Chapter 21

Zach

As we drove back to the city, my mind raced. I had come up to this place so dead-certain there was only one woman for me, and now I was leaving not certain I’d been right about that.

I still wanted Jessibelle, badly. I knew that for sure. But everything Alana had laid out for me in the hour she’d demanded my attention had gotten me thinking.

Things between Jessibelle and me were never going to be easy. There would always be a bundle of confusion and questions, and then the problem of hiding ourselves from the people around us. Company policies, HR red tape, and all that. No matter how much I liked her or how intense our chemistry was, there was no escaping the fact that things were always going to be tougher with her than they were with Alana. With Alana, things were easy. Yes, they had also been a lot less interesting, stimulating, or engaging, but they were easy. And, after everything I had been through, there was a lot to be said for having an easy life.

That was why I’d offered Alana a lift back to the city, I suppose. I could have demanded she get out of my house and done everything I could to get Jessibelle back so we could pick up where we left off. But I didn’t. Because something about slipping back into the familiar, even after everything Jessibelle and I had shared, was tempting.

We spent the car ride back to the city in near-silence, because every corner of conversation had already been firmly and completely explored since she’d burst into my house. But my mind was going faster than the car could ever hope to, my thoughts pulsing angrily through my brain as I tried to figure out what I was going to do next.

Eventually, I pulled up outside Alana’s apartment. She had residences across the world, and this was just her home in the city. She often complained she didn’t have a base to call home, and that was why I’d purchased the apartment a few years ago. I wanted to give her a place that could be ours, that she could come home to.

I got out of the car and opened her door for her, just like I always had. It was almost on instinct, without thinking. She smiled up at me, taking my hand and pulling herself to her feet. For a split second, it felt like it had when the two of us were dating, but I pushed the thought from my head. I didn’t need old worn out feelings to clutter up everything else I had going on up there.

I walked her to her door, still not saying a word, and she paused before she went inside. Turning to me, I saw a flash in her eyes, a flash of something I recognized. And then, grasping my face between her hands, she leaned in and kissed me.

It was the kind of kiss that, a few months before, would’ve gotten my pulse racing and my cock twitching between my legs. She ran her nails through my hair, parting my lips with her tongue and pushing it into my mouth. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t know how to react. My hands stayed by my sides, my body not certain how I was going to respond, and then she pulled back, looking at me with total satisfaction on her face.

“Something to bear in mind.” She raised her eyebrows, clearly satisfied with what she’d just done. I knew she was half-expecting me to grab her and pin her against the wall, and take her right there. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

Once, a long time ago, I would’ve done just as she wanted me to. I would have carried her into the apartment, thrown her down on the bed and done everything and anything she wanted. But now, I felt nothing. Nothing at all. My body didn’t respond to hers the way it once had. Even though she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever laid eyes on, nothing about her drew me in. Nothing compared to the passion I shared with Jessibelle. My Jessi might not have been perfect. She might not have appeared on billboards and bedroom walls, but she was the only woman who did anything for me, the only person who kept me up at night. Her voice at the back of my head, her touch, the way she closed her eyes and tipped her head forward every time she came. For me, it was Jessibelle—or no one. I didn’t care how easy it would’ve been to let Alana pull me back in, to settle into our relationship because it would’ve been simple. But I didn’t want that. I wanted Jessibelle.

I turned back to the car. I knew where her apartment building was. I could stop by, try to comfort her and explain everything that had gone through my head and tell her it was only her I wanted. Alana’s kiss was still fresh on my lips, but it didn’t matter anymore. I was more sure of that than ever.

I drove across town, far from the fancy part of the city Alana lived in, and toward Jessibelle’s apartment. What if she wasn’t in? Hell, I still wasn’t certain exactly where she lived in that building. But none of that mattered. I felt as though something in my stomach was tugging me toward her, and I knew if I just followed that, I’d end up next to her again. I grinned at the thought, running my fingers through my hair, letting the air whip through it and chase away any doubts that might have plagued me about what I was doing. Yes, there would be a lot to overcome, but I wanted to be with her. Last night, losing myself to her, giving my all to her in ways we’d never experienced before, had only served to underline that point and I wasn’t going to throw it all away over some ex I didn’t want.

It didn’t take long for me to arrive, pulling to a stop in front of a series of identical apartment buildings and trying to remember which one was hers. The third along from the end of the street, or the second? I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, screwing up my face and wondering if I should just call her and tell her to meet me outside. Hell, I could pull her into this car, drive out of the city, and make love to her in the back seat like we were a couple of teenagers. I grinned at the thought and reached into my pocket to pull out my phone. Yeah, that would do perfectly.

Just as I pulled up her number, I heard another car coming down the deserted street. I turned my head and frowned. The whole place was quiet, and the engine sounded like something fast and expensive. What was a car like that doing at this end of town?

Suddenly, the car pulled into view. It was a fancy model, and it bore two passengers I couldn’t make out through the tinted windows. It came to a stop outside one of the apartment blocks, and a man got out, a man I recognized from somewhere. I slid down a little in my seat. And then he stepped around the other side of the car and pulled the door open for the other passenger.

Jessibelle.

And then, it clicked into my mind where I’d seen him before. In court. He was the lawyer representing the shareholders against Jessibelle. The one she had seemed to share something with, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The one who had pissed me off just to look at him. The crazy bastard who’d shaken her hand for a little too long and apparently shaken her up in the process. He was outside her apartment building in some expensive car, dropping her off. I wondered where they’d come from.

I watched as she headed over to the door, opening it up and glancing over her shoulder to indicate that he should follow her. He did as he was told, stepping inside, glancing around as though he knew he shouldn’t be there. And then, he shut the door to the building behind him, and I was left sitting out there in the cold wondering what the fuck I’d just seen.

I gripped the steering wheel so tightly, my knuckles were threatening to burst through my skin. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself, but it didn’t work. Instead, I put my foot down on the accelerator and pulled away. I was driving fast, too fucking fast for this part of the city. I knew it wouldn’t take much for me to get pulled over. But I didn’t give a fuck. I was mad. Mad at myself, mad at Alana, mad at the man who’d just followed the only woman I wanted into her apartment and left me sitting out here in the cold like some kind of fucking idiot.

The wind tore through my hair, but this time it didn’t feel cleansing. It felt painful. I wanted to open my mouth and scream, to yell with fury at everything I had just seen. I could have stopped this, could have kicked Alana out as soon as she turned up, but I didn’t, and now Jessibelle was gone.

And I had no one to blame but myself.