Chapter 23 Lexi
LEXI
The change in his tone convinced me. He was no longer commanding, but asking. So I rested my head against his shoulder as we sat catching our breath.
My gaze fell on the coffee thermos on his desk. Of all the flashy things in his life, this one looked out of place. “Why is your coffee thermos so old?”
He followed my gaze to the old stainless-steel coffee thermos, the kind made long before sleek travel mugs took over.
“Because it’s my mom’s,” he said, unable to hide the vulnerability that crept into his voice. He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel him making the choice to continue. “When I was four, my mom gave me up,” he said finally, while I rested my head on his shoulder.
A muscle in his jaw tightened, and it looked like this conversation was something that was costing him a lot to bring up.
“She believed it was for my benefit. But …” He looked the most vulnerable I’d ever seen, and a shadow of his younger self flashed across his face briefly.
“I found out later that the guilt of giving me up weighed too heavily on her. She became an alcoholic and drank herself to death.”
His voice broke slightly on the last words. “This thermos is something I carry with me to remind me of her. Of what I lost.”
I’d heard about his father before, but this was the first time I’d heard him talk about his mother.
“Was she your dad’s first wife?” I asked gently.
Jonah shook his head. “My dad was married to Cora when he had an affair with an employee and I was born. I spent the first four years of my life with my mother in Dallas.” He drew in a deep breath and I recognized that it was the second time I was hearing about the city of Dallas that day.
“Once my dad found out about my existence, he demanded I be raised in his home, and my mother gave in. She was a single mom with two jobs, and I suspect I was just a burden, of no use to have around.”
A bitter note crept into his voice while my heart ached for the younger Jonah. I hoped I would never make Evie feel that way.
“When did she die?”
He was quiet for so long I thought he might not answer. “Twenty-nine years ago. She passed away when I was ten.”
So he never even had a chance at a relationship with her. Good grief. It changed the way I looked at Jonah. He was invincible to the world, but I could see the cracks within him.
“Dallas,” I said, remembering something from Rafael’s conversation earlier. “Were you in Dallas recently for her?”
Jonah met my gaze and nodded. “I bought the house she used to live in. Everything’s the same in there–her furniture, and her things.
I have a cleaner who comes in weekly to maintain it.
And every year on the day Mom died, which was over the weekend, I make a trip out there.
To… apologize and to try to remember what she sounded like, or smelled like. To remember her in some way.”
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” I said, cupping his cheek and forcing him to look at me. I couldn’t imagine a mom giving up a child, and I certainly couldn’t imagine the trauma a child would go through to be separated from their primary parent.
Jonah was like a silo, operating independently and alone. It ought to hurt, not having the kind of support that family could give. I knew a little of how that felt since I had a difficult Mom myself. But I also had Evie. At the end of the day, I loved her fiercely, and she loved me right back.
“So, without understanding why, at the age of four, I moved in with my dad and Cora. Cora wasn’t happy about it, but my dad had his way.
However, she has never forgiven me for being a daily reminder of my father’s transgressions.
” He paused, his voice growing quieter. “I never saw my mother again. Cora didn’t want her involved in my dad’s life in any way, and my mother agreed to stay away. ”
I watched the pain flicker across his features as I looked at him, noticing the tension in his face.
“Fat lot of good it did, staying away. Cora wasn’t any nicer to me for it, and I never got a chance to get to know my mom.”
He stopped speaking, looking like it was taking all his energy to talk about it. “Did Cora make your childhood miserable?” I asked, getting incensed at the idea of that woman taking her unjustified hatred out on a child.
Jonah shook his head with a weary smile. “I don’t want you to worry about it, Lexi. It’s in the past now.”
Which meant she absolutely had made his childhood a misery. God, I hated that woman.
“Speaking of Cora, do you know why she was here today?”
Jonah’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“I saw her here today. She was on my floor, using the restrooms there. She smiled at me when she saw me, like she wasn’t surprised. But I was shocked. And that was a good few minutes before I spotted your thermos.”
Jonah put his head in his hands. “Did Cora see you coming up here?”
I shook my head, remembering how I’d felt the older woman’s eyes follow me while I walked back to my desk alone. “No, she didn’t.”
“Fuck,” Jonah growled.
“What’s going on?” I asked, worried.
“Lexi,” Jonah said, his voice quieter now, “Cora’s been trying to push me out of the CEO role at my Dad’s company.
She’s subtle about it, but it’s constant.
She wants her nephew to be CEO instead, and won’t waste an opportunity to drop these little comments in front of the board.
Jabs about me being too emotional or too personally involved. ”
A knot rose in my throat, sharp and aching. Damn. I hated that someone was working so deliberately to unsettle him.
And she’d zeroed in on our … attraction?
“If she was here, digging up details about you, it means she’s going to try to use it against me to push me out of my job.
She’s friendly with the board of directors.
She’s figured out that we’re seeing each other, and she knows you’re an employee.
She has all the ammo she needs. The question is, when she will act on it. ”
I felt my heart race. My job would be done for if news of our date got out. And going by Jonah’s assessment of Cora, she would do everything she could to take him down with it.
“The only saving grace is that Cora just saw us together once,” Jonah continued, his mind clearly working through the angles. “I can spin that as a one-time dinner that won’t repeat. We’re lucky she didn’t see you coming up here. Because then we’d definitely be in trouble.”
“What does this mean for us?” I asked, realizing as I asked it, that now that I was finally willing to embrace the idea of us, there might no longer be a possibility of it.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we couldn’t say.
Jonah ran a hand through his hair, his expression pained. His hand reached out, hesitating for just a moment before his fingers gently brushed my cheek.
“What this means is,” he said slowly, his voice rough with frustration and something deeper. “I need to get to the bottom of this. To understand what Cora wants and undo whatever leverage she thinks she has. And we need to keep our distance at work until I can handle this.”
I stood up, backing away from him a few steps, and he followed reluctantly, as if it physically pained him to put distance between us.
I turned and made for the door. When I reached for the handle, I hesitated. I turned back, and his jaw was still tight, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
“Lexi, I—” He started, then stopped himself, his throat working as he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say.
“Trust me. Give me a few days. I’ll take care of this.
I promise.” The dejection in his eyes told me how much this cost him.
“You’re not something I’m willing to lose. Not to Cora, not to anyone.”
I stared at him for a moment, unable to process his words.
I had spent a considerable amount of time with Dylan and my mom, both of whom were people I couldn’t trust. With Jonah, I trusted him completely—I believed he wanted to fix this.
But unfortunately for me, he was the wrong person for me at this time.
The world wouldn’t approve of us. And even with the best intentions, some things couldn’t be fixed.
What if Cora’s threat was too big? What if even after my internship ended, the damage would already be done?
I didn’t know what to believe anymore, and I didn’t want to stay around watching him try to solve the unsolvable. I didn’t want to ruin myself further emotionally by hoping for something impossible.
I opened the door and strode out, past a startled Kacie as I raced for the stairwell, where I let the tears fall freely.