CHAPTER 23

JARED

“Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today, Jared.” Lesley Ann simpered as we walked, her heels clicking against the laminated flooring of Gerry’s oceanside office building.

Her hips swayed with each step she took, but the movement was exaggerated and she kept bumping into me. Either her arm or her hip or something would brush against mine as I walked her down the hall to the front parking structure of the building. I had half a mind to plant my hands on her shoulders and help her walk straight.

What is wrong with me? A troubling question I didn’t have the answer to. I knew exactly what the reporter was doing and I knew why, but instead of getting my attention that way the woman was getting on my nerves.

Fuck. She was hot as hell, an exotic looking beauty who- for some reason- did absolutely nothing for me. Other than annoy me.

She’d been flirting with me for a solid hour and while she’d asked all the right questions and recorded all my answers, I doubted she listened to a word I said. At least she had her recording, so I wouldn’t have to redo this interview because her hormones kept her from focusing on her job.

I thought I’d done my job brilliantly. I’d touched on everything Alicia told me to, I’d given Lesley Ann the manwhore, playboy Emperor she’d been expecting and I hadn’t accidentally let anything about the album slip I wasn’t supposed to like Dom had been worried about earlier.

All things considered, it went well. I was actually kind of eager to debrief with Alicia about this interview, which surprised me almost as much as my dick’s lack of reaction to Lesley Ann’s barely covered, perky tits. But it knew what it wanted, and that was Alicia.

She’d been there most of the time, then I looked up and she was gone. I didn’t know what had pulled her away last minute, but she was probably in her office. Which had a lockable door.

I’d told her about my fantasy of bending her over her desk and fucking her hard, but we hadn’t gotten round to making it happen yet. I had a feeling today was the today. I was amped up from my stellar performance in the interview and I was ready to blow off some steam. Perhaps by being blown.

Ha! Lame, I knew, but I’d been subjected to an afternoon of lame flirty jokes with the woman I was walking out of the office while answering questions so generic I really could’ve done it by e- mail.

Meanwhile, Alicia watched, wearing a skirt I swear was specifically designed to torture me. I kept catching glimpses of her creamy thighs from the corner of my eye, the flick of her blonde hair over her shoulder. My IQ was bound to have dropped a few points after that.

Especially since most of my brainpower was rapidly fleeing to the lower brain the closer I came to being alone with Alicia. That skirt, I’d be leaving that on...

Lesley Ann was carrying on as we crept closer to the exit, talking about about how ‘lovely’ our interview had been. She was totally oblivious to fact that I’d all but tuned out of this conversation as soon as her recorder clicked off.

“… Would you?” I caught the back end of her question, but I had no idea what she was asking.

Pretending to have been studying the surf crashing to the shore through the large windows in the lobby we were descending into from the hanging staircase in the center of it, I stuck my hands in my pockets and jerked my eyes to hers. “Excuse me?”

Amber eyes softening as she smiled, she reached up to curl a lock of black hair around her finger and hipchecked me. Kind of. Again.

Has this always been this annoying? Couldn’t she tell that I wasn’t interested? My fingers curled into my palms in my pockets. I flirted back with her during the interview, sure, but that was par for the course. My job. Surely she knew that.

A shy smile lifted her lips as she kept twirling that lock and looking up into my eyes. “I asked if you wanted my number. Maybe we could go out some time?”

Apparently she didn’t know I was only doing my job. But since she still had an article to write, I couldn’t ask her if she always bought into her interview subject’s fake flattery.

I had to let her down easy. Flashing her the Emperor smirk Alicia hated so much, I shrugged. “I’m so busy with the band right now I wouldn’t be able to call you. Wouldn’t be fair to you to take your number and be too busy to use it.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” She cooed. My teeth ground together at the warmth in her whiskey colored eyes. Sweet? Not something I ever had been or ever wanted to be accused of being. I wasn’t fucking sweet. What the fuck was going on here?

“I understand, but if you change your mind, you know where I work. You can always get hold of me at the office.” She continued, sighing wistfully as she stuck out her small hand. I shook it, waiting for some awareness of her soft skin on mine to make its way to my cock.

Still nothing. Flaccid as a dead fucking fish between my legs despite the spicy scent of Lesley Ann’s perfume and golden chain hanging like a beacon for a man’s eyes in the valley between her small, round tits.

I wasn’t broken, I knew that much. Alicia’s black leather skirt had me on edge all the way through the interview, so much so I had to keep adjusting my position to try keep from crushing my cock against my zipper.

Just the thought of her in that skirt caused a stir I almost breathed a sigh of relief to feel. But why was I only reacting to her? It was mildly disturbing.

Reclaiming my hand from Lesley Ann’s, my mind flashed on another image of Alicia. One from probably a minute or so before I looked up to see she was gone.

And that was when it hit me.

She was upset. I didn’t know why, but that had to be what was going on with me and why I kept thinking about her even with the advances from this gorgeous woman in front of me. Subconsciously, I knew all along that Alicia was upset.

Urgency to get to her coursed through me. We weren’t in a relationship or anything, but I had promised her exclusivity and something had set her off. Something was wrong. I needed to talk to her.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I said to Lesley Ann, more curtly than I meant to. “I’d better get back upstairs. I have another appointment.”

“Better get to it. Nice meeting you.” She replied, but I was already crossing the lobby back to the hanging staircase. Turning around to walk backward for a second, I waved, gave her a last smile and turned back to take the stairs two at a time.

Dark clouds were gathering over the Pacific as I strode to Alicia’s office. Gerry’s building had floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere and usually the view hardly registered I was so used to it. Today, I couldn’t help wondering if the impending storm was some kind of omen.

I wasn’t superstitious. I never even thought about shit like that, but the more I thought about the expression on Alicia’s face before she left, the more uncomfortable I got. My gut was telling me something was about to happen. And while I didn’t trust omens or signs or any of that shit, I trusted my gut- implicitly.

The door to her office was open when I got to it. Without knocking, I walked in and closed the door behind me. Alicia was sitting behind her mammoth desk with her back to me, her chair turned to face the ocean.

She spun round when the door clicked shut. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but there were no tear stains on her cheeks.

Thank god. Crying women were not my forte.

When her gaze came to rest on mine, she blinked and her jaw hardened, her entire demeanor going ice cold. She cleared her throat, her voice tight. “Jared, what can I do for you? We don’t have a meeting scheduled.”

Stopping only when I reached her desk, I rested my palms flat on it. “We don’t have a meeting scheduled? Since when do I need one?”

“Since always.” She didn’t look at me as she answered. Anger radiated from her. From the set of her jaw and shoulders to the ramrod stiffness of her spine. “I just let myself forget it for a while. Won’t happen again.”

“Won’t happen again?” I straightened, frowning as I folded my arms. “What does that even mean? Why are you mad at me suddenly?”

“I’m not mad. I’m...” She trailed off, blue eyes raising to meet mine finally when she answered. “Disillusioned.”

“Disillusioned? What’re you talking about?” The uncomfortable feeling in gut spread, turning into something darker. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it and there was voice whispering in the back of my mind, telling me things I wasn’t prepared to hear yet.

Alicia jutted out her chin defiantly, mirroring my position by crossing her arms and lifting a manicured brow. “I’m talking about what you said back there. And don’t even pretend you don’t know which part of the interview I’m referring to.”

I scoffed, my chin dropping to my chest and my eyebrows jumping up. “The flirting thing?”

“The flirting thing.” She confirmed flatly.

“I have to do my job, don’t I?” I argued. I couldn’t believe this shit. “That’s part of my persona for the band. Ergo, my job.”

“Yes, well I suppose that’s true. A job. That’s all you are to me too, you know, my job.” The whispering in the back of my mind got louder, becoming clearer. Before I could say anything, Alicia turned her chair toward the ocean again. “In which case, you can leave. Like I said, we don’t have a meeting scheduled and I don’t want anything to do with you outside of work. Outside of this office, we’re nothing. Do you understand?”

“Do I understand?” I repeated incredulously. “I fucking understand, alright. We were never a couple, Alicia. Remember that? We talked about it. You don’t get to act like the jealous girlfriend.”

Because that was what this was. That was where the uncomfortable feeling came from and what the whispers were trying to warn me about. Alicia and I weren’t in a relationship, I’d been clear about that and I thought she understood, that she was with me about where we stood.

If that was true though, she wouldn’t have been acting like this. I was wrong about her. Wrong about thinking promising her exclusivity didn’t mean a thing to her either, other than I wouldn’t stick my dick in anyone else. My defenses shot up.

“You’re right. This is a job. You need to do yours and I need to do mine. That’s all there is to this.” The words felt wrong as they came out, almost choking me. But they were out there now, that was what mattered.

I saw Alicia’s shoulders rise and fall before she stood, turned back to me and grabbed her purse hanging from her chair. Resolute determination burned in her eyes as she swept by me, holding her door open and waving me out with her hand. “Of course. And doing mine means I need to leave now if I’m going to make it to my next meeting on time. You should get back to yours too.”

Frozen in place as my eyes locked with hers, I didn’t make a move for the door. Alicia sighed, nodded once and then walked through it, letting it slam behind her perfect butt.

“What the fuck just happened?” I muttered to the empty office. Lifting my arms and threading my fingers together behind my neck, I stared the closed door she’d just marched through.

Away from me.

Anger knotted my stomach, staining my vision red as it flowed through me. I really thought we understood each other. And we had, I knew it. I’d seen it in her eyes after we talked at the benefit.

What gave her the right to change the game after we’d agreed to the rules?

Nothing, that was what. We were both in this, she couldn’t go making decisions about us and what was or wasn’t acceptable in our non- relationship without talking to me about it first. Not that I would’ve okayed this latest change, but maybe I wouldn’t have been so blindsided by it.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed back the urge to punch something. This is was ridiculous. Why was I so angry about this? It was over. We’d both made it perfectly clear.

I should just let it go, laugh it off the way I always did. But I couldn’t. Not a single part of me was amused. Instead, there was a sinking feeling in my gut and the longer I stared at that closed door, the worse it got. It blossomed from my gut and felt like needles were stabbing at my insides.

It hurt. Like hell.

What was going on with me?

Why the hell was Alicia walking out such a big deal to me?