EIGHT - JAMESON
I’d never been so goddamned irritated with someone in my entire life.
I was the horniest I’d been since I could remember and could have very easily caved in to him.
God knows I wanted to. But even more than that, I needed to keep a level head because he had information that I needed, and I wasn’t going to get any of it with him balls-deep inside of me.
Reluctantly, I shoved his chest, pushing him back, and got the hell away from him. My original plan of attempting to half-assed seduce any kind of information out of him had majorly backfired, no thanks to my lack of oxygenated brain cells because all of my blood flow had been rerouted elsewhere.
“We are not just getting started. There is no we. There’s you, and there’s me, and you’re only here to do a job,” I reminded him and myself.
Roman squared his shoulders as he took a step back.
Good. The best place for him was as far away from me as possible.
“You know what? Why don’t you go see Ivan—he should be in his office or somewhere.
He’s around. I’ll send him a text and tell him you’re on your way. He’ll get you whatever you need.”
“What about you? I can’t just leave you here by yourself.”
“I’ve got some things I need to wrap up here, then we’ll regroup and come up with a solid game plan.”
He folded his arms across his puffed-out chest. “I don’t think I’m supposed to leave you unattended.”
I rolled my eyes with a huff. This was ridiculous. “I’ll be fine. What’s another hour?”
The thing about having known someone for as long as I’d known Roman meant I knew all the buttons to press to get him going…defiance being one of them.
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze practically pierced through me. “A lot can happen in an hour.”
“Not in here.” My dad’s office was probably the safest place on the entire property.
He shook his head. “No fucking way, James. I can’t leave you. Not according to the contract I signed.”
Shit. He wasn’t wrong. I did have it in his contract that once he took over, he wasn’t to leave my side until this was over.
“Lucky you, I wrote the contract, and I’m telling you it’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll get Jordan to stand post.”
He squinted his eyes. “If you say so, but this is the last time I’ll leave you unattended. I take this job very seriously. Enjoy your freedom while you still have it.”
He turned and left without another word.
As soon as the door closed and latched shut, I pulled up the camera feed to the hallway outside of my office, watching him as he walked down the hall toward the elevator. He poked his head into some of the vacant office spaces before disappearing.
There’s nothing there, nosey.
Seeing Roman in person after all this time, when I never expected to see him at all, ever again, stirred up a flurry of mixed emotions—ones that I was sure I’d buried deep enough they weren’t at risk of resurfacing. Keeping my feelings at bay was so much easier when I thought he was dead.
Spinning a pen between my fingers, I stared out the window into the clear blue sky.
The storm that had lingered over us for the last couple of days had finally passed.
This was the first time I’d been able to see the sun from my office in almost a week.
The outside world was still cold, wet, and littered with dead leaves and organic debris, evidence of last fall, and the South was on the outer fringes of fall.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone outside out of pure enjoyment. The only time I ever seemed to leave the four walls of this godforsaken building anymore was to walk to and from a golf cart or a car, going from one building on the property to another.
I’d finally come to the realization that it would be a very long time before I’d ever be able to leave my self-made prison. At least not until the man who’d started all of this was face down in a swamp.
I glanced at my watch and realized I still hadn’t heard from Chris. So I typed out a quick text to him.
Me: You here? Need to see you.
A few minutes later, he replied.
Chris: Yup. Sorry. Got your message from Kelly. Been busy. Want me in your office? *winky face*.
Me: No. I’ll come there. Sit tight.
I gave my hair and face a quick check in the mirror, making a half-hearted attempt to pull myself together.
The last thing I wanted was to look like I’d just been bent over my desk, praying for some form of sexual gratification, and not just left sexually frustrated.
Not that what I looked like really mattered in the grand scheme of things.
Chris and I weren’t a thing anymore, not that I’d ever considered us a thing, more like we had a thing. He’d certainly seen me in worse shape.
Chris and I had always maintained a professional relationship…
mostly. He’d been the assistant general manager, just behind Ivan, for the last couple of years.
In the weeks following my dad’s murder, not only did he step up as the acting GM, but he became my go-to person when I needed comfort.
He was someone to talk to, a shoulder to lean on.
Once upon a time ago, that person would have been Roman. He used to be my escape…until the day he’d disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I’d been left to believe he’d been killed, too.
It didn’t take long for things to heat up between us.
Rock bottom is a lonely place to be. Since he was technically my subordinate, we had to keep things very casual and even more hush-hush.
The sneaking around was all fun and games until the day Kelly walked in on us in the middle of a hot and heavy make-out session in an office supply closet, no less.
I ended things with Chris that afternoon.
Kind of…almost.
Let’s just say that I’d had my share of moments of weakness since then, and he never turned me down.
Chris and I, on rare occasions, found ourselves tangled together in between the sheets a time or two over the last few weeks until I finally called things off officially, though he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.
His door was ajar when I arrived at his office.
“Jameson.” He smiled as I stepped into his office. “Come on in. Close the door.”
I shut the door, knowing I probably should have left it open. I didn’t plan on being here that long, and we definitely did not need privacy.
He rounded his desk, walking straight toward me with his arms outstretched for a hug. “How are you?”
I took a step back, trying to evade his embrace. For starters, my head was pounding, and I felt like I hadn’t slept in years. Second, he and I weren’t close like that anymore. I wasn’t sure we ever were. His overly friendly demeanor had me feeling extremely uncomfortable.
“I’m fine. This won’t take long. I just wanted to talk to you about this weekend.”
His eyebrows scrunched together. “What’s wrong? You look…stressed. But more than usual.” He reached out to touch my cheek.
I turned my head away. “It’s nothing. Just a rough start to the morning. You know how it is around here sometimes.”
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him. Familiar as his touch was, it didn’t feel the same, and shitty as it was to even think about, he didn’t feel like Roman.
“I do know how it is,” he said, “and I know you’ve got a lot of shit on your plate. You need a break. A real one.”
“I don’t need a break. I need to get through this weekend alive.”
“Then you’ll take a break? Maybe even a whole-ass vacation…like a normal person?”
The sentiment made me laugh. “I don’t think I’ve been on an actual vacation since I was a teenager.”
The last time I’d gone on one was probably when my dad had taken me and a few friends to Rosemary Beach for my sixteenth birthday.
The only other time after that was what should have been a week in Aspen, but I’d gotten called home early for a business emergency less than twenty-four hours into my trip.
That business emergency ended up with my dad being murdered.
A sigh escaped me at the thought. I missed living a life with a sense of normalcy that my dad once provided. Things like family vacations and having friends. Just going out into the general public without a care in the world or at the risk of life and limb.
“That sounds terrible. Why don’t we plan something together when all of this is over? Just the two of us?”
“Chris,” I sighed. “You know we can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked, tightening his grip around me. He rubbed his hands up and down my back. His embrace felt invasive; every muscle in my spine tensed in response.
“Because. There is no two of us. You and I, we’re not a thing anymore. We never were. I set boundaries, and we need to stick to them.”
“Hmm.” He dropped his mouth close to my ear, lowering his tone as he spoke. “You weren’t saying that a few weeks ago when you called me up to your apartment.”
I pressed my hands into his chest and tried backing away from him, but he didn’t let go. “I know, and we shouldn’t have done that. We just can’t.” Alcohol is a sneaky, betraying bitch.
“Does this have something to do with the new security guard Ivan hired?” he asked in a condescending tone.
“Security guard?” I jerked my head back and looked up at him. “You mean Roman?”
Instantly, he dropped his arms from around me and took a step back. “Roman? The guy that used to work for Elliott? That Roman?”
“Well, yeah. That would be the one.” The world couldn’t handle two of him.
He rested his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. “I thought someone got rid of him.”
I held out hope that the two of them working this close in proximity wouldn’t become a problem.
They both had a male ego the size of Texas that was fueled by an endless dose of testosterone.
Regardless, I didn’t like the tone he’d suddenly taken with me, nor his reference to my team getting rid of him.
“Someone did get rid of him, but apparently not the way I or any of us had suspected.”
Chris walked away, tucking himself behind his desk—a defensive tactic I used when I felt threatened or backed into a corner. “You could get rid of him again yourself. You have that power now.”
“Chris!”
“What?” He shrugged dismissively. “I’m just saying. We’ve been operating things just fine without him up until this point. What do we need him for now?”
My shoulders slumped. This was not how I envisioned this meeting going. I originally came to hear about his finalized game plan for the event this weekend. Instead, I stood here defending Roman when I was still very much pissed off at him myself.
“Ivan brought him back as my—” I didn’t want to call him my bodyguard. That just sounded…weird, but it was better than babysitter. “He’s been hired to watch over me through the weekend. I don’t know what else you want me to tell you.”
“That’s ridiculous. You already have plenty of security.”
“Not enough,” I retorted. “If you don’t like it, take it up with Ivan.”
“Ivan? Why? You’re over him. You do something about it.”
“I don’t know what your problem is, but fix it. There’s only so much Ivan or Leon or Hector or even you can do for me right now, but if Ivan thinks we could benefit from having Roman here, then so be it. I have to give this a shot.”
“So he just resurrected some guy from the dead, and we’re all supposed to be okay with that?”
“First off, Roman is not just some guy. Second, no, I am not okay with any of this, but I’m running out of time, and third, you may not know this, but Roman is like a machine with precision marksmanship.
He’s equipped with a very special set of skills that, unfortunate as it is, I need and nobody within a five-hundred-mile radius has.
” Not to mention, he wouldn’t hesitate for one second to lay his life on the line for mine, with or without being paid.
I couldn’t think of one single man working under me who would do the same—including Chris.
“Hmm. Do those skills follow him into the bedroom?”
I glared at him with disgust. “Excuse me? What the fuck did you just say?”
“Nothing,” he said, shuffling some loose papers around his desk. “It’s not important. What did you need me for? You didn’t come looking for me to talk about your exes.”
“He is not my ex.” Okay, so he kinda, sorta was, but that wasn’t the point here, and it was none of his business. Chris and I were finished; we were no longer a thing.
He scoffed. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself.”
“See! This is exactly why I needed to call things off between us. Shit just gets too complicated mixing work with pleasure.” And sex with him wasn’t even that good; it was convenient.
He rubbed his temples. “I just…I really fucking care about you. It bothers me that you won’t let me protect you.”
“Because you can’t,” I yelled. “That’s already been proven, and I am not your problem. I never was.”
“Fine. What business can I help you with? Because I have a lot of shit to do.”
“Forget it. I’ll take care of it myself.”
Seething from head to toe, I stormed out of Chris’s office, slamming the door shut as I left.
There was nothing more frustrating than being surrounded by the only two men that had ever been worth fucking…both of which had quickly turned into two big dicks.