She bit her bottom lip as she looked up at him. When Emma did it, he wanted to kiss her. When Alexa did it, he wanted to tell her it looked childish and was smearing the red of her lipstick.
“Maybe some other time,” he said. “I was actually just on my way out.”
“You’re leaving?” She glanced out at the yachts behind him. “But it’s such a nice night. And isn’t one of those yachts yours?”
She tugged gently at his arm, turning him to look out at the water with her. She stood far too close for comfort. This used to happen all the time and he would let it happen. He wasn’t used to having to tell women no.
“I’m very sorry, Alexa,” he said, gently pulling his arm away from her. “But it’s time for me to leave.”
She frowned slightly and then moved forward, wrapping her arm around his neck and kissing him. The shock of it had him frozen for a second before he quickly pushed her off.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He spat, stepping away from her.
“I thought that’s how you liked it,” Alexa replied, batting her eyelashes and doing the annoying lip-bite. “They say that women who sleep with you are more likely to get a job at your company. Isn’t this how this works?”
“Not even a little bit,” he said.
Jackson stared at her for a second before leaving the porch. He walked past her, carefully not touching her as he went back into the party.
He couldn’t believe the woman had kissed him like that. He hadn’t seen it coming at all. Something about it made him feel sick to his stomach, and it wasn’t just that he’d been kissed by a stranger.
He thought of other encounters that had started just like that and played out differently. Alexa wasn’t wrong. He’d slept with several women who had become employees. If they wanted to sleep their way to the top, he wasn’t going to stop them. He just wasn’t going to promote them if they weren’t good at their jobs either.
He’d had hundreds of encounters just like this one that had led to one-night stands he
never regretted. Yet, this made his stomach turn.
This felt like a set-up. It was too easy. He thought of the people down on the yachts. It would be far too easy for one of them to have a camera and to have gotten a picture of their kiss. Without context, it would have looked consensual.
“Shit,” he hissed. What if this wasn’t just an attempt to sleep with the big boss? What if this was something else?
And worse, how would he explain it to Emma?
He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t tell her. He didn’t need to worry her, he decided. His stomach twisted and a small voice told him it was a bad idea.
He didn’t want to tell the beautiful woman pregnant with his child that his lips had been touched by someone else. He was embarrassed. She deserved better than him.
He didn’t want to tell a soul.
He left the party. He was no longer in the mood.
Chapter 31
Emma
* * *
Emma groaned, finally giving up on her nap. Exhaustion still tugged on her, but her phone simply wouldn’t stop buzzing or chiming. Unfortunately, it was on the kitchen table and a good ten steps away from the couch she currently was very comfortable on.
The chime went off again. She thought about just leaving it there, but it was plugged in. The chimes would never stop since it would never run out of battery. Besides, that many text messages, emails, and phone calls had to be something important.
With a groan, she threw her feet to the floor and sat up from the couch. She just wanted to nap today. This being pregnant thing was harder than she expected. She remembered her friend Grace’s pregnancy being easy. The only thing Grace had was an aversion to the smell of cooked chicken. Emma seemed to have an aversion to everything.
She stood up and walked zombie like to the kitchen table. She picked up her phone and started making some ginger tea while she checked what was making her phone so noisy.
Twenty-two text messages, but only three of them from numbers she recognized.
Sixty-eight emails. Twenty-three phone calls, all with voicemail messages.