them.
I’ll deal with him later.
She tucked her phone back in her pocket as Brooke breezed into the room with Viv in tow. “Look who I found.”
Viv rushed forward, the swish of her oversized, purple puffer jacket loud in Jo’s ears. She wrapped Jo in a tight hug. “Damn, girl, I’ve missed you.”
“Missed you, too.” Jo squeezed her back.
They parted, and Viv checked her watch. “I gotta run, but will you come check to make sure I got everything before I go?”
“Sure.” Jo led the way down the hall.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t make it over here sooner. Your stuff’s been rattlin’ around in my back seat, remindin’ me to keep my promise, but ever’ time I started to head this way, somethin’ came up. We got slammed at work after the Reese-Preston shindig, and Cal’s had the flu.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just grateful for the favor.” Actually, after she’d heard from Viv that her things were safe, Jo had forgotten about them.
“It’s been miserable without you,” Viv said. “Everyone’s so mad. Me and Theo are lookin’ for new jobs. Have you had any luck?”
“Nah,” Jo said, grabbing the box by the door and setting it on the kitchen table, “but I still have a few places I haven’t heard from.”
A lie, but she didn’t want Viv to worry about her. Brooke was worrying enough for both of them and threatening to slash Giselle’s tires on a daily basis. Jo had laughed until the tire shop showed her the gash in hers yesterday.
“You reap what you sow,” she’d reminded Brooke that night in her best grandma voice.
As Jo went through the box, Brooke asked what she couldn’t bring herself to. “Do you think Giselle might have blacklisted Jo?”
Jo held her breath as she placed her extra piping bags on the glass tabletop.
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past her.” Viv looked pointedly at her. “She’s been bitchier than usual, especially after Just Avery showed up first thing the Monday mornin’ after.”
Jo’s stomach dipped. “He what?”
She’d almost managed to forget about the part he played in getting her fired. Almost. When she did think about him, it had nothing to do with her job and everything to do with his filthy mouth and the fantasies it induced.
“…a long night of hot and sweaty, down and dirty fucking.”
A hot flush warmed Jo’s cheeks as a big grin split Viv’s face.
She bounced on her toes, black curls bobbing.
“He waltzed in lookin’ like a million bucks, and let me tell you, Gruella was simpin’ hard, practically had drool drippin’ from her fangs.
” She laughed. “She thought he was there to schedule an event. Anyway, I couldn’t hear what they was sayin’, but when they came out, she told me to show him to the door and…
” Her eyes danced as she paused for dramatic effect.
“He asked about you and for your phone number.”
The blood heating Jo’s face turned cold. “You didn’t—”
“’Course, I didn’t.” She pulled a card from her coat pocket. “He said if you needed anything…”
Jo took the business card—thick, matte black with embossed gold writing, simple yet elegant. Expensive. Preston Enterprises. Avery Preston, VP of Finance. But then she already knew that from her research.
Viv bounced again and started toward the door. “You should let him take your mind off your troubles. Your clothes, too, for that trifecta.”
Jo snorted and shoved the card in her hoodie pocket, glad she hadn’t told Viv the specifics of her run-in with him. She’d never stop hounding her.
She followed Viv to the door and gave her a hug. “Thank you for everything.”
“I gotchu.” Viv winked and jogged down the hall.
Jo closed the door and turned to Brooke, who’d been quiet throughout Viv’s revelation. She had that look in her eye, the one that said she was hatching a plan.
“What?”
“You should call him.”
“Oh my god, not you, too.” They were supposed to be on her side, but one little gesture, and they’d turned traitors.
“Maybe he’s not such a dick after all.”
“Believe me, he is.” Jo skirted the peninsula and started loading the silicon molds into the dishwasher. “A man like that isn’t used to taking no for an answer. He’s used to getting what he wants, and he gets it a lot.”
Just thinking about him getting it made her belly quiver. Shit.
“Sounds to me like he’s trying to make up for his dickishness.”
“Ha! More like, kicking a dog while she’s down.” Or what was that other one Grandma used to say. Striking while the iron’s hot? He was hot and, from what she’d felt, iron-hard.
“That’s entirely my point. I think you should take him up on his offer.”
The baking sheet in Jo’s hand slipped, clanging against another. She turned around to stare at Brooke. “You can’t be serious.”
“No, listen, it could work.” Brooke grabbed a soda from the fridge.
A soft hiss escaped as she twisted the top.
“You obviously don’t like him. He just wants a date.
If you set some hard boundaries for him, you can do this.
Just think of the contacts you could make.
And hey, what better way to get back at him than to make him pay? ”
“Revenge, huh?” Propping a hip against the counter, Jo folded her arms and considered getting even with the entitled asshole.
He certainly deserved it. And she could recoup her savings.
But the strange things he did to her libido were dangerous.
Not to mention the stupid things that came out of his mouth.
“Nah, I’d probably murder him before I got anything out of the deal and spend the rest of my life living in a gray-walled six-by-eight and wearing orange. ”
“The orange would be punishment enough,” Brooke said with a soft laugh, her eyes twinkling with the shared memory of junior prom.
Jo had mopped floors at the grocery store for months to order the dress of her dreams—a silk sapphire sheath.
She’d been so excited to wear it. The morning of prom, Jo and Brooke came home from helping decorate the community center to find out Jo’s stepmother, Lydia, had returned Jo’s dress and replaced it with a monstrosity of pumpkin ruffles.
Jo was devastated, but Brooke had rallied, and that night, when she came to pick up Jo, she had dyed her white dress orange to match Jo’s, and they’d had a great time reliving the look on Lydia’s face.
Good times.
“Viv seems to like him.” She really wasn’t going to let this go.
Jo popped in a pod, closed the dishwasher, and started the load. “Viv can’t resist a hot body with a pretty face.”
“So, he’s hot?”
With a roll of her eyes, she clicked her tongue. “I’m not blind.”
Or immune, which would be the biggest hurdle. But she could handle guys like Avery Preston.
No, no, no, don’t even think about it.
“You haven’t looked twice at a guy in a long time. Not since Chase.”
“Yeah, and look where that got me.” Fucking cheater.
Not that she’d felt more than a twinge of hurt or jealousy when a last-minute cancellation at work sent her home to Jeopardy for a friend’s bridal shower, only to find Chase in the backseat of his truck behind the community center with his head between Chelsea Driscoll’s legs.
It had been the excuse she’d needed to break it off with him.
And seeing him at Christmas just gave her one more reason not to go home. Talk about awkward. Walt and his wife, Lydia, still treated him like a member of the family. Hell, they seemed to love him more than her. They’d even put out his stocking.
She shut out thoughts of Chase and her family. Brooke was the only family she needed.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you unpack?” She cracked a cheesy smile. “I’m free, nothing to do on this beautiful Friday afternoon.”
Brooke’s cheeks flushed a fiery red. “Thanks, but Aaron’s planning a picnic in front of the fireplace.”
“And you’re dessert?”
“Something like that.”