29. Jenna
JENNA
“ I hate my life.”
The parking garage is dim the next morning when I wake up in McCarthy’s car, reeking of him and tasting his mouth, my panties somehow still damp.
I can still feel his fingers inside of me as I make the walk of shame to the elevator.
There’s a guy waiting, slouching against the wall near the parking-garage elevator lobby. He’s got McCarthy’s coloring and that same sly smirk as he types something on his phone.
I stare at him.
No. It can’t be. Too old, right?
I swear to God, if he’s made my job harder…
The young guy gives me a cautious smile.
I frown. “You better not be his child. ”
The kid jumps up. “McCarthy?” His voice cracks. “No, ma’am. Half brother.” He swipes a card, hits the up button, then yells into a walkie-talkie, “She’s incoming.”
“What the hell? Is your brother spying on me?”
The kid shrugs.
I step into the elevator and hit the down button.
Am I leaving Truman in the penthouse?
Yeah.
Because in a weird way, I kind of trust McCarthy with Truman, even if I don’t trust him with my person.
Also, I ran out of his favorite dog food, and I don’t get paid ’til next Friday.
It’s the weekend, but it’s Seattle, so half the town is out going to their favorite farmers’ markets.
A lady carrying twenty pounds of kale gives me a weird look as I stumble in front of her, heels in hand, trying to adjust my purse strap, and combing my fingers through snarled hair.
“Look, this is actually not the lowest I’ve been this week,” I tell her.
She fishes out one of the kale bundles. “Antioxidants.”
“I don’t—”
“It’s a superfood.”
My phone rings. It’s him.
“You’d seriously rather beg for kale on the side of the road than accept my hospitality? I could have breakfast brought in for you—waffles, bacon.”
“Pick a girlfriend, asshole. Charity ball is tomorrow.” I hang up and look down the block at the tower and see a figure in a suit hanging over the glass railing way up at the top of the tower. There’s a little brown speck that is probably my dog in his arms. McCarthy has binoculars in his hand .
I give him the finger.
My phone rings again.
“Forget the charity ball. Go to Monaco with me.”
“You are so transparent. I’m not going to fall in love with you and make a fool of myself.”
“Truman wants you to.” He sends me a photo of him with the dog.
Fuck him.
“Fuck you.” I stomp off, ignoring the fluttering in my heart.
I should know better than to drink with McCarthy.
Clearly, that was the only way that was going to go.
When people tell you who they are, believe them.
He told me from day one that he was trying to sleep with me and get me fired, and here we are.
It’s just like what happened with Brock and Andreas and Nathan.
I catch a glimpse of a future with McCarthy—used and discarded in the most humiliating fashion.
Shifting the kale, I pull out my phone and stare at the photo. McCarthy has his face next to Truman’s, and the dog is grinning, ears flapping in the wind.
McCarthy looks endearing, boyish, like freaking catnip, like a man a girl would want to fall in love with.
“Fake, fake, fake, it’s all fake.”
What if it’s not?
“I’m not going down that road.” I started walking down it when I was a tiny little girl and my mom brought the first of many boyfriends home, and I thought, “Yes, this man will be in my life forever.” Now here we are.
McCarthy is standing in front of me, blatantly carving himself up so that he fits nicely in the daddy-issues-sized hole in my heart, and I’m letting him do it.
He’s literally telling me who he is, and I am not believing him.
I sneak another look at the photo and run bang into a light post.
It’s a sign. I am turning into my mother.
A car horn wheezes.
“Back from the farmers’ market, I see!” Zephyr calls as Cher rumbles up beside me. “I can’t stop the van. I think something’s wrong with the clutch.”
Probably nothing at all to do with the bomb that Granny Mavis set off.
“Booo, boring!” Granny Mavis yells at me as I jog beside the car. “You should be out looking for a man.”
The door slides open.
“Hannah!”
“Oh my god.” She grabs my arm. “I thought your stalker got you! You weren’t answering your phone, and I called your stepdad.”
“Get in, loser. We’re going to the vet.” Granny Mavis helps pull me into the van.
Magnum is hacking up a lung in the back seat.
“He has his yearly checkup.”
“You need to put that poor dog out of his misery, Mavis,” Rainbow declares.
“Isn’t that nice-looking kale?” Zephyr inspects the enormous bushel of greens in my arms.
“No! No kale. We have kale at home,” Granny Mavis complains.
“How are you, Jenna?” Zephyr asks me kindly as we trundle down the road.
“On the plus side, I’m still employed. Downside is I think I’m legally homeless at this point. ”
“The Haven Foundation used to be here,” Rainbow says wistfully. “They could have set you up with resources.”
“My great-granddaughter doesn’t need resources. She needs to find herself a man.”
“I’m done with men. I’m decentering,” I declare.
“You are?” My friend is shocked. “You always have a boyfriend.”
“That’s exactly my problem. But no more. I’m taking charge. I don’t need a man to protect me; I can do it all by myself.”
McCarthy sends me another photo.
“Is that Truman?” Hannah’s staring over my shoulder. “And McCarthy ?”
“Look,” I hiss at my friend. “I’m not in my season of good decision-making.”
Another photo appears on the screen.
McCarthy: Truman says he wants a new daddy.
“Okay, we’re done here.”
“Fuck that,” Granny says. “You need this man. Worship this man. Make him all the sandwiches.”
Hannah lets me change in her apartment.
“My roommate and her boyfriend went camping. They’re either going to get engaged or break up.”
“I’d break up with any man that took me camping.”
“Even McCarthy?” Hannah has his photos up on the cracked screen of the TV, which is perched precariously on a laundry basket .
My stomach churns as I look at McCarthy’s handsome face with my dog. I chew my lip.
My friend is washing the kale in a bucket in the tiny bathroom.
“What if he’s serious?” I call.
“He’s not.”
I’m unsure.
“Is it totally outside of the realm of possibility that he is actually falling in love with me?”
“When people tell you who they are, believe them. McCarthy is telling you he’s wealthy, hot, and mentally unstable.”
“Maybe…” I chew on my lips, look at McCarthy smiling, his eyes a little crinkled from the sunlight in the photo. “Maybe he is serious?”
Hannah rushes out of the bathroom, dripping leaves of kale in hand.
“You’re not falling for him. You’re just horny,” she scolds. “You’ve been through a lot, and you’re confusing resentment, anger, and disdain for real feelings. It’s because you’re addicted to drama in relationships.”
“He wants me to make him the center of my universe.”
“He’s manipulative enough to know that you’ll happily jump off that particular cliff for him.” Hannah hands me the kale leaves then puts her hands on my shoulders.
“McCarthy knows you’ll take any man who shows you any sort of affection, even if in McCarthy’s case it’s borderline psychotic. You said he’s obsessed with your exes, right? He’s probably got a whole psychological profile on you. He knows exactly what buttons to push.”
“ You’re right. ” I gasp. “This is beyond cruel. It’s mean and evil. ”
The longer I think about it, the angrier I get.
“McCarthy doesn’t see me as a person. I’m just a cheap trinket to win, or a chess piece in a game to sacrifice.”
The charity ball is tonight. It’s now or never.
McCarthy’s not sacrificing me or my career in his unhinged games.
Gut twisting, hands clenched, I step into the dim penthouse study.
He stands there, ignoring me.
Truman is standing on his desk, barking at a bird outside the window.
“You give up already? You didn’t even last the day. I knew you’d give in to me. Not surprising.” McCarthy turns, and his gray eyes sweep down my outfit—nice and conservative to blend into the background at the charity ball.
“I thought you were going to wear something to impress me.” He steps up to me and trails his fingers under the demure capelet on my dress.
“Or is this supposed to be some sort of armor? You trying to hide yourself so your stalker doesn’t find you as enticing?
Silly girl. That’s never going to work. The only place you’re safe is with me. ”
“It’s funny. I almost think that you care.”
His hand drops to my waist.
“When are you finally going to beg for mercy?”
If my struggling PR career wasn’t on the line, I’d flip him off, call him names, then quit.
In two weeks, he’s turned me from a happy, bubbly person to an angry, bitter husk of a woman.
“I’m perfectly fine living in my car. ”
“You mean my car ,” he growls as he advances, leaning over me as I glare up at cold gray eyes.
“I’m not saving you from him until you admit you’re wrong, admit you need my help.”
Two weeks ago, I might have smiled at him, tried to crack a joke.
Now?
He can go to hell.
I slap a binder against his chest, ignoring the hard muscle under the soft wool of his suit.
“Pick a girlfriend, buddy. Deadline is tonight.”
His lip curls.
“Fine. As long as none of them are anything like you.”
I cross my arms.
He leans against the desk. “Are you going to stand there and watch me?” He flips idly through the binder.
“Women need time to get ready. The girl you pick needs to be notified immediately. You’re not going to run out the clock on this, McCarthy. I know your games.”
“Do you?” He tosses the binder onto his chair then backs me against the credenza, hands resting on either side of my hips.
I lean back, my head turning away from him.
“How about if I tell you I’m not the one playing right now? You are. Coming in here dressed like that, thinking you are in control. Like you don’t want me to fuck you in this office, tell you you’re mine, that I love you and I want to marry you.”
“You’re horrible and cruel.”
He leans in, just a pocket of heat between us. “Maybe you just need a little more motivation to do what you’re told.” Lips barely brush my skin.
I push him away to escape from the oppressive size of him.
“I don't need motivation. We shouldn’t have done… that .”
“ We didn’t do anything. You spread your pussy for me. You were practically begging me to come in your ass.”
“That… No… I—” My face is hot. “Let’s go over your options.” I sit down in the chair in front of his desk.
Bad move.
He leans over me, hands on either armrest. Now I really can’t escape. He kisses my collarbone, my neck, my cheek, then his lips close over my mouth.
I grab his hand.
I gasp against him as his fingers, punishing through the fabric, stroke me.
“Do you want me to bend down and eat you out?”
“No,” I slur, because that’s what good girls do—they say no to bad boys who offer sex.
“Hm.” He stands up abruptly.
I almost fall out of the chair.
“Then get out.” It’s a cold, casual dismissal.
“Not until you pick a—”
“You going to play with your tits and ride my cock? No? Then get out of my office.”
“Not until you select a girlfriend.” My voice doesn’t tremble. Well, not really.
He opens the binder at random and tears out a page. “This one.”
I take the headshot.
“Don’t be late tonight,” he calls after me. “I hear it's an important evening.”