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Holly gathers her items. “Anything else?”
I pause to think, but don’t get the luxury to complete a single thought before my office door suddenly flies open. Both Holly and I turn sharply, getting a good look at the insufferable woman waltzing in as if she has every right.
Holly’s glare would cut anyone else down to size, but my ex-fiancée doesn’t acknowledge my assistant. “This is a private meeting. You don’t have an appointment.”
Jessica presses a hand to her chest, the pink sequin mini dress she’s wearing making my retinas hurt as they shimmer obscenely under the lights. “King and Aillard are allowed to come and go as they please without appointments.”
“They make a lot more money than you to pay for secure access,” Holly deadpans. It’s a lie considering King and Aillard are my best friends, but I applaud Holly for coming up with a reasonable response that also points out Jessica’s failures.
“You’ve shown up twice in the past two weeks. I haven’t seen you since before graduation at NYU. Why are you here?” I ask bluntly. “And don’t feed me the bullshit line about your engagement breaking up and you wanting to reconcile. I’m not interested in moving back towards the past with you.”
Jessica flinches. “The reason my engagement didn’t work was because I’m still hung up on you.”
“Therapists are going to be more beneficial than trying to cling onto the fringes of my life.” I’m being harsh with her, but it’s the only way to get through her thick skull since it seems she didn’t take the hint last week when she showed up unannounced then as well.
Jessica turns her angry glare on Holly. “Do you mind giving us some privacy?”
Holly blows out a breath, not moving an inch. “When you sign my paychecks you can talk to me how you want. As of this moment, you’re trespassing on Ravenscroft Hotel property and it would be in your best interest to move along, Ms. Lancaster.”
Jessica straightens up, her eyes drilling into Holly. “I’m aguesthere,” she snaps out. Her eyes fly back to mine. “I left my house. I had to. I didn’t have anywhere else to go when he called it off and it’s not like I could stay there.”
There’s a lot to unload right there. For starters, her parents are still in the city along with friends and other close family. She probably has a mountain of places she could have crashed when her engagement fell apart. She chose to come here and spend a crude amount of money simply because she could, probably on her parents dime in the name of needing space from her breakup. How that’s any of my business, I don’t know. Nor do I particularly care.
She’s forgetting, though, that just because my name is on the hotel outside doesn’t mean I invited her here. She’s fabricating the world she wants just like she used to in college when she wasn’t getting her way. It’s tiring playing her games, which is why I refuse to play them now.
“Do you know if the next charity event has been approved?” I ask Holly, dismissing Jessica completely in hopes she’ll take the hint and disappear.
“I don’t.” Holly shoots another glare at Jessica before looking down at her tablet. “Do you want me to call Detrick and ask him if she can look at it? I’m unfamiliar with her schedule.” She pauses, her eyes losing focus as she begins talking to herself. “We should combine your schedules so we know when you two have openings to make this easier.” Then she turns on her heel and walks out without addressing Jessica further.
Unfortunately for me, that leaves Jessica in my office still. I could hit the security button beneath my desk to have them come in and remove her, but that will just lead to a headache. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I lean back in my chair instead. “While you may be a guest here, this is my private office. I was in a meeting that was important for me to run my business.” This specific hotel is under my rule of thumb. Not my father’s, not my uncles, simplymine. We each were allowed to venture out when we joined the family business, propose a new hotel project and if it was acceptable, then we ran it under the family name. It worked well for all of us involved except in times like these where I wish someone else was sitting here dealing with my ex-girlfriend.
“Who was your assistant talking about?” Jessica asks. She walks closer to my desk until I hold up my hand to stop her. Her outfit is better fit for Aillard’s nightclubDeliriumthan it is for wandering around New York at lunchtime.
“I don’t see why you think you have the right to question me on anything.”
Undeterred, she asks, “Are you seeing someone?”
She can’t possibly be serious. “If I were, would it deter you?”
Jessica presses her lips together, answering my question without words.
This entire conversation is depleting my energy. “I’m sorry you had a bad break up, but I’m not interested.”
She purses her bright pink lips that match her dress. “What about being friends? We were friends once.”
I clench my jaw to resist asking if that’s true. Looking back, Jessica and I were set up to be together by mutual friends. It was only luck that kept us together for so long. Everything that happened afterwards makes me question why she’s here. I truly don’t understand what her game plan is right now or if she even knows. “We’re not friends.”
“Why?”
“Name one thing we have in common.”
Jessica’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. “We–” But she stops herself, unable to complete her thought. “We have things in common,” she settles with lamely.
“Do we?” I raise my brows in question because I can’t think of a single thing that ties us together beyond where we went to school. Television shows? Hers. Sports? Me. Nerdy comics and television shows? Me. Books? Me. Everything in our relationship was so divided it was easy to separate because there was nothing binding ustogetherthat made me miss her.
Her lips tighten, a clear sign her anger is rising. “Is that why you ended up marrying someone else?”
Ah, there it is. The anger I expect to have directed at me whenever she sees me instead of her fake happiness. “Yes.” My immediate response takes her aback. After eight years, you’d think I’d be able to escape the knowledge of my cheating defining every decision I make. Was it wrong to do? Yes. At the same time it brought me clarity and it brought me Bex. Would I do it again? Absolutely not. I should have been up front from the start with Jessica and fled to Las Vegas for some space over the summer, and potentially still met Bex and married her. Karma really does come to bite you in the ass when you least expect it. I didn’t end up with either girl.
