I kicked off my heels and went after him, following him into the bedroom. He toed off his shoes and shucked his jeans, magnificently naked in an instant.

He’d been commando beneath those jeans.

My brain scrambled for a minute, then I fought back by getting naked, too. “I don’t want my family being used.”

“I don’t want my girlfriend making assumptions about my motives.” Jax yanked the covers back and slid into bed.

“You’re the one who keeps telling me that your family can’t be trusted!”

He settled against the headboard. “But you didn’t get mad at my family, did you? You got mad at me. And instead of asking me about it, you decided to drink and close ranks.”

“I wouldn’t have to ask you about it if you told me in advance.” I headed into the bathroom. “But whatever. You’re always right, aren’t you, Jax?”

“Seems to me I’m always in the wrong,” he muttered after me.

I turned on the shower and scrubbed my makeup off while the water heated. When I stepped into the stall, I took my time, dragging out the shower as long as I could in the hopes that Jax would fall asleep and stop talking.

Closing my eyes, I stood beneath the spray. Jax was a man who cowed other dominant men with a single glance. He talked around others, refused to cede any ground whatsoever, and he was a painfully sharp strategist. I respected all those things about him. I was attracted to and aroused by his self-command. But I really hated how he could retreat behind that rigid control and put me on the outside; shutting me out and dealing with me like an opponent.

I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life being treated that way.

“Am I going to have to drag you out of there, too?” Jax said, opening the floating glass door and standing amid the steam that surged eagerly around his bared body.

“Go away,” I told him wearily, shutting off the taps. “I’m sleeping in the guest room tonight.”

His jaw tightened. His chest expanded on a deep, slow breath. “I...” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

Nodding, I pushed him back and stepped around him. “Thank you for that. I’m sorry, too. We both handled this badly.”

I shrugged into the terry-cloth robe hanging on a hook, then wrapped my hair up in a turban to wring it dry. “Goodnight, Jax.”

He followed me through the bedroom, grabbing me by the elbow when I approached the door to the hallway. “Don’t be like this. I said I’m sorry and I meant it.”

Stopping, I looked at him. “I know you did, and I meant it, too. But it doesn’t fix a fundamental problem we’re having with the way we communicate. We don’t talk about family. We don’t talk about work. We hang out together and fuck, which makes us more friends with benefits than anything, doesn’t it?”

He pulled me closer, stepping into me at the same time so that he was pressed up against me. “I love you, Gia. More than I’ve ever loved anything. You know that.”

I sighed. “And I love you enough that I couldn’t get over you, even after I thought you’d dumped me like trash. But that means you can hurt me real bad, Jax. I’m having a hard time living on the periphery of your life. And if being with you hurts worse than being without you, I’ve got to decide what’s the best thing for me to do.”

“You’re the center of my life.” His hands went to my shoulders. “There isn’t a moment that goes by when I’m not thinking about you.”

“That may be true, but you’ve got a unique ability to cut me off, and I’m not sure I can live with that.”

“You’re cutting me off now,” he accused. “You cut me off earlier tonight.”

“So once again, we’re both handling this badly. Maybe that’s a sign. Listen, I’ve got to get some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow. Okay?”

He cupped my nape. “Sleep with me. I’ll keep my hands to myself if that’s what you want.”

I ached to do what he asked, but I also worried that we’d just be putting a Band-Aid on something that needed a lot more work. “I want to sleep in the guest room.”

I pulled away and left the room, feeling his eyes on my back as he stepped out into the hallway after me. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quickly, despite having damp hair and a painfully tight chest.

Sometime during the night, I felt Jax slip into the bed with me. I rolled to my side, hugged my pillow, and went back to sleep.

8

IT WAS A relief to arrive at work the next day.

I woke up next to a brooding and uncommunicative Jax. The rest of our shared morning had been thick with tension. On the walk to the subway, I texted my dad, asking him to call me when he could, then I scrolled through my email. Adrenaline surged through me when I saw Deanna’s name. I’d nearly forgotten about the favor I had asked of her. Once reminded, I couldn’t help but hope for news.

“Please have something for me,” I muttered to myself as I arrived at my station and hurried up the steps to reach the street. I was damned near desperate to have something—anything—that would give me insight into the man I loved.

Unfortunately, her email only read to call her, and I reached Deanna’s voice mail when I tried. I didn’t hear back from her before I reached Savor, where I had to silence my smartphone and tuck it away.

“Good morning,” I greeted Lei when she arrived.

“Good morning.” She tilted her head to the side. “Everything all right?”

I blinked, startled by the question. “Everything’s great.”

She hesitated, then said, “Come into my office.”

I followed her, taking a deep breath in preparation for whatever might be coming my way.

Lei bypassed her desk and settled into one of the gray club chairs in the seating area, looking younger with her hair hanging straight and loose, even with the wicked cool streak of silver. She waited until I took the matching chair before beginning. “Things have been...strained between us the last few weeks. I really regret that.”

The tension left my shoulders. “I do, too.”

“I’m concerned for you...and I have my reservations about Jackson...but really—” she swiveled her chair to face me directly “—the problem is with me. I’m projecting my own experience onto you.”

“You mean Ian.”

Her red mouth curved without humor. “It must be obvious that I loved him. He was my whole world. If you’d asked me then, I would have told you that he’d never betray me. That he didn’t have it in him. I would’ve told you he loved me too much to do anything like that.”

“What happened?” I had never broached the subject before, but now that she’d opened the door, I was dying to know what had helped shaped my boss into the woman she was today.

“We were working on a deal. The negotiations had been tough, but I had the advantage and Ian let me run with it.” A thoughtful wrinkle appeared on her otherwise smooth forehead. “Unfortunately, sometimes I get so focused on the hunt itself that I forget to pay attention to my prey.”

She looked out the windows at the Manhattan skyline. “I was too confident and I pushed for too much without giving enough in return. Worse, I made the man on the other side of the negotiating table feel insignificant and powerless. Somewhere along the way, he decided he’d do anything to put me in my place.”

“What place?”

“Behind Ian, instead of beside him. I think Bruce was insulted that Ian had him doing business with me. I don’t think he ever saw me as Ian’s partner, just Ian’s piece of ass, so that’s what he used against us.”

“How?”

“He kept setting up recurring meetings with me, telling me he needed clarification on different points or wanted to discuss alternatives. We met in the restaurants of the hotels he was staying in at the time, just as you and I did with the Williams twins at the Four Seasons. It wasn’t until later that I understood he’d been creating a paper trail to prove he and I had been having an affair.”