TWENTY-FOUR
LUCY
Repairing things with my mother is nowhere near as easy as Jace made it seem.
And no matter how many times I sneak in quickies with him at work, or how many times I find myself pinned against the wall of his bedroom after business hours, it still doesn't make the next several days in my life any less miserable. I’m so worn down by the situation with Mom that it barely fazes me when the rest of the office realizes that Jace and I are casually … doing whatever we’re doing with each other after Daisy and Theo walk in on our boss kissing me in the breakroom.
They accept it without question, leaving me to go back to trying to mend the wedge I’d created when I accepted my job without telling her everything.
She isn't furious like I expected her to be. Instead, she's hurt. And not so much about the fact that I work for Jace's company—even though she hates that I promote sex for a living—but because I haven’t been upfront about it. She has very few words for me, and by the time I meet up with Jamie for drinks at the end of the week, I'm a wreck.
“You look like shit. Is Susie still giving you a hard time?” she questions as I slide onto the barstool next to her. Releasing a ragged breath, I drag my fingers through my hair, make a ponytail with my hands, and then let the black locks tumble around my shoulders. Jamie gives me a sympathetic look, her bottom lip poking out slightly. “Has she at least said anything to you?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I signal the bartender then turn to my friend. “Just about everything she says to me is in Vietnamese because she knows I only know a handful of words. Last night, I left my phone in the kitchen, and when she saw me looking for it, she just said microwave, so I guess there’s that.”
Jamie slides her shot of what I'm guessing is tequila between her open palms and runs her tongue from side to side between her teeth. “Please tell me you pointed out to her that you are an adult?”
I sigh. “I told her that, and like I said, she gave me an answer in Vietnamese.”
“She'll come around,” my best friend says confidently.
After the bartender comes over and I order a shot of tequila—which makes my friend do a double take because I don’t usually touch the stuff—I hang my head and sigh. “How’s your week going?”
“My week?” Jamie releases an incredulous breath. “My week has been tame. I mean, I haven’t gotten pooped on, and I have a blind date with one of Dr. Schneider’s friends on—”
Lifting my head, I cock an eyebrow. “Hopefully not with another ass-loving PA.”
“Says the woman whose boyfriend is Mr. EXtreme himself. The ass lover’s fantasies probably don’t have anything on Jace’s.”
I cast her a dark look as I thank the bartender for the shot he places in front of me. “I'm not dating Jace.”
“Mmmhmm.” She rolls her chocolate brown eyes dramatically and mouths a what-the-fuck-ever. “You’ve been sexing up the guy all over the place for the last few weeks, so I’m just going to stick with what I said. By the way, I know you’re holding out on me.”
“We’ve agreed that what we are is … casual.” Because casual is supposed to leave my nerve endings tingling and my heart racing before, during, and after every time he touches me. I tip my glass to my lips and down the shot, wheezing as the fiery liquid rushes down my throat. I’m still coughing when I ask her, “And what do you mean when you say I’m holding out on you?”
“Lucy, the guy makes chrome dicks. You can’t tell me you two haven’t been trying some really kinky, toe-curling stuff.” She sighs, resting her elbows on the bar counter and cradles her chin in her palms. “He didn’t make you sign an NDA for that too, did he?”
Burying my face in my hands, I laugh. Coming out with Jamie is the best decision I’ve made all week—other than finally saying my peace to Tom, which hadn’t even made me feel any better. “Jesus, you’ve been reading too much.” I look up to see her full burgundy-painted lips pressed together. “No, my personal relationship with him has nothing to do with the NDA he made me sign.”
“You and Jace Exley,” she says, then releases a whistle and shakes her head. “I bet he’s incredible.”
Yes, he is, but I don’t tell Jamie that. Instead, I order another shot and focus on ways to fix things with my mother.
My big break with my mother comes approximately three days later, when she comes into the living room shortly after I get home from work, dressed for dinner with her new “friend.”
“Don’t you look hot,” I tease, feeling a lump form in my throat at how pathetic I must sound. I feel like I’m running out of time to connect with Mom—that if I let this go on any longer, we will be irrevocably ruined—and I’m willing to say anything to get her to hear me out.
She spins toward me, blushing. “Really, Lucy?” she says, surprising me because she isn’t addressing me in Vietnamese tonight. She fluffs her black bob and lifts her shoulders. “You’re being dramatic.”
I widen my eyes. “You said that in English, Mom. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
She takes a seat beside me on the couch, and because there are pictures of sex toys pulled up on the screen of my laptop, I quickly slam it shut. She frowns. “Researching for that job?”
“Yes, Mom,” I sigh. “And I really like my job and the people I work with, so it would make things so much easier if you just …”
“Got over it?” she demands, and I let out a strangled sound. I wasn’t going to say that to her, so it sounds much better coming from her lips. “You’re just like your father. He always said that and it”—she moves her hands in front of her chest, searching for the right word, before she finally settles on one—“pissed me off. But I loved him and I love you. I don’t want you to get hurt, Lucy.”
I lay my hand on her knee, wrinkling the soft cotton fabric of her dress. “I promise the big, bad sex toys aren’t going to hurt me.”
She glowers at my phrasing. “It’s not polite to say things like that,” she admonishes, then gets up from the couch and grabs her purse from the armchair. “Will you be home when I return tonight or with that … your boss?”
Ugh, does she have to say it like that? When I promise her I’ll be home for the rest of the evening, she offers me a short nod.
“We’ll talk then,” she says, fishing the keys to her SUV out of her purse. “And you should talk to your boyfriend about visiting your mother.”
I cringe at her assumption that I’m dating Jace. I don’t know what the hell we are, but I know we’re not a couple, even if he does do things to my body and mind and soul that wreck me. Flicking my gaze to the armrest of the couch, I plaster on a smile, trying like hell to pretend it doesn’t bother me that I’m Jace Exley’s fuck buddy. It hadn’t been an issue just a few weeks ago, so there’s no reason why I should be affected by it now.
Except, I am.
Something changed the night I went to his house after Tom’s visit, and that shift is undeniable.
When he approached me earlier today at work to ask if I’ll accompany him to Mr. B’s house in a couple of nights to watch the unveiling of the spinning sex table he worked so hard on, I had held my breath. I had hoped that he would tell me he wanted to take me as his and not as his marketing director with benefits.
Of course, he hadn’t.
Still, I agreed to go, hating the way my heart seemed to rattle inside my chest as I waited for something—anything—more from him, even though we’ve repeatedly agreed there won’t be more. “Jace,” I’d said just before he left my office, and he’d turned to face me, skimming his tattooed fingers through his messy dark hair as he gave me a delicious smile.
“Don’t be nervous about B’s, love. I promise I don’t expect you to participate. All you need to do is praise his genius, and I’ll have you out of there before the good stuff starts.”
“Tell him it’s disrespectful to be dating you without showing his face around here,” Mom admonishes, drawing my thoughts from the upcoming party I’m nervous about and the man I can’t get enough of. Despite the toll our casual relationship status is taking on me.
The fact my mother thinks I’m dating Jace makes it twice as bad.
I start to point out that I haven’t seen much of her new “friend”—she had canceled her plans with him the night we were all supposed to go out for dinner—but I stop myself. This is the first time in days she’s said more than a couple of words that I understand, and I refuse to shatter the moment. Plus, even if I say anything and redirect the conversation to her friend, Mom is still so old-fashioned that she’ll only shrug my words right off.
She’ll bring up Jace again, and I’ll feel that pressure in my chest that comes along with feeling things I said I wouldn’t.
Blinking rapidly, I nod at my mom. “I’ll tell Jace what you said.”