No Time Like Mardi Gras (12 page)

“Pretty exciting, actually.”

“Troll uprising?” she teased.

“Not exactly.

She looked at him sideways. “Will I have a clue what you’re talking about if I ask what?”

“Maybe. I just signed a very lucrative contract today to license the engine we built for the new game.”

“I doubt engine means what I think it means, but licensing I do understand. That’s awesome. Especially if it’s lucrative.” She squeezed his hand and pulled his arm in close to her. “I’m glad we’re going out tonight. We can celebrate.”

“You are in an awfully good mood.”

She shot him a look of mock offense. “Are you saying I’m not always a glorious ray of sunshine?”

“I’m just saying you’re sunnier than usual.”

“It’s because I
am
in a good mood. I think I’m at a tipping point.”

“For...?”

“It just feels like things are starting to settle—in a good way. That stuff I wrote for Callie’s blog is getting tons of hits and great comments, so my ego’s getting a bit of a stroking right now.
And
I got a callback for a second interview at a place I’m really excited about.”

“That’s great. Where?”

“Roth and Howe. They’re an interior design firm and their work is simply
beautiful.
It’s just a receptionist and general office job right now, but design and decor are really up my alley and there’s a chance for advancement down the road.” Jamie sounded giddy. “So think good thoughts for me Friday, okay?”

He could do more than that. He’d gone to school with Kate Roth. She’d overseen all of the renovations to Rainstorm’s offices, and he’d done troubleshooting on her computers when she’d first started her business. He’d send her an email later tonight. “My fingers are crossed.”

“So I’ve had a great couple of days, I’m really optimistic about the future, and I’m out for a fabulous night with a really great guy. My life does not suck right now.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

The club was only a few steps away, and the music floated out the open door. Jamie stopped and pulled him aside. “I know we got a weird start and I’ve been all over the place mentally, but you put up with me and I appreciate that.”

He ran a hand down the soft skin of her arm. “It wasn’t purely altruistic on my part, you know.”

Jamie toyed with the lapel of his jacket and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Good.” Then her hand tightened and she pulled him close for a kiss that, once again, had him regretting they’d left the house.

He groaned and broke the kiss. “Careful,” he murmured against her lips, “or else we’re going to end up in that alley doing something that will get us arrested.”

“I’m almost willing to risk it.”

Pressing her against the wall, he let Jamie feel exactly what she was doing to him. “We can go home, you know...”

“No. We’re going to go into this club, have a couple of drinks, possibly even a dance...”

The thought of Jamie pressed against him in a slow sway made him light-headed as all the blood in his body rushed south. He dropped his forehead to hers and groaned.

Jamie straightened his collar. “And
then
we’ll go back to your place and...” She trailed off as another couple passed by, then whispered her ideas into his ear. With a cheeky grin, she slipped out from under his arms and dragged him toward the club’s doors. “Come on. I could use a drink.”

So could I.

She was going to drive him crazy.

And he was looking forward to it.

* * *

Jamie didn’t even try to hide her distaste as Colin handed her a slimy raw oyster that jiggled nastily in its shell. “I’m not eating that.”

Even if she managed to swallow the gross-looking thing and it somehow stayed down, it seemed like an excellent way to get food poisoning. This restaurant—and she used the term loosely, at best—looked ready to be shut down by the health department at any moment. Colin might have wanted to show her the real New Orleans, but she’d had visions of interesting little cafés or jazz clubs like the one they went to the other night, not dive bars where the music was nearly deafening and the sanitation questionable.

Colin arched an eyebrow at her. “You just talked me into spending more money on a suit than I spent on my first car. You can now eat a raw oyster.”

“That suit is unbelievably sexy and looks like a million bucks on you. That oyster,” she pushed the offering away, “is gross and looks like you scraped it off the sidewalk out front. No, thank you.”

“Sexy and a million bucks, huh?” he said with a grin as he tipped up the shell and let the oyster slide in his mouth.

She repressed the shudder creeping up her spine. “One of the few things I know about in this world is fashion. That suit is worth every penny you paid for it. And you’re a grown man, for goodness’ sake. You should own a decent suit.”

“I don’t like ties.”

“I told you, then don’t wear one. Wear the gray shirt and leave the collar unbuttoned. You’ll be the sexiest geek ever at your launch party.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that crowd will really appreciate a sexy factor.”

“Sounds like a crap party, then,” she teased.

“That it will be,” he grumbled into his glass.

“Hey, I was kidding.” The server brought her food and she was glad to find that the oysters hadn’t killed her appetite completely.

“I’m not. It’s really just a media thing. Show off the game, answer questions, talk it all up for the bloggers and gaming websites. I’m dreading it.”

“Well, with that attitude...”

“You’ll come, right?”

She laughed around her bite of hushpuppy. “Hmm, a half-assed invite to a crap party? I’ll pass.”

“It won’t be too boring for you. I know for a fact the food will be good, and there will be a couple of celebs who did the voice work for the game there for you to meet.”

Jamie realized Colin was serious with his invitation. She’d smiled her way through plenty of press events before, but she’d figured that part of her life was behind her now. Not that there’d be a lot of crossover between the gaming press and the sports press—or probably their audiences—but she still didn’t want to show up on a blog again so soon. However accidentally or tangentially. But how to turn him down? “I think I’d be more of a liability than anything else in that setting. I don’t know the first thing about games. Or dungeons or dragons or trolls, for that matter.”

“You don’t need to. You could just smile and look pretty.”

Ugh.
She kept her eyes on her food, waiting for her eyelid to quit twitching. “Um...”

But Colin seemed to be warming to the subject. “I could be king of the geeks, showing up in a swanky suit with a beautiful woman on my arm.” He winked at her. “I bet you’d make great arm candy.”

Her stomach actually rolled over at the phrase. “Do you have any idea how insulting that term is?” she snapped.

Colin pulled back at the heat in her voice. “Sorry.”

Damn it.
“Anyway, this is a big night for you. Isn’t there someone else you’d rather have there?”

“It’s my party, Jamie. I control the guest list.”

“I realize that.”

He put a hand over hers. “And I’d really like for you to come.”

Something shifted, making this invitation seem more important than she’d initially thought. Going to his launch party was a big step, far more so than going on dates or even sleeping with him. It moved things forward in a way that kind of scared her a bit. But she couldn’t turn him down flat, either. It would be insulting, possibly hurtful, and although she didn’t want to be his arm candy—
ugh
—or get anywhere near the press again, the need to make him happy seemed more important. Damn, she did not like being forced to make a decision like this on the spot. “I’ll have to see if I can get off work,” she hedged, stalling for time to really think about it.

But Colin seemed to accept that as a yes, and kissed her before turning back to his oysters.

* * *

“Okay, this game was way overhyped,” Eric complained as they sat across from each other in the Rainstorm conference room, each of them at a laptop as they played through a couple of levels on a game just released by another company—strictly for research purposes, of course.

“And buggy.” Colin swore and hit the keyboard a little harder than normal. “Damn, this thing lags like hell. And the interface sucks.”

“Agreed. Hey, dude, you’re shooting at me.”

“Not intentionally.”

Eric sighed. “This is so sad. I’m stuck in a room with you at nine o’clock on a Friday night shooting at aliens. I’ve
got
to get myself a woman.”

He looked at Eric over the top of his screen. “Got to get yourself a woman? You sound like you’re fourteen years old.”

“Emotionally, I probably am,” Eric deadpanned.

Colin nodded as the game stuttered again. “At least you know the root of the problem. That’s the first step.”

“So I know why I’m here. Why aren’t you with Jamie?”

“She had to work. I think she’s coming over later.”

“Things are getting serious between you, then.”

“What?” They’d been together only a couple of weeks. It couldn’t be remotely classified as serious.

“I mean, you’re certainly spending a lot of time with her.”

“Jealous?” Colin shook his head and sighed, closing out the game. “I give up on this. It sucks.”

“I admit I’m a little jealous. I mean, you have to be the only man in the history of the world who picks up a girl in the French Quarter on Mardi Gras for a drunken hookup and it
doesn’t
turn out to be a cautionary tale.”

It wasn’t exactly a fairy tale, either. Sometimes he felt as though they were in a holding pattern. “I’m just lucky, I guess.”

“Damn lucky. I know if I tried that, I’d end up with a bunny-boiling psycho. Or a cult member who needed a sacrifice.”

He was pretty sure Jamie didn’t fall into either of those categories.
But...
“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Just because the girl you found is gorgeous and normal and sane, that’s no reason for me to think that I could repeat that miracle.” He heard Eric’s laptop shutting down as he closed the top. “Unless there’s a flaw in the peach you’re not telling me about.”

“Nope, sorry.”

Eric sighed. “I knew that would be too much to hope for.”

“Whoa, some kind of friend you are.”

“Well, she did jerk you around some at the beginning. I can take a bit of satisfaction from that. What brought about the big change in attitude?”

That was actually a very good question. He hadn’t wanted to question his good luck, though, choosing to avoid thinking about it too much instead. But that was getting harder to do. “I guess my charm was just too irresistible for her to overcome.”

“You wish. Although if you do ever figure it out, we could make a fortune selling that secret to men everywhere. We’d be able to retire.”

Colin’s phone pinged, and a message from Jamie appeared on his screen:
About to leave work. Headed to your place.
“And that’s my cue to leave, because I have a life.”

“Must be nice,” Eric grumbled before brightening up. “Hey, ask Jamie if she has a friend, will you? Someone normal who might be interested in a smart, successful entrepreneur who owns his own business—”

“Co-owns,” he corrected.

“Fine,
co
-owns,” Eric amended. “But ask her, okay?”

“I’ll ask, but it would probably be one of the women she works with. Jamie hasn’t had a chance to make a lot of friends yet.”

“No wonder she’s latched onto you, then. The poor girl is lonely.”

Colin put his hand to his heart in mock distress. “Wow, the support in this room is just amazing. I feel all tingly from it.”

“Smart-ass. I don’t know how you got a woman.”

“I may be a smart-ass, but my ringtone isn’t ‘The Imperial March,’ either. Women—
normal
women—are often put off by that.”

“But I’ve got money. That makes up for a lot, as you well know. Make sure Jamie mentions that to her friends.”

“We’ll see.”

He knew Eric was just being his usual self, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth for some reason. Why
had
Jamie suddenly changed her mind about things between them? If she’d only been lonely—or in need of a human sacrifice—she wouldn’t have held back from him for so long. And what did Eric mean by that statement about money making up for a lot? He wasn’t rich—yet—but he was pretty comfortable, especially for his age group. If Jamie was looking for a rich guy to take care of her, she probably would have aimed a bit higher than him.

But now that he thought about it, Jamie was still holding back. She still had those walls up, and while he might not have told her everything about his childhood, the last eight years of
her
life were an information black hole.

It was a little strange, but prying into her psyche might make her want to return the favor, and he didn’t want to go there. Not yet, at least.

He pushed the thought aside as he parked in front of his house and saw Jamie in the circle of his porch light, frowning at her phone. The frown upended itself as soon as she saw him, and she lifted her free hand to show him the bottle of champagne.

“What are we celebrating?”

“I got the job!”

Then she launched herself into his arms for a kiss, and he forgot what he was so worried about anyway.

EIGHT

Colin popped the
cork on the champagne, and she held out the glasses for him to fill. “I had a message on my phone this afternoon from Kate Roth. I start Monday. It even has benefits, which is awesome.”

“Congratulations.”

She clinked her glass against his and took a sip, reveling in the taste and the feel of the bubbles on her tongue. It had been so long since she’d had decent champagne, and while it may have been pricey, she’d decided at the store that it was worth the splurge. “Thank you. I’m so excited I’m about to burst.”

“I feel like I should take you out somewhere to celebrate.”

“That’s so sweet. But,” she stepped back to model her outfit, “I’m covered in restaurant yuck. I came straight here instead of going home to shower and change first.”

“You’re welcome to take a shower here. However,” Colin stepped closer toward her, “I can’t guarantee you’ll get to take it alone.”

She gave him a half smile. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She sidled up to him, closing the gap between them, only to have her phone start quacking. She could hear it vibrating against the counter as well.
Ugh. I should have put that on silent.
“Ignore that.”

Colin’s eyes widened in amusement. “Is your phone
quacking?
”

“Yes.”

“Why?” he prodded when she didn’t elaborate.

“So I’ll know without looking that I don’t want to answer it. Wait—”

But Colin had already reached for the phone, helpfully trying to hand it to her, only to be confused by her words. When he looked down at the screen, she cringed inwardly.

An eyebrow went up. “Um, Rotten Bastard is calling.”

Suddenly, changing Joey’s name in her phone seemed juvenile instead of the empowering swipe of petty revenge she’d felt at the time. “Yeah. Hence the quacking and the ignoring.”

“Your ex, I assume.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m now a little worried what comes up when
I
call you.”

“Just your name. I promise.” Thankfully, the quacking stopped as it went to voice mail.

Colin put the phone down on the counter. “Does he call you a lot?”

Was Colin jealous? Because that sounded a little jealous.
“Occasionally. But not a lot. Mainly when he’s drunk.”

“Why don’t you just block him, then?”

“I’ve thought about it, but there are some...loose ends that still need tying up at some point, and there’s always the chance that he’s calling about that. If it’s important, I’ll find out from the voice mail message.”

“You made it sound like you made a clean break when you came here, though.”

Crap.
As if she could explain the four-carat emerald-cut diamond in her safe deposit box that wasn’t hers to sell
or
to wear. Or the few pieces of paper she’d signed her name to that the lawyers were still trying to sort out. And until the investigations were complete, she wouldn’t be completely rid of him anyway. “We were together a long time. Not everything was able to be a clean or easy break.”

Her phone pinged again to tell her she had a voice mail message.

“Do you need to see what he wants?”

“No. It’s Friday night. It can’t be anything I really want—or need—to hear right now.” She made a deliberate show of silencing the ringer and shoving the phone into her purse. She was not going to let Joey rain on her parade tonight.

“You never talk about him.”

She tried to keep it light. “I thought that was a good thing. All the dating magazines and websites say not to bore people with rants about your ex.”

“There’s rants and then there’s basic info. If you were with someone for that long, it’s normal for things to come up occasionally. In fact, it’s a little weird when it doesn’t. We all have exes, you know. They’re just a part of your life story.”

He was like a dog with a bone. What was with him tonight? “But I’m trying to close that chapter.”

“You don’t have to hide it from me.”

“I’m not hiding anything. I don’t like bad memories and would rather not wallow in the past.” She took a long drink, but the champagne tasted sour now, and she put the glass down, disgusted she’d let this affect her so much and ruin the celebratory mood. Then the words came tumbling out before she could stop them. “Joey’s an ass. A lying, cheating ass, and I didn’t know it. Even when I had suspicions, I ignored them like a naive idiot. So I’m actually embarrassed I somehow overlooked that very important information during the years I wasted with him. And that’s
exactly
why I don’t talk about it.”

Colin seemed taken aback at her outburst, so she paused to pull herself together. Sour or not, she took another drink just to cool the spurt of anger. “It takes time to fully untangle yourself from some things, even though you might wish it was quicker.”

“Do you need a lawyer, Jamie? I can—”

“I don’t
need
anything, Colin, except a different topic of conversation.”

The silence hung there between them.

Colin finally cleared his throat. “My mom has...problems. Growing up, things could be really good or really bad, and I never really knew what to expect or when things might change and go spiraling into hell. So when you talk about wanting to get your life under control or trying to forget parts of your past, I can relate to that.”

Jamie didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t exactly what she’d expected from a new topic of conversation.

But Colin didn’t seem to need her to respond. “She’s a little better now, and the medication helps, but it was a long process getting there. I don’t like to think about it, much less talk about it, but I can’t deny it happened either.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”
And it explained some stuff.
“Can I ask why you’re telling me this? And why now?”

“So that you know it’s okay to tell me stuff. We all come with baggage and backstory. There’s no need to be ashamed.”

“I appreciate that.” She tried to think of something else appropriate to say, because she realized this was a big step for Colin since he’d never mentioned it before. And neither had anyone else who knew him. But her situation was different. She just wasn’t sure how to make that distinction without belittling his words. “But your mom’s problems weren’t really your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The shame comes in when the tragedy of your backstory is that it
is
your fault.”

There was another long silence before Colin nodded. “Are you hungry?”

She grabbed onto the change of topic like a life rope. “Actually, I am. How about you order us something and I’ll go grab that shower?” It was a rather abrupt, and slightly lame, shift, but she needed the time to gather herself.

She paced as she waited for the water to warm up. Why did Colin have to push? She wasn’t some lost soul in need of help, so why did he always try to fix things instead of just minding his own business? She wanted this to be easy, to be something where she could be herself without any pressure. She just needed him to back the hell off.

Part of her figured she should just tell him the whole ugly story. She wasn’t running from her past, and she wasn’t hiding from it either, but she didn’t want it to hold her back. And the only way to do that was to just move on. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life looking under the couch cushions for secrets and lies. That much she knew for sure.

What had happened with Joey had nothing to do with who she was or her life now, so there really wasn’t a reason to go into it. Except that she would have to tell Colin the full story eventually. Well, only if this was going to get serious.

Frustrated, Jamie got into the shower and gasped as the tepid water hit her skin.
See, this is what happens when you don’t think things through and jump in too quickly.

But you can’t not jump, either.

Which meant she needed to quit being embarrassed over the whole thing and come clean with Colin sooner rather than later. He’d shared something important and personal with her, and that seemed like a big step. One that would take them into a new place.

So she needed to tell him. She should tell him.

But not tonight. She needed more prep time before she went there.

Scrubbing the restaurant off her skin gave her time to calm down and clear her head, and by the time she turned off the shower, she felt normal again. At some point, Colin had come in, because a clean T-shirt now sat on top of her towel. It hung nearly to her knees, and between using his soap and wearing his shirt, she almost had the complete Colin smell surrounding her. It made her smile as she combed out her hair.

Barefoot and with her hair still damp, she went back to the kitchen to find Colin unpacking boxes from a white takeout bag. The smell of barbecue filled the air and her stomach audibly growled.

“More champagne?” Colin asked. She loved how he didn’t harp on stuff, easily forgetting things that were better left behind. “I don’t know how well it will go with ribs, though. There’s beer if you prefer.”

This
was her life now.

And it was pretty damn good. She just wanted to enjoy this part awhile longer.

“Or,” he added, “there’s soft drinks, since you’re driving later.”

“I’ll finish the champagne and then maybe have a beer.” He looked at her oddly, and she took a deep breath. “I mean, I don’t have to drive home tonight, right? Maybe I could crash here if I needed to?”

A slow grin spread across Colin’s face. “Yeah. You could do that.”

Yeah. I could.

* * *

For the first time, Jamie was sound asleep in his bed. And not just a catnap before heading back to her place—actual sleep with the intention of waking up there the next morning. It was nice, although he’d quickly discovered she was a bit of a bed hog, taking her half diagonally across the middle.

But that wasn’t what was keeping him awake.

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, Colin went to the living room and brought his laptop back up. He sat there for a minute, staring at the Google home page. She must have done the same, he reasoned, to find his address the first time she’d come to his office. It was no big deal.

He typed Jamie’s name and hovered over the enter key. It hadn’t occurred to him until now to even search for her, since contrary to popular belief, most average citizens didn’t have a lot of information readily available or easily accessible out there. Plus, it seemed creepy and stalkerish.

He believed in privacy. He’d had too much of his life examined by neighbors and therapists and doctors not to. He didn’t dig into other people’s lives because he didn’t want them digging into his.

But he hit enter anyway.

There were a lot of Jamie Vincents in the world, both male and female, and he ended up scrolling through the page of the returned links with only half an eye. Just as he was about to give up, something caught his attention that had him scrolling back to the top: the number of times he saw the name Jamie Vincent in a headline with “Joey.” She’d never mentioned her ex’s last name, but this had to be a good start.

The first link had a large picture, and he didn’t recognize the woman at first. But then he realized that was Jamie, only as a blonde—which partly explained why he’d scrolled right past it before—pictured on the arm of Joey Robbins, who, it turned out, was baseball’s latest hottest thing.

That explained her extensive baseball knowledge.

Jamie’s ex wasn’t just any ex. Colin didn’t follow sports, much less baseball, but he did recognize the face from TV commercials for everything from soap to sports drinks.

Well, no wonder Jamie was so freaked out by her new life. She’d gone from pampered fiancée of a pro athlete to waitress in a matter of weeks. This wasn’t just starting over; this was having the entire rug jerked out from under her.

Was that why Jamie hadn’t blocked him on her phone? Were any of those “loose ends” the hope they’d reconcile? She had to be missing her old life a lot.

Maybe she wasn’t as over Joey as she’d claimed. Maybe Colin was just a placeholder until she went back to him and her previous life.

Maybe she considered him a step down from her ex.

None of this sat very well on his mind.

The article beneath the picture wasn’t about Jamie, though. Joey, it seemed, was currently suspended from play and under investigation for a string of offenses, including steroid use, betting against his own team and some possibly dodgy tax issues. He was maintaining his innocence, claiming a series of misunderstandings, but this article opined that the evidence was strong against him. His career—and his pricey endorsement deals—were hanging in the balance of the investigation.

Maybe Jamie was waiting to see how it all turned out before she made her final decision.

He started clicking through some of the other links, focusing on Joey instead of just Jamie.

There were also some accusations of other drug use, a DUI and some wild partying with women who weren’t Jamie—and might possibly be prostitutes.

Even with such a myriad of evidence and accusations, the consensus seemed to be that he’d survive this with probably only fines and community service. But he wouldn’t survive it unscathed; the damage to his reputation was done. Until this exploded, Joey Robbins had been the poster boy of positive sportsmanship, a role model for working hard and doing the right thing. He’d led his college team to take the championship three years in a row, been a standout during his years in the minor leagues, and since he’d been in the majors, his fastball had become a thing of legend and glory.

Additional proof of his all-around goodness was in the eight-year relationship with his college sweetheart, who’d initially stood by him, professing his innocence when the accusations had first hit the papers.

They’d called her naive, foolish and a dumb blonde. Gold digger, silly arm candy.... It was brutal.

No wonder she’d snapped at him when he’d asked her to be his arm candy for the launch party. She was probably good at it, but not proud of the skill.

The news she’d left Joey shortly thereafter was considered pretty conclusive evidence that the accusations were true, and Joey’s fans were now vilifying her for turning on him, betraying him, and calling Jamie a liar and a publicity whore.