Dating the Enemy Page 17
“That is non-negotiable.”
“Understood. But are you really serious about this one? You want me to take half of the fifty million I was prepared to give you for Roar and establish a Thornton Scholarship Fund for women interested in a career in advertising?”
“What can I say? I like irony,” she said, unable to hide the smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
He snorted. “And this last one? This too?”
Jessie nodded.
“I have to agree to stop interfering in your relationship with my son and bless your marriage if and when you decide to take that step?”
“I insist on it.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her silently for long enough that Jessie began to get worried.
“All right, Jessie. You have a deal. Where do I sign?”
Her lawyer swung into action, producing a pen and showing him where to initial and sign.
Jessie looked at her watch. “Do you need me here for this next part?”
Her lawyer shook his head and smiled. “No. You can sign the documents later. I know you have someplace else you need to be.”
“Thank you,” she said, and gathered her things.
She was just about to escape through the door when Brad spoke.
“Jessie?”
“Yes?”
“My son is usually a pain in my ass, but I love him. And he deserves a girl like you. Don’t let him get away—do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” she said, saluting as she went out the door.
Nick swore at his friend as he sped away from the marina. “Slow down, Mark! You’re going to kill us!”
“No, I’m not. Trust me. Detroit drivers are way scarier than New York drivers. This is a piece of cake.”
“If you say so. Where are we going, anyway?”
“To my hotel, and then to the barber shop.”
“Why?”
Mark cocked an eyebrow at him. “Because you smell like beer and you look like a troll.”
“So?”
“So if I’m going to be seen in public with you you need to get cleaned up.”
Nick crossed his arms. He knew he was acting like a petulant child, but he didn’t care. “Who said I even wanted to go out?”
“Certainly not you. But I’m only here for one night, and I haven’t seen you in more than three months. So we’re going out.”
Nick grumbled but stayed quiet. He knew he smelled. And he knew that holing up on the yacht, wondering how he could have handled the Jessie situation better, wasn’t getting him anywhere. But there wasn’t anywhere else he wanted to be. Except with Jessie, of course, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want him anywhere near her.
“So what happened, anyway?” Mark asked.
“What do you mean?’”
“Hold on.” Mark darted across four lanes of traffic into a parking spot, narrowly missing a woman pushing a stroller.
“Jeez, Mark. I hope you don’t drive like that when Becky’s in the car.”
Mark pulled up the parking brake and gave him a cocky smile. “Don’t worry—she’s worse. But back to you. Last time we talked you told me a hot redhead took you to Florida with her for the weekend and you thought you’d found the woman you were going to marry. Fast forward three weeks and I’m scraping you off the floor of your boat. I’m assuming there was an important step in the middle that I wasn’t privy to?”
“All right—I’ll tell you. But don’t call me an idiot when I’m done.”
“I won’t.”
Nick launched into the story as they exited the car. By the time he’d finished they were standing outside Mark’s penthouse suite.
“Oh, Nick …”
He hung his head. “I know.”
“I can’t believe she had to handle that on the same day she’d found out she had cancer.”
Nick’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“That same day you were cooking up your idiotic plan.”
“You promised not to call me an idiot.”
“I didn’t. You’re not. That proposal was idiotic.”
Nick felt his temper spike. “Whatever. What’s this about cancer?”
“While you were planning on stopping at the jewelry store she was at her doctor’s office, finding out that she had breast cancer.”
“Jessie has cancer? How bad is it?”
No wonder she had reacted that way. She’d needed love and support. He’d offered her what sounded like a business arrangement. What an ass he’d been.
“Oh, don’t worry. She doesn’t,” Mark said, scanning the card that would let them into his suite. “But she thought she did when you were having that dinner. So your proposal was salt in the wound, so to speak.”
Nick stepped through the door, then stopped.
“So she doesn’t have cancer?”
“No.”
“But she thought she did?”
“Yeah.’
“Wait. So you already knew the whole story?” Nick felt his temper start to spike.
“Of course. Becky’s her best friend.”
“Then why did you make me tell you again?”
“I thought it might sound less idiotic coming from you. I was wrong.”
Nick felt something in his brain snap. He hauled off and punched Mark, not even realizing he was doing it until his fist was buried in his stomach.
Mark doubled over, gasping in pain. “Go get in the shower before I clock you,” he said.
Nick thought about apologizing, but realized he wasn’t ready. Instead he shuffled into the shower.
Jessie was fussing with a string of fairy lights, trying to get them to drape a little more gracefully over a palm leaf, when she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Your baggage has been collected and is being cleaned up.”
“Becky!” she shrieked, clambering down from the ladder so she could hug her blond-haired friend. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you!”
“Not as glad as I am to see you. I forgot how atrocious New York traffic is. I wasn’t sure I’d make it here alive!”
Jessie swept her arms out wide. “So? What do you think?”
Becky grinned. “I think it looks like paradise. I can’t believe this is the same building that housed the Happy Hour. How did you get it done so fast? It’s been less than a week!”
Jessie shrugged. “When you have millions of dollars to play with you can buy miracles.”
“No kidding? Are you at all sorry that you sold Roar?”
“No way. I’m just sorry you couldn’t have been there to see Brad Thornton’s face when I told him he had to start a scholarship fund. It was priceless.”
A shadow crossed her face as she thought about the younger Thornton.
“Did Mark say how Nick seemed?”
“Terrible. Especially after Mark called him an idiot for proposing to you that way.”
Jessie giggled. “He didn’t?”
“He sure did!” Becky’s phone buzzed. “And they’re about to be on their way. Better get this party started!”
Jessie nodded. “All right. But, Becky?”
“Yeah?
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
Becky gave her friend a quick hug. “I think you’re doing the rightest possible thing. You guys are made for each other.”
Jessie smiled. She thought so too. She only hoped Nick agreed.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t really feel like going to a club. I think I should go talk to Jessie,” Nick said as they got out of the car again, this time inside a parking garage.
Mark scowled at him. “I thought I already made it clear that I don’t care what you want? You are not in the proper frame of mind to make decisions. And Jessie doesn’t want to talk to you. We’re going to the club.”
Nick huffed. “Fine. But you’re buying all the beer.”
“Deal.”
Mark hustled him down the stairs and ou
t into the unusually warm April night.
“So where are we going?”
“Right here,” Mark said, pointing at a bright pink building.
The only sign was an old white towel with “Paradise” written on it in purple glitter paint.
Something about it looked familiar, but Nick couldn’t put his finger on it. “This doesn’t look like your usual sort of place.”
Mark shrugged. “A friend told me I should try it the next time I was in town.”
“All right,” Nick said, deciding it was best not to argue.
Mark gave their names to the bouncer at the door and they were waved in. A hostess dressed in a lime-green bikini top and a flamingo-printed sarong greeted them as they walked inside.
“Nick Thornton?” she said, looking directly at him.
He nodded, surprised that she seemed to care.
“Come right this way.”
He followed her into the club. Sand covered the floor, and fairy lights twinkled from the branches of the fake palms that stood in front of the blue-painted walls.
“This is amazing,” he said to the hostess, suffering from a strange sort of déjà-vu. “It looks crazily like this restaurant in South Florida I was at a couple weeks ago.”
“Does it? What a coincidence,” she said. “This is your table right here.”
He looked where she pointed. It was by itself at the edge of what was clearly a stage. His mind flashed back to the last time he’d sat by a stage and a flash of pain nearly slayed him. Man, he missed that redhead.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Jessie, does it?”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Do you know where my friend went?”
“He’ll be along in a moment.”
Nick shrugged and sat. It had to be a coincidence. Mark had said himself that Jessie didn’t want to talk to him.
Seconds later the lights went down. The first chords of a classic heartbreak song reverberated in the club and the voice that haunted his dreams filled the air.
Jessie.
The spotlight was switched on and there she was in her lime-green bikini, dancing around the stage as she sang about margaritas and salt shakers. When the song ended she artfully fell into his lap, still holding a microphone.
“What do you think, good-looking? Was it all my fault?”
He shook his head, unable to believe this was happening. “No, it was mine,” he croaked.
She turned her attention to the audience. “Did you hear that, people? He said it was his fault. What should we make him do?”
“Sing! Sing! Sing!”
“That’s right. Here at Paradise we sing our way out of trouble. And I know just the song I’d like to sing with you. Will you play along?”
She turned away from the audience and he saw how scared she was.
“Please?” she said quietly, with the microphone down at her side. “I express myself better through song.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Grinning, she picked up her microphone. “He said yes, friends!”
The crowd went wild.
“Hit it, DJ Derek!”
The speakers started playing a softer, quieter tune, this one about love found and then too quickly lost. Jessie’s voice breathed new life into the words, and he knew she was singing just for him. Her eyes drew him in like a magnet, and by the time the verse faded into the first chorus they were standing hand in hand on stage. He added his voice to hers, forgetting about the audience, the microphone, and even the club as they promised each other second chances and lifelong romances.
When the final notes faded away she threw herself into his arms and planted a desperate, hungry kiss on him. He answered in kind, lifting her up and spinning her in a circle as they kissed.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
“Not nearly as much as I missed you,” he answered.
“If we’re going to make this work you have to promise to take good care of Roar.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will. Just promise.”
“Fine. I promise.”
“And just so you know—I still won’t marry you.”
“I promise not to ask you to for at least another month.”
“Good. I love you, Nick Thornton.”
“Not as much as I love you, Jessie Owens.”
“Prove it.”
“I intend to spend the rest of my life doing just that.”
“Good. You can take me into my office and start right now.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
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IMPRINT: Sexy
ISBN: 9781489249326
TITLE: DATING THE ENEMY
First Australian Publication 2015
Copyright © 2015 Amber Page
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