Chapter 4
Chapter Four
It’s dark outside as I make my way into the gym. It’s five a.m., and most of the city is still asleep, but this is my golden hour—the time I get to start my daily schedule and get my heart pumping.
My life is structured, and that’s how I like it.
I wake at four a.m. and drink a protein shake while I check my work emails for anything extremely important.
I then head to the gym, where I work out for an hour while listening to a podcast or audiobook.
Then I shower, head home to change, eat breakfast, and head to the office.
I normally walk into the office by seven thirty a.m. and immediately get to work so that I can figure out my market positions before Wall Street opens, and then I make my trades.
I usually have endless meetings, work through lunch, and then head home at six p.m., where I make myself a meal before going on a date or meeting my friends at the club.
It’s a routine I’ve had for years, and I have never even considered changing it up. I’m a creature of habit, and I love it.
I make my way to the weights, but I can’t help but stop to glance at my phone and see if Katherine has responded to my text message. Still nothing. I’m annoyed. The last thing I need to be thinking about is Katherine Jenkins. With her long black hair and brown eyes, she is a captivating figure.
“Get it together, Jack,” I mumble to myself as I head over to the dumbbells to do some bicep curls. “She may be older now, but she still dated Zac. Not that the relationship lasted very long.” I laugh.
I still can’t believe how that relationship went down.
I can still picture my mom’s face when she exited the kitchen to find Katherine had left and she and Zac had broken up.
I almost went after her, but what would I have said?
Sorry for telling my brother to break up with you?
I was worried you’d be too much of a pussy to break up with him yourself, even though he was a dog?
I finish my reps and check my phone again. There’s still no text from Katherine, and so I decide to call Sebastian while I run on the treadmill.
“Dude, do you know what time it is?” He sounds annoyed when he answers the phone. “Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m at the gym, working out. What are you doing?”
“I’m still in bed, doofus.”
“With your wife?”
“No,” he grunts. “She spent the night at the apartment with the girls.” He sounds annoyed, which I understand.
What red-blooded man would want his hot wife sleeping elsewhere instead of in their marital bed?
I mean, they got married after knowing each other a week, and Sebastian had set her up, so it wasn’t the most conventional of marriages, but they have since figured it all out and are desperately in love …
with some thanks to me and my sleuthing.
“Oh wow. So, I guess she’s really going slow now …” I understand why, but I don’t want to upset Sebastian. He’s been my best friend since we were young, and I know him better than almost anyone else in his life. “You okay with that?”
“She spends most nights with me.” He sighs.
“Plus, her friends just got to the city, so she doesn’t want them to feel like they’re alone, so I get it.
Do I want her with me every night? Yes, but I’ll be patient.
” He sounds more awake now. “Also, what the hell is going on with you and Katherine? She dated Zac?”
“She did.” It’s my turn to grunt, and I up the pace on the treadmill to eight miles per hour so I can really get my heart racing. “They dated, like, eight years ago. It didn’t go well. He cheated and then dumped her. She felt scorned and blamed me.”
I don’t tell him the part where I’d met her first and how sexy I thought she was. Nor do I mention that we had a moment. Nothing actually happened, and I’m sure she doesn’t even remember.
“You made him dump her?”
“She’s exaggerating. She told him this lie about having to fly to LA to be in a Victoria’s Secret runway show, and I just …” My voice trails off as he laughs.
“She said she was a Victoria’s Secret model?” He chuckles. “How long ago was this again?”
“When she was a senior in high school. She was hot, for sure, but it was quite obvious that she was lying. I just didn’t want her or Zac wasting each other’s time. You know how it is … look what you did for Sergio.”
“Don’t mention my brat of a brother. I’m still not over his dramatics.” Sebastian sounds annoyed. “Do you know where that fool is now?”
“France? Wasn’t he with Louisa and Charlotte, having a ménage à trois?”
“He’s in bloody Australia now. He met some German girls who were traveling the world, and all of a sudden, he wants to hang out with kangaroos. I swear he’s going to drive me crazy.” Sebastian lets out some expletives and then a deep sigh. “But enough about Sergio. How’s Zac?”
“He’s opening a bar on the Lower East Side with two of his friends from Columbia, Tristan and Ray. Not sure if you remember them?”
“Vaguely, but good for him. Glad to hear he has more get-up-and-go than Sergio does. How’s the boutique hotel business going?”
“Good. I’m closing in on some new deals.
Stacey sent over some stats on some potential beach properties, as she knows I’m trying to get into the domestic travel side of the market.
The plan is to acquire a hundred different properties across five to seven states and then expand by fifty a year. So, we’ll see how it goes.”
“So, you’d be the ideal investor for the girls then,” Sebastian says with a chuckle. “Fancy investing in a bed-and-breakfast?”
“Katherine hates me, and the deal is too small for me.” I am only half joking. “Plus, I’m still waiting to hear their new business plan.”
“I think Willow said they’d be ready to pitch again in a couple of weeks”—I hear the sound of a fridge opening in the background, and my stomach growls—“so you can decide whether or not you want to invest then.”
“I’ll be there as long as Katherine doesn’t try and kill me. I texted her to see if she wanted to chat, but she didn’t respond. I don’t suppose Willow has told you what’s going on or anything.”
“No, she hasn’t. Do you want me to talk to her for you and see?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Best not to make it worse. I’ll wait to see what she has to say when I see her next. I find it amusing that she’s looking for investors though.”
“It’s crazy to me that Zac dated a girl from Whispering Haven,” Sebastian adds. “I had the feeling that you’d never even heard of the town before, back when I first met Willow.”
“Oh? I mean, it’s not really a town I know much about. I guess I forgot all about her. It wasn’t me who dated her, remember? It was Zac. I don’t even know if he still remembers her. It was so long ago.”
“That’s true. Though she’s so strikingly beautiful that I’m not sure I’d forget her face. I remember the first time I met her, I was blown away by her beauty.”
“Aren’t you married to her best friend?” I’m irritated by his words. I don’t want him appreciating how good she looks.
“I’m married to her best friend, Jack. It’s not like I want her for myself or anything. You have to admit, she’s cute.”
“I can’t say I ever really looked. She’s ten years younger than me.”
“She’s twenty-five now, Jack. The age gap matters much less now. You didn’t notice her at the meeting?”
“Before or after she yelled at me?” I chuckle, though the fact of the matter is that I very much noticed how she’d filled out and grown even more beautiful.
Her hair was longer, silkier; her breasts were larger, her curves more defined; and her lips …
well, her lips were sinful. I still periodically think about the way she sucked my thumb that day, so sensual and hot.
If we hadn’t been in my parents’ house, I would have slid her panties to the side and fucked her then and there.
She is easily the woman I’ve been the most attracted to in my entire life.
Yet she is off-limits to me. For many reasons—she is still much younger than me, she dated my brother, and she hates me.
Which serves me well, as I don’t need her fluttering her eyelashes at me and flirting with me again.
I can still remember that night in Tropez Dali, when she practically begged me to give her a chance.
But I don’t regret that I didn’t. The age gap meant a lot more eight years ago.
I would have violated my own rules and ethics then.
Though, now, she is definitely of age. I’ve dated many women in their twenties and thought nothing of it.
In fact, I even have a date later tonight with a twenty-six-year-old I met at a party Levi threw a few weeks ago.
Though, for the life of me, I can’t remember her name.
I’ll have to scroll through my phone again to find it.
“She was yelling at you for good reason.” Sebastian chuckles. “You ended her relationship.”
“It wasn’t going anywhere, trust me.” I laugh at myself. “And technically I think it was on death's door anyway.”
I don’t want to admit that another reason I told Zac to end it was because I wasn’t sure what else would have gone down between us if she’d stayed that weekend.
“Anyway, I have to go. I have to do some pull-ups, then head home to shower. I have a long day at the office today.”
“Sounds like a plan. You’ll be at the club tomorrow?”
“Of course. I try to never miss a week.” And that’s true.
Every week, the members of the Oxford Six—me, Sebastian, Levi, Santiago, Flynn, and Nate—meet at the exclusive Magnolia Club for drinks and dinner and to hang out.
We’ve been best friends since attending boarding school together as teens and all ended up at University of Oxford to get our master’s.
They are my best friends in the world, and I trust them all implicitly.
Spending time together is the highlight of all of our weeks, and we all make every effort to ensure we never miss a week.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. Talk later, Jack,” Sebastian says and then hangs up.
I spend another five minutes running on the treadmill, and then I jog for five minutes and stop.
I feel lighter after having spoken to Sebastian, but I’m still annoyed that Katherine hasn’t called nor texted me back.
I check my phone again, grimace at seeing no texts, and then scroll to remind myself of the name of my date this evening.
“Pritha,” I mumble to myself as I see her name. “Pritha, Pritha, Pritha.” I repeat it over and over again so I can’t forget it.
I try to picture her face, but all I can see in my mind are Katherine’s stormy brown eyes as she tells me off.
“Focus, Jack.” I lecture myself as I decide to leave the gym early and head to the locker room. “Pritha is perfect for you. She’s an accountant. Went to Wharton for business school. Travels the world frequently. And she’s told you she’s not looking for a relationship.”
She’s perfect.
I try to picture her face again, and instead, I see Katherine, pouting and flirting and telling me to be a good boy.
“Fuck it.” I grimace as I grab my duffel bag and head out of the gym.
I feel bad about lying to Sebastian about my past with Katherine.
I feel bad about pretending to not remember Whispering Haven.
And I feel bad for not being able to get Katherine out of my mind.
I always wondered if I’d ever see her again, but I didn’t expect it would be quite like this.
I didn’t expect she’d be quite so mad. And I didn’t expect she’d be so damn sexy.
All I know is that I don’t have time in my schedule to worry about it. She is my past—and not even a big part of it—and I am positive that neither one of us wants her to be in my future.