Chapter 23
It takes exactly three seconds for me to realize I’ve just made a very, very big mistake.
“Oh, God. Oh my God…” I start pacing back and forth, my heels slamming against the laminate floor of the narrow corridor. “I just quit my job.”
“I saw. It was incredible!” Jasper replies, like this is the most entertaining thing that’s happened to him all day.
Maybe it was.
“I just became unemployed and the first thing I did was throw my phone straight into the ocean!”
I collapse, pressing my palms to my face, trying my absolute best not to start crying.
“Now the poor baby sea turtles are going to eat it and choke to death because I’m a terrible person. That’s what I am.”
“It’s not the ocean,” Jasper says, bored. “It’s just the deck outside.”
I freeze. Think. Lean so far out the little window that my whole torso hangs past the frame. And there it is, my phone, lying in the middle of the deck. At worst, the screen’s cracked. At best, it’s sunbathing.
Great. I can’t even rebel properly.
I lean out even farther, so disoriented I can’t tell if I’m trying to stretch my arm far enough to grab the phone or if I’m actually considering squeezing my whole body through the window. Neither is humanly possible.
Thank God Jasper – three words I never thought I’d put together – grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me back inside.
“You can get it later,” he says, guiding me toward the bench. “Just sit for a second. Breathe.”
I sit. I breathe. Mostly because I’m too shocked to operate independently.
“How are you feeling?”
Incredible. Like the weight of my entire life has just lifted off my shoulders.
“Like someone without a job.”
“Everyone’s been there once in their life.” I narrow my eyes at him, doubtful. “Well… not me, personally, but the rest of the world, for sure.”
A helpless, nervous laugh bursts out of me, half shaky, half strangled. At this point, crying feels inevitable.
Then Jasper sits beside me, leaning closer. For a moment, I forget everything else.
“I’ve always had a job because I’ve always loved what I do. And I’m really good at it. But you know what? You’re really good at what you do too, Jules. You were just doing it in the wrong place.”
I look up and meet his eyes. Dark as always, so dark that even under all this bright boat lighting it’s hard to tell where his irises end and his pupils begin. Two bottomless wells of heat and comfort.
“You know more about sports than anyone I know,” Jasper continues. “And your interviews are always well-written and funny–”
“You see my interviews?”
“Of course I do.” He pauses, pretending to think. Then, “Well, the ones about Formula 1 and Wimbledon.”
I’m emotionally dead inside, but somehow I still laugh. It’s so him.
“I don’t watch common-people sports,” he jokes, acting like the fancy snob he pretends to be, but there’s softness in his voice when he adds, “What I’m trying to say is you don’t need Mr. Kyle. Or the All-Star Chronicles. You can do it on your own.”
“Do what, Jasper?” I ask with a shaky laugh. “I have nothing. No money, no ideas. What am I supposed to do?”
“Whatever you want. Start your own news portal? Become a reporter for a soccer league? Travel the world interviewing crazy athletes? I’m sure you’d be great at that last one.”
The laugh that escapes me is more of a snort. Because I know he’s thinking about what happened with Brock Magnus. So… not exactly a compliment. More like he believes I’m fully capable of spreading chaos everywhere I go.
We sit in silence for a minute. Jasper beside me, filling the whole space just by existing. He doesn’t have to say anything. Just being here is somehow enough.
I’m the one who breaks the silence.
“Isn’t it wild that after all these years, the thing that finally pushed me off the cliff was a trip to Paris to interview Rafael Nadal?”
His eyebrows shoot up. Even Jasper can’t hide his surprise.
“Holy shit. Seriously?”
I nod.
“The interview’s on Saturday.”
He inhales, then slowly exhales.
“You’ll have other opportunities to interview Nadal in Paris,” Jasper offers, trying to be comforting. I laugh, knowing that’s absolute bullshit. “But your best friend’s wedding, who, we all know, is batshit crazy, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“I just hope she lends me some money once I’m officially broke,” I mutter, slumping into the bench.
Jasper nudges my shoulder with his.
“You don’t need Mila, Jules. You’re on a boat full of rich people. Start lifting their wallets. I’m sure they won’t notice.” His eyes sparkle mischievously. “All you need is Robbie’s uncle’s credit card and you’ll be rich for life.”
Robbie’s uncle is a white-haired tech millionaire who worked with Bill Gates before creating his own startup and making millions.
He’s the definition of a ‘sugar-daddy-on-a-yacht.’ A shameless old man with a thing for women half his age.
Which is the only reason I ask, teasing, but hey, you never know, “So what is he looking for again? His fourth wife?”
“Fifth,” he finally says.
I shrug. “I could be a fifth wife!”
Jasper presses his lips together, trying not to take the bait. Judging by his expression, he’s failing.
“Stop it, Julie.” Jasper shakes his head in disbelief.
“Are you jealous of me and Robbie’s uncle?”
“I’m going to slap you,” he shoots back. “I’m going to spank that ass with so much dedication, you’ll never dare say stupid shit like that just to provoke me again.”
He’s biting back a smile, but his eyes are wild and sexy, locked onto mine. And I have zero doubt he’d follow through, if not for the sound of approaching footsteps that sends us flying apart, each to opposite corners of the bench.
White heels with red bottoms – Louboutins, obviously – come into view before the tall, elegant body wearing them. Long blonde hair cascades over Mila’s shoulders like she’s some kind of Nordic goddess.
She glances at us. First me, then Jasper, both looking suspicious as hell.
“What’s going on?” Before either of us can answer, she zeroes in on Jasper. “Are you torturing her?”
“I swear I’m not,” he tries, but Mila’s not listening.
“Because if you are, I’ll ask Robbie to toss you off the boat.”
I’m too emotionally wrecked to even pretend anything.
“It’s fine, Mila. He was actually being helpful.”
“Helpful?” my friend repeats, arms crossed, totally hostile. “I’m not buying it.”
She steps closer.
“What’s your game?”
Jasper rolls his eyes. Instead of replying, he stands, smooths the hem of his shirt, and announces, without really looking at either of us, “Yeah, I’m out of here.”
My heart tightens when his fingertips graze my thigh as he walks past.
I know Mila is my best friend and I love her with all my heart. But at this exact moment, every cell in my body hates her. Because all I wanted was to stay with him a little longer.
Which makes zero sense.
We’re both fully clothed.
“You’re not going to the bathroom?” I ask as he heads toward the stairs. Half hoping he’ll stay, half trying to distract Mila, honestly I don’t even know anymore.
Jasper taps his palm against the beam overhead, as if checking he won’t hit his head, the resulting thud making Mila jump.
“I didn’t come here looking for a bathroom, Julia,” he says casually. Then disappears upstairs.
There’s a warmth in my chest. And it’s wild, blazing, overwhelming. If this were any other moment, I’d think he was just trying to get under my skin.
But he’s not.
Even without looking at me. Even getting my name wrong… I think a part of him hates Mila right now too.
“I asked the captain to hide the Champagne bottles inside the cabin,” Mila grumbles. “He and those clowns Robbie calls friends are turning my photo session into a drunken mess.”
Maybe Jasper really was looking for Champagne.
Maybe I’m just losing my mind, heart pounding over a man who can’t even pronounce my name correctly.
Only then, only after she says that, after Jasper becomes a supposedly unpleasant memory for both of us, she looks at me closely and finally asks, “Now tell me: what happened?”
I exhale, exhausted.
“Don’t worry about it, Mila. It’s handled.”
It’s not. But honestly? There’s nothing left to handle. Except, maybe, retrieving my phone from the deck and blocking every future call from Mr. Kyle till the end of time.
“How could I not worry, you’re my favorite whore! And also my best friend, aren’t you, bitch?”
Mila may be a Fifth Avenue princess, but my God, she swears like a sailor.
“I quit my job,” I say.
“You did what?!”
“Why is there cell signal in the middle of the ocean, Mila?” I ask, already spiraling again.
Jasper’s voice echoes in my mind: Breathe.
And I do. Even without him here.
“It doesn’t feel right. The sun’s hot, the boat is rocking way too much… these conditions can make a person do terrible things they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.”
“Do you regret it?” she asks abruptly.
Regret my ass.
But out here, in the real world, I need a moment to think and choose the right answer.
“I don’t know. I love writing, Mila. I love sports, I love interviewing the athletes. But I didn’t love that.”
And by that I mean: a trashy, minimum-wage job I tolerated for six years before finally deciding enough was enough.
“But now… now I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Mila gives me a dreamy, whimsical smile, her eyes glowing like she’s just uncovered all the secrets of the universe.
“Whatever you want,” she says. “That’s the beauty of it, Jules. Now that you’re free, you can do anything.”
“That’s what Jasper said too.”
She gasps, legitimately shocked.
“Oh my God! He really was being helpful.”
“I think he got heatstroke,” I say, laughing under my breath.
But there’s a bitter taste on my tongue. Because Jasper might have the reputation he has, but he’s not exactly what he seems.
He is helpful.
He is thoughtful.
He is, for God’s sake… he is caring.
For a second, I want to tell her everything.
Every detail since the night I ended up in the drunk tank with Brock Magnus and Jasper got me out. I want to tell her how he asked me to make up a story about a nonexistent debt to clear up that cheating mess so he wouldn’t ruin Robbie’s surprise, even though it would make his own reputation worse.
I want to tell her all the ways he kisses me.
How he smiles when he thinks no one’s watching. How his voice gets sweet and rough at the same time. Or how it feels like to be in his arms in those rare moments when he loses control.
But all I can see is the chaos that would follow. What would happen once this trip is over. When we all go home and the giant elephant of the past keeps shadowing us forever, reminding everyone that, once upon a time, Jasper and Julie slept together.
We will never go back to what we were before, I know that.
And it will be awful. I know that too.
Pretending nothing happened, pretending nothing changed, pretending we don’t remember how good… how incredibly good it was.
It’s already bad enough as it is, we don’t need an audience.
And that’s the only reason I stay quiet.