“Somewhere else?” His look sharpened.
God, she wished she knew what he was thinking. But that transparent boy had vanished out of her life ten years ago never to be seen again.
“Yes. Somewhere else. I’m sorry I made it seem like more than what it was. I just wanted to see how different it could be with another guy. You were protective and it felt good to touch somebody who was...” Tender. Always good to me. “...just different in bed.”
Part of that was true, at least. Carter had been tender with her that afternoon in his sun-drenched dorm room. He’d kissed the tears from her face, licked her all over and touched every part of her that could give pleasure.
He’d been nothing like Hudson. Carter had gotten much further with his gentle touches and kisses than Hudson ever got with his threats of telling everyone how frigid she was. In the end, though, Carter had been just as bad. Worse.
That day, she’d been furious with her cheating boyfriend, and miserable. She only wanted comfort from Carter, the one person who showed her consistent kindness and understanding. But he used her body and discarded her, left her feeling worse than when she’d walked into his room.
Jade would never let him know that, though.
“I was just using you, Carter,” she snapped, finally stating it bluntly since he didn’t seem to get it when she used nicer words. “I just wanted a different man in bed for a change. Don’t think if you’d come back any sooner there could’ve been anything between us.”
Anticipating an angry reaction, maybe even something physical, Jade clenched her teeth and braced herself, hands curling around the edge of the couch.
But Carter only gave her that same devouring stare. His expression gave nothing away.
What the hell was she even doing?
This was stupid, trying to get a rise out of him. And why?
Jade sighed and trailed fingers through her low-cut hair. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. All that is in the past and we’re working together now so that’s that.”
“What if I don’t want that to be it?”
“I don’t care what you want,” Jade said.
Growling low in his throat, he pushed himself off the desk and moved toward her, but before he could reach where she sat, Jade jumped up from the sofa and grabbed her briefcase. Finally, a reaction out of him. But maybe not something she was ready for.
Carter slid himself between her and the door, a halfway-there obstacle to her freedom. “Wait,” he said.
“No. I did that when I was a dumb kid but that’s not my style anymore.”
His Adam’s apple slid up and down as he swallowed. “How long did you wait for me?”
An emotion moved across his face. Hope? Whatever it was looked out of place. This placid and nearly emotionless version of him would take some getting used to. At least until it was time for her to finish up in Miami and leave again.
If the handle of her briefcase were a neck, she would’ve strangled it by now. Why were they even talking about this? Yes, she was still mad, but it was nothing a strong glass of whiskey and another ten years couldn’t cure.
Jade released a slow breath. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.”
Suddenly feeling hollowed out, she twisted away from his infuriatingly calm face and headed for the door. She couldn’t look at him another second.
“Where are you going?” he called after her. “We still have to talk.” Carter hesitated. “About your work with the Diallo Corporation.”
“We don’t have anything else to talk about. Your troublemaking brother and I, though, he and I need to have a conversation sometime soon. Preferably in the next one to two days.” She gripped the door handle and wrenched it open. “Now, if you have nothing else to say, I’m going to go earn the ridiculous amount of money your company is paying mine.”
Without looking back, she walked out. The secretary didn’t look up from her computer when Jade walked past, the height of professionalism. How many pissed-off women had she seen walking out of Carter’s office over the years?
Not that it mattered to her. None of it did.
She just had to do this job then get the hell out of Miami and back to San Diego where she belonged.
Carter Diallo was a heartbreaker. He’d pummeled hers to bits before and she didn’t have a spare to offer him for a repeat performance. No matter how good he looked in a suit.
Someone once told Jade she wasn’t the forgiving type.
It wasn’t true. She forgave plenty.
She just never forgot or gave people the chance to screw her over again.
Jade didn’t want to be that person, but she could only be who her parents raised her to be.
With her head swimming from their conversation, she left Carter’s office. Her exact destination was unclear as hell, but who needed a destination when getting out of his presence had been the only priority?
In the Diallo Corporation parking lot, she climbed into the silver Aston Martin Vanquish she’d had shipped ahead from San Diego so she could drive it while in Miami. It was an expense. Too much, really. But her parents had raised her to be cheap and thrifty and now, these days, she wanted to throw all of that away. So the Aston Martin it was.
Sleek, seductive and sexy. Basically, the car was everything she wished she was.
And it was what she’d felt like in Carter’s arms the one time they’d been in bed together. Despite the tears and her anger at Hudson, that afternoon with Carter had been a revelation. For once, she’d allowed herself to...just be. No fears, no expectations, simply pleasure and a heart-opening recklessness.
She’d never felt that way with anyone again.
Jade breathed in a deep lungful of the Miami autumn air and started the car. The Vanquish came to life with a sensual growl she could never get enough of.
“Hey!”
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw a girl standing next to the car. The girl had appeared there like a ghost. Skinny and big-eyed, waiting there in cutoff shorts and an electric-blue tube top that showed off more slender limbs, daggers masquerading as collarbones, a fierce look in her wide brown eyes.
“Can I get a ride?”
“What?” Jade didn’t know this girl from Eve, and there was no way she was going to let a scrawny stranger into her car. She could be a crackhead for all Jade knew.
“No. Not from me,” Jade said with a shake of her head.
“Hey, whatever happened to the kindness of strangers?”
If she didn’t know better, she could swear the girl was making fun of her.
“This is the big city, stranger. And this is the year two thousand and whatever.” Jade waved off the actual year as unimportant. “No one is kind for free.”
“So what are you gonna charge me? I need a ride.”
You have to be kidding me. This girl had to be crazy.
Or maybe you’re the crazy one, still parked and talking to this girl when you could’ve easily pulled off and left her in a cloud of dust.
The voice inside her head could be a bitch sometimes.
But she was still vibrating from the