Jenna
I’m woken up the next morning with kisses all along my spine, dipping down the curve of my back and over my ass. I open my eyes and turn towards Lachlan.
“Good morning,” he says huskily. “I couldn’t help myself. You looked so perfect sleeping there.”
I shift and roll onto my back, revealing my creamy orbs to him, my nipples pointing proudly towards the ceiling. He kisses my hip slowly, tongue hot on my skin as he moves lower.
“Well, it’s one of the nicer ways to be woken up,” I murmur as I close my eyes, letting the feeling of his kisses sink into me. I can feel his cock, hard and thick, pressing against my leg, promising me a very, very nice wakeup call indeed. His hand pushes my legs apart, opening my pink pussy up to him, and I suck in a breath as his lips meet my folds.
“God that feels so good,” I mumble softly, my hand working through his hair.
Just then my ringtone goes off, and my eyes snap open.
“Forget about it,” he orders, his tongue flicking into me.
I feel his fingers push back my swelling lips, exposing my tight little clit into the cold air. He blows softly, and I gasp with pleasure, and then his tongue slowly circles the nub, coaxing it until it’s hard as a pearl in his mouth. I’m wet now, so wet, soaking the mattress with my honey as I buck up into him.
And then my phone goes off again, even more urgently this time and I open my eyes. I can’t help it. Even though I know Lachlan’s just given me a direct order, I have to check. Almost everyone I know messages me instead, which means it’s my parents. And they wouldn’t be calling back to back unless it’s important. I reach across to the bedside table, fumbling for my phone.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Jenna, have you seen the news?”
It’s my mom, and I’m momentarily confused by what she’s telling me. Lachlan’s punishing me, his fingers pushing inside of me as he sucks on my clit. I can’t think straight.
“Forget about the news. Are you with that sonovabitch right now Jenna?” It’s my dad, snarling mad. He must have picked up the phone in their bedroom.
“What are you talking about?!”
“I said, are you with that son of a bitch Lachlan!” His words are gritted and he practically spits out his name.
A chill runs down my back, I sit up straight, out of Lachlan’s reach. He frowns at me, but then he sees the look on my face.
“Dad, what’s going on?” I ask stalling. “We’re still in Riverton if that’s what you mean. The flight is this afternoon, remember?”
“Dear-” my mom tries to say before getting cut off.
“Don’t dear me. It’s all over the news, the internet, all of it,” my dad roars. “Beth sent me the article. I can’t believe the nerve of that man, taking advantage of my little girl like that.”
“How could this have happened?” my mom asks, and there’s so much sadness in her voice that my stomach turns in knots.
“We should sue. Honey, I need you to call up the Tucker’s. Didn’t Gill say that his brother’s a lawyer or something?”
I don’t understand what’s happening. I turn away from Lachlan, pulling the covers up around me. He must have overhead my dad’s yelling because he’s on his phone too, rapidly scrolling through. I want to say something to him but I don’t say anything, because the last thing I need is for mom and dad to know we were in bed together.
“Mom! Dad! Just stop it okay? You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet!”
“So you’re telling me you’re not sleeping with the man?” my dad says gruffly.
I swallow hard. My hesitation is enough to confirm the truth to my dad, and he goes off again, ranting about sexual harassment and all sorts of terrible things about Lachlan. I hear my mom sniffling in the background, and I feel a million times worse. Even though I knew at the back of my mind that what we were doing was wrong, it was so easy to push that thought away in the moment. Being with Lachlan just felt so good.
“You’re coming home right now,” my dad finally finishes. “I won’t allow you to stay near that, that predator. Not for a single minute longer. I want you to call me from the airport, and it better be in the next hour, or I’m going down there myself, you hear me?”
My dad clicks off. My shoulders slump, and I’m completely drained. Who told my dad? Not who, what. I remind myself. He said something about the internet. I open up my phone and pull up Google, then type in our names. The San Francisco Chronicle has an article, and I click it. ‘LOCAL CEO CAUGHT PANTS DOWN WITH INTERN’ screams the title, along with a picture of Lachlan and I checking into our motel. It’s definitely from yesterday. I guess that means that flash I saw was real after all. But who would want to hurt Lachlan and I like this? I can’t imagine a soul. I close the tab, not wanting to read the words.
Lachlan’s pacing in the bathroom. He’s probably on the phone with the company’s PR agency, and he holds up a finger when he sees me at the door. I turn around and walk back through the room, gathering up my clothes. I slip into my dress from last night, and begin packing up my suitcase.
I hear him end the call and come into the room. His jaw is set, and there’s a stony look in his eye that I’ve never seen before. My heart beats faster, because even though he looks angry at me, he’s still sexy as hell.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” he replies woodenly.
We stand in awful silence.
“My dad says I have to go home,” I mumble, gesturing at my bags.
“Good idea. We should head back. There’s a lot I need to do anyways. And it’s probably better for us to get out of here before the reporters descend,” Lachlan says.
“Will there be? I mean, I didn’t think this was such a big deal,” I say, confused.
“Of course. It’s a scandal involving a Buchanan.”
I close my eyes. Somehow I’ve forgotten that Lachlan comes from one of oldest families in California. His father’s a senator. Could that be why he’s so upset? Because everything’s blowing up in his face now?
I watch him start to pack, and he doesn’t look at me once. I go over to him, put my hand on his shoulder, and finally he turns.
“What is it?” he says.
“Please talk to me,” I say quietly. “We’re still okay, aren’t we?”
“What are you talking about? Jenna, you’ve read what they’re saying haven’t you? What we had between us, it disappeared as soon as that reporter broke the news about it. I think you know that too.”
I stare at him open mouthed. I search his eyes, hoping for an answer that’s not there.
“You don’t mean that,” I say at last. “You don’t want that, do you? Because I don’t.”
Finally his eyes soften, and he sits me down with him. He holds my hand, his thumb gently stroking my skin.
“Jenna. It doesn’t matter what we want. The truth is, I’m a decade older. We’re at different points in our lives. You’re supposed to be going out, having fun, and meeting guys your age. And believe me, you don’t want to have to go through the media firestorm that’s going to happen. I have no idea if the company will even survive. Let’s not try to make things even more difficult. It’ll be better for you if we’re apart. If we’re not together, maybe there’s a chance this will all blow over.”
My throat’s all clogged up, but I manage to nod. Lachlan is right. All I’ve been doing is focused on myself, but there’s so much more at stake. Lachlan’s got his company to think of, at least 1000 employees who are depending on him. I can’t even imagine that kind of stress. I can understand why he’s panicking, why he’s saying that we’ve got to cool things down. I’m sure that once everything’s settled down, he’d feel differently. I mean, yesterday was perfect, more than perfect. The way we talked, all the things we did… surely I was more than just some office affair?
“Okay. I know it’s really stressful right now,” I say finally. “Let’s just talk about it later okay?”
“Sure thing Jenna,” he says, but there’s a note of defeat that I’ve never heard in his voice before.
I nod a few times, more to convince myself than anything, and stand back up. I still have to grab my shampoo and makeup in the bathroom. I have to believe in Lachlan and I. Right now tensions are high, but I’m sure that once he realizes that things aren’t as bad as he thinks they are, we’ll be able to work things out.
So why does my chest hurt so badly?
********
We manage to get an earlier flight, and my parents tell me that they’re meeting me at the airport. I tell Lachlan, hoping that maybe he’ll say that we can face them together, but he just nods and veers toward one of the airport’s bars. I guess he’s just going to wait it out until we’re gone. My heart cracks even more, and the walk towards baggage claim is the longest I’ve ever done.
My parent’s faces are no better when I see them. My mom is upset, I can tell, because her eyes are all red, and my dad refuses to even look at me. I can tell that he’s trying not to yell at me in public, and I’m relieved that I wouldn’t have to endure that at least. We troop towards the parking lot, three of the most miserable people in the world. As soon as we all get in the car, mom and dad in the front and me in the back, my dad speaks.
“You’re staying with us,” he declares with grim authority as he starts the car. “No more of this living on your own business.”
“Wait, what?” I yell as he starts the car. “You can’t just decide that.”
“Sure we can. We pay the rent on your apartment, so I think we get to say who gets to live in it or not. I was worried about you when you said you wanted to live on your own, and you’ve just proved it to me.”
I turn to my mom, shocked.
“You can’t be serious. I’m an adult. You can’t make me go home. I’ve got school.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” my dad mutters. “You’re on summer break aren’t you? So you’ll have time to go to the lawyer with us tomorrow.”
My surprise turns to fear.
“Dad, you can’t do that to Lachlan! He could lose his company,” I say urgently. “I won’t do it. I won’t press charges.”
I shake my mom’s shoulder urgently from the back, but she’s not looking at me.
“Mom, please talk some sense into dad. Please. I made my own decisions. Lachlan didn’t force me into anything.”
My breath hitches, and I have to brush angry tears away. I know how much the company means to Lachlan, how much he’s put into it. I don’t want to be the reason he loses it all. I couldn’t bear it. I know that they don’t have a case if I refuse to say anything, but popular opinion’s already made up their mind about Lachlan, and that could damage him even more. Who would want to work with Buchanan Manufacturing when their CEO is seen as some kind of sleaze?
“Lachlan is it? So you and him have been sleeping together?” my dad says with disgust. “I can’t believe it. I honestly can’t believe it.”
A burst of rage explodes inside my chest.
“Why can’t you dad? Is it because you hate the man? Because I don’t. In fact, I love him. Maybe we shouldn’t have started this when he’s my boss, but it’s not like I was coerced into it. I made the choice to be with him too.”
“Oh honey,” my mom wails. “You can’t honestly mean that. He’s so much older than you! What could you possibly have in common?”
“I do mean it,” I say defiantly, because I do. “I love Lachlan Buchanan.”
Even after everything, I love Lachlan. I still love Lachlan. And I know that he loves me. He has to. He’s scrambling right now, trying to fix things, but I know deep in my heart that what we had wasn’t just some affair. Our connection went beyond the physical.
“She’s sick,” my mom says, blinking rapidly at my dad. “Or something. Maybe she has Stockholm syndrome. That’s the one where a person falls in love with their kidnapper, isn’t it? Should we get her a therapist?”
“NO. No, no no. Mom you can’t honestly believe what you’re saying. Nobody kidnapped me, okay? Nobody forced me to do anything. I know that you don’t want to hear this but I love him. I’m going to say it a million times if I have to, because I do. You’ll just have to accept it.”
The waterworks release again with my mom, and even though I feel awful, I know I have to stand strong. Because even though I owe my parents a lot, and even though it’s hurting them now, I’ve never been so sure of something in my life. I want to be with Lachlan almost as much as I want to become an interior designer. And even if he can’t see it yet, he will. And then everything will work out. I know it in my heart, in my bones. And I hold onto that fact all the way home.