Chapter Seventeen
JAMIE SPED DOWN Route 6 and was at the Sheraton in less than five minutes. He cut the engine and gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white, wondering what he’d been thinking to let Mark anywhere near Jessica. He had too much faith in Mark; that much was clear. His muscles corded tight, frustration brought his fist down on the dashboard, once, twice, three times—and after he’d cracked the darn thing—a fourth.
“Jerk,” he seethed.
More than ten years of friendship, and this was how Mark paid him back?
His eyes dropped to the stone on the ring on his right hand. Black. Nothingness. Angst so deep you can’t push your way out of it. He breathed heavily, his chest aching with anger and love and all the out-of-control emotions in between. He stormed from the car and into the hotel, nearly blasting through the glass doors that opened so darn slowly he wanted to shatter them. He blew past the reception desk, oblivious to the greeting of the woman behind it, and stalked down the hall, head bowed, blinded with rage.
Room 189 was in the back of the building, which was good. No one would hear him killing Mark. He pounded on the door, rattling it on the hinges.
“Open the door, Mark. Now.” He didn’t care that it was midnight, or that there might be families sleeping in the nearby rooms. He couldn’t have registered such a coherent thought if his life depended on it. He felt the weight of his anger like a two-hundred-pound gorilla, digging its claws into every muscle, snaking into his body and electrifying his nerves until they burned so hot, he could barely see straight.
He banged on the door again. “You have three seconds before I break it down,” Jamie seethed.
He heard the slide of the lock, the chain rattle, the doorknob slowly twist. He thrust the door open and grabbed Mark by his white T-shirt, lifted him off the floor, and slammed him against the wall, barely registering the door clicking closed behind him or the woman screaming in the center of the bed as she scrambled to pull sheets over her naked body.
“What on earth?” Mark hollered.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“Nothing. Jamie, what the heck?” Mark’s body shook; his eyes shot to the bed.
Jamie turned and looked at the bed, his knuckles digging into Mark’s chest. “Leave. Now,” he said to the frightened woman, then turned back to Mark, ignoring her as she whimpered and cried, gathered her clothes, and tore out the door.
“Jamie. Put me down. We’ll talk.” Mark’s eyes were wide and fearful.
“Pleading is ugly on you, you jerk, and talking is the last thing on my mind.”
Mark touched his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Jamie. It’s me, Jamie. We’re friends, remember? Put me down. We’ll talk, and then if you still want to rip me to shreds, you can.” He dropped his eyes to his nakedness.
How had he missed that? Jamie shoved him toward the bed. “Put some pants on.” He paced the hotel room. Mark’s clothes were thrown over a chair, a woman’s high heel was beside the dresser, and a half-empty bottle of wine was beside the bed. Ugh. He spun around as Mark pulled on his khakis, fear in his eyes, but beneath that, Jamie saw the calculating eyes of the manipulator that he’d always known was there but had chosen to ignore. Jamie never imagined Mark would use that sleazy, manipulative side against him.
“What did you say to Jess?” They stood a foot apart, Jamie’s hands fisted, ready.
“What? That’s what this is about?”
Jamie landed one punch to the side of Mark’s jaw, then grabbed his tee as he reeled sideways and yanked him up, so they were nose to nose. “Don’t play with me.”
Blood dripped from Mark’s nose. His eyes went dark as he lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
“Say it. I want to hear it from your disgusting mouth.” Jamie’s arms shook from the storm blazing through his body.
“Let go. I’m not saying a single word until you do.” Mark held his stare.
Jamie threw him backward. He stumbled into the large, low dresser. He touched the blood streaking over his lips and chin, grabbed something that was bunched up on the dresser—a shirt, pants, who knew or cared—and he wiped his face.
“Assaulting an attorney isn’t smart.”
Jamie closed the distance between them and pinned him to the floor with another dark stare.
“Fine, fine.” Mark went to the chair by the small wooden table beside the bed and sat down.
Jamie paced, his anger leashed by a fraying thread. He planted his legs like pilings in the earth and crossed his arms over his chest, locking another dark stare on Mark.
“I told her the truth, that you need to focus on your business. Jamie, you don’t even know her.”
Jamie reached for Mark’s shirt and Mark held his hands up. “I don’t give a damn what you think I know. What else did you say to her?”
“Okay, okay, okay.” He wiped the blood from his nose with his forearm. “Man that hurts. I told her that she was no different from the other women you dated, and you’re not some stupid knight in shining armor who’s here to save her. You’re a businessman who needs to focus before you lose everything you’ve worked for.”
Jamie put one hand on each arm of the chair and loomed over him. His voice was cold as ice. “And what makes you the expert on what I feel?”
Mark blinked up at him, rearing back as far as he could from his seated position. “Jamie, I’m your best friend. I’ve known you for years. You trust me with everything. I protect you. Come on, without me you’d have lost half your business years ago.”
There was an ounce of truth in what he said. Jamie hated that. Mark had saved Jamie too many times to count.
“She’s the woman I love, and I don’t need your protection from her.” Jamie pushed away from the chair and paced again, hands fisted by his sides.
“The woman you love? Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Get a grip here. How long have you known her? A few days? A week?”
He spun around, venom in his voice. “I don’t care how long I’ve known her. What makes you think you have the right to say any of that garbage to her?”
“Because I’ve never seen you turn your back on your business, and someone had to think with their head instead of their you know what.”
Jamie stepped closer, and Mark held his hands up again.
“Jamie, you didn’t run a check on her. What do you really know? What she told you? You’ve been down that path before. She could be playing you like a two-dollar fiddle, for all you know. How many women have told you they were models when they were working at some rancid topless bar, looking for a sugar daddy?”
“You heard her play. She’s not lying about what she does for a living.” He had no proof, but he didn’t feel like he needed it with Jessica. Sure, she’d been a little cagey giving up that particular information, but he understood her reasons, just as he kept his own career from most people.
“Okay, so she plays the cello. BSO? OneClick will tell you if that’s true in five seconds or less. What else do you really know about her? Where does she live? What do her parents do? Has she ever been arrested? Come on, Jamie. Do you even know how many men she’s slept with?”
Jamie stopped pacing and stared at Mark. He didn’t know any of that stuff, except how many men she’d been with. But he knew he loved her. Damn, did he ever love her.
“Jamie, your look tells me that you have no clue about any of this. Well, maybe the sex part. If she’s inexperienced, she’d be a novice in the bedroom, but…”
A novice in the bedroom. He remembered the expert way she’d made love to him. She’d told him it was all new to her, and her eyes had been full of truth and such depths of emotion that he hadn’t questioned it.
No, he refused to believe she’d lied about that. He’d felt her—saw the heady excitement of newness in her eyes. No way had he misread those things.
“Let me do one quick search. Right now. Just one. It’ll tell you what you need to know in under five seconds. I can run a full background check later, but let’s just see if she’s with the orchestra.” Mark moved toward his laptop.
“No.” He grabbed Mark’s arm. “Don’t you dare search her name. This is my life, not yours. I appreciate your concern, but if you ever…” He pulled Mark closer and tightened his grip on his arm until he saw pain in Mark’s eyes. “If you ever say one word to her again, I will kill you with my bare hands.” He tossed him to the bed and stormed out.