Fourteen #2
Apparently, I needed to do a lot more of that.
“What if Fal doesn’t wanna be on board?”
“Then he’s an idiot.”
“But I committed to a new job, Dane.”
“Did you sign a contract?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not committed yet, Jory, and Dylan’s idea about consulting or freelancing or whatever you’re calling it sounds like it would benefit you as much as Benchmark.”
“God.”
“And maybe Benchmark would like to house the consultants in those new offices they’re building.”
“No.”
“You don’t know. You will have to wait and see the breadth of Fallon’s vision as well as that of Benchmark. People will surprise you, Jory. You just have to have the courage to take that leap of faith.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because no one can infuse you with belief in yourself. Confidence comes from within.”
“That’s very Zen of you.”
“One tries.”
I tried to calm my racing heart. “How’s Aja?”
“Apparently, you are to come home and help her paint the nursery.”
“I will.”
“Why can’t painters be hired?”
“Because you ask your family to help out, Dane, to make sure that it gets done with love.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
He grunted.
And I got it that we were talking about baby rooms and business loans all at the same time. He was very sneaky.
“Okay.” I gave in.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I hear you.”
“Do you?”
“You’re amazing.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And arrogant.”
“Again, I’ve been informed.”
“I’ll see you when I get home.”
“I do not expect you home for another week, Jory. Don’t test me.”
“I won’t.”
“Do let me know what Fallon Strauss decides.”
“You know who Fallon is?”
“I know everything, Jory.”
God, he really did.
“I’m really sorry that I couldn’t be there to help you train Pedro.”
“As I said before, Pedro knows the office and knows what he’s doing. He didn’t need you here. And this way, I can see him like I should, without you as a safety net.”
“But still, I promised you I would be there.”
“You found me a new assistant, which was what you had assured me you would do. That was what I really needed—your commitment and the execution of your word.”
“Okay.”
“Everything all settled?”
It always was after I talked to Dane.
I hung up, rolled out of the bed, and walked to the patio doors and threw them open. It was another beautiful day in paradise, with the sun and the breeze and the clouds and the deep blue of the ocean. I sucked fragrant air into my lungs and felt my whole life shift back to center.
After I showered and changed, I took my phone and headed over to the main house to get some breakfast. It took me a second to make sure I was awake when I saw Hayes Fisher sitting at a table with Aaron and Jaden and another man I didn’t know.
“Jory,” Hayes said, getting up, crossing the room to me.
What the hell?
“What’re you doing in Hawai’i?” he asked me.
“I could ask you the same question.”
He shrugged. “A friend of mine, Burke Ellis, invited me to spend the weekend with him and his buddies from college, and since I fired Synergy, I figured, what the hell?”
“You fired Synergy?” I asked as he took a step closer to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Yes, I did.”
I grinned at him. “They don’t find nice guys, huh, only nice girls?”
“Yes, you were right. You’re very perceptive.”
“Yeah, well, I bet you didn’t get your deposit back from them.”
“No, I didn’t, but it really—what in the hell are you doing here?”
So, I explained about lying low, out of the way of a psychotic drug dealer, and how I knew Aaron Sutter.
“You used to date Aaron Sutter of Sutter Industries, Sutter Acquisitions, Sutter that builds hotels and skyscrapers all over the world?”
“Yep.”
“God, no wonder you weren’t impressed when I told you I was rich. Compared to him, I’m not.”
I shrugged. “I don’t give a crap about money.”
“Yes, Jory, I know that,” he said dryly.
“Tell me someone is still going to renovate your house though.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You say of course, but …”
“Yes, Jory, it should be done by the time I get home in two weeks.”
“Great. You’ll have to let me see it or at least send me pictures.”
“Jory, I would love for you to spend lots of time with—”
“Jory!”
I leaned around Hayes, and Aaron was doing his imperial wave, the one where everyone, including me, needed to get over to him fast. I squinted at him.
“Jory, let me talk to you,” Hayes began.
“Oh, for the love of God, come here!” Aaron yelled at me.
I gave Hayes a quick pat on the arm and scooted by him to get to Aaron. When I was close enough, he grabbed my hand and pulled me down so I had to squat next to his chair.
“Yes, my liege?”
“Oh, fuck you,” he groused at me, hand fisting in the back of my hair. “How do you know Hayes Fisher?”
“I was working at Synergy, and we were hired to find him a woman.”
Jaden’s gasp was loud.
“I’m sorry, what?” the man across from Aaron said right before he started choking on his water.
I laughed and rose up, wrapping my arms around Aaron’s neck and squeezing tight. I kissed his cheek when I leaned back and apologized for the night before.
“Oh, no, that was my fault,” he said, his eyes soft.
“No, it was mine,” I said, easing free now that he was hugging me back, leaning sideways to kiss Jaden’s cheek before I got up and started for the buffet.
“Wait,” he called after me.
I stopped, and he stood, catching up with me as Hayes went to the table and was greeted with a volley of questions from Burke Ellis, who I was pretty sure had invited him along for a weekend to Hawai’i not because they were just friends.
He might have wanted Hayes to meet his friends, but he had romance on his brain, or his reaction to my announcement that Hayes was bi would not have been met with a near-death experience.
He was still coughing from swallowing water down the wrong hole.
“Jory,” Jaden said softly, “what were you apologizing for?”
“I was a little needy last night, and I put Aaron in a bad situation. I’m sorry.”
“He didn’t say he saw you last night.”
“Because he didn’t want to embarrass me,” I told him, which was sort of the truth because the fact that I had let him touch me, even a little, was bad.
“Oh.”
“I want pancakes,” I told him. “What about you?”
“What bad situation did you put him in?”
“I sort of flirted, and I’m sorry, Jaden. Please forgive me.”
He was studying my face.
“Can we get past it?”
“He stopped you or you stopped him?”
“There was no stopping,” I lied because no good could come from it, “because nothing started. It was just flirting.”
“Are you going to tell Detective Kage?”
“Of course.”
“Will he forgive you?”
Sam would be mad that I had been alone with Aaron Sutter, but he would forgive me because it had ended with me needing him. He always liked that.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I forgive you, Jory, because we both know if you told Aaron right now that you wanted him back and wanted to go to bed with him, he would give me a nice settlement and put me on a plane tomorrow.”
“That’s bullshit,” I told him. “You are everything I wasn’t. Don’t kid yourself.”
“What?” he scoffed. “I allow myself to be kept, and you didn’t? I hardly think that qualifies.”
I squinted at him.
“You know, Hayes Fisher was looking at me this morning, and I saw him, you know, checking me out, but when I smiled at him, he apologized and said that I reminded him of someone else. Well, now I know who he meant.”
I didn’t want to argue. I wanted to eat. “I’m gonna have banana pancakes.”
The way he was looking at me, like I was nuts, made me smile.
Back at the table, I thanked the server for the coffee and guava juice she brought me. It was strange; I had Aaron on my right and Hayes on my left.
“So, Jory,” Burke Ellis said, “why did you leave Synergy?”
“I was fired,” I said, smiling at him.
He looked horrified. “Oh.”
“It’s okay. I had to figure some things out, and you gotta take the good with the bad, you know?”
“I do know,” he said with a nod, eyes on mine.
I ate and ate, and when I was still eating, Jaden asked if I was bottomless.
“Dane thinks I have a tapeworm.” I smiled at him.
“Is Dane your boyfriend?” Burke asked me.
“My brother,” I said with my mouth full.
“His brother is Dane Harcourt,” Aaron supplied. “The architect.”
“Oh my God, are you kidding?” Burke turned to look at Hayes. “Haven’t you been waiting for, like, six months to see that man?”
He nodded. “Yes, I have, and we had breakfast together not too long ago, he and I, because of Jory.”
“Oh, how wonderful.”
“Yes, it was,” Hayes agreed, hand on my back. “You’re going to go into a food coma, you know.”
I nodded, but didn’t stop eating.
“Jory, we’re all heading down to the beach after this. You should join us,” Burke offered.
And the idea of lying around, baking under the hot sun, was appealing, but I didn’t want to do any more intruding than I already had.
“I think I’m gonna take a walk into town and look for stuff to take home.”
“You can do that later,” Burke told me. “Come veg at the beach.”
“We’re all going snorkeling,” Jaden told me. “You should come.”
“Not me, no, thank you,” I told them. “I had enough of the big blue yesterday.”
“What do you mean?” Hayes asked me.
“I think the ocean put me on the right path already. Any more is just tempting fate.”
“Do you even know what you’re talking about?”
I finally did.
I spent the day alone, which was good because when Fallon called and said that, yes, he’d roll the dice with me, take a chance and dive in the deep end, I was able to celebrate with shaved ice and sushi, which was all I wanted to do.
The details—and there were a million—we would do together when I got home.
But he liked me, he liked Dylan, and even better, Benchmark liked the idea of paying us when we made something happen and not all the time.
I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, but it felt good, right.
And when I called, out of the blue, to tell Aubrey, she was thrilled too.
“Rick and I have decided we’re going to start trying to have kids,” she told me.