Chapter 27
Adam
By the time I’d climbed the few floors from Jordan’s room to our suite, I was more pissed off instead of less. My mind raced, wondering what the hell to do with all the information he’d given me. This was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I pulled my card out and keyed into the room. Emilia looked up from her textbook, her highlighter poised in her hand, ready to mark up more passages. Her eyes widened when she saw me.
“What?” I asked, pausing in the entryway.
Her brows rose. “What do you mean, what? Your hair is sticking up like you ran your hands through it a few hundred times, and you usually only do that when you’re upset.”
Self-consciously, I smoothed my hand over my hair. Then I took a breath, let it out slowly and tossed my jacket on the couch. She capped her pen and set it down. “You okay? Did you get some bad news about the opening tomorrow?”
I sat against the back of the couch, rubbing my jaw, and gave a sharp shake of my head. I pondered how much of this was confidential, how much I should share with her. I closed my eyes. I wanted to tell her everything, like always, but there were professional lines I couldn’t cross, weren’t there?
“Oh shit, do you have another one of your headaches?” She stood and approached me. I hooked my arm around her waist and pulled her against me, shaking my head again.
“Jordan just quit.”
She drew back to look in my face, likely trying to determine if I was joking or not. “What? Why?”
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you.”
“Company stuff?”
I licked my lips. “It’s company stuff but also personal to him. I—” I cut off, staring at the ground and frowning.
She wrapped her arms around my waist. “What does this mean for tomorrow? Is he not coming to the opening of trade? I can’t believe that. He’s been obsessed with the IPO.”
“I don’t even know. I was so floored, I didn’t ask.”
Emilia frowned, slipped down on the couch behind us and patted the cushion next to her. I got up and went to sink down beside her. “I noticed he was acting strangely today at the reception, so I went to talk to him. I think it had to do with all that happened yesterday at the company party. April is his intern, after all, and I think he’s really upset about what happened to her.”
“Uh, yeah, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. How did you do that?”
She looked away, her eyes narrowing at some random memory. “I asked him about April because I was concerned, and he got all weird and started asking me about The Scarlet Letter.”
“You mean the movie with Demi Moore?”
She laughed. “The novel that the movie is based on, silly.”
“I may have…watched the movie to get out of reading the novel.”
“You and about ninety percent of all high school graduates.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “I don’t get why he was fixating on that, though, or why he thought to ask me about it when I asked him about April.”
Understanding dawned, based on what I knew. I had a feeling it wouldn’t take her long to figure it out. Nevertheless, I kept my mouth shut.
“Does it have to do with April being outed for the video? But they don’t know who the guy—” She stopped and her eyes widened. And there it was… Not surprising, given her brilliance. “Oh em gee. Jordan was the guy, wasn’t he?”
She amazed me every time. All the time. “I don’t know how you figured that out. Not sure I want to know.” I cocked a brow at her.
She gave me a sly look. “I have super powers, but I would gladly give them up if I could have been a fly on the wall when he told you that.”
I grimaced. “Not unless you wanted to see steam coming out my ears.”
“Hmm. I’ve had that same effect on you before. I don’t think I’d like to see it again. Did you two argue?”
I reached out, cupped her cheek with my hand and she smiled, leaning into my touch, turning to kiss my palm. Slowly, I calmed down from the yelling match with Jordan. “Yeah. I was pretty pissed at him.”
“You’re still pretty pissed at him.”
“I feel betrayed.”
She nodded. “He was probably terrified to tell you.”
“Then he should have grown a pair and done it anyway,” I ground out between clenched teeth, feeling the heat under my collar rise again.
“Why’d he tell you now?”
I shrugged. “He said I wasn’t being fair by firing April and not him.”
Her face clouded and she straightened, looking at me. “He’s right.”
I took a deep breath and released it, letting my hand fall. “He’s the CFO of my company. She’s just an intern—”
Her jaw dropped. Uh-oh. “Adam.”
“What? You don’t even like the interns.”
“Not your groupie interns, no. But April is not one of those jerks. And saying she’s just an intern is sexist, especially since Jordan was the one in the position of power.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. But her dad insisted I terminate her on the spot.”
Emilia’s eyes narrowed and she flicked a pointed finger toward my chest. “Then you should have grown a pair and told him no. Who’s in charge of the company, you or him?”
I didn’t answer the rhetorical question and she continued. “I’m actually pretty impressed with Jordan…that he put himself out there like that for her. He was just so miserable today…” Her voice died out and she looked off to the side, almost as if she’d forgotten that she was lecturing me.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and then looked at me. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that… No…”
“What?”
“You’ve known Jordan for a long time, right?”
“Since I started college at eighteen.”
“In nearly ten years, has he ever stuck himself out there for a woman?”
“Not since his surfer girlfriend at UCLA, no. But that was a bad breakup, and it was after that he became a womanizer. And now apparently, a perv who screws his interns,” I said, unable to disguise the bitter edge in my voice.
“‘Cause you and I never had sex while I was working for you, right?”
I clenched my jaw and released it. She always had a comeback for everything. “We had a relationship before that and we weren’t just sleeping together.”
“But if he was just sleeping with April, why would he have gone to bat for her with you? He’s sacrificing his career for this. It means more to him than just doing the right thing. She means something to him.”
“Maybe she gives a really good blowjob.” Emilia scowled and I held up a hand. “Don’t shoot. I was joking. You’re right, though. This isn’t how he normally acts.”
“I never thought he’d be capable, ‘cause it’s Jordan, but maybe he’s in love with her.”
“But he finds the whole concept of love utterly repulsive.”
“So did you, once.”
“Well, so did you.”
We looked at each other for a minute before she mock-punched my arm. “Okay, so we were dumb, too. But you can’t let him walk away from the company like this.”
I threw up my hands, exasperated. “Apparently, I don’t have a choice. Emilia, he insisted I fire him and I absolutely refused. So he quit.”
“But he quit because you won’t take April back.”
“Her dad—”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “You’re the boss.”
“You usually only say that in bed. I’m getting all hot right now.”
She quirked her mouth at me. “I never say that to you in bed. Maybe in your dirty dreams. But seriously…I think what’s bugging you about all this is that you already know what you have to do to make this right.”
I sighed. “The timing couldn’t be shittier, and I really still am pissed as hell at him. He didn’t come forward and tell me before. And not only did he keep it a secret this entire time, but he covered it up.”
“So you’re going to trash a ten-year friendship and a meaningful business relationship because your feelings are hurt?”
I sighed, throwing my head back. “Stop making such good points, please.”
She snuggled up beside me, laying her head on my shoulder and tilting it to kiss me on the neck. I closed my eyes.
Her mouth found my ear. “You’re the boss,” she murmured, devouring my lobe, sending a nice zing right down to my center.
“That’s right. Say it again.”
“You’re. The. Boss…” she drawled, laughing.
“Mmm. That’s what I like to hear,” I said, pushing her down on the couch beneath me. I pressed my body over hers, kissing her. I didn’t want to think about anything but this.
I didn’t want to think about going down on the stock exchange floor alone without Jordan tomorrow or not having him as my right-hand man from this day forward. And I definitely didn’t want to focus on that heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach that indicated what the right thing to do really was.
Emilia was helping me forget, at least for a little while.