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Jax’s mouth ticked up. “Among other things.”
For a second, hope bloomed. She wasn’t like Chase. She wanted to believe a pot of gold existed at the end of every rainbow, even the ones that were almost smudged away after the rain. A bleak, colorless world held no appeal for her. If she lost what she’d always wanted, yes, it would hurt. It was supposed to.
Losing Chase hurt, though she’d barely ever held him. And here was Jax, holding out a bag of gold doubloons. She could see the mirth and the mischief brimming in his eyes. God, she ached to scheme with him. But she couldn’t risk so much again right now, not when she’d already laid so much of herself on the line. She could only chase one fruitless dream at a time.
“Don’t you want to hear my grand plan?” Jax shifted from foot to foot as if he couldn’t keep still. “It might help both of us, if we play our deuces right.”
That snagged her attention. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if you were to act all friendly-like toward me, and I did the same, maybe Chase would see the error of his ways.” He tugged on a loose thread on her sleeve and her sense snapped back into place.
“No. I’m not playing games. If he can’t decide that he wants me on his own, it’s better we’re not together.” She drew her shoulders back. See, her resolve was already strengthening. “I’m fine being single. With my career—both of my careers—I don’t have time for silly entanglements.” Or wild, sheetrock-cracking sex.
“Glad to hear it. But if you change your mind, you know where I am.” He strolled out, whistling.
It was only after he’d left that Summer realized he’d never mentioned how his grand plan could benefit him.
The same day Chase lost—okay, gave away—his first client, he gained his second, a spoiled heiress with a tendency toward rampant paranoia. She’d found the ad Chase had placed online the week before and insisted she needed his assistance 24/7. He’d swiftly negotiated down from that, but he still found himself spending way too many hours standing around Macy’s and toting shopping bags. Toting freaking bags, like some well-paid bellhop.
“Chase,” Anastasia whined the following week when she caught Chase fixating on a poster tacked to a tree in Queens. The Palladio was hosting a New Faces Talent night, and who was the first one listed on the sheet? Sunny Z. Looking more beautiful and happy than any woman had a right to.
That would be her first show with Jax at her side instead of him. He shouldn’t think about it. He was the one who’d shuffled her off to Jax’s care.
Damn, he missed her.
She hadn’t called since that day at Triple Scoop. Since the morning she’d rolled out of his bed and strolled out of his life, though he’d given her a nudge. Maybe more than one.
This was the best thing for both of them, especially her. Now if only he could stop thinking about that frigging dressing room table, and the way she’d asked—no, told—him to go down on her. The way she’d smelled and tasted…
Chase’s groin tightened in concert with his grip on the shopping bag in his left fist. Right on cue, pain lanced through his elbow. If he hadn’t grabbed the bag with his other hand, he would’ve dropped it.
“Chase. Are you listening?”
“Dammit,” he muttered, turning toward Anastasia. “What now?”
She pressed her ample cleavage against his biceps and pointed up the street toward the pet shop. “I saw him,” she said in a stage whisper, shivering so violently that her wild blonde hair brushed his skin.
“Saw who?”
“The man who’s been following me.” She gripped Chase’s arm way too close to the elbow and he had to smother a grimace. “Please, can we go now?”
He didn’t think for a moment that someone was following her, but she was a nice, mostly lucid woman who’d been spooked by an attempted burglary in her upscale apartment the previous year. His hope was that if she started to feel safer while in his presence, then maybe that feeling would extend to the rest of her life. He didn’t know if that would actually happen. It wasn’t as if he was a shrink.
Hell, he needed a shrink himself, probably. But at least he’d begun regularly attending AA meetings again, to the tune of four times a week. Whatever got him through the night.
Without Summer.
He had another doctor’s appointment this afternoon, again with Dr. Jensen. The doctor had returned from his trip and Chase had scheduled the appointment not to discuss a new medication and therapy regime, but to start the path to surgery. Every time he wavered he thought of the weakness he’d felt that night holding Summer in the dressing room. Somehow that seemed like the cruelest blow of all, that in the midst of what should’ve been one of the best moments of his life—and still had been anyway—he’d had to face how fallible he’d become. Accepting he probably wouldn’t get better without the operation felt like failure.
But he was facing the situation. And this time, he wouldn’t chicken out.
He reached up and grabbed the flyer, stuffing down the momentary guilt at taking an advertisement for Summer’s show. She deserved something fancier than colored paper tacked up on a tree and crowds of drunk, screaming lechers who all wanted a piece of her for the price of a cover charge.
She would get there, of that he had no doubt. And he’d see it, one way or the other.
“Let’s go,” he said to Anastasia, shoving the folded flyer in his back pocket carefully, making sure it didn’t tear.
Later he’d take it out and study her face when he didn’t have witnesses. So he could remember, and wallow with his ice cold…water. Then, when he couldn’t take any more, he’d come back to the Palladio and creep in the back door to watch her from the shadows.
