Chapter 4
Four
December, Six Years Ago
Wyatt
Naturally, Hollis is late.
My younger brother’s the one who signed us up for a wintertime jump into a large body of water, and it sounds way less fun if Holly’s not joining me in the misery.
And since I left my phone in the car to keep it safe from the freezing embrace of Lake Beaucoeur, I can’t even call to yell at him for flaking.
“Okay, polar bear plungers!” a chippy young organizer shouts. “Let’s head out!”
Resigning myself to tackling this challenge solo, I pick up my bag and sling my towel over my arm so I can join the group of thirty or so other people crazy enough to brave the freezing water at the crack of dawn in Illinois in late December.
The wind slaps me in the face when I step out of the lakeside restaurant that’s serving as our staging area and the post-plunge warming center.
“Goddamn,” I gasp as goose bumps crawl over my skin. Had I been looking forward to testing my limits when it comes to extreme temps? I was wrong. I am not a polar bear, and my balls are already trying to retreat into my body.
As annoyed as I am at my reliably unreliable brother, it’s not unexpected.
I’ve always been the loner Jones brother.
The surly one who doesn’t attract friends or women or attention like Holly’s done effortlessly his whole life.
Now, apparently, I’m the loner Jones brother risking permanent shrinkage during this fundraiser for the Beaucoeur women’s shelter. That’s my lot in life, I suppose.
Mercifully, the walk to the pier is a short one, but before I can set my bundle of dry clothes down a safe distance from the splash zone, a breathless voice cuts through the quiet murmurs of my fellow plungers.
“Wait! I’m coming! Don’t jump without me!”
A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature races down my spine.
I know that voice. I’ve spent the last year trying to forget all about that voice and its treacherous snake of an owner.
“Whew! Made it!” A soft body bumps against me, and I know without having to look that it’s CJ slipping into the lineup. “Who’s ready to—” She glances up at me, and her voice cuts off in a strangled croak. “Wyatt.”
I shove my hands into the pockets of my joggers, lower my chin, and hunch my shoulders, resolutely turning to stare out at the water. “Huh,” I say. “You’re still in town.”
“Still in town,” she says tightly, turning to set her hot-pink bag on the wooden boards behind her. “Surprise.”
It is, actually. That night…
Fuck. The way I’ve avoided thinking about that night.
That night almost exactly one year ago, when she was driving me insane by pressing those hot-as-fuck curves against me.
CJ’d told me almost shyly that she could look into a remote position so she could stay in Beaucoeur permanently.
And I wanted that so much. Until I didn’t.
In the twelve months since then, I never once looked her up.
Never googled her name. Never made a single attempt to see where she ended up after she submitted that second audit that recommended axing the entire Financial Wellness Division and funneling it to fucking Retirement Products.
I told myself that she was out of my life.
That I didn’t care whose livelihood she was fucking with now.
That I wasn’t curious about where she ended up next.
And I didn’t. I wasn’t. I moved on. But here she is now, glaring up at me as the sweet, floral scent of her hair makes my stomach clench at its familiarity.
“Surprised, yes,” I bite out, forcing myself back to the present where nothing about CJ should feel comforting or welcome. “Surprised you’re showing your face in town after your little sabotage attempt failed.”
This gets a reaction out of her.
“My what?”
My hands tighten around the strap of my bag as I sneer down at her.
“That audit you spent so much time on.” Acid burns in my stomach at the reminder of her vindictiveness.
“Every i dotted and every t crossed when it came to gutting my division. So much attention to the little details. It’s almost impressive how much effort you put into destroying the only unit in my company that actually helps people. ”
“I don’t understand.” She rocks back on her heels to blink those big fucking eyes at me. If I didn’t already know how devastatingly manipulative she is, I could almost believe the confusion I see in them. But I know better than anyone how well she covers up her true nature.
“Sure you do,” I say with false patience.
“You were the one who wrote that my team… what was it?” I pretend to have to think about it even though every word is burned into my heart.
“Oh, that’s right. We’re a ‘nice-to-have perk’ that doesn’t justify the bloated budget we command, and our employee-facing workshops and one-on-one benefits counseling are neither unique nor necessary.
” I click my tongue in contempt. “Your words, CJ.”
“They’re Howard Randall’s words, actually. And yes, I included them in my second draft after you pissed me off,” she says, a crease forming between her brows. “But they weren’t in my third one.”
“What third one? God, and a liar too.” I laugh in disbelief. “You really are the complete package.”
When I sneak another glance at her, it’s not because she’s even sexier than she was a year ago, with her sweatshirt hugging the lush lines of her body and her leggings molded to her cuppable ass.
Everything about her looks so fucking soft.
It’s a tragedy that she turned out to be such a cutthroat bi—
“What are you talking about?” Her mouth is open, her startled exhale emerging as a frosty cloud that hangs between us. “I left you a note explaining everything. You’re the one who—”
“I don’t give a shit about your explanations.
” I have to pull myself back from shouting at her, aware that we’re starting to draw stares.
Fighting for calm, I turn back to the water and exhale slowly as the first group plunges into the water, disappearing beneath the surface before popping back up, sputtering and screeching.
“Thankfully, my girlfriend and I figured out a way to fix it on our own.”
I cut my gaze over in time to see her whole body jolt.
“Your… girlfriend?”
“You didn’t hear?” I’m taunting her now, and oh my god, it feels good. “She and I were able to show the board of directors how much money our division saved for our clients by increasing employee retention and reducing HR disputes—”
“Which drives word-of-mouth referrals and gives Sounder a thirty percent higher contract renewal rate than the industry average,” she murmurs so faintly that I almost don’t hear it above the hooting and splashing from the lake.
“And then there’s the intangible benefits of helping people without much financial experience ask smart questions when they’re picking retirement plans. ”
“Halle-fucking-lujah.” I wave the towel in my hands with sarcastic elation. “She finally gets it.”
“So you came up with this miraculous plan on your own.” An unsettling light fills her eyes as she turns to me. “You and your girlfriend.”
“Yes. She’s one of the people whose jobs we saved no thanks to you. If you’d put in any effort at all doing your job, you’d have come to the same conclusions.”
In truth, Reese was the main driver of our plan to save our division.
I hadn’t really noticed her around the bank before she approached me with her impressively detailed plan to save our department.
And when she asked me for a drink after we presented it to Howard and the board, I agreed.
Then I kept on agreeing until I somehow slid into the longest relationship of my life.
“Wow.” CJ shakes her head in disgust. “Wow. You two must be a hell of a couple.”
“Totally compatible.” I make my smile as smug as possible. “That’s why we fell in love so fast.”
She blinks rapidly, her eyes cutting to the water before snapping back to my face.
“So you and your girlfriend,” she says. “You worked on this alternative audit together. And you fell in love.”
“What can I say?” I shrug. “ She’s brilliant. And driven. And—agghh!”
With a banshee cry, CJ gives me a hard shove that sends me staggering backward onto… nothing. My arms pinwheel as I struggle to catch my balance, but my attempts to defy gravity fail and I plummet into the lake.
The shock of the freezing water knocks the air from my lungs, and for a terrifying second, my muscles lock up and I start to sink.
Apparently, this is how I die. Courtesy of the woman who, for a few exhilarating hours, I thought I would marry and be buried next to after a long, happy life. Instead, I’ll be buried at sea in an icy grave, cut down in my prime by the frigid bitch of my nightmares.
I wait for my life to flash in front of my eyes, unspooling year after boring year of me doing what was expected.
Helping raise the younger siblings. Bailing Holly out of trouble over and over, as kids and well into adulthood.
Plodding through high school, then college, then my MBA program.
Shouldering the responsibility for everyone in my life while swallowing down those flickers of desire for myself.
If the only true bright spot is that brief, dreamlike night last December when I met the person I thought I was put on earth to love, I blame my oxygen-starved brain.
When I bob to the surface, sucking a knife of air into my abused lungs, I’m hit by several realizations.
One, my balls have retracted all the way inside my body.
Two, it’s even colder above the water now that I’m wet.
Three, my bag of dry clothes was slung over my shoulder, which means it’s now a bag of wet clothes that’s slung over my shoulder.
Four, CJ Parrish was sent from a hell dimension to punish me for my misdeeds in all of my past lives.
“You-y-you…” I sputter through chattering teeth once my eyes land on her, warm and dry on the dock. “Why?”
She’s frozen, her mouth hanging open as steam pours off my wet, exposed skin.
A moment later, though, she snaps her mouth shut and crosses her arms over her chest. The anger radiating off her might be enough to save me from frostbite, and it jolts me into motion.
Our eyes stay locked as I stiffly paddle toward the ladder and clamber out of the water.
Before I can ask her what the actual fuck, she hisses, “You’re pathetic.”
The venom in her voice stuns me, and I rethink my immediate plan of action, which was to return the favor and toss her ass into that icy abyss.
“Me? I’m pathetic?” My teeth are chattering as water streams down my body. “After th-this little d-d-display of jealousy?”
Our interlude has attracted attention, but the next group of plungers picks that moment to jump in, and their shrieks pull the focus away from us as another shudder races through me.
“Jealous?” Her already glowing cheeks turn even redder. “You wish.”
I’m shaking so hard now that my muscles are starting to ache, and CJ frowns. “Don’t you have a towel?”
I rip the dripping bag off my shoulder and sling it at her feet, where it slops lake water onto her shoes.
Instead of complaining, her lips tighten.
“Hang on.” She turns to rummage through her bag.
And even though I’m moments away from death by hypothermia and more furious with her than I’ve been with any human being ever, my eyes still drink in the round globes of her ass.
How can I hate someone this much while still wanting to take a bite of those luscious cheeks?
The water must’ve shaved thirty points off my IQ. It’s the only explanation.
“Here.” She straightens and thrusts a bundle of pink fuzziness at me. “I hope you die, but I don’t want it to be because of something I did.”
I’m starting to lose feeling in my fingers and toes, and the concept of free-hanging genitalia is a distant memory, so I don’t hesitate to rip the sodden shirt over my head and peel off the joggers clinging to the freezing skin of my legs.
Once I’m down to my boxer briefs and running shoes, I snatch the robe from her, wrapping it around me and tying it as securely as I can.
It’s too short, exposing my shins and barely closing over my chest, but it’s the warmest option I’ve got thanks to CJ’s attack.
A breeze stirs the hem of the robe, and CJ’s eyes, which had been glued to the ends of the belt knotted around my waist, fix on some unknown object over my shoulder.
“What will you use?” I ask through stiff lips, and she scoffs.
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.” Her gaze finds me again, but the rage is gone, leaving her expression blank. “It doesn’t look fun anymore.”
She picks up her bag and turns to walk back to the shore.
Feeling like an idiot, I call after her, “What about the robe?”
“Throw it away. Burn it. Or maybe,” she says without turning around, “you can give it to your girlfriend.”