Chapter 7
JESSE
The first thing out of my mouth probably wasn’t my best work. “Are you stalking me?”
Strangely, Jacqueline didn’t even look surprised, and I wasn’t sure if that meant I should be impressed or concerned. She just took a sip of her iced coffee like being accused of stalking in a public park was just another Tuesday.
“Yes, I am,” she said after swallowing the sip she’d just taken. “I flew across the Atlantic, secured a position at one of the most competitive firms in Chicago, and orchestrated this entire moment just to sit on a bench near you.”
I nodded slowly. “Good to know. I just wanted to confirm.”
She gave me a mildly incredulous look and shook her head. “Boy, you really are full of yourself.”
I grinned. “Hey, you have to love yourself first, right? Otherwise, no one else will. Or whatever it is people say about that. What are you really doing in Chicago, then? I’m assuming you didn’t actually come all the way here just for me.”
“I work here now,” she said after pausing for a moment. “I did mention the competitive firm, didn’t I?”
“Sure, but doing what? You just said you secured a position, but it could be consulting. A temporary thing.”
“It’s not.” She glanced at me like she was debating how much effort I was worth. “It’s at a law firm.”
“Well, that’s vague,” I said cheerfully.
She shrugged. “On purpose.”
I laughed and shook my head, leaning back against the bench and settling in next to the siren I definitely shouldn’t be seeking out more time with. God, in her pencil skirt and fancy jacket, her dark hair pulled back into a low, professional bun, she was even hotter than I remembered.
Business Barbie. But the darker, more exotic version. I like it way too much.
“Alright,” I said, desperately needing to distract myself from how that jacket buttoned right under her boobs like it was framing them just for me. “I’ll play. Let me guess.”
She didn’t stop me, which I took as an encouraging sign. I deliberately let my gaze drift over her once more, careful to make it look like I was simply checking for clues instead of checking her out.
“Law, right? I’m going to say, corporate?” I tried.
Her eyebrows hiked up a little. “Maybe.”
I smirked, finally glancing away from her and mentally running through the big firms I knew of who had offices in this neighborhood. “Ellis & Addeson?”
Her gaze snapped directly to mine this time, suspicion suddenly flickering behind it. “How could you possibly know that?”
I smirked. “Because they’re a pain in my ass sometimes, but they’re also one of the best corporate firms in the city and you said the firm you work for is competitive.”
“You know them?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I do. Alex has been moving more and more of our work to them because he wants them firmly in our corner instead of against us all the damn time. It was the obvious choice for you. Especially because they’re right down the block.”
Definite pride settled on her features, her lips pursing just a little bit and a sudden hint of smugness in her gaze. “I see.”
“Yeah, but that also means that you’re not just a lawyer. You’re a pretty damn good one. I’m impressed. You’re not just a pretty face.”
She didn’t smile or argue, just giving me another shrug before turning her attention back to the greenery surrounding us. I glanced at my watch out of habit, then back at her when I realized I needed to be getting back soon.
“You should have dinner with us tonight,” I said. “Jane and Alex are hosting a family meal. You can meet the rest of the Chicago brood of Westwoods. We can welcome you to the city.”
She rolled her eyes so hard that I was genuinely impressed. “Thanks, but that’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Wow. Tell me, Jacqueline, what do you have against your own family that you’d react like that to a simple dinner invitation?”
For some reason, that made her laugh, but the sound was completely devoid of warmth. When she looked at me again, I got the feeling she thought that the question had been deeply naive. “The Westwoods are not my family. They never have been.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“My mother simply had the misfortune of bearing their last name,” she said, her voice suddenly curt. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s where it ends.”
“Well, now you’re going to have to elaborate,” I said immediately. “I don’t know about our family on the other side of the pond, but around here, we’re actually pretty close.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t have to and I won’t.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“You can’t just drop something like that and—”
“Watch me.”
I groaned, taking a second to try and decide if pushing further would get me anywhere, but it probably wouldn’t and I’d already had a day.
If I was going to get only these few minutes to spend with her, I didn’t particularly want to spend them obviously pissing her off.
But damn, did I ever want to know what made her hate our family so venomously.
Jacqueline stood up, brushing imaginary dust from her skirt before sliding a purse over her shoulder. “Well, this was unexpected, but I have to get back to work.”
“Sure,” I muttered. “I guess I’ll just see you around.”
She spun and started walking away, but stopped only a few steps later, turning to look back at me over her shoulder. For a brief moment, I thought maybe she was going to take me up on the dinner invitation, but instead, her gaze flicked down to the folded newspaper still in my hand.
“Why are you, a man in your thirties in the year 2026, still reading that?”
I shrugged, flipping it open and angling it toward her to show my face plastered across the center page.
“I have a weird kink about knowing exactly what everyone thinks about me and my transgressions at all times. I’ll tell you, you date one mayor’s daughter and suddenly everyone loses their minds. ”
She stared at it for a second, then brought her gaze back to mine and smiled.
It wasn’t a full, open smile, to be fair, but just that small, coy curve of her mouth made me forget what I was going to say next.
My brain understood that she should be off limits, but my body lit up like the Fourth of July.
“That’s interesting,” she said lightly, then spun back around and disappeared into the lunchtime pedestrian traffic.
I watched her go and appreciated the view the entire time. Sue me.
Once she was completely out of sight, I stood and crossed the short distance to the recycling bin, tossing the newspaper into it. Whatever the press thought they knew, they didn’t, and right about now, that was a damn good thing.
Forcing myself to mentally change gears as I walked back to the office, I did my best to focus on the grind rather than the gorgeous woman I had no business yearning for. I didn’t make it three steps inside the building before Zach fell into stride beside me.
“Tell me you didn’t get ambushed by Alex this morning,” he said without even pretending to care about hello or how are you. “He was on a rampage when I got in.”
I glanced at him, catching the edge in his tone. “I wish I could tell you that, but I can’t. I got the full performance. He was so passionate, he might even win an award.”
Zach exhaled sharply and shoved a hand into his hair. “He’s been up my ass for weeks and now it’s like he wants me married yesterday.”
I snorted. “Yesterday? How generous of him.”
Zach groaned. “It’s relentless, man.”
“Well, as it happens, you’ve come to the right place,” I said. “I have a solution for you.”
“A solution?” He gave me a wary look. “I don’t know if I like that tone.”
“You don’t have to like it. I guarantee this solution works.”
“I don’t have a twin to send in as a substitute,” he said “Somehow, I don’t think that solution will work for me like it did for you and Will.”
“Then it’s a good thing that’s not actually the solution. Just be as much of a slut as possible and Alex will get so far off your ass, he’ll forbid you from marrying altogether.”
Zach blinked a few times in rapid succession, clearly taken aback, but I supposed I didn’t blame him. Unlike the rest of us—and that included Alex and every single last one of our cousins in California—Zach wasn’t making the best of his days as a bachelor by being a man-whore. He was a good kid.
“That’s your advice?” He scoffed. “I actually thought you were serious for a change.”
“I am serious. It’s worked for me so far, hasn’t it?”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Your head was on the chopping block last year.”
“Yeah, but then it got taken off the chopping block, and then having an active social life definitely delayed it being put back on there.”
Zach shook his head. “I don’t think I have a slutty bone in my body, Jesse.”
“Everyone has at least one.”
“No,” he said flatly. “They don’t.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I guess you might be right. You’re a romantic. You always have been and you always will be.”
He didn’t deny it, but his jaw tightened slightly, his gaze dropping ahead of us as we moved through the lobby. My little brother had made the mistake of falling in love young. Then he’d gotten his heart smashed to pieces and I wasn’t sure he had ever fully recovered.
He didn’t talk about her at all. Hell, he hadn’t even said her name in years.
“You’ll figure it out,” I said finally, not in the mood to unpack Zach’s emotional trauma just after lunch. “Give it some thought, though. You might like it if you try it.”
“Being a slut?” He scoffed again. “I doubt it.”
We stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut and both of us fell silent for a beat before he turned to me again. “Are you going to dinner tonight?”
“I’m not sure.” I leaned a shoulder against the mirrored wall and crossed my arms. “I’m strongly considering skipping it.
Dad is in the Maldives, fully enjoying his retirement and living his best life.
I thought that meant we’d finally have some peace around here, but Alex is really taking this whole overbearing patriarch thing to the next level. ”
Zach grimaced. “He really is leaning into it. He’s going to gray early.”
“He’s going to blow a gasket,” I said dryly.
The elevator doors opened. As we stepped out, falling into step toward our respective offices, Zach paused. “Colin Thayer’s going to be at dinner, if that helps.”
“In that case, I might make a brief appearance. For Colin. Not Alex. I haven’t seen him for a while. I wouldn’t mind catching up with him.”
Zach nodded, lifting his hand in a wave as he disappeared down the hall. I turned toward my own office, but my mind was firmly settled on the woman I’d stumbled across sitting on that bench with an iced coffee and an attitude problem.
The Westwoods are not my family. I exhaled slowly as the words echoed through my mind.
There was a story there, and I was dying to know what had happened to make her hate our family so much. Maybe a few nights with me would change her opinion.