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“It took me this long to get back to you and I’m not going lose you again.”
“You never lost me,” I reply, pushing against him as I feel my heart hammering in my chest as the rest of the words settle heavy in my throat. They rest on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be said, but I swallow them down.
“Confession,” I whisper, my heart slamming harder, wondering if Jack can feel everything he’s doing to me. “You’re the only guy to ever…” My lips are parted and it’s difficult to get the words out, my breaths coming hard and fast. “To ever turn me on so fucking hard. Even when we were kids.”
I had no idea what I was feeling at fifteen, but I knew I wanted Jack, that something about the way he teased me, about how angry he made me, made a fire burn inside my body. I wondered what it would feel like to have his hands on my body, to have him touch me, to explore me.
“Fuck, Lu,” Jack hisses, his mouth now sucking and biting at my neck as his hands slide under my shirt. “You were so fucking hot at fifteen and time has been really good to you. I dreamt about you, about your body, about one day being inside you.”
Jack’s words, his accent, his hard muscled body pressed against me, everything about him sends my body into a tailspin.
“I had no idea it would be this fucking hot. You were worth the wait,” Jack adds, his words low and deep and sexy as hell.
Neither one of us says another word.
We wake early the next morning, Jack going out for a run and me heading to the office before the property is busy with tours and visitors. With Ellen gone, I need to pick up the slack and payroll needs to be sent off to the bank along with making sure everything for the restaurant has been ordered.
I also have the couple who’s wedding I booked a few weeks back coming in for a tour of the property and go over a few things with them like choosing a caterer and finalizing numbers.
My life is weirdly calm and the normalcy of having Jack here is something I’ve grown quite accustomed to. A part of me begins to wonder if he really will go back to Australia. We’ve created a life together in just a few short months.
The couple arrives just before nine o’clock. They’re young and cute and excited, and I feel like they’re exactly the reason I finally started booking weddings again.
They sit down across from me in the two chairs I have set up in my office and we begin to go through the day, the number of guests and the catering options. I share with them the promotional pictures we have on file of the multiple weddings we have hosted to give them an idea of chair set-ups and locations.
Everything is going smoothly and suddenly the door to my office opens, but I don’t think much of it. People come and go throughout the day, especially Penny and our summer tour operators; dropping off invoices, picking up paychecks, and now with Jack here, he pops in from time to time.
But when I look up, I find Nate standing in the doorway, that smug smile on his face as he leans against the doorway.
I’m speechless, as I look back at the prospective wedding clients who are staring at Nate. I’m sure they’re wondering exactly the same thing I am.Why is he here?
This is getting out of hand, and as much as I’m a consummate professional, I want to yell outwhat the fuckright now.
“Planning your wedding?” he asks nonchalantly, like he has a place in this conversation. “It’s a beautiful place to have your wedding. We’re having our wedding here too,” he adds, motioning between him and me.
I’m absolutely fucking appalled at his audacity and his stupidity. He can’t possibly be this self-absorbed and unaware of the body language and tension that is now filling the room.
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you were getting married too,” the young bride-to-be squeals. Like we’re part of some ya-ya sisterhood traveling pants engaged girls tribe. Something I now realize I’m not sure I ever want to be a part of.
I guess I’m the only one giving off thewhat the fuckvibe.
“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, glaring at Nate as he winks at me from his now posted position in the doorway. “You’ll have to excuse me for a second.” I shove away from my desk and walk to where Nate is standing and mutter, “Can I speak to you outside?” Keeping my voice low, but allowing my animosity to be felt through the bite in my words. I’m not exactly giving off an aura of excitement.
“I like to surprise her here at work,” Nate says, chuckling a little as I shove past him. “She is my fiancé after all.” He’s smiling at the couple, but their faces are a cross somewhere between bewilderment and disgust. It’s what I imagine my face looked like the first time Ellen explained to me that our parents had to have sex in order for us to be born. A conversation that goes down in my record books as one of the worst. But it’s possible the one I’m about to have now just might top it.
When we’re finally outside, away from my office and out of an earshot of the couple, I spit out, “What in the actual fuck are you doing here?” My foot stomping the ground with each word. “First of all, I’m with clients and this is so not appropriate. Second, we are not in engaged, we are not getting married, and I’ve asked you repeatedly to go away.”
“How long are we going to do this, Lauren?” Nate asks, but it’s his tone that pisses me off even more. It’s casual, like I’m playing hard to get and he’s just waiting around for me to come to my senses.
It’s taking everything in me not to lose my shit and kick him in the dick.
“We’renot doing anything,” I hiss back. “We’re nothing. This is all you, and I want no part of it.”
“Fine, fine,” he says, holding his hands up in defense as if he’s going to concede that easily. “What’s it going to take for you to forgive me? Just tell me and I’ll do it.”
I let out a long slow breath trying to control the anger that’s burning inside me as I cross my arms over my chest.
“I forgive you,” I say, my words laced with venom, sliding from my tongue. “And what I need from you,” I watch as Nate nods his head, blissfully unaware of my hatred, “is for you to forget me, because as of this moment you’re dead to me.”
