Favorite Places (A TroubleMaker Novel, #2) (9 page)

The shower felt
fabulous. And the soft cotton shirt and jeans fit her perfectly, flattering her
figure. Katie was good. She’d give the girl that. She’d even guessed the right
bra size. Jessina’s hair was almost dry when she wandered out to the kitchen.

Katie was working
on her laptop. Her cell phone chirped. She picked it up, responded to the text,
and then went back to hacking away at the keys. She must have sensed Jessina’s
presence because she glanced up and offered her a quick smile. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Jessina
returned and headed to the fridge for bottled water. She twisted the cap off
and downed half of it.

Her eyes rolled
down Chase’s assistant’s body. Katie was a petite thing with a short but smart
haircut. Her suit was tight but modest. All in all, she pulled off put-together
and capable very well.

Somewhat embarrassed
about the current situation, Jessina wanted to apologize for the inconvenience.
“Sorry about this. You…God, you must think I’m—”

Katie waved a
hand at her, her other one still beating the hell out of the keyboard. “Don’t
worry about it and please don’t explain. If Mr. Lennox wanted me to know what
was going on, he would have informed me.” She closed the laptop and looked back
up at Jessina. “Really, it’s fine.” She smiled genuinely, which eased Jessina’s
conscience a little. The girl was right. If Chase wanted her—or anyone else,
for that matter—to know about their forged marriage, he would have said
something. Apparently, the bachelor wanted to stay eligible in the eyes of
others, for he hadn’t even told his trusty assistant about their situation.

Katie’s cell
chirped again, and in less than two seconds, she’d checked and answered it. “Are
you done in the bathroom?” she asked as she set the phone back on the counter next
to the laptop.

“Yeah.” Jessina lowered
into the kitchen chair.

“Good. I need to
use it,” Katie said but didn’t move.

Jessina took a
swig of her water and shrugged. “Okay.”

Katie’s perfectly
plucked eyebrows rose. “Well? Where is it?”

“Oh!” Jessina lowered
the bottle onto the table. Then it hit her.
Oh! She doesn’t know where the
bathroom is. Wait…huh?
It was a good indication that she’d never been in
Chase’s place before that day. Jessina smiled at the notion as she showed Katie
to the bathroom and took some strange relief in realizing Chase might actually have
been telling the truth about his assistant. He hadn’t slept with Barbie Number Two,
at least not at his place. The fact that she cared, scared her.

Jessina walked
back out to the kitchen and decided to call Jon, to see how the new baby was.
She’d called her mother the day before, but she hadn’t wanted to bother the new
father.

He picked up on
the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, Jon.”

“Jessina! How
are you? Is everything okay? We heard about the accident. Tanya and I have been
so worried about you. I talked to your mother, but…well, you know how that can
be. I tried to call you, but Mr. Lennox said you were sleeping, so—”

“Wait. You tried
calling me…
here
?”

“Yes, twice. I
wanted to let you know they’ve changed the court hearing. You’re scheduled to
appear one week from this Tuesday, but don’t worry. I’ll be there. Tanya and
the baby are doing great, and her mother’s coming in town this weekend to help
out.”

“Oh that’s
good.”

“Yeah, she’s a
God sent. Oh, I also called to see how everything worked out. Did you convince Mr.
Lennox to sign the papers?”

“Um, no, not
yet,” she mumbled, still confused as to why she hadn’t been given the message
that Jon had called.  

“Really? What
the hell is going on over there? Do you need me to come get you? Is that it?
You have no way home? I can—”

“No, I’m fine,
Jon,” she assured him, but in her head she began to question why she hadn’t
left.
What am I doing here anyway?
 

Chase was obviously
trying to control the situation, trying to control her, use her, and exploit
the fiasco with the fake marriage license. He’d kept Jon’s phone calls from her.
And that was more than a little extreme. He’d stayed right by her side, even
talked her into letting him sleep with her, which was risky on her part. All in
the same breath, he’d propositioned and threatened her. He went as far as
threatening to stall the annulment just to hold her up from getting the
inheritance. A rude move if there ever was one. Not to mention, she’d allowed him
to seduce her, which was absolutely insane on her part. Of course, he only did that
for his own selfish reasons. So he could try to persuade her into helping him
close the deal with Caplin. He planned to use her, just as Lance had, for his
own benefit. That one simple mistake had earned her a day in court, and there
was no need to swerve down that road again. She’d learned her lesson the first
time around. And when it came to Chase Lennox, those big, yellow “CAUTION!” signs
were suddenly everywhere, red flags were a-wavin’, and horns where a-honkin’
loud and clear.

“Jon, I’ll call
you when I get home, which will be very soon,” she added prior to saying
goodbye and hanging up.

She went out the
door, down the elevator, and got off on the tenth floor, but she couldn’t find
Chase in his office. She marched around until she spotted him slumped in a
chair, holding the side of his face in the palm of his hand and staring
straight ahead, unfocused and dazed.

Halting in the
doorway, she placed her hands on her hips. “How dare you, Chase Lennox?”

His eyes shifted
over to her, but he didn’t move.

“Why didn’t you
tell me Jon called? Who the hell do you think you are? You had no right to deny
me his calls, and, furthermore, you…well, you had no right swindling me into
staying here with you.”

His eyebrow
arched.

“You had no
right to proposition me, to threaten me. You selfish bastard. You…my God, you
even went so far as to seduce me to get what you wanted, but I won’t stand for
it. I swear, I’m going to—”

Lifting his index
finger, he obviously meant to interrupt her. But Jessina refused to be silenced!

“Oh no you don’t,
buddy! Don’t even try it.” A small grin tugged on his lips as his finger slowly
fell on them. “You’re sexy little smiles might have worked for, oh I don’t
know, maybe five minutes up in that bedroom of yours, but I’m over it, and I’ve
made my decision. I’m ready to go home,
Mr. Lennox
.”

His smile
dissolved, no doubt from the disobedient name-calling.

She smirked, pleased
and not the least bit intimidated. “I don’t want to be your wife, not today and
definitely not two weeks from now. I want a damn annulment. Do you hear me?”

Chase stared at
her for many seconds, and then he tapped his finger against his lips. His eyes slid
back to the center of the room. “Well, I think we could use a five-minute
break.”

Every working cell
in Jessina’s body froze.
Who the hell is he talking to?
Oh no! Oh God,
no!
Her cells went berserk, frantically running and slamming into each
other. She nearly fell over when she leaned a measly inch forward into the room
to peer around the door, and was greeted by a bald man with wide, blue eyes, wearing
an obnoxious green tie. She gasped, leaned in a bit more, and met a set of
smiling brown eyes, then another pair of shocked blue ones. She gasped with
each person she encountered sitting around the big oval table. She placed her
hand on her chest and noisily gasped eight times. Eight people now thought one
of the most eligible bachelors in town was no longer so eligible. For all of a
half-second, Jessina almost—
almost—
felt bad for interrupting the meet, but
then she smartened up. She recalled what it had felt like when she had discovered
that Lance was stealing from his employees. And the horror of realizing that
he’d used her to do it.  

I
can and will get through this.

She squared her
shoulders as the awe-stricken employees got up and shuffled quietly out of the
room. As they passed by, most kept their eyes trained on the floor, afraid to
look at her for fear of losing their jobs.

“I’m so sorry,
Mr. Lennox,” Katie said when she appeared at the door while the others rushed
out. She stepped in cautiously wringing her hands together, still trying to
catch her breath. “I-I…”

In that moment,
Jessina accepted the guilt for what she’d done to Katie. From the dangerous
gleam in Chase’s eyes, she figured Katie was in deep shit. She hadn’t meant to
get the girl in trouble. “Don’t blame her. It’s my fault.” Jessina tried to
defend the worried assistant.

Chase’s index
finger hastily shot up, quick and fast, silencing her, not slow and leisurely, as
it had minutes earlier, when there had been a room full of people. When he could
have saved her from making a complete ass out of herself, but instead, he’d bailed
on his attempt to rescue her with a smile, and the devious finger that had
fallen so casually upon his lips. She was ready to rip into him, but when those
hard, cobalt eyes slithered back to her the cold, stern warning had Jessina
wringing her own hands. She clamped her mouth
shut.

“I don’t blame
Katie,” he coolly said, then turned to his assistant. His demeanor softened,
and Jessina wished he was looking at her that way, for she could only imagine
what was in store for her when he said, “Katie, could you please close the door
on your way out? I’d like to have a private word with Ms. Landi.”

Katie did as asked.
Jessina’s agitation grew, as did Chase’s smile. He had to question if he really
was heartless, for he was actually taking some delight over her distress. Hell,
she’d just told his employees they were married and, real or not, the gossip
was going to flourish through his company before the five-minute break was up. That
was not what he wanted, not at all. Thrown into the unexpected situation, Chase
did the only thing he knew how. He remained calm, cool, and collected. And, of
course, he smiled.

“Oh no you don’t!
You smug bastard,” she huffed indigently at him. “How dare you look at me like
that?”

Chase sat with
steepled fingers. He lounged back into the chair and thoughtfully eyed her. “Like
what?” He patiently waited, but when she didn’t take the bait, he decided to
give the line a little tug. “You know,” he leaned forward ready to reel her in,
“you didn’t have to accept my invitation to come home with me from the hospital.
You could have fought just a bit harder to get me out of the bed, and you didn’t
have to kiss me back. And, you definitely didn’t have to beg me to touch you.
But you did all of those things, and you can’t tell me you didn’t like the
results.”

Her eyebrows
lowered and drew together. “Says you!”

As her fury heightened,
he couldn’t resist giving the line yet another tug, a little harder this time. “That’s
what you’re really angry about it, isn’t it? That you liked it? That you like
me?”

“Why, you…!” Her
hands clenched at her sides. “I’m leaving!” She turned on the balls of her feet.

“You want me, Jessina,
and you hate it,” he taunted, attempting to anger her enough to stay, to fight
him.

His efforts successful,
she whipped back around. “I don’t—”

“You
don’t
hate it?” He smiled in triumph, cutting her off, and admitting that his fake wife
was, hands down, a beautiful woman when she was angry.  

“No! Before you rudely
interrupted me what I was going to say was that I don’t
wan
t you
,
you
arrogant son-of-a-bitch!”

“Jess, you most certainly do, but what you really hate, what
really is pissing you off here, is that it just proves what I said before.”

“Yeah? And what the
hell is that?”

“That I don’t
make it a habit to want a woman who doesn’t want me. I told you. I’m just not
built that way. Seems I was right after all, huh?”

She threw her
hands up in the air. “I’m out of here!”

He chuckled, but
when her hand hit the doorknob, he got nervous. He didn’t want her to leave. “Stop,
Jessina.”

To his surprise,
she submitted to his stern words.

He got out of
the chair. “You’re not going anywhere.” He pushed the door closed, and glanced down
at her from over his shoulder. He took a deep breath to calm down. He didn’t
want to scare her away. He carefully turned around. “And you’d better take
three steps back, before I invade your precious space.”

Again, she
obeyed.

“Good.” He
relaxed a little more. “Now, don’t go making me out as the bad guy here. You’re
just as responsible for what’s going on, for what’s happened. I didn’t force
you to do anything, and you came here of your own accord. My proposition, the
payment it entails, enticed you, and when I kissed you, your reaction was more
than willing. Your responses were…” He paused. “Shall we say, very enthusiastic?”

She gave him a
dirty look. “Mr. Lennox—” She quickly changed her choice of words when he took
a step toward her. “Chase!” She held up a hand, trying to fend him off as she
stepped backwards. “Chase! Chase! Chase! There! Are you happy now?”