Chapter 27
JEREMIAH
Jannie smiled, but the way her eyes rounded was as if she was surprised by my question. “What am I doing here? I’m here to have a drink. Just like you.”
Bullshit. She had no glass and despite having the bartender’s obvious attention, made no move to order one. “Right. Have fun.”
I picked up my beer, about to move to a seat down the bar when her fingers closed around my forearm. Tightly. “Don’t be like that, Jer. Stay. Have a drink with me.”
“Thanks, Jannie, but no thanks. I’ll just leave you to it. I’m not in the mood for company.” Not her company, anyway. Jannie had a tendency to be overly dramatic though, and I didn’t feel like drama—which was why I didn’t tell her that straight.
Best to extricate myself gently if I wanted to avoid a screaming, shouting match that would alert half of the damn city to my personal business. Jannie, however, refused to play along with my plan. She tightened her grip on my arm and batted her eyelashes, so heavily clumped in mascara I could see the lumps sitting between her lashes. “I bet I can change your mind.”
“You can’t.” Christ, what had I been thinking when I slept with her? That’s why you shouldn’t let your dick and half a bottle of tequila do the thinking for you, asshole.
Jannie reached for my beer and puckered her lips around it in what I assumed was supposed to be a seductive move. It was fucking gross if you asked me. “Come on baby, one drink. For old time’s sake.”
“What old times, Jannie? We fucked. Once. Over three years ago.” I snapped, reaching into my pocket to pull out some bills. Of all the places I could be, and all the people I could be there with, here with Jannie wouldn’t even have been my last choice. It wouldn’t have made the list as a choice.
She eyed the bills as I slapped them down on the counter. I had half a mind to offer her some, seeing as she was so interested in them. But I was trying to be a better guy. God knows when it happened, but telling her to take the bills and go fuck herself to earn them wasn’t as appealing as it might’ve been before.
Her gaze traveled back to mine. There was a glint of something in her eyes I never noticed before. Desperation? Determination? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. “I know it was only once, but I’ve never stopped thinking about it.”
She dropped the volume of her voice, letting it fall to something just above a breathy whisper. Leaning forward until her lips were basically glued to my ear, that pesky hand released its grip on my arm and started moving down my side. “It was so good baby. So, so good. It doesn’t have to end with that one time.”
As she spoke, her hand traveled from my side to my thigh and stroked me there. Never one to be shy, she ran her hand all the way up the length of my thigh when she finished speaking and punctuated her words by squeezing my crotch.
My body rebelled against her touch. There wasn’t a single part of me that wanted her. She pushed me well past my last nerve, and I was done with it. Careful not to hurt her, I circled her wrist with my thumb and pointer finger and dropped it back where it belonged—in her own lap.
“I need to get going,” I said, putting on my jacket and standing up as I spoke. “There’s enough money there to buy you a drink and leave a tip for the bartender. Good luck, okay?”
Jannie lifted her firm ass out of her seat, bringing a hand up to rest on my bicep. “Take me home with you, baby. Please. We can work it all out at your place. You’ll see. I’ll blow your mind until the sun rises, then we can talk.”
A switch tripped inside my brain. I was still there, but it was like I was seeing this conversation play out from an outsider’s point of view. What more could I do to let her know I didn’t want her?
“Can’t you take a fucking hint, Jan?” I seethed quietly, still trying to avoid making too much of a scene. The very last thing I needed was to give my father more ammunition against me by having a picture or video of this encounter viral by first thing in the morning.
“I’m just—” she started, but I kept going.
I had to make this perfectly clear. “I’m not interested. I never was. I fucked you because you were there, and you were as forward as you were being until thirty seconds ago. You offered yourself to me on a silver platter, and I took you up on it. I never lied, never made promises to you I didn’t keep.”
Her nostrils flared, rage brewing behind her eyes and in the firm set of her jaw. “But I—”
“No.” She’d said enough. With her words earlier and in my office the day she was fired, the note and rose petals she left outside my apartment. By showing up here. “I’m just plain not interested. We’re over. Done. It was only once, and once is all it was ever going to be. Get the fuck over it, move on. It’s been three years, for fuck’s sake.”
I turned on my heel and marched away from her, really fucking hoping she got the damn message. I could feel her glaring daggers into my back. Exactly like the one she buried in my front door a couple of days after being fired. Jesus. Jannie really was a bit unhinged.
Ignoring the pinpricks of awareness of her glare stabbing me in the back, I was almost at the door when I heard her yell all the way across the bar. “You just don’t know how good we could be together, baby! I rocked your fucking world, and I would keep doing it!”
Her words didn’t slow me down. I just kept right on walking, sick of listening to her spewing her psycho-babble shit. I was disgusted, embarrassed and ashamed that I ever went there. Ever fell for her little seduction game on that retreat. I’d fucked up badly in my time, and I’d undoubtedly keep fucking up, but sleeping with Jannie was a step too far.
When I stepped onto the sidewalk, a fat raindrop landed on my shoulder. I looked up to see it was just starting to rain. Great, just what I needed.
I turned up my collar and scanned the street. Thankfully, my driver was parked just a few spaces away. Having planned to have a couple of drinks, I had him drive me over instead of taking my own car.
Louis, my faithful driver of the last decade, spotted me and rounded the Jaguar to open the door. I slid into its warm, dry interior and shook the rain out of my hair.
Louis looked at me in the rearview mirror, the crow’s-feet around his eyes more pronounced in the faint red lights blinking up at him from the dashboard. “Where to next, sir?”