Toxic (13 page)

Sensing that he was waiting for me to respond, I said, “I know. I’m sorry. This whole thing was just so strange. I didn’t know what else to do.”

We had drifted nearer to each other and when I turned my head to look at him, he was already looking at me. With our bodies so close, the air so charged between us, I thought sparks should be flying. His face seemed to inch even closer; his lips were dangerously close to mine. I was afraid to move. I wanted this closeness and it was evident he did too, but we were both hesitant.

Just then, a car drove by and slowed, honking its horn and flashing its lights.

Jeremy jerked and stood up straight. The spell was broken. “Come on, we should get going.”

We both got into his car and drove to my apartment in silence. I was lost in memories of the past and I thought he might be too. When we arrived in front of my building, he pulled up in the loading area. He left his car running as he walked me to the door. Some of my hair had fallen loose and he tucked it behind my ear.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said.

I turned, surprised he wasn’t even going to wait to see if I invited him up. I hadn’t decided yet, but I was edging toward it.

Harry was holding the door open but I didn’t walk through it.

“You should go,” Jeremy said, taking a step toward me.

“Yes, I should,” I responded, taking a step forward.

Again, his lips were dangerously close to mine—all I’d have to do was raise myself on my toes and lean in.

I didn’t.

Jeremy didn’t lean forward either. Instead, the sensation of his words whispered across my neck. It wasn’t the cool night. I knew this because his breath was warm. “Good night, Phoebe St. Claire.”

I had closed my eyes and when I opened them, he was walking away.

“Jeremy,” I called.

He turned around and walked backward. “If you want me to sleep over, tonight’s not a good night. I didn’t bring my overnight bag.”

I had to laugh at that. I guess that’s what we’d had last night—a sleepover.

“But on second thought, since I’ve already seen what you’re wearing beneath that dress, I could be talked into it.”

I had to laugh again.

He pushed his hands in his pockets. “I guess that wasn’t what you were going to ask. But I had to try.”

“No, it wasn’t.” I smiled at him though, and my heart beat so frantically that I considered it for a moment, but then I scolded myself for the thought. “Do you think we should just leave well enough alone?”

He stopped and scrubbed his jaw. “If you’re asking if that’s what I think? No. But I think the question was more rhetorical. Maybe meant for yourself. And I can’t answer that for you. But I will be in the bar at the Saint tomorrow night at eight. If you want to see me again, meet me there. If not, that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.”

With that he turned back around and sauntered with his sexy as hell walk to his car. I noticed I was still wearing his jacket and when some of the glitter fell from it, it made me sad. I grew even sadder when I watched him drive away, going zero to sixty in the two point six seconds as he’d promised.

Another Ending?

I was never any good at making decisions.

Making decisions to do with my life, that is. I always went back and forth, wondering if I had made the right choice. Always second-guessing myself.

So it was no surprise that at work the next day, I was struggling with what to do about Jeremy. There were so many unanswered questions—but did I really need to know the answers?

My life was already so complicated; my job was of utmost importance since the fate of TSC was in my hands. I had to keep a clear head. I couldn’t afford to lose myself in him. And when it came to Jeremy McQueen, I didn’t think there was any compromise.

I tried to push thoughts of him aside—which was nearly impossible.

I thought I’d start with thanking Dawson for making the donation for me last night. Normally, I would have just called him. Neither of us had spent much time texting each other over the course of our relationship, but I knew if I called him, he’d want to meet and I’d feel guilty if I didn’t concede.

Me: Thank you so much for last night.

Dawson: It was nothing. I’d do anything for you. Let me know when you have time for dinner this week.

Me: I will, promise.

With that done, my mind started to wander. I looked down. The reports on my desk were waiting for me and I dug in. The weekly update meeting with the regional managers had taken place first thing that morning and the good news was there was a slight rise in occupancy, but the rise had come from rate deductions, so the result to profit was flat.

There had to be a way to bring people back to the Saint. There was a market out there for luxury hotels, my great-grandfather had seen it, and my grandfather had captured it, but under my father’s reign, we had lost our flagship status.

I had to regain it.

My mind kept wandering back to Jeremy as I beat myself raw trying to come up with a solution that didn’t include dropping our elite status.

But the time had come to consider it.

My phone beeped with a message and I assumed it was Dawson. When I glanced down, my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t Dawson.

It was
him
.

As if he knew I was thinking about him, Jeremy was messaging me.

Him: Did I tell you how sexy you looked in whatever that was you were wearing under your robe last night? I really hope to see it sometime.

Me: You weren’t supposed to see that.

Him: That makes seeing you in your underwear twice and having you sleep in my bed once within twenty-four hours of laying eyes on you again. If I were a betting man, and you know I am, I’d say I’ll be seeing you tonight.

I shouldn’t have answered his first text, and I wasn’t about to respond to his second. For some reason, I was drawn to him like a bee to honey and I knew he was right, no matter how many times I told myself I wasn’t going to show up in the bar at the Saint that night, I knew I would be there.

A knock at my door startled me. “Come in,” I called.

“Phoebe,” Hunter said in his
I’ve got bad news
tone. Hunter was the new Chief Financial Officer for TSC and he had a stack of papers in his hands. I had let the previous CFO go and hired Hunter when I took over. He was also Logan’s uncle, so I trusted him.

I looked at him gravely. “Sit down. What’s going on?”

“I decided I should go through the company’s financials myself. If we do have to file Chapter Eleven, there will be an audit and I don’t want any surprises.” He paused to look at me.

“Go ahead, what is it?”

He sighed. “I came across the expenses for your father’s apartments. And since they haven’t been used in more than two years, I thought perhaps there would be a more efficient alternate use for them. They’re prime real estate and I think they could rent for top dollar. It’s not that much, but every little bit helps.”

My heart sank. “Apartments?”

He nodded. “You didn’t know?”

“No. Where are they?” I asked in shock.

“Here, Miami, Las Vegas, and LA.”

“In the hotels?”

“All but one. The holding in Miami is a condo.”

“Why would he have those?” I asked.

“Phoebe, that’s not a question for me to answer, you’d have to ask your father.”

No, I didn’t have to. I could guess. The other cities, I could almost understand, although he could just take a room as I had been doing when I visited. But my father, like my mother, was extravagant.

“Which hotel location here?” I asked.

We had two hotels in the city—the one where our offices were, located on East Fifty-seventh, and the other in Times Square.

“The Times Square location.”

I just stared at him.

He kept talking. “We could easily rent each of the penthouse apartments. I was hoping to get twenty thousand a month from each. We could use the income as your mother’s allowance. As for the condo, I’m looking into it further to find out the details.”

Penthouses! My father kept penthouses in the plural.

I wanted to laugh. My mother had been using company funds for whatever she wanted for as long as I could remember. I recently had to tell her she could no longer do that. She wasn’t happy, but seemed to understand. But she was never going to allow me to put her on an allowance. And especially not with the income used from her husband’s fuckpads. In good conscience, I couldn’t even ask her to do that.

Just the thought made me cringe.

Her draws on the funds though, would need to be managed somehow.

“Do it. Rent them,” I told Hunter in a split-second decision. Fuck my father. I was going to be moving out of my apartment soon with nowhere to go in sight, so he could give up his penthouse apartments while he was serving his time. And as for my mother, I wouldn’t tell her where the money came from.

“Do you want to talk to your father about this first?” Hunter asked.

“That won’t be necessary. Have them cleaned out and donate everything. As for the condo, let me know when you find out the details.”

“I will.”

“Thanks, but don’t waste too much time on it.”

Hunter nodded and slipped an envelope on the desk. “Here are the keys to the apartments. I’ll start getting them all ready next month. You might want to make sure there’s nothing of value in them first though.”

“Hunter.”

He looked at me sadly.

“Please don’t mention this to my mother.”

“I would never. I even hated to bring it to your attention but right now, business is what matters.”

“Thank you.”

Hunter McPherson was a good man with a big heart and I could see what was happening to TSC was killing him. He stood and started for the door, then turned back. “Phoebe, the company is drowning fast. We can’t keep making up our losses by selling more shares of stock.”

Worried, I asked him, “We still have controlling shares. Right?”

He nodded. “But every quarter that passes our position weakens. We’re getting more and more vulnerable. Are you sure you don’t want to file for bankruptcy before it’s too late?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m sure.”

I was determined to save TSC. I had to. If not, I was going to not only lose everything, but also lose myself in the process. I just knew it.

I swirled in my chair and looked out into the park. TSC’s offices occupied the two top floors of the hotel and the view was breathtaking. How many hours had I spent staring out this window?

I sighed and tucked the envelope Hunter had given me in my top drawer. Then I gathered my things and headed out to meet Jamie for lunch. It was a beautiful day and the walk would be invigorating.

Jamie was already at the Rouge Tomate cart in Central Park when I spotted him. He was ordering our lunch. I smiled at him and couldn’t help but think it would probably be our last lunch outdoors until spring.

“Hey, nice hair,” I said, rubbing my hand over his bare head.

Jamie turned to me and kissed me, on the lips like he always did. “You know, I kind of like it. I might just keep it this way.”

“If anyone can pull it off, you can.”

His eyes roamed over me. “You look amazing. Aren’t you working today?”

“I am.” I tried to act surprised about his question. To not give away that I had dressed especially nice for any particular reason.

He narrowed his eyes at me.

I shrugged. “I wanted to look nice for you.”

I had on one of my favorite fall dresses. It was a black-and-red tulip jacquard with a fitted bodice and a V-neckline, three-quarter-length sleeves, and a short, flared A-line skirt.

“Bullshit.”

I tried to look appalled.

He let it go. “Here, a shroom burger, green juice, and chocolate banana cookie.”

I took the box of food. “Where to?”

“William Shakespeare; I can’t deny you your favorite view when you have so much to share.”

“Let me see your head first.” I turned him around.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Jamie, it looks terrible.”

“Scalp wounds look worse than they are. But enough stalling, spill it.”

I looped my arm through his and we walked with our box lunches in hand. “I spent the night at Jeremy’s place and don’t remember anything. When I woke up, he acted like a complete ass and I took off. Then he showed up at my place last night to return my coat, asked me out, I said no, but somehow agreed to maybe go out with him tonight, and then he showed up at the gala and drove me home.”

Jamie stopped in his tracks. “Did you fuck him?”

I shoved his shoulder. “No, I didn’t sleep with him.”

He raised his brows. “But you want to.”

“What? I didn’t say that.”

He started walking again. “You didn’t have to, I can hear it in your voice.”

I found an empty bench for us. “Let’s just eat here.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, now just tell me what to do.”

He laughed. “Like you’d listen. But for shits and giggles what is it you need advice about?”

I sighed. “Dawson was worried, so I went to see him yesterday and when I told him it was time to move on, he told me he wasn’t ready.”

Jamie sat beside me. “I thought we were talking about Jeremy?”

“What’s with all the focus on Jeremy?”

Jamie turned to face me. “Phoebs, you broke it off with Dawson for a reason. Letting guilt attack you isn’t going to change any of those reasons. Leave well enough alone and stay away from him. Besides, the love of your life is back.”

“I never said he was the love of my life.”

“Come on, just admit it.”

“Okay, so I haven’t forgotten him but I can’t shake the fact that he’s been here for a year and never bothered to contact me.”

“You can’t. Really? Because even I get it. Years ago you lied to him and he left. When he moved back, I doubted looking you up was first on his list.”

My mouth dropped. “How do you know for sure that’s why he left?”

“I talked to him yesterday.”

The smell wafted from our burgers as we both unwrapped them. “Why?”

“He called to check on me. After all, I got hurt in his club.”

“What did he say?”

Jamie’s smile grew devilish and he ran a finger down the middle of my chest. “Admit you wore this for him and I’ll tell you.”

“I did no such thing.”

He sipped his lemonade. “You never show cleavage at work.”

I looked down. “I don’t have any cleavage to bare, or I would.”

He almost spit a piece of his burger out. “You know what I mean.”

“Okay, so I might have dressed up for work on the odd chance I decide to meet him later.”

He took his time chewing and I tried not to get annoyed. “We played racquetball together yesterday.”

My eyes popped. “Racquetball? In your condition.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a cut, it’s not like I was dying.”

“Emmy made it seem like you were. She was at your apartment, in your shirt I might add, when I stopped by.”

He looked surprised.

“She didn’t tell you I stopped by?”

“No, but I told her yesterday this thing between us had to end.”

That must have been why Emmy told me what she did about Jamie. “Really. What brought this on?”

He looked almost pained.

“Jamie?”

He took a deep breath. “I just don’t think I was doing her any good by always being there for her when she needed someone. I thought maybe I loved her in some way but Friday night I realized that wasn’t it at all. I mean if I did really love her, I would want to commit, I would care when she was with someone else, I would feel guilty when I was with someone else, but I never felt any of those things. So it was time.”

I leaned in to hug him.

He let me but then shrugged it off. “Whatever. Anyway, back on track. Like I said, Jeremy wanted to make sure I was okay and I wanted to make sure he had done the right thing by you.”

“I hadn’t even talked to you. How did you know?”

He raised a brow. “Logan told me. Can I finish now?” He was getting annoyed.

“Yes,” I answered, trying not to laugh at him.

“So when Jeremy called, I asked him to meet me and he did.”

I wiped my mouth. “When exactly was this?”

“I had just left him to swim at the club when I called you yesterday but you were with Dawson so I didn’t want to get into it.”

“Go on.”

“You sure you want to hear this?”

I nodded. I was resolved. How much worse could it be?

“It’s not like we didn’t already know in some way but he told me he had gone to the house we rented that summer the day after you and he had gotten into that argument and that’s when he found out who you really were.”

“Mr. Charleston must have accidentally let it slip.”

“There was more to it though. He said something about a scholarship coming through and he had to leave quickly.”

“A scholarship? Really. To Stanford?”

“I have no fucking clue. You need to ask him for the details.”

So Jamie had been right all along. I should have just told him from the beginning.

Jamie shrugged. “It’s in the past, Phoebs. You need to focus on what you want now and be honest with yourself.”

“What do you mean?”