Chapter 5
FIVE
brOOKS
“What the fuck happened to you?” Jace mutters as he drops down into the chair next to mine.
“Dropped my phone on my face when I was doomscrolling on the couch,” I say, repeating the lie I’ve uttered on repeat since I woke up on the floor of my study, the only evidence of the woman who left me barely conscious, the black knit cap still clutched in my hand.
Well that, and the missing flash drive.
And a raging headache that still pounds at my temples.
But when I came to, the window was closed and my security hadn’t noted anything unusual—something I’m sure my lie to them didn’t help with.
They didn’t know they needed to be searching the shadows of the footage from the property’s cameras for a tiny waif of a woman with silver hair.
Hair that—
Jace’s brows come up, eyes studying mine. Then his mouth twitches at the corners. “Almost had me.” He leans close, voice dropping so it won’t be overheard by those milling around the charity dinner we’re both attending. “What really happened?”
“Not doomscrolling,” I mutter. “But I can’t talk about it here.”
I’m not dumb enough to ignore that I need to tell someone what happened, and that Jace—who was there that day years ago and afterward—would understand precisely why I needed privacy for the conversation.
“Drink at my place later?” he offers.
“Marie going to be there?”
I like his wife but I’m not sure I’m ready for anyone else to know what’s happening.
“No.” He scowls as he leans back in his chair. “She’s with Jean-Michel in Germany.”
“Problem at that new site?”
Jean-Michel Dubois is one of the most powerful men in the world—he owns the vineyard we’re currently sitting in, his influence so vast that the seats are full, even though he’s not here to attend the fundraiser for his daughter’s charity.
He’s also in biotech, owns a hockey team, and is a venture capitalist, along with having his own philanthropic interests.
I have more money than I could spend in a lifetime, and Jace isn’t far behind me…
But we’re leaps and bounds behind Jean-Michel.
Something I’m glad for. The power he wields, the fact that he’s managed to use it for good, supporting smaller businesses with products that actually help people while also giving millions upon millions away each year, not to mention the responsibility he shoulders for his many employees and business ventures and charities and—
My throat closes, just the slightest bit, as panic crawls up the back of my throat.
I don’t want that.
I never even wanted as much as I have now.
I just wanted to be free to love—
“Yeah,” he mutters. “But she’ll be home tomorrow.” His mouth kicks up. “Mostly because my woman is a badass.”
He’s not wrong.
Marie Henderson, née Austen, began her career as Jean-Michel’s assistant.
Now she’s one of his most trusted associates and business partners, an absolute beast in the boardroom and fucking perfect for my friend.
Especially since he got his head out of his ass about her.
Now they’re living in wedded bliss and my friend is happy.
I’m glad. He deserves it.
Even if I’m jealous.
Because I had to give all of that up in order to—
“Hi.”
It’s one word, but even before I turn around to see the woman who’s said it, I feel my temper begin to fray.
Bailey had been a mistake.
A big one.
And even though the night I spent with her was months ago and ended without us so much as kissing, she seems to have an uncanny ability to track me down.
Running into me by chance at the gym—though I put mental quotes around the “by chance” part.
Just so happening to be grabbing a coffee around the corner from my apartment building.
Showing up in the lobby of my office—an office that I’m rarely in because I only just moved back to the Bay Area and mostly work from home.
A home that was infiltrated by a tiny, curvy woman with hair like—
Bailey settles her hand on my shoulder and steps close, the cloud of her perfume wafting forward and choking me.
Jace’s nose wrinkles but he doesn’t otherwise comment.
“Are you busy tonight after this?” she asks, coming closer still, pressing her body against my side…then infinitesimally parting her legs.
A small, silent message.
But a message nonetheless.
We could go home together…and I could finish the night pretending to have an orgasm.
I brush her hand off, standing in the process because even though I want naked time with Bailey like I want hot slivers shoved under my fingernails, there’s a vulnerability that lingers under the surface of her sex kitten facade.
I don’t want to hurt her.
I’ve hurt too many people, too many women in my life.
Silver hair. A white dress.
Lightning flashing. Thunder booming.
Rain pouring from the sky but it was her tears that were sliding down her cheeks.
“What happened to your face?” Bailey asks, coming even closer, her hands settling on my chest, her body flush with mine. “Oh, my God! It looks awful!”
“Thanks,” I say dryly, grasping her wrists and gently setting her away from me. “I have plans tonight.”
“Oh.” Disappointment rippling through her expression. “I didn’t mean to insult—”
My mouth hitches up. “You didn’t.”
“Good.” She leans closer. “So tomorrow then?”
“Bailey,” I begin.
There’s that disappointment again—and it’s more intense now. “Right. I get it.” A shrug. “Another time maybe.”
“No,” I say as gently as I can. “Not another time either.”
Deep blue eyes on mine, that disappointment growing until it’s replaced with resignation, the vulnerable buried. “Right,” she whispers. “Bye.”
She turns on her heel, hair fanning out behind her—
Moonlight and shadows and silver strands dancing over my naked skin.
I blink, shove that away, and watch as she hurries from the room, her heels clicking on the winery’s hardwood floor.
Most of me is relieved.
Part of me feels guilty.
Luckily, I know how to live with it.
Know how to ignore the jabs of pain, the barbed weights clinging to my insides, the regrets that slice again and again and again.
“Fuck, man,” Jace mutters, and I shake myself, drop back into my chair.
“Yeah, you can say that again.”