Chapter 14

Jessibelle

I slunk back into the office, ducking away from his questions. I didn’t want to answer them, didn’t want to think about them, because handling that on top of everything else that had just happened felt impossible.

What a fucking mess of a day it was. I mean, I’d won the case. At least I had that under my belt, something I could take back to the guys upstairs if they questioned anything that had happened between Zach and me. But then, of course, I had to go and undercut my success but having dirty sex with him in the back of his damn limo. What was it about that car that got me going so much? Or was it his presence that pushed me over the edge? It was hard to tell the difference.

I headed back to my desk and felt as though what I’d done was scrawled over my forehead for everyone to see. Like the walk of shame. Yep, that was what it was.

The fucking walk of shame.

I got a couple of sideways glances and checked to make sure my skirt was pulled down where it belonged—it was—and that my blouse was still buttoned up. There was one button popped open and I quickly fastened it and focused in on my laptop. Just pretended like it hadn’t happened. That was the best course of action. Well, that, and making sure it never happened again. Once six o’clock came, I left the office to go home and think about how I could get my life back on track.

***

I couldn’t sleep that night, tossing and turning, halfway in and out of consciousness as I tried to make sense of what had happened between Zach and me. And, of course, trying to figure out how I felt about seeing Aston again. That handshake. It had lingered for a second too long, and though I hated him for all he’d put me through, that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything there when he touched me. Maybe that was what started the tension between Zach and me, this odd, misplaced desire that seemed to be coming out of me in every direction. Or maybe I just couldn’t resist him whenever we ended up alone.

I was not going to fall for him. Never. Not even if his fingers and his mouth could make me come like I did. Nope. He was a gorgeous man and my client. And the shit with Aston? What was that? I couldn’t still have feelings for him. He fucked that bitch right in front of me!

Sex with Zach in the limo was more than anything I’d ever felt before, more intense, more desperate, more sexy. Like two bodies on fire for each other. Damn. I needed that—or was it him? Was it just his body? His mind? His panty-melting smile?

“Fuck! I have to stop thinking about him.” I scolded myself. As soon as it was over, I felt crippled by awkwardness and had to get out of there. I should’ve stuck around a little longer, but I had no idea what to say to him or how to act after what we’d done. I saw the hurt in his face, the look that told me he wanted something more, that he at least expected me to stick around and not dash out mere seconds after he’d pulled out of me. But then the whole crazy day exploded before my eyes. Aston was trying to screw me again in court. Zach was screwing me in the back of the limo. I might be screwing with my future. All I could think of was getting out of that car.

I finally fell asleep and woke early to find my phone blinking with a message. I picked it up, frowned, and played it back.

“Hey.” A familiar voice came down the line, and I instantly found myself wide awake at the sound of it. What time had Zach left a message?

“I wanted to talk about the case,” he said, sounding a little frazzled around the edges as though he’d been up for a long time and needed some sleep. “Call me when you get this, Jessi, okay?”

He’d called me Jessi. No one ever called me that. Then, he paused, like he wanted to say something else, and didn’t. I leaned forward in bed, silently urging him to come out with it, but he hung up, leaving me to listen to the cool-toned phone menu asking me if I wanted to delete the message or listen to it again. I hit END and tossed my phone on my bed. Okay. What now?

Well, first I had to get dressed and head into the office. Because calling him back now was a terrible idea. I noticed my phone was still lit up. I grabbed for it and there were three more messages waiting for me, all recorded in the middle of the night. I listened to them all one by one. They all said the same thing, roughly, and it sounded as though he was excited to reveal to me whatever his plan was. Jesus, did this guy ever sleep? Or did he spend all his time plotting?

As I slipped into the shower, I reminded myself that yes, of course he slept. I watched him do it for a little while before I’d left him alone in his apartment a few weeks ago.

I wondered what it would’ve been like if I’d just stayed that morning. How would it have been to wake up next to him? To open my eyes and find him looking back at me? To feel him pull me close against his body in the morning, to feel his lips brush across the back of my neck ever so gently as he drew me from sleep to wakefulness. Would he be the morning sex kind of guy, would we have spent the day in bed lazily grinding on each other? The thought was more tempting than I cared to admit. If I’d just stayed.

But I wasn’t so good at that, it seemed. In fact, I was making a habit of running out on him as soon as the two of us were finished fucking. I’d never thought of myself as the kind of girl who’d treat sex the way some men did, slam, bam, thank you ma-am, er, sir. That is, getting the hell away from Zach as soon as my head stopped spinning. But then, I never thought of myself as the kind of girl who would indulge her crush on a smoking-hot client, either. In the last few weeks, I’d done a lot of things I didn’t think I was capable of. But that was what life was all about, right?

I finished getting ready and headed into the office, the sound of his voice drilling through my head repeatedly, his words swirling around my brain like some kind of song stuck on a loop. I ducked into the meeting room, pulled out my phone, and dialed his number, my fingers fidgeting while I waited for him to pick up. What would I say to him?

“Hi.” He answered the phone immediately, catching me off-guard. I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find the words to reply, and had to take a deep breath to steady myself before I could speak.

“Uhm, hi, it’s Jessibelle Adams,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. “You left me some messages last night. I’m just following up.”

“Right,” he said, and I thought I could hear the creak of a chair, like he was leaning back from a desk while he spoke to me. “I’ve had some thoughts about how we can push the case forward.”

“We don’t need to right now,” I pointed out. “They need to prove competency first, and then—”

He cut me off, his voice as business-like as I tried to make mine. “We both know they’re not going to have any trouble doing that.” So he wasn’t calling about our romp in the back seat. Had he forgotten? “We need a plan to follow up that action,” he said, sounding rushed. Apparently. “Do you have anything in place for keeping a step ahead?”

“I will once the time comes around,” I protested weakly, but it sounded like an admittance of failure. He sighed and I thought he might be a little pissed with me, and I bristled in annoyance at his attitude. I wanted to remind him who’d won in court yesterday.

But he was on a roll. “Okay, so here’s what I was thinking.” He launched into a plan that I had to admit was pretty damn solid. He wanted to pull some files from earlier in the year, the ones that showed the shareholders had been all too quick to jump in when he’d taken a step back from his business. He wanted to make the case that they were circling him like predators and waiting for him to fuck up, putting further pressure on him and damaging his mental state during his bereavement leave. It was a bold, brash move, but it might work if we could connect it to other things they’d messed up on as well.

As I listened to him talk, my mind drifted to the limo. His hands on me, his hot kisses on my neck. The thoughts danced around my mind, and I did my best to ignore them and keep focused on what he was saying, but I wasn’t doing a good job so far.

“How does that sound?” He’d caught me off-guard.

“Uhm . . . solid?” I said, but I sounded distracted even to my own ears.

“Were you even listening?”

“Yeah, I was going over the details in my head.” I had to think fast, or I’d sound like a jerk. “Needs some work, but we can take it from there for sure.”

“Excellent.” He sounded proud. “So, when can I see you about this?”

“How about tomorrow afternoon?” I suggested. That was far enough away that I’d have time to pull myself together, but not so far it would seem like I was putting it off.

“Perfect,” he replied briskly. “I’ll catch you then.”

And with that, he hung up, leaving me staring at the phone, disappointed I hadn’t figured out how to keep that sexy voice humming in my ear all morning.