Chapter 29
Jordan
In my dream, someone was knocking at the door. It started out as a gentle knock, and after a few minutes progressed into pounding. At the same time, my phone chimed with a text message.
April sat up first, shockingly, and jostled my shoulder. “Some dickhead is pounding on your door.”
“Mmm.”
“It’s probably whoever is texting you.”
I sat up. What the hell?
“Maybe Sexilicious Sondra is demanding her handcuffs back. She’s had enough of the waiting,” she said, stretching lithely. The sheet fell away from the upper half of her body and my eyes fixed on her luscious bare breasts. Nothing downstairs was compelling enough to pull me away from this gorgeous, naked woman in my bed and the promise of morning sex…
The doorbell began to ring—at five-second intervals, no less—and I’d finally had enough. I slipped out of bed and went looking for my jeans on the floor, not bothering with underwear or a shirt. Whoever it was would have to deal.
April flopped back on the bed. “You wore me out last night with all that sex. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Get your strength up. I plan on wearing you out again when I get back upstairs.”
“Mmm,” she muttered as I left the room. I flew down the stairs, yelling that I was on my way. The pounding stopped.
When I whipped open the door, ready to tear somebody a new one, I stopped short.
“You look like hell,” I said. Adam hadn’t shaved and appeared as if he’d been on a red-eye and slept in his clothes. Not unlike me just twenty-four hours ago, in fact.
“You, on the other hand, look like fresh morning dew.”
I laughed and stepped back to let him in, combing a hand through my hair, which I was sure was sticking up in eighty different directions.
“I would have said you look like a million bucks, but that’s now chump change for you. It’s actually more like forty-one, thirty-two a share.”
He broke into a grin. “I’m still in shock about that.”
“Congrats, man. You are the first official billionaire that I have ever been friends with...” If we were, indeed, still friends.
Adam walked into the living room and looked out onto the beach through the sliding glass door. He folded his arms across his chest.
“Sit down. Can I get you something? I can start some coffee…”
“I’m good,” he said, turning around to look at me. “I’ve been sitting down a lot lately. I’d rather stand.”
That meant he wasn’t staying long. “Where’s Mia at?”
“She had to go straight to school this morning. It was hard enough for her to miss the one day.”
“So, umm. I just wanted to say again that I’m sorry—”
He held his hand up. “Don’t. You don’t need to say it. I’m sorry, too. I didn’t handle that well at all.”
My eyebrow twitched as I tried to hide my surprise. Getting an apology from Adam was about as rare as a gamer nerd at a frat party.
I shrugged. “I dropped a bomb on you out of nowhere. It’s understandable.”
“And I am still pissed about that. Mostly because it sucked being on the stock exchange floor without you. This was supposed to be our crowning moment. Our first huge milestone.”
I looked away, shifting my weight from one leg to the other. “It sucked not being there, man. But I watched it all on the Internet.”
“I don’t want to do the rest of this without you, Jordan. The company needs you too much. I need you too much.”
“But you get why I had to, right?”
“No, I’m still not getting that part.” He frowned. “Can you just…explain again?”
“About it being unfair to punish just her?”
“But would you have done this for anyone else? Why her?”
I jammed my fists in my pockets. “Because she’s…”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Go on…”
“Because I’m….”
“Yes?”
“It’s different with her man. I’m—ah hell, I love her.”
Adam sucked his lips into his mouth for approximately two seconds before he burst out laughing. “Shit!” he said. “Emilia’s going to be so pissed she didn’t hear that straight out of the horse’s mouth.”
I grimaced. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“So yeah, we already figured that out. It was just fun getting you to admit it. Damn, I should have recorded it on my phone.”
“Fuck you.”
He whipped out his phone and pressed the record button. “Can you say it again so I can send it to her?”
“You’ll have to beat it out of me, dude.”
“That can be arranged.” He tucked his phone back into his pocket and sobered. “So, after I leave here, I’m going to contact April and offer to let her finish her internship. Then you’re going to have to figure out a way to dodge the bullets after you tell David that you despoiled his daughter on camera.”
I gulped.
“And then, you are going to have to get your lazy son of a bitch ass dressed and into the office before I have to fire you.”
“So about David…”
Adam glanced away for a minute, clearly uncomfortable. “I have no idea how David will take this, to be honest. That’s going to be on you—and on her. I had Walt’s team track down the people at the company party who tweeted and posted those photos of her. They’ve been asked to look elsewhere for jobs. There were five, and three of them were interns. Cari, the one who tore April’s swimsuit, was already dismissed with no recommendation.” He paused, shifting. His gaze flicked away from mine. “I think it would be appropriate to inform the officers of what happened. That’s not going to be easy for you…”
I took a deep breath and let it go. “I’ll take my lumps. It’s only fair.”
He smiled. “And, of course, I’ll have to document all this humiliation so I can savor it for years to come…”
“That’s out of the question,” I said, grinning. “No deal.”
He paused, almost at a loss for what to say, and then met my gaze again. “So we’re good?”
“Yeah, except you don’t have to go anywhere if you want to speak to April.”
His brow went up and he threw a glance at the stairway. “You want to get her down here so I can talk to her, then? And for God’s sake, put a shirt on.”
It took me a little time to quickly explain to April what had happened and then convince her she looked decent enough to go downstairs. She washed the sleep from her face, got dressed and pulled her hair back, but still mumbled about how she looked terrible. Impossible, in my opinion.
Finally, she came downstairs. By this time, Adam and I were both drinking fresh cups of coffee in the kitchen. April was pale—more so than usual—and looked sheepish, but quietly congratulated Adam on the successful IPO. He thanked her and explained that he wanted to offer her the chance to finish her internship at Draco.
She took a deep breath and let it out, stirring her coffee while appearing deep in thought. Then, she looked up. “Thank you for the offer. And thank you for taking Jordan back. He shouldn’t lose his job over what was basically my fault.” Adam’s eyes widened and I frowned, about to open my mouth to object. She stopped me, holding up her hand. “I hit record on my phone without his knowledge. He would never have done something that stupid.”
“I’ve done stupid shit before. We all have. Adam has too.” Adam rolled his eyes at me and returned his attention to April.
“How did it end up on the Internet?” he asked.
April straightened and looked at me. “Well, even Jordan doesn’t know this because I just found out. I’d always thought it was an accident. Just so you know, I’m probably the most non-tech-savvy person you have ever employed. But my roommate traced what happened using my phone and figured out that one of the other interns—Cari—found the video on my phone when I showed her some pictures, and she sent a copy to herself and uploaded it.” She turned to me when I reacted to this news with a curse. “With everything going on yesterday, I forgot to tell you. Sid figured it out the night before.”
Well, now I was really pissed. Adam rubbed his forehead, taking that in. “Wow, she ended up being a real troublemaker. Wish I’d known that six months ago.”
April sighed. “I wish I’d had the guts to tell you sooner…but I should warn you now that she has a thing for you and it’s a bit obsessive.” Adam colored but didn’t look the least bit surprised. Then April licked her lips and squared her shoulders. “When she started plotting to try to get Mia out of the picture, I finally figured she’d lost it. She was trying to pressure me and others to do her dirty work for her.”
Adam and I both straightened and looked at her, alarmed. Hell no. I was about to speak, but Adam cut me off. “She was planning to do something to Mia?”
April looked down into her coffee, coloring. “At the party, Cari wanted me to tear Mia’s dress and pull it down, saying she would expose me if I didn’t. When I refused, she grabbed my swimsuit and did it to me instead.”
I exchanged a look with Adam. Wow…that was some crazy shit. I knew the girl had been a bit touched when I’d caught her threatening April, and now I regretted not letting her go on the spot. But I’d been more concerned about covering my own ass so that none of this came out…
I watched April while she looked at Adam with no small amount of fear. Adam’s jaw tightened. “Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll handle this, and you don’t need to worry about her anymore.”
Her shoulders rounded with relief. I knew it had taken a lot to tell him all of that. But I was glad that she didn’t need to be reminded to speak up for herself.
She blinked and looked out the window, her chin held high. “I have to be honest. I’m not brave enough to walk back into Draco after what happened on Saturday. But I’m grateful for what you did on my behalf—dismissing the people who posted the pictures and all of that.”
I frowned, disappointed, but could I blame her? I cleared my throat to get her attention. “I’m going to butt in here and say that I think you do have the guts to go back in there. I know you do.”
She shook her head. “That’s easy for you to say. They don’t all know it’s you in the video.”
I nodded. “You’re right. That’s why I’m going to tell them.”
She straightened, eyes locking on mine again. “Jordan—”
I held my hand up. “We can talk about it later. I’m not going to force you to go back there if you don’t want to, but…I sure could use your moral support when I go back.”
Adam glanced between the two of us and pushed his coffee mug aside. “I’m going to get going. I at least need to show my face over there before I go home and crash.”
I walked Adam out, and before he left, put my hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
He shook his head. “It’s what friends do.” And he was gone.
When I went back inside, April hugged me around the waist, holding me close for a long time, her head pressed to my shoulder. I ran my hand down her silky hair. “We’ll figure it—”
“I’ll do it. I’ll go with you. I was almost done with my project, anyway.”
I kissed the top of her head, something like pride glowing in my chest. “You’re sure?”
She tilted her head to look up at me. “Yes. Now kiss me before I change my mind.”
I did just that. Long, slow and deep, our lips and arms locked. I was reminded of that morning sex I’d been deprived of… But there was still some ground we needed to cover.
“You know…when I’m really going to need you is when I talk to your dad.”
Her mouth twisted at the thought. “I might throw you under the bus on that one.”
I laughed. “As long as he isn’t a firearms enthusiast or trained assassin. He’s not, right?”
She laughed. “My dad won’t even kill house spiders. I think you’re good. He might get my grandma to level a curse upon your head, though.”
“I might be tempting fate by saying this, but I’m curse-proof. Those young ladies of my previous acquaintance who may have, at one time or another, cursed me that certain vital organs would shrivel up and fall off, would attest to it.”
Her eyes widened. “It had better not shrivel up and fall off, or I’d have to dump you. The only reason I plan on keeping you around is for the hot sex.”
“And the scruff. Don’t forget the scruff.”
She broke into a smile. “For sure.”
And with that, I kissed her, taking her up on her royal decree to kiss her whenever and wherever I wanted. She was tingling with scruff burns for days.