CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sun was beginning to drop over the horizon by the time Jason and I returned to our room at the resort.
“Let’s eat downstairs at the restaurant tonight,” I suggested, kicking off my sneakers.
He boxed me in against the wall and immediately ran his lips along my neck. “Personally I’d rather stay in again.”
I giggled as his hands began roaming. “I’d like to eat my dinner wearing clothes tonight. Now let me shower.”
“Let me join you.”
“Then we’ll never get out of here. Stay,” I warned, slipping out of his grip.
Jason looked displeased, but he remained where he was while I dragged my bag into the bathroom with me.
After standing under the steamy shower spray for a few minutes, I began to regret keeping Jason away. But then my belly grumbled and I reasoned we’d have plenty of time after dinner to revisit the shower at a more leisurely pace. I toweled off and dried my hair quickly before slipping into a plain black cocktail dress that would suit nearly every occasion. The mirror was still steamed over, so I decided to grab my makeup bag and use the mirror in the room. Besides, Jason might be growing irritated over waiting so long for the shower.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I opened the door. Jason was sitting on the bed staring at his phone with a somber expression. He looked up and pasted a smile on his face when I entered the room.
“Hey there, gorgeous. You save some hot water for me?”
I threw my makeup bag on the bed. “What is it?”
Jason raked his hand through his hair and looked away. “You should check your phone.”
“Tell me why.”
He exhaled heavily before stating the bad news. “The county put a temporary halt on the project. They’re saying they never received the right paperwork for the finalized architectural changes.”
“What?” I shrieked, my heart pounding as I snatched his phone away so I could read the flurry of emails that had been exchanged this afternoon between Lester & Brown, the county, and the architectural firm Lukas worked for.
“I don’t understand,” I said, reading as fast as I could. “I don’t understand at all. That paperwork was submitted over a month ago. They responded with an approval.”
“Conditional approval,” Jason corrected me gently.
As I skimmed through the email details, I understood what he meant. A finalized hard copy of the revised blueprints needed to be delivered to the county’s downtown Phoenix office within thirty days of the conditional approval. I’d been handling all that communication regarding the architectural changes Lukas had designed, so that task fell to me. Somehow I’d overlooked that detail at the time I’d received that conditional approval. Jason had been copied on the communication, but following up was my responsibility. This was one hundred percent my fault.
The blood roared in my head as I scrolled through the rest of the messages. I heard myself speaking as if from far away. “So as of this afternoon all work on the courthouse project has been frozen. Oh my god, Jason. Oh my god.” I dropped his phone and pitched forward with my head in my hands.
“Audrey, honey. Breathe.” Jason’s arm wrapped firmly around me. I might have fallen to the floor without it. “It will be all right.”
Obstacles and constant challenges came with the territory when managing large-scale construction projects. I was used to that. Usually I could face them head-on with determination. But never had I personally fucked up in such a major way. It was galling to think I must have been so distracted in the throes of my exciting new love life that I hadn’t thoroughly read the county’s instructions.
Vaguely I heard Jason talking through my fog of panic.
“It’s Saturday,” he said. “There was only minimal work happening there today anyway. And tomorrow there’s no labor on-site. We’ll get this all sorted out on Monday morning.”
I lifted my head. “We need to go back tonight, Jason. This can’t wait until Monday.”
He shook his head. “The county office is closed and will be closed tomorrow. Even if we left right now, by the time we get back to the valley it’ll be almost ten. And like I said, it’s Saturday night. Nobody will be available. We might as well stay here. We can call The Man to assure him that we’re handling the situation and cc everyone on the chain, explaining the same thing.” He gave me a comforting squeeze. “We’ll handle it together.”
I looked at him. “It’s not your fault, Jason. It’s mine. I’ll let everyone know that.”
He scowled. “We’re partners in this, Audrey. I’m just as responsible for anything that goes wrong as you are.” He tipped my chin up, and his eyes seemed to peer straight into my soul. “Didn’t I tell you that I’ve got your back?”
I stood up and twisted my hands together as I paced. I felt nauseated and stupid and every ounce the fuckup my own father was convinced still lurked within me.
Worst of all, for the first time in years, I really, really felt tempted to take a drink.
My eyes landed on the small refrigerator tucked beneath the television. There had to be something containing alcohol in there. As the thought crossed my mind, a sudden ache blossomed deep within in a place I’d taken care to bury. It was the repulsively familiar desire to satisfy a destructive craving. And, like a volcano, it had only been dormant, not dead.
I smoothed my hands on my dress, more shaken over the thoughts that were racing through my head than over the courthouse debacle.
Taking my phone from atop the dresser where I’d left it, I said, “I’m going to call Marty.”
“Put him on speaker,” Jason ordered, coming to my side.
I paused. “He might wonder why we’re hanging out together on a Saturday night.”
Jason shrugged. “Then let him wonder.”
The Man didn’t wonder at all why Jason and I were huddled together in the same place or why we’d been unavailable all afternoon. He just wanted to hear that the problem would be solved with no significant delay.
“I will be there with the blueprints in hand when the county offices open on Monday morning,” I promised.
“We’ll take care of it,” Jason added. “There will be no delay.”
The Man sighed and told us we needed to draft an email to that effect so that everyone could breathe a little easier tonight.
After we ended the call, Jason showered while I wrote out an apologetic email ending with the assurance that everything would be resolved on Monday. Then I listened to make sure Jason was still in the shower and gritted my teeth while I did an unpleasant thing. I texted a message to Lukas Lund asking him for a favor.
Jason emerged from the bathroom with his pants undone. If I’d been a little less frazzled, I would have appreciated the way his wet hair dripped onto his muscled shoulders. I would have crept up to him and planted a kiss on the smooth skin just below the hollow of his throat.
“You shaved,” I noticed.
He put a hand to his face and smiled at me in the mirror. “Beard was getting itchy.”
“Are we still going to dinner?” I asked. I didn’t really feel like eating.
“Sure,” Jason said as he pulled a clean blue shirt on. “Everyone deserves dinner, Audrey.”
He winked at me and I managed a small smile, remembering when he’d said those same words to me once before, the night we ended up at my apartment.
I could feel Jason’s eyes on me as I carried my makeup bag to the mirror and quickly applied the basics.
When we were leaving the room, my phone buzzed with a new message. It was Lukas saying he’d be glad to help in any way he could in the wake of this misunderstanding. Jason was watching me as I read the message.
“Just my brother,” I told him, and tossed the phone into my purse. Jason and Lukas had never really resolved their issues after their public brawl. I felt guilty over the lie, but to get this situation resolved quickly and painlessly, I needed Lukas’s cooperation. I couldn’t let anything get in the way of that.
With the restaurant fairly crowded, the hostess asked if we minded being seated beside the bar. I actually did mind, given my upset, but not enough to languish in the lobby until another table became available.
Jason, sensing I was hopelessly preoccupied, did a lot of the talking at dinner. He was trying to make me laugh, regaling me with stories about the kind of trouble he and Dominic used to find in their late teens and early twenties. I got the feeling he was leaving a lot of gaps in his wild tales.
“Sounds like you guys were quite the party animals,” I commented, eyeing a bottle of wine that was being carried past.
When my gaze returned to Jason, he had a funny look on his face and I wondered if he had noticed, if he could tell that I had imagined grabbing that wine bottle and guzzling until I had to stop for breath. Then I decided I was being paranoid. Jason Roma possessed a wide range of talents but he couldn’t read minds. And anyway, just because the thought flashed through my mind didn’t mean I’d actually do it. I was in control. I was fine. One piece of bad news wouldn’t change that. I’d had bad news before.
Our food arrived and even though it smelled delicious, I mostly picked at it, pushing pieces of chicken marsala across the plate.
“You want to try mine instead?” Jason asked, pushing his plate over.
I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
Jason got to his feet. “Need to go to the men’s room, so feel free to change your mind in my absence.” He smiled and tossed his napkin on the table.
I took a bite of my chicken after he left. I stared at the people cluttering up the space around the bar. They were mostly young and beautiful and full of laughter. Envy pricked at me as I observed the casual way they held their drinks. Like most adults, they were just indulging in fun, fully capable of stopping anytime they needed to. They probably weren’t bound to their bad habits. Or maybe they were. Sometimes you couldn’t tell.
With a sigh I took a sip of water and then looked up in time to notice Jason was returning. Abruptly his head whipped around in the direction of the bar as if someone had shouted his name. A second later I saw who it was. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five. Her honey-colored hair reached halfway down her back, and the tight red dress she wore showed off every impressive feminine curve. She was approaching my boyfriend with her arms out and a wide smile parting her full lips. As she trapped Jason in an embrace, he glanced back at me with an apologetic look.
The girl’s eyes dimmed when Jason edged out of her hug. They dimmed further as he spoke to her. She took a step back and her perfect features clouded as she touched his arm in farewell and then returned to the collection of people gathered around the bar.
“Did you find a friend on the way back from the bathroom?” I asked a little sarcastically.
He shrugged. “Gabby just came over to say hello.”
“It appeared she intended to do more than that.”
Jason gave me a puzzled look. “So what? I told her I was here with my girlfriend, Audrey. That was the end of it.”
I sighed. “I didn’t mean to sound jealous.”
He grinned. “It’s okay, it’s kind of cute.”
I looked toward the bar again and noticed that Gabby had been staring at us. She quickly snapped her head in the opposite direction when she saw me watching.
“How long did you guys date?” I asked Jason.
His eyes shifted. “I didn’t say we dated.”
“Okay, how long did you guys know each other?”
He shifted in his seat and stirred gravy into his mashed potatoes with a fork. “Not long. Met her at a mutual friend’s Christmas party last year.”
“That wasn’t too long ago.”
“I suppose.”
“And you weren’t dating her.”
“No.”
“Just fucking her.”
He let the fork drop on his plate with a clatter. “What do you want to hear, Audrey? I was no angel and you know it.” He grabbed my hand and gazed intently into my eyes. “She doesn’t matter. All there is now is us.”
I didn’t know what had made me lash out other than the fact that I was distressed over the situation at work. Maybe I was searching for a way to not be the lone screwup today. In any case I had no right to take out my angst on Jason. I had no doubt that I was the only woman in his life. I covered his hand with my other one. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Jason smiled and kissed my hand like the prince he was.
Later we attacked each other as soon as we were back in the room. We screwed standing up against the wall and moved to the shower where I urged him to go harder, harder, and fucking harder still, even though my back would probably be sore the next day after knocking so forcefully against the wall tiles. Then I sank to my knees right there in the steam and finished him with my mouth. We retreated to the room and collapsed on the bed in an exhausted, wet pile, but I knew Jason had enough stamina to be ready again soon. He was. I climbed on top and rode him at a frenetic pace until I shook and came. Then he took charge, flipping me over and ending the job from behind.
We crawled beneath the covers sometime after one a.m. and Jason stroked my back. “Everything is going to be fine, Audrey,” he soothed, undoubtedly trying to comfort me because he understood me well enough to know I wouldn’t be able to stop worrying about my epic mistake.
“I know,” I said, and wished I had a better talent for lying.
Jason was asleep when I slid out of bed and wrapped myself in his shirt before settling down on a leather armchair positioned opposite the television. There in the darkness with my boyfriend sleeping ten feet away, I drew my knees up to my chest and stared at the tiny refrigerator, wondering how the minibar was stocked. This was a classy resort. There might be an entire bottle of wine in there.
I never did open it to find out. But I did stare at the closed door for a long time before returning to bed.