Chapter 39

Jesse

As Jesse proceeded down the street, she began to relax more and more and allowed her mind to wander to less stressful topics. More specifically, to Hal.

Jesse couldn’t help feeling a little conflicted whenever she thought of him. A part of her still felt that she really had no business at all interacting with him on the level that she was. Her relationship with him was supposed to be strictly professional. She was supposed to interview him and be done with him. Her career was supposed to launch out of her article on him.

That, though, had gone out the window the second he had invited her to lunch for a repeat of their first interview. She should have simply declined. She could have told Elaine that the interview had not gone well, and she would have likely been a little disappointed, but understanding. And she would certainly still have had her job.

The second he had started talking about his personal life, though, all of her professionalism had gone out the window. Perhaps that was an indication that she was bad at her job anyway. Any other journalist wouldn’t have felt any level of sympathy. They would have jumped on a juicy story, and their career would have leapt up to the next level because of it.

Jesse imagined that Elaine wouldn’t have hesitated to take all of Hal’s personal information and put it straight into her magazine. There would have been no reluctance or remorse. She was effective, and moreover, she was successful.

Jesse, though, could have never brought herself to do it. Maybe she just wasn’t aggressive enough for the job. Maybe it was just a lack of ambition. Maybe it was an excess of compassion. Either way, she was beginning to doubt her ability to succeed in the field of celebrity journalism.

Jesse sighed at the thought of what else she could do, but she could hardly keep her mind on her career when she had just thought of Hal. He had proven to be quite the distraction ever since she had met him. Even so, she could not bring herself to regret the bond she had built with him. Especially now that it really seemed to be turning into something that was truly incredible.

Jesse’s mind wandered back to the tender moments they had shared, and she shuddered as she remembered the times that her judgement had been clouded by pure arousal. She remembered the sensation of his teeth dragging along her flesh, and she felt warmth gather between her legs.

She shook her head and took a breath to steady herself and clear her thoughts. She remembered, though, that along with her intense feelings of arousal, she had moments of genuine, exposed emotion, where he had looked at her and told her that he had feelings for her.

Jesse could hardly bring herself to believe him when he said he had feelings for her as well. It just seemed too foreign for anyone to truly be attracted to her, especially when it was someone as famous as Hal Roberts.

She knew she should trust him when he said those kinds of things to her, but there was a part of her that wouldn’t completely give in to him. She wanted to, but there seemed to be something that was holding her back. It was frustrating, but perhaps she just needed more time to fully trust him.

As Jesse thought more and more about him, she had the urge to call him. She had his number now and felt a rush of excitement at the thought of being able to simply pick up the phone and give him a call whenever she wanted to. At the same time, that thought gave her an overwhelming feeling of anxiety.

What if he didn’t answer her? What if he was busy, and she interrupted him? She was jobless, but he was an important man with likely important things to do. She was also leery of the feeling of disappointment she would undoubtedly feel if he did not answer the phone.

It did not take long for her to make the decision not to call him, but she still couldn’t keep her thoughts from wandering to him. She contemplated the chances of him actually being attracted to her when put against the probability that she was just a means of entertainment.

Jesse sighed. She knew that she should have more faith in him, and she had to admit that he had been very patient with her as she processed the growth of their relationship. He had told her that they could take it slow, and she intended to do just that. The last think she wanted was to rush into a relationship with him and end up taken advantage of. That was going to be hard, though, when she couldn’t keep her mind off of him unless she was incredibly stressed out about something else.

Jesse was pulled from her thoughts as she reached the library. She stepped inside through the doors and looked around. The place was fairly large, and fortunately, there was a section full of workstation-style desks with barriers on each side. She headed immediately to one of the desks and proceeded to set up her laptop, plugging it into an outlet beneath the desk.

She cleared her mind of thoughts of Hal for the time being and began her search for jobs to apply for. She took a deep breath and released a sigh as she vaguely wondered where on earth she was supposed to begin.