Fourteen
Isat in the chair across from Dane and waited. I hoped my look conveyed how annoyed I was.
“What?” he finally asked, and I could hear the irritation.
“Are you going to tell me or do you want me to beg?”
“Beg.”
“I don’t wanna,” I snapped, pushing out my chair and throwing the files I had in my lap onto his desk.
Since he had walked in the door, he’d been an ass.
I’d greeted him, and all I got was a grunt.
I’d been bouncing off the walls to hear about his trip, and he was giving me the silent treatment for whatever reason.
I wasn’t going to sit there and take it a second longer, as I could barely keep from yelling.
“Don’t you dare get up!” he ordered me sharply.
“Or what?” I snapped back.
“Or don’t ever come back.”
I was stunned. “You’re gonna fire me?”
“Yes,” he said in a low-voiced growl.
“Huh.”
I considered what he’d said. I sat there, not moving, thinking through my options, and though telling him to go to hell was tempting, I instead scooted back in.
A moment of bravado would kill our friendship for all time.
It wasn’t worth it. The fact that he was counting on me to back down so he could save face was annoying beyond words, but this was my role.
I was the one who gave in; he was the one who pressed.
So I replaced the files in my lap and looked over at him.
His eyes were like pieces of ice, so cold, so clear.
“Okay, so I’ll wait till you’re ready.”
“And if that’s never?”
God, he was really hoping for a knock-down, drag-out fight, and I had no idea why.
“Then it’s never,” I said simply, shrugging for emphasis. “Whatever you want.”
Dark eyes regarded me.
“Will I be sitting here until the Rapture?” I prodded him.
“I need you to call Claude Upton for me.”
I was certain that my long, dramatic sigh could be heard out in the lobby.
He was glaring at me after that. “You have a problem?”
I rolled my eyes dramatically. “No, sir. What shall I ask Mr. Upton?”
He stared at me a long moment.
“Well?” I prompted him.
“Nothing. Go back to your desk.”
So I did as I was told and sat there across from Joanna Belian, our new typist. She was very nice, easily in her late sixties, and had brought along some lovely pictures of her grandchildren.
“Is it Jordan?” she asked me after a moment.
“It’s Jory.” I smiled back, correcting her gently.
“Your boss is quite a looker, even though he’s got ice around the edges.”
“Does he?”
“Oh yes, dear,” she assured me. “Cold is the word I’d use.”
“I think he’s just—” I began, but when the office door opened and he leaned out of the doorway, I went mute.
“Do you want to know what happened or not?” he asked me irritably.
I threw up my hands. “I have no idea what you even want me to say at this point.”
He gestured for me, and I got up and went into his office. When I turned around, he walked over to the leather couch and flopped down on it. I couldn’t help scowling. He never flopped; he always sat gracefully.
“What?” He sounded both terse and impatient.
“You’re being so weird.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah.” I over-enunciated the word for him. “Like, absolutely insane. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Yes,” he corrected me.
“Whatever,” I said dismissively.
He looked up at me for a long minute. “Awfully confident today.”
“Were you serious before? Do you really want me to beg?”
He sighed before leaning forward, clasping his hands. “No.”
“Then?”
“I’m mad at myself and taking it out on you because I can.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you also sorry for not calling me yesterday when you got back into town like you promised you would?”
He groaned.
“Well?”
“Yes. I’m sorry for that as well.”
I tilted my head back and forth, taking that in. “Is all this because you don’t wanna talk about the trip, but you should, and you’re not ready to discuss it with your friends.”
“That’s right.”
It made sense now. “Okay,” I said, taking a breath. “Why’re you mad at yourself?”
“Because I allowed myself to be pressured into making the trip.”
“Or maybe you were just curious.”
“That too, but mostly I felt, for whatever reason, that I should. As though I owed that to my biological parents.”
“I think that’s human, don’t you?”
He huffed out a breath and leaned back on his couch.
“Maybe if you tell me just the facts, you’ll feel better.”
“Why?”
“Because then, when you tell Jude, it won’t be the first time, and that might be easier.”
He thought about that a moment and then leaned forward again, holding my gaze. “Get the chair.”
Crossing back to his desk, I picked up the chair I’d been sitting in earlier and carried it over to the couch, putting it down in front of him and then taking a seat. “Hit me.”
“So I took a cab from the airport to their place in Mesquite, and the house is huge. I don’t know what I was thinking, but for some reason I imagined them poor.”
I tried to keep my face blank.
He exhaled suddenly. “Go ahead.”
“What?”
“You have questions already.”
“No, no, no.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Go on.”
He nodded. “Well, I get to the door, ring the bell, and Caleb Reid answers and he invites me in. I dump everything in the foyer and—what?” he grumbled at me.
“What?” I looked at him hard.
“You smiled.”
“I smiled?”
“Yes. You smiled. Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes. Why are you smiling?”
“I can’t smile?”
“I will murder you.”
He got another smile over that comment. “Sorry. You said foyer. You’re the only person I know who would use the word foyer when they’re telling a story.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” he groaned. “Try and focus for once.”
“Yeah…sorry. Go on, go on.”
Quick breath. “All right, so I drop my stuff, and then I walk into the living room and she’s right there, sitting on the couch. There’s no adjustment time or announcement—I’m just suddenly face-to-face with my birth mother.”
“Oh shit.”
“Well said.”
“What did she say?”
“She said hello.”
“And? Go on, you’re killing me here.”
“She wanted me to sit by her on the couch, and I did. I didn’t want to hold her hand, but I could tell she did, so I did. I actually thought, what would Jory do if he were here?” He smiled suddenly, and his eyes were soft.
And at that moment, with the weight of his gaze on me, I got it.
In my life he was the constant. Everything else changed, but Dane Harcourt remained.
When I had been glib the night at the police station, wished them good luck finding anyone I loved, they’d needed to look no further than my boss.
I admired the man, I was devoted to him and his welfare, and I just plain old loved him.
Not lust—I didn’t want to sleep with him—but he was like the big brother I’d never had and had always wanted. He was my family.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I shook my head.
“So should I keep going?”
“Yes, yes, go, go.”
“All right.” He sighed deeply. “Well, I held her hand, and she starts telling me how much she didn’t want to give me up and blah, blah, blah—”
“Boss!”
“What? It’s the truth. I sort of tuned out. I mean, I didn’t do it intentionally, but I stopped listening because I realized that I really, truly don’t care.”
“How d’ya mean?”
“I mean, what is she going to say? What do I want her to say? What does it matter? My parents, the ones who raised me, are my parents. That will never change. She gave birth to me, but it doesn’t make her my mother.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I was polite. I listened to what she said, and I did the right thing and told her that none of it mattered and that everything turned out all right.”
“Did you meet your father too?”
“I did. He looked terrible.”
“I feel sorry for him. He didn’t even get a say in whether to keep you or not.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“What did he say?”
“Something very similar to what you just said, actually.”
“Huh.”
“He wants to come here and visit me.”
“Oh. That’s interesting. What’d you say?”
“I said we would see.”
“Do you look like him?”
“A bit. They showed me family photos, and I actually look like his father.”
“He must be gorgeous.”
“Oh?”
“Stop. You know what you look like.”
“Do I?”
I motioned for him to continue.
Flashing smile then, eyes firing as he spoke. “Are you embarrassed?”
“Can you just go on before I kill you?”
“Not very friendly.”
“Please,” I snapped at him.
“We talked some more, and I told them both that if there was anything I could do for either of them, they shouldn’t hesitate to call me.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Did you stay for dinner?”
“I did not, no.”
“Did they invite you?”
“They did.”
“Did they offer you a beverage?”
He squinted at me. “Of course.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Since when do you ask me?”
“Okay, that’s fair.” I nodded. “Why didn’t you ask your mother why she gave you up?”
“It hardly matters now.”
“I think it matters to you.”
“I think it matters to you,” he said mockingly. “And the why is fairly obvious, is it not?”
“Is it?”
“She was young, Jory. Too young to have a baby.”
I crossed my arms.
“Oh, do share what you’re thinking.”
“Not if you’re going to be like that.”
“I suspect, because you seem to always believe that you know what’s best for me in every instance, that you have an opinion on this matter.”
“Better than you,” I muttered under my breath.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing.”
“Jory.”
I glared at him.
“What? Speak,” he commanded.
“I think I know what you should do.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“And what is that?”
“You need to go back and ask all your questions in case you end up not seeing them ever again.”
“I won’t see them ever again,” he confirmed.
“Crap.”
“So you see, I won’t be asking any more questions.”
“We could go back.”
“Why, so you can take notes?”
It wasn’t a bad idea. “The sarcasm is not lost on me.”
We were silent for several minutes.
“Look at me,” he finally said.
“I am looking at you.”
“No, look at me.”
I looked into the dark gray eyes of my boss, and saw the flecks of silver like always. “What am I looking for?”
“Do you truly believe that this can mean anything anymore?”
“Maybe.”
“Jory, are we friends?”