“And if I did?” he asked, while carefully sipping his drink.

Anger boiled up in me at his lack of compassion, avoidance of the topic and the way he didn’t show the true man I knew, the man that bought me M&M’s on the steamboat, the man that laughed with me on the roof and the man that sent me a bouquet of flowers almost every morning. He was distant and withdrawn and it startled me to see a man I once trusted change so dramatically.

Standing up and shoving my chair away from me, I paced his office. “What is wrong with you? Where is the man I once knew? You used to be kind and gentle, but domineering when you needed to be. I felt protected around you, cared for, and cherished. You’re not that man anymore. You’re so…so cold.”

“Is there a point to your rant?” Jett asked, as he set his glass down and leaned back in his chair as he studied me while rubbing his stubble with his hand.

“Why did you bring me here?” I shouted, not being able to control my bubbling emotions.

“It seems to me like you already have the answers, so why are you invading my personal space and demanding from me something you already know?”

“So, you don’t deny that you’re a liar? That you told me we had some kind of special connection in the cemetery, but you’re just using me in some human pawn game of yours?” My hands were shaking as I continued. “Was this some kind of sick game you decided to play because you are a bored rich man with nothing better to do? Play around with the hooker and see if she finds out the truth?”

He just sat there, silently, not moving a muscle. I wanted to yell and scream in his face, shake his body and find the glimpse of a man I was able to see for a short, but memorable, night. There was no use though, he was not going to drop the façade. I saw it in the way he just stared at me with lifeless eyes.

“Say something,” I shouted, as I threw my hands up in the air, displaying my frustration.

“I have nothing to say.”

“So that’s it, you are not going to defend yourself, tell me your side of the story, tell me why you picked me?”

“I already did and I don’t go around repeating myself, so if you’re not happy with what I had to say, then frankly, I don’t care. That is your choice…to take someone else’s information over mine. I can’t stop what you believe, or who you believe, for that matter.”

I shook my head as I looked at the floor. “Why are you making this so hard?” I said, almost defeated.

Jett stood up, showing off his beautifully sculpted body and walked toward me with such confidence that I felt myself start to shrink in his presence. He owned every room he was present in with such ease that it was hard not to get sucked into his web and do whatever his deep southern voice asked.

“The only one who is making this hard is you, Goldie. You are the one who brought feelings into this arrangement, even though from the start I told you I didn’t do relationships, I didn’t do love.”

“I didn’t bring feelings in here,” I said defiantly as I stuck my chin out, trying to show that I wasn’t in fact lying because the man could crumple me with one touch, one look. Feelings, fuck yeah I had them, but to hell if I would tell him that, give him the pleasure of knowing the kind of affect he had on me.

He broke the silence with laughter. “Please, you’re practically writing out Mrs. Jett Colby all over your drawings.”

Self-centered, arrogant prick!

“Fuck you,” I turned and pointed at him. “Fuck you, Jett. I’m out of here. I can’t believe I stuck around this long.”

“It’s because you wanted me.”

I was about to walk away when I turned around and slapped him across the face. My hand stung like I just put it on a burning pot, but what really got me was the way that Jett barely even moved his face when my hand connected with it. As if he was expecting to be slapped. He was a robot.

“Maybe I did want you at one point, but right now, I would give anything to be as far away from you as possible. You put on such a good show. Made me believe that I was a part of something, that I was actually taken care of for the first time in nine horrid years, but fuck was I wrong. You are nothing more than a sad rich man with nothing better to do with his life than control women, fuck them when you please, and play mind games so they fall for you and you can teach them a lesson about your damn contract. Well, fuck your contract, fuck this club, and fuck you Jett. I am done with you. I will be out of your manipulative grasp by tonight and don’t worry, I will only leave with what I came with, so when you go and pick a new girl to fuck with, you won’t have to invest much.”

With that, I spun on my heel and walked out the door. A part of me rejoiced for standing up to the man that had controlled the thoughts in my mind since I’d gotten here, but then there was a part of me that was breaking in half, melting away with my heart that was left on the floor of Jett’s office.

Before I walked down the stairs, I looked back one last time, to catch one last glimpse of the man that once made me feel like I didn’t have a worry in the world and what I saw burned my soul.

Jett was leaning against his desk with his hands in his hair, staring at the ground. The utter deflation coming off his body was unmistakable and so damn confusing. In one swift movement, Jett picked up his glass of what I could only imagine was bourbon and chucked it across the room, as he spun around and gripped his desk.

I had one foot starting down the steps and one still on the landing, contemplating my next move. I knew I had to leave; I needed to get the hell out of this house that was currently drowning me, but my feet wouldn’t move for an exit. Instead, they walked back to Jett’s office and stood right behind him. My hands reached out and touched his back, making him stiffen at my presence.

“Jett…”

“Leave!” he roared, as he spun around and looked down at me with such malice that I had to choke back a cry. “Fucking leave! Just fucking leave already.”

I backed away as he spat venom at me with the harshness of his words and the hurtful look in his eyes.

His head and voice lowered at the same time as he spoke out. “Please leave, Goldie.”

The dejection in his voice made me stay. Why, I had no clue. I should be running for Bourbon Street right now, but the man commanded my attention and had an overwhelming sense of power over me that made me reach out to him.

I cupped his face and whispered, “Do you really want me to leave?”

His sad eyes looked down at me and for a brief moment, my heart flipped in my stomach as I saw him saying no, but his words contradicted my thoughts.

“Yes,” he said as he walked away from me. “I’ll have Kace give you a ride and your money will be transferred over to your account. You are free to go, Goldie.”

The fact that he kept calling me Goldie and not little one was not lost on me. He was dismissing me; he was done with me. Instead of putting up a fight, begging him to tell me why I was picked why I was here in the club, I sucked up my pride and turned away from him…the one man who ever really held any kind of power over me, a power that was so strong I felt like I was losing myself as I walked further and further away from him.

Chapter Forty Two

“I Am”

Jett

The door to my office closed and I waited a few seconds before I crumpled to the floor and rested my head in my hands. The look in Goldie’s eyes when I told her to leave burned a vacant hole into my soul and twisted my gut. There wasn’t a bone in my body that wanted Goldie to leave, but I was hurt and I wanted to hurt her. Fucking pride.

Kace came up to my office an hour before Goldie came up and confirmed that she was, in fact, at Café du Monde in the French Quarter, talking with Rex. There was only one thing she would be doing there and that would be considering leaving me and getting together with Rex.