Chapter Two #4
Rosalie Bennett would put on her lawyer hat, roll up her sleeves and start digging. She'd find contracts and statutes, and loopholes. She'd ask questions Frank doesn't want asked and keep asking them after smarter people would've decided to mind their own fucking business.
She'd try to get me out.
Not because I'd ask her to. Because that's Rose.
She fixes things for the people she loves.
And Frank would notice.
That's the part I can't risk. Men like Frank don't lose leverage. They replace it. The second my father stopped being enough to keep me compliant, Frank would start looking for something else I couldn't afford to lose.
And there is no fucking universe where I let that something become her.
So I don't tell Rose the truth.
I don't let her help. I don't give Frank a reason to look too closely at why Rosalie Bennett matters enough to me that I'd burn my own life down before I let him touch hers.
Instead, I zip my laptop bag and smile like I'm just another married man headed home to his wife, while my phone sits in my pocket with Stacy's address waiting on it.
“Happy wife, happy life,” she sing-songs instead, finger guns and all, repurposing the sting into a bit before it can cost her anything.
“You and your country music.” I give her the smug grin, grateful for the off-ramp she keeps building us both. “You can take the girl out of Texas. Come on. Give me a yeehaw.”
I slap my thigh for good measure.
“I will kick you in the dick,” she says sweetly as she rises from the chair, “and render you medically useless for your happy wife and any future cat calls.”
“Booty calls. They're called booty calls, you absolute boomer.” I shake my head at her. “The fact that you don't know the term and still judge me for it is honestly the most you thing about you.”
Her eyes narrow.
Oh, shit.
She's already rounding the desk, quick and fully committed to making good on the threat.
I move on instinct, catching both her wrists in one hand before she can land anything I'll regret.
My other arm goes around her waist and lifts, and before either of us has thought it through, I've set her ass on the edge of my desk between my hands.
“Workplace violence,” I tell her, “is grounds for an HR complaint. I'd hate to have to write you up.”
Then I stop talking.
Because we're too close. Way too fucking close.
Her face is inches from mine, close enough that I can see the tiny shift in her expression when she realizes it too.
Somewhere in the maneuver, her knees came apart, and I stepped between them without thinking, which leaves my thighs pressed against the inside of hers, and her wrists still caught loosely in my hand.
The joke dies.
Neither of us moves.
Fuck.
This is why I don't play with her like this.
This is why I keep desks and tables and entire fucking conference rooms between us whenever I can. Because the years leading up to today haven't done shit to this.
I've slept with other women. Married one, technically. Built a company, made more money than I know what to do with, crossed into my thirties and developed at least enough self-control to pass for a functioning adult.
And Rose gets between my hands and none of it fucking matters.
My eyes drop to her mouth.
Bad idea.
I bring them back up.
Worse idea.
She's looking at mine.
“That fleshlight pressing into my thigh isn’t an HR violation?” she whispers.
“Fleshli—” My eyes go wide. “Fuck.” I let go of her embarrassingly fast and turn on my heel, putting my back to her and a desk's worth of professional distance between us.
“Sorry.”
Jesus Jackson, get a fucking grip on your genitals.
I scrub a hand down my face and stare at the bookshelf like it's going to bail me out.
Fleshlight.
Of all the words available to the English language.
Behind me, I hear her slide off the desk, followed by the soft scuff of her heels finding the floor.
“Relax, Jackson.” Her voice has gone easy again by the time I turn around. “It's a compliment. Most women would kill for that kind of immediate feedback.”
She's straightening her blazer, perfectly composed.
I want to tell her it wasn't just an inconvenient erection.
That it's never been fucking nothing. That I've spent so many years being the friend she trusts, the man she calls when she needs to feel safe, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, but there are nights when being safe is the last goddamn thing I want from her.
Instead, I pick up my laptop bag.
“Go home, Rose.” It comes out softer than I mean it to. “You've had two of the worst days a person can have back to back. Sleep. Drink some water that isn't wine. Let your brother be my problem tonight.”
That same little drop of disappointment from earlier lands on her face before she can hide it — the one from when I mentioned Elyse. Then she reaches for her bag and slings it over her shoulder.
“He's always your problem,” she says. “That's the whole tragedy of you, Jackson. You collect us problem children like strays and then act surprised when one of them won't leave.”
She means it as a joke. It doesn't fucking feel like one, because she has no idea how close she just got.
“Goodnight, Rose.”