Rapturous (15 page)

“Count me in,” Jasper says.

“Yes, definitely YES,” Marlowe replies.

“Love to,” Kristian writes.

“God, yes,” Flynn’s
sister Ellie responds.

“Um, let me think about it…” Emmett says. “YES!”

Leah’s reply makes me laugh. “
Seriously
!?!? I
love
this job!”

“Well,” I say to myself, “tell me how you really feel, people.” I can’t help but notice that Hayden hasn’t replied to my email. I try to imagine the two of us in our current push-pull status together for a vacation in Mexico. How will we ever pull that off in
front of our closest friends? He hasn’t even said he wants to go, and I’m already anticipating disaster.
 

Just before eleven, I gather my stuff and head for Flynn’s office to participate in the first of three calls he has planned for today. I’m about to knock on his partially open door when I hear Natalie’s voice.

“Someone has to tell her,” she says. “It’s not fair that she’s getting into this
without knowing. Remember how the sin of omission nearly derailed us?”

“I remember, but it’s not our place to share Hayden’s business. It’s up to him to tell her, not us.”

“I hate that she doesn’t know. It makes me feel like a bad friend to be keeping such a big thing from her when she’s getting in deeper with him all the time.”

Holy fucking shit
. I have no idea what they’re talking about,
but I want to know—and I want to know right now. I knock loudly and enter Flynn’s corner office with the spectacular view of the city. I couldn’t care less about that spectacular view in light of what I just heard. “I’m going to put this right out there. I heard you talking about me, and I want to know what everyone is keeping from me.”

The two of them stare at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
Eavesdropping on my boss and his wife is not the best way to get ahead in my career, but the door was open, and he knew I was coming for the meeting.
 

I look him dead in the eyes and say, “Tell me, Flynn.”

“I-I can’t.” In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never once heard him stammer. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have been talking about you or Hayden. It’s none of our business.”

“No, it isn’t,
but the fact that he’s keeping something big from me is very much my business in light of the fact that I’m sleeping with him.”

That statement results in more staring and shocked silence.

“This is all my fault, Addie,” Natalie says with tears in her big green eyes. “I never should’ve said anything. Not here, anyway. Please forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you. You’re both concerned about me,
and I appreciate that. But I don’t appreciate my friends keeping things from me. So who’s going to tell me the big secret?”

“Hayden has to,” Flynn says. “It’s not ours to tell.”

Well, isn’t this just fabulous? He said we’re going to “talk” tonight, well, you bet your ass we’re going to talk. He’s going to tell me what he’s been keeping from me if I have to beat it out of him.
 

“Fair enough.
There’s your call,” I say when the extension on his desk rings.

Still looking rattled, Natalie kisses his cheek and squeezes my arm on her way out of the office. The friendly but sympathetic smile she gives me sends my nerves into the red zone. What the hell does everyone else know that I don’t?

Chapter 8

Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK
. I don’t hear a word of the conference call as my mind races with the implications of what Addie overheard. Hayden is going to fucking kill me for this. I should’ve stopped Natalie the second she opened that line of conversation after I told her I was worried about Addie.

She
said she hurt herself Rollerblading, but after hearing she’s sleeping with Hayden, now I’m not sure I believe her. I said as much to Natalie, and our conversation took off from there.

So fucking stupid! I know better than to do that here, but I let my worries for Addie get ahead of my better judgment.
 

During the call, she glares at me accusingly. I don’t blame her for being pissed. I’d be pissed,
too, if she knew something about Nat that she refused to tell me. But telling her that Hayden is a sexual dominant is absolutely not my place. He—and only he—can tell her that—or not tell her. That’s up to him. I want to text him to tip him off to what happened, but I’m afraid to do even that with Addie staring at me.

I bet she hasn’t heard a word of the call either.

As it begins to wind down,
I say, “Can you email a summary of everything we covered today?”

“Of course,” the director’s assistant says. “No problem.”

“Thanks a lot. I look forward to seeing you in Prague next month.”

“We’re thrilled to have you on this project, Flynn,” the director says.

“Happy to be part of it.”

We end the call a few minutes later, and silence descends upon my office. Addie makes no move to leave.
She continues to stare at me, seemingly without blinking. Wow, this is bad.

“Addie…”

“Unless you’re going to tell me what you’re keeping from me, don’t talk to me.”

Her unusually harsh words are like a knife in my heart. I hate that I’ve hurt her, even if it wasn’t intentional. “I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s not my place—”

“Right. So you said.” She gets up to leave,
gasping and reaching for the back of the chair to steady herself.

I move around my desk to grasp her elbow. “You need a doctor.”

“No, I don’t.” Her face turns bright red, leaving me to wonder what the hell is really wrong with her. If Hayden did something to her, I’ll kill him with my own hands.
 

“Let me call Dr. Breslow to see you.”

She wrenches her arm free. “Mind your own business, Flynn,
and stay out of mine—and Hayden’s.” Limping, she leaves my office, and I’m reaching for my phone before she clears the doorway. Though he hates to be disturbed while editing, I choose Hayden’s number from my favorites, prepared for his fury when he hears about what happened.

The phone goes to voice mail, so I call again and again and again until he finally answers.

“
What?
” His roar actually
hurts my ear.

“We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Um, Addie…”

“What about her?”

“She might’ve overheard Natalie and me talking about the thing Addie doesn’t know about you—”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“I wish I was. There were no specifics, but now she knows there’s something.”

“Fantastic, Flynn. That’s just great.”

“I’m sorry and so is Natalie. We weren’t thinking.”

“It’s fine,” he says with a sigh. “Don’t beat yourselves up. It doesn’t matter anyway. The thing with her is over. Mostly.”

“Why is it over?”

“For all the reasons you never wanted it to happen in the first place.”

“Does she know it’s over?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why she’s limping today?”

Complete silence.

“Hayden?”

“She’s not limping. I saw her earlier. She was fine.”

“She’s definitely
not fine, and when I suggested calling Breslow to look at her, her face turned bright red, she got royally pissed and told me to mind my own business.”

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“She said it was a Rollerblading accident, but it wasn’t, was it?”

“I have to go. Don’t worry about her. I’ll take care of her.”

“You’d better.”

“I said I would, now butt out.”
 

The line goes dead, and I’m left feeling
unsettled about the entire situation.

Fuming and confused and in worse pain than I was in before I sat for an hour, I leave Flynn’s office and go into mine. I’m in there for about two minutes before sheer frustration propels me out the door to the lobby.
 

I take the elevator to the sixth floor and invade Hayden’s sacred
territory by entering the editing suite. Everyone who works for Quantum is told on day one to stay away from the sixth floor when Hayden is doing postproduction or risk his wrath. I don’t care if I’m bothering him. I don’t care about the rules or anything other than whatever he’s keeping from me that Natalie thinks I have a right to know.

When I walk into the suite, he’s surrounded by editors
and sound people and others whose roles I can’t recall off the top of my addled brain.

“Hayden.”

When he looks up and sees me there, he doesn’t seem surprised, which tells me Flynn has already gotten to him.

“Could I have the room, please?” he says softly, but everyone hears him.

People file out, each of them taking a look at me on the way by. The fact that I’m up here and that he asked for
privacy will be all over the office within minutes. I couldn’t care less. When the last person leaves, the door clicks shut, leaving us alone. Now that I have him to myself, I have no idea how to proceed with this conversation.

“Why did you lie to me?” he asks, breaking the charged silence.

“What?” I ask, genuinely baffled. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“You said you were fine, but Flynn says you’re
limping and that you told him you hurt yourself Rollerblading.”

“I did.”

He gets up, angrily tosses the headphones that were around his neck onto the control board and comes to stand in front of me. “That’s a lie, Addison, and we both know it.”

I force myself to meet his gaze without blinking. “Would you prefer I tell my boss and your best friend that I’m sore because we had anal sex last night?”

He makes a sound that’s half groan, half laugh. “I’m sorry you’re sore.”

“I’m not sorry we did it.”

His hands land on my shoulders. “
Addie
…” My name is a groan, an oath, a swear slipping from between his clenched lips.

“What does everyone else know about you that I don’t?”

He’s shaking his head before I finish asking the question. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“We talked last
night. We agreed that was the last time we’re going to be together that way, so it doesn’t matter.”