Jackson “How’d he take it?” #2
Her expression falls for half a second before she lets out a dramatic sigh. “I'm sorry. I was just kidding around, Jackson.” She shrugs and reaches for her wine. “I know you're a faithful husband.”
Goddamn, that word.
One fucking word and every restraint I've got snaps back into place.
Husband.
I tense before I can stop myself, because if only she fucking knew.
If Rose knew the first thing about the marriage she just used to let me off the hook, she'd never say it in that easy, absolving voice. My marriage to Elyse wasn't born from anything as clean as love. It wasn't even really born from choice.
But I don't tell her that.
I never tell anyone that.
The truth belongs to exactly three people: me, my wife, and the evil son of a bitch who arranged us like a merger. Franklyn Delacroix, the most senior member of the Sullivan board and the closest thing I've got to an owner.
So I do what I always do.
I nod and let Rose believe I'm simply a good man being good.
“Bennet asked why I call you Jackson,” she says after another sip. “Why you called me today instead of him.”
She tips her head slowly, and I'm starting to realize we're approaching the portion of the evening where her mouth is no longer consulting her brain before releasing information. Her words are beginning to soften at the edges, her eyes heavy-lidded, and that's enough for me.
I lift two fingers toward the bartender for the check.
“Yeah?” I keep my voice light. “What'd you tell him?”
“I didn't tell him anything.”
“Probably wise.”
“Mmm.”
She runs one finger slowly around the rim of her glass.
“I didn't tell him about what happened between us when you were twenty.”
My hand stops.
For fuck's sake.
“Rose.”
“Or how you were such a good boy for me that night.”
Her voice drops into a very specific deep tone that I've spent a very long time pretending that I don't remember.
My dick, it seems, has not participated in the pretending.
Every muscle below my waist tightens as the memory comes back with humiliating energy, and I shift in my chair while she watches me do it.
“How you made me come everywhere in that hotel room.”
Her smirk right now is fucking vicious.
This woman is drunk, heartbroken, and fully committed to murdering me before I can get her safely out of this restaurant.
I clear my throat like that's going to reset anything happening below my collar. “I'm glad you kept that information to yourself.”
Her smile gets wider.
“But that was a long time ago, Rose.”
“The rooftop pool wasn't.”
Fuck.
Her gaze moves down my chest slowly enough that I feel every inch of it before coming back to my face.
“You do remember the pool, don't you, Jackson?”
I stare at her.
She raises an eyebrow.
My mouth is just hanging open. Slack. Completely fucking useless. I must look like an idiot right now.
Am I drooling?
Close your fucking mouth, shit-for-brains.
I blink myself out of my stupor and decide that's my cue. There are several possible answers to her question, and not a single one ends with me making a responsible decision tonight.
I stay silent and lift my hand again for the check, thanking every single god with a listed number when the bartender sets it down in the same breath and saves my life. I drop more than enough cash on the counter, pull my jacket on over the war happening underneath it and hold my hand out to her.
“Come on. Up you go.”
She takes it, and the size of her hand in mine never stops surprising me.
Rose is significantly smaller than I am, just shy of five-two, all curves and dynamite, long dark waves and those bright eyes that have never once made her seem like the smallest person in any room she's ever walked into.
She steadies herself on my forearm coming off the stool, and I wait until I'm sure she's got her feet under her before we start toward the door.
I've made my peace with our friendship. That's the part she'd probably never believe, drunk and lobbing condoms across a table, but it's true. I consider Rose a friend, a real one, not some consolation prize I tell myself is enough because I can't have the thing I actually want.
We moved on from that hotel room a long time ago and never said another word about it.
The first year after that night was its own kind of obstacle course, the three of us building the Sullivan Empire from nothing with it sitting unspoken in every meeting.
Eventually we found a rhythm and it got easier.
Then a few years later, we had that night at the beach where, for about five glorious fucking minutes, I thought maybe we'd been circling back toward each other all along.
Rose kissed me like she'd been waiting just as long as I had, I called her baby and she fucking smiled, and then Bennet woke up and rocked my jaw hard enough to rearrange my dental records.
Rose shut the whole thing down with damn near military-level efficiency.
Told Bennet she'd kissed me, I'd pushed her away, and we were nothing more than close friends.
I knew why she did it. Bennet was drunk, furious and trying to beat my ass into the Pacific, so she said what she needed to say to stop him.
But she and I never talked about what happened afterward either, and I wasn't going to chase her for an explanation she'd already made pretty fucking clear she didn't want to give.
So we went back to being us. Work, friendship, stolen drinks, her stealing food off my plate, me bringing a jacket because she never remembers she'll get cold.
Somewhere along the way I stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop and started appreciating what I actually had with her instead of constantly mourning what I didn't.
There were still moments that I'd catch her looking at me and wonder if she was remembering it all too, or she'd lean over my shoulder to read something on my screen and I'd get a face full of her perfume and forget what the fuck I was doing.
But somewhere in the grind, it stopped being awkward and started becoming this.
Then, three years ago, Frank called me into his office, and I walked out engaged to his daughter.
My life's been a slow-motion shit show ever since.
A nice penthouse, a cold bed and a leash I can't see but never stop feeling.
From the outside, it looks good. That's the point.
Frank doesn't do anything without considering how it'll look from the outside.