Chapter Five
Chase
I watched as Jamie left the office, obviously still upset. I wanted to make things better, but I couldn’t. Not now.
My heart pounded in my throat as I stared at the woman in the doorway.
“Summer, why are you here? How did you know I was here?”
“It’s nice to see you too, Chase,” she said as she approached. “Jake told me you’d probably be here, and I also kind of knew it.”
She attempted to give me a hug, but I sidestepped her and moved to stand in front of my desk.
“You have some nerve showing up here, unannounced,” I said.
“You wouldn’t take my calls. You haven’t replied to my text messages. You cut me off.”
“You walked out. You left.” The pounding of my heart had now moved back to my chest as the shock that my ex-fiancée was standing in front of me had subsided. The shock was now replaced by anger.
She gave me a sad smile. “It was for the best, for both of us. Chase, I still care about you, I still love you, but you know in your heart that I couldn’t be in your shadow.”
I sat back on the edge of the desk. This was the conversation I had been dreading. When Summer had left, I knew it was because she needed more. She deserved that. I had handed her everything she needed in hopes that I would be more than enough. But Summer was strong, driven, and ambitious. She needed to make a name for herself by her own doing.
A piece of me, deep inside, knew she was right, but I was angry that something so good had fallen apart.
I nodded my head in agreement to what she had said and looked her in the eyes. “You look good. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” she said.
“So, why are you here?”
“To check on you, for this…so we could put some closure on all of this.” Summer snickered a little. “But it looks like you’ve done that already. Is that your new girl?”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “It wasn’t quick or easy to move on and it definitely wasn’t something I was looking for…and to answer your question, it’s complicated.”
“More complicated than us when we first met? Ex-boyfriends and blackmail?”
Summer didn’t know how right she was. “It’s something like that.” I stood up and walked around the desk, taking a seat in my chair. “So, you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here? And I know it’s not to check on me.”
She took a seat in the guest chair where Jamie had just been sitting. “Work. I’m meeting with a potential client. We have an investment that we’re looking into, but I can’t say anything about it. I wouldn’t want you to steal it out from under me.”
“You know I’d never do that. Not from you.”
“No, not from me,” she said. “But you would steal it from Carson Durst.”
Carson Durst was a competitor that had tried to steal Summer away before she had chosen to work for me at Velocity Capital. He was a snake, but also a very savvy businessman. Almost six months after Summer had turned him down, he came back with a better offer. One she happily accepted, breaking us up and moving to the other side of the country.
And once again, Summer was right. If I knew what Carson was up to, I’d probably try to beat him to the punch, even though my plate was already full with my newest venture.
I chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
“Anyway, I thought I’d stop in and see if everything was okay and whether maybe you’d like to get a drink with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Summer. A month ago, hell a week ago I would have jumped at the chance, but I can’t go there. Not now. I have a lot going on, and honestly, I’m in a good place, even with the extra drama.”
She pursed her lips and then looked down at her lap. “I know. I shouldn’t have asked. I guess I was just hoping things could be different between us.”
“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”
She got up and made her way toward the door. “If you change your mind, I’ll be here until Tuesday.” Before walking out, she paused and turned to face me. “Chase, she’s cute. Any woman would be lucky as hell to have you. There are days I regret how things ended between us and there are days I regret the decision I made. Just know, I still love you.”
Without even waiting for acknowledgement, she walked out.
I bit my lips as I screamed in my head. What the fuck was that?
Walking over to the couch, I collapsed on it, kicking my feet up and sinking into the cushions. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster, and Summer showing up today was something I hadn’t seen coming.
I was pissed that Jake hadn’t at least given me a heads up that she was in town. He knew better. I grabbed my phone and hit his number.
He picked up on the third ring. “Hey Chase, what’s up?”
“What the hell, you couldn’t tell me? Why would you send her here?”
“Who? Send you there? Where?” Jake’s voice was frazzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Summer.”
“Summer’s there? Now?”
“She was. She said you told her I was here.”
“Chase, I’m sorry. I had no idea. She sent a text. She never said anything about being in town.”
“How long have you been in touch with her?”
His end of the conversation fell silent. “She reached out a few days ago and I answered. She said there was a chance she might be coming out next month. I figured there would be time to work out the details. I guess she pushed it up.” He cleared his throat nervously. “We’d sent a few funny texts back and forth and then she asked whether you were still working weekends like always. I knew you’d likely be there, preparing for things, and I said yes. I had no idea she was in town, better yet, that she’d show up there. I swear.”
Jake’s voice begged for forgiveness and I knew he probably wouldn’t have intentionally set me up.
“We’ll, she’s here.”
I filled him in on the circumstances of Summer’s visit and the short conversation we’d had. Short, yet long enough to screw with my head and the rest of my day. After hanging up with Jake, I lay in the silence of the office and closed my eyes. I needed to get to the bottom of who this mysterious employer of Jamie’s was, and what it was he expected her to get from me.