17. Jenna
JENNA
M y face is red and puffy the next morning when McCarthy brings me breakfast.
“Don’t look at it like that.” He hands me a fork. “One of your many problems is you eat sugar for breakfast. This is protein.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Don’t care. Eat, then put your clothes on.”
“I don’t—”
He points at the clothes draped over the chair. “I asked Anton to have them rush cleaned at the twenty-four-hour place next door.”
“How did you… Did you go to my house?”
“You mean Nathan’s house? ”
I cringe.
For a second, when I woke up, I hoped that it was all a nightmare—Nathan’s anger, getting thrown out of the car, McCarthy showing up, Truman .
“My dog.” I let out a sob. “Poor Truman. He must be so scared. How could I let this happen?”
McCarthy is impatient.
“Stop whining about your dog. This is all happening because you are too stubborn to admit that I’m right.”
“So that’s why you saved me?” I sniffle. “Just to rub your superiority in my face?”
“I can’t deny it’s a perk.” He stands up. “Be downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
I take one bite then ignore the food. Truman would have loved it, and how can I eat when my dog is in danger? How can I sleep in McCarthy’s luxurious guest room when Nathan has Truman trapped somewhere? I bet he put him in his kennel. Truman hates being locked up.
As I dress, I come to the sickening realization that this isn’t actually a guest room.
This is his room. His clothes in the closet. His fancy cologne on the bathroom vanity. His watch casually lying on the dresser.
Why did McCarthy put me in here?
I jump when the door opens. McCarthy wordlessly hands me the little pink organizer I use for my hair stuff.
“Thanks… um…” I look around the room. “Where did, um… Where did you sleep?”
“I didn’t.” He’s curt as he leaves.
After getting dressed, I give up on trying to comb out the knots and pin my hair up into a messy bun. I pause on the stair landing and look out over the penthouse .
The living room looks like the Hulk has had a tantrum. Amongst the wreckage are my things—not tossed, though, but laid out to dry.
“Is that my stand mixer?”
McCarthy is standing among the wreckage, waiting at the bottom of the stairs. His face darkens when he sees me. “Hurry up.”
I want to ask him—why?
Why did you rescue me?
Why did you bring me all my stuff?
Why do you care about me?
He doesn’t care about you, I remind myself viciously. You know exactly who McCarthy is. He likes to win, and this is a huge win .
I look stupid, and he gets to flaunt how right he was. That’s it.
“Come on.” He jerks his head.
“I can’t.”
He blinks at me.
I say in a rush, “I mean, of course I’m not going to let my personal issues get in the way of working on your PR plan. It’s just that I have to meet with a lawyer and talk to the police about getting Truman back. There’s going to be a custody battle and—”
“I didn’t care about the PR plan yesterday, and I don’t care about it today. We’re leaving to go get your dog.”
“I don’t think we can just walk in here…”
McCarthy doesn’t stop at the front desk of the ZyloPay offices. He brushes past the security guard, who yells, “ID! You have to sign in! ”
He just walks in like he owns the place, long wool coat swirling around him. He’s not the motorcycle-riding grim reaper. Now he’s the CEO of war, not a hair out of place.
“Sorry! I’ll send over some pastries!” I call to the receptionist as McCarthy sweeps by and barges into the first office.
He looks around as the shocked analyst clutches her necklace.
“So, so sorry about this,” I apologize, closing her door behind McCarthy as he stalks out.
McCarthy is all predator drone as he scans the start-up office, the shocked employees watching as the impossibly huge man strides through the rows of desks.
McCarthy spots him.
“ Nathan. ”
He’s in the big glass-enclosed conference room, pompous and important as he stands in front of the company’s investors, making the big presentation that I’d been helping him with for weeks.
Nathan stammers when the door opens and McCarthy steps in.
The CEO doesn’t wait at the back of the room. He keeps walking, shoving past the chairs of investors and firm leaders as he makes his way to the front of the room.
Nathan’s affair partner is sitting near the back, and she makes a shocked huff when she sees me.
“Where is that dog?” McCarthy’s deep voice cuts through the conference room.
Nathan scrambles back as McCarthy keeps coming at him. My ex trips over his laptop cord, and both the computer and Nathan crash to the floor.
“What, uh… I don’t—that’s not—what dog? ”
“Truman!” I scream at him. “You took my dog. You and her.” I point at Johanna.
“What is the meaning of this?” the ZyloPay CEO, who I recognize from the boozy holiday parties, says, his voice like thunder. “Security!”
“I’m going to ask you one more time, then I’m going to smash your nose in on this fancy conference table.” McCarthy’s deep voice drops to a growl.
My ex gulps. “He’s in my office. I swear I didn’t mean anything! I was just keeping him, Jenna, right? We agreed! Please don’t hurt me.” Nathan is babbling.
McCarthy turns his back on Nathan to stare down the Chairman of the Board. “I want Nathan fired.”
“You can’t—”
“And I want that woman fired too.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this!” Johanna yells in protest.
“Fire them, or…” A thin, cold smile forms on his face as he addresses the investors who huddle around the oval conference room table.
“Or I’ll make sure that not only will you never invest in any of the lucrative start-up projects in this city, but I will also personally dig through your company’s books and find any mistakes you made, any cover-ups, any illicit activity by any member of your company, and I’ll plaster it all over this goddamn city, and no one will do business with you again. ”
The Chairman of the Board is pasty and sweating. McCarthy has a reputation in this town for a reason.
The Chairman’s chin wobbles as he looks among Nathan, Johanna, and McCarthy .
“What will he choose?” McCarthy narrates. “Is he a true leader, one who will put his life and livelihood on the line for his employees?”
He is not.
“Nathan, Johanna, you’re both fired for violating the morality clause of your employment contracts.”
“You can’t do that!” Nathan yells.
“I’m pregnant!” Johanna shrieks.
“I’m calling a lawyer. You’re going to pay for this,” Nathan says, raging.
“Sleeping with your subordinate is against the company handbook!” the ZyloPay CEO shouts.
“Then fire him, not me!” Johanna begs.
“What?” Nathan yells.
“Loyalty is so difficult to buy these days,” McCarthy says mildly.
“You said you were going to buy me and the baby a house!” Johanna hollers at Nathan. “How are you going to do that when you’re unemployed? I’ll tell you one thing: You are not staying in my apartment.” She grabs her purse, wrenching it so hard from the back of the chair that it topples over.
Behind me, Nathan is arguing loudly with the ZyloPay CEO, who’s still calling for security as McCarthy sweeps out of the conference room.
At the far end of the office building, a loud, sharp bark sounds.
“Truman!” I race ahead. “Mommy’s coming, Truman!”
There, in Johanna’s office, my dog is scraping his nails against the door .
“Truman, you’re okay! My baby!” I sob into his fur as the wiggly dog jumps into my arms and licks my face, giving a flurry of happy yips.
McCarthy is wearing an odd expression on his face when I look up to see him standing there above me, silent, strong.
“You found him!” I’m smiling through happy tears.
McCarthy works his jaw.
Truman is ecstatic to see McCarthy, and he yips excitedly, his tail whipping as he stands on his hind legs, pawing at McCarthy’s dress pants.
McCarthy turns around and shakes off Truman.
“Get your stupid dog, Jenna. Someone with horrible taste in men needs a pit bull or a Doberman, not an overfed pillow.”
“Look through your stuff,” McCarthy orders when he drops his keys on the tray by the door of his penthouse. “Make sure nothing is missing.”
While we were gone, someone came by and removed the broken furniture, lamps, and electronics that had been in the living room and replaced them with brand-new identical items.
It’s eerie.
The mysterious organization fairy had neatly piled my waterlogged things. My notebooks had been left out in the rain, and the paper was rough and warped, the text bleeding and blurry.
It doesn’t matter, though, because I have Truman back.
The dog jumps excitedly into a pile of my clothes on one of the chairs .
McCarthy sits down on a couch, loosening his tie. Truman makes a flying leap onto the cushion next to the CEO and flops down on his lap. McCarthy strokes Truman’s silky ears, murmuring nonsense to him.
It’s like we’re just two normal people living in a house together, like he didn’t just go ballistic and threaten a bunch of rich men all because of my dog.
I hear my phone go off. I glance up from where I’m starting to roll up my clothes so I can stuff them into one of the dried-out totes. McCarthy’s on my phone before I can grab it.
“Don’t touch my phone.”
“I’m going to trace all these numbers.”
I snatch the phone from him.
His gray eyes go slate-dark.
I cradle the phone to my chest.
He stands up, grabs my wrists, and tries to pry the phone out of my hands.
“Stop fighting me. Give me that phone. I’m finding your stalker—or more like stalker s because you’re so inept that you’ve attracted multiple.”
“No one is stalking me.” I grunt as I try to twist away from him.
“Your ex-fiancé is. You told me so yourself,” he snarls.
“‘Stalking’ is in quotation marks!” I shriek. “It’s not a real stalker if you know who it is.”
He’s so shocked he releases me. “That’s not—that’s not even true. That’s not how that works.”
“It’s not that serious.”
“Wrong, Cupcake. This is fucking serious. Why do you insist on fighting me?”
“I can’t repay you!” I wave my arms .
“You don’t have to. I want to keep you here.”