Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Marie
My body doesn’t know what time zone I’m supposed to be in, but I’m walking into my office anyway.
I’ve been traveling for three days straight, and while I normally would make a long weekend out of my last stop—especially since it was in central London, one of my favorite places on the planet—I took the company jet back to California.
Because Jace is home.
Because I’ve turned into a sappy woman who wants to be close to my boyfriend, who misses him with what might have been alarming intensity if not for the fact that he made it clear he misses me just as much.
Texts and FaceTime calls. A delivery of dinner from my favorite Covent Garden restaurant to my hotel room when I mentioned our flight was delayed and I wouldn’t be able to make it out before they closed. Talking me down from the edge of panic when Jean-Michel finally had enough of me saying nothing is different and demanded that we talk the moment I get home…and then arranging for a masseuse to come up to my room and give me the best facial and massage of my life.
Jace showing me he can be thoughtful, even from five thousand miles away.
Showing me again that he’s not like the other men.
That he’s one of the good ones—like Jean-Michel.
Thank God for stubborn protective green flags, huh?
So, even though my bones are weary and my inbox is overflowing, every cell in my body itchy to skip these few hours in the office to catch up and meet with Jean-Michel, I see that his thoughtfulness continues.
Because there is a huge display of flowers on my desk.
My favorites, irises, are included, even though I swear I’ve never disclosed that fact to this man.
I stand there, admiring them for a moment.
They’re big and bold and beautiful, so much like what I feel for him.
Then I process where they’re sitting.
And what it means.
Jean-Michel knows something is up, I’m meeting with him in—I check my watch—twenty minutes, and there’s a giant arrangement of flowers taking up most of my desk.
“Crap,” I whisper, shoving my phone back in my pocket.
I’d pulled it out, intending to text Jace, to thank him.
But now I kind of want to throttle him.
I hurry over to the bouquet, reaching for the ornate glass vase, and freeze, noticing the envelope with my name scrawled on the front.
In Jace’s handwriting.
Which means he went down to the florist himself, that he wrote the note inside. Not an online order or something his assistant took care of for him.
He’d done it himself.
My heart goes pitter-patter, and I snag the envelope out of the plastic fork thingy that’s holding it in place then tear it open.
Yup. Definitely Jace’s handwriting.
A fact that makes my pulse speed up…and that’s even before I process the words on the little card.
To deepest, darkest secrets. And your ability to take their power away.
-J
P.S. I talked to JM yesterday. Handled the worst of the inquiry. But he’s going to want details from you too, cookie.
Thud .
My heart collides against my rib cage, and I don’t know how to handle the swell of emotions in my chest.
Mostly because every time I think that Jace can’t get more wonderful, he does.
“So it’s like that, huh?”
I turn, see that Jean-Michel has walked into my office without me noticing.
His mouth tips up. “Yeah, kid,” he says, answering for me. “I can see it’s like that.”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” I begin. “But?—”
“You and Jace have been seeing each other for weeks now, Marie,” he says, slipping by me and leaning back against my desk. “Is there a reason you didn’t think to mention it?”
“I didn’t want to step on what you and Tiff are building,” I tell him.
“That may be part of it.” He lightly touches one of the flowers, glances down at the torn-open envelope, and I clutch the note with Jace’s precious words a little tighter to my chest. “But it’s not all of it.”
“You’re overloaded with all the nonsense that Angela created?—”
“Not anymore. You saw to that, and Attie is just tying up loose ends.”
“—and Tiff has enough trouble on her plate, not to mention Chrissy being pregnant and Rory getting hitched, for real this time.” I pocket the note, round my desk, and sink down into my chair, mostly so the spray of flowers hides me as I add, “Plus, you’ve got work responsibilities and contract negotiations and?—”
“Excuses, kid.” He picks up the flowers, carries them to the window sill, setting them down with a careful clink. Then, shield taken away from me, he’s back in front of my desk, eyes locked onto mine.
I try to hold out.
Or come up with something that doesn’t sound pathetic.
Unfortunately, all I manage is, “I didn’t want you to worry.”
He sighs, sits down in the chair across from me. “That’s what Jace said when he came by to talk to me, and I’m not calling you a liar. All those things you and he mentioned are part of the truth, but I know you well enough to get they’re not everything. Same as I think that Jace knows that too.”
My pulse speeds.
Then there’s nothing to it, the words just slip out. “I like him, JM. Like him more than I’ve ever liked another man.” Maybe I even love him—a thought that has my heart stutter-starting again. “But you know my track record better than anyone: I’m shit at picking men. It’s why I resisted giving him the time of day in the first place, even though he made it clear he was interested.”
“Something obviously changed.”
“Mostly that he was too damned stubborn to take no for an answer.”
Jean-Michel’s lips curve.
“Not that you know anything about that,” I mutter, knowing that his first meeting with Tiff wasn’t exactly the stuff of fairytales.
More like kidnapping fantasies with a morally gray hero.
“But I found I didn’t want to say no, and then I found the more time I spent with him, the more I realized he wasn’t like the other men.” I scowl. “Which is even fucking scarier.”
“You wouldn’t have a reason to keep him at a distance.”
I nod. “Nope.”
“So, now what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now what are you going to do? Keep that hand up so you can fend him off? Or give in and see where things take you?”
“I think I dropped my hand a while ago,” I whisper. “Because even with it up, I didn’t have any hope of keeping him out of my heart.”
Jean-Michel smirks. “Sucks, huh?”
“Sucks so bad it’s the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.”
Now his face goes soft and he reaches forward, takes my hand. “That’s half the battle.”
“Not being a chicken shit?”
He laughs. “Damn straight. Just channel your negotiating Marie and power through the scary parts.”
“The worst thing is that Jace seems to know when I’m scared and I don’t even have to go that far. I can just be me because he’s got his hand out, ready to haul me safely to the other side.”
“Fuck, kid.”
“What?” I whisper.
“I wanted to keep channeling some hate for the bastard.”
My brow furrows. “I thought you liked him.”
“I do,” he says. “But you—not him—have a piece of my heart.”
I sniff. “Tiff’s made you sappy.”
“No,” he says. “She just helped me see the beauty around me.” I sniff again and he pushes up from his chair. “All right. Enough of this. Time for you to call it a day.” He grabs my bag, my coat, and moves to the door. “And I don’t want to see you here tomorrow, either.”
“But—”
He pulls open the door, shoves my stuff into my arms, and orders, “Go home, kid.”
I’m nearing the elevators when I hear my name and turn back.
“You know what this means, right?” he calls.
I shake my head, eyebrows dragging together. “No.”
“You’re both expected at family dinner Saturday.”