Outrageously Yours (8 page)

“I bet the wine bar was a small step to your dream.” Claire gave him a sympathetic smile. “It was a bridge between what your family wanted and what you dreamed about. It’s probably the only time you were cautious. And for good reason. Do you know how many restaurants fail within the first year?”

He nodded. He had seen the numbers and it had scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t fail in such a grand way. The humiliation would be public and expensive. If his restaurant wasn’t successful, he didn’t want people to know he’d given his best and it hadn’t been good enough.

“But now the wine bar isn’t filling a need anymore,” Claire guessed. “And it can’t because it’s not your dream.”

Jason pulled away from her. He didn’t like that she could read him this easily. “I don’t know why you’re pushing this.” He tossed the brochure on his desk and realized his mistake. He should have thrown it in the trash. Handed it back to Claire. But for some reason he didn’t.

“You’ve always had a restless energy but it’s stronger these days. Haven’t you noticed?” she asked. “You distract yourself with these parties and events. You’re keeping busy, but it’s not the same. Why don’t you admit it? You want to try again.”

“No, I
don’t
want to.” He’d rather work on something that would succeed than put all of his time and energy into one last chance and have it slip through his hands again.

“Because you believe you’ll fail?” Claire asked. “Failing isn’t the end result. It’s part of the process.”

Jason tilted his head back and groaned. “Yeah, I’ve heard all of the motivational quotes about failure. Once, I believed that if you work hard enough you get what you want. That’s not true. That’s the biggest lie of all.”

“I’ve never heard you be so negative.” Claire watched him with growing wonder as if he was changing before her eyes. “You are always so optimistic.”

“I’m optimistic when I keep my expectations low.” He didn’t like that about himself, and he knew he was going to regret telling Claire. “I worked hard to launch my dream and it didn’t happen. I adapted my plan and I scaled down my goals but I kept failing. I deferred my dream for years only for it to get further out of my reach.”

“You didn’t defer it,” Claire said. “You talked yourself out of it.”

He should have guessed Claire would give her blunt opinion. She constantly challenged and confronted him. At times, he appreciated that she spoke the truth. But he was protective about this dream. He didn’t want to hear about his shortcomings. He had heard plenty when he had first chased it.

“Maybe I did.” He could accept the truth. “And you know what? It’s better not to plan or to dream. It’s better to take what you can get and enjoy the moment.”

Claire pursed her lips with displeasure. “You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t have the first clue how devastating it is to work toward something and then it doesn’t happen. To say, this is what I want more than anything, this is what I can’t live without. You go after your dream and discover that you can’t have that dream. So you think of another goal, but this time you go for something smaller. Something different. Something else.”

“I’m sorry, Jason. I didn’t mean to open a wound.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to keep failing at something, Claire. How could you?”

She gave a harsh laugh. “I know exactly what it’s like to fail at something that is important to me.”

He tiredly rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m not talking about losing a client or not reaching a milestone on your schedule.”

Anger flashed in her dark blue eyes. “I’ve been there, I’ve worked toward something and realized I could never achieve it.” Her voice held a hard edge. “That was my life every day for thirteen, almost fourteen, years.”

Jason eyes widened. Who would push that long and hard? Only Claire. Her persistence was almost superhuman. “Did you finally get what you wanted?”

He saw the pain flicker across her face before she answered. “No.”

“Why did you stop? When did you decide it was a lost cause?”

* * *

C
LAIRE
WASN
’
T
SURE
why she’d mentioned it. She felt jittery and scared at the thought of someone else finding out the truth about her. It had been different when she’d told Kim years ago. They had been best friends.

Why was she even considering exposing her deepest, darkest secret to Jason?

But she knew why. She wanted to connect with him on an emotional, intimate level. She’d just seen a side of him she hadn’t suspected existed, and it explained so much. She wanted him to understand her the same way. To get why she hid from people and why she was revealing herself to him in so many layers.

But this was a secret that had been locked inside her for years. It was now a part of her. She wasn’t certain she could tell him. She had been warned so often to hide this vulnerable part of her. She might be unable to get the words out, as if she was standing on the edge of a cliff and her body refused to jump.

Claire pressed her hands against her mouth. She shouldn’t say anything. Jason was a client. Her best client. If he realized she wasn’t as smart as he thought, he wouldn’t work with her. She shouldn’t give him more information than he needed.

But she wanted Jason to know this part of herself. He wished he had her tenacity and drive. Maybe he wouldn’t find her inadequate. Maybe he would admire her more if he understood what she had overcome. Would he want to look even deeper and take the time to uncover who she really was?

“I have...never done well in school. My sisters were in the advanced classes and I had to retake kindergarten when we moved here.” Tension bunched in her shoulders. She had carried that sense of failure ever since and would make up stories to her classmates about why she was a year older.

Jason frowned. “That’s not unusual. A lot of kids are held back.”

“It was unheard of in my family,” she explained. She closed her eyes but couldn’t erase the memories. Her parents had been ashamed and angry. “I wasn’t very confident and I often felt lost and confused. I hated going to school and some days the thought of it would make me physically ill.”

“But you didn’t drop out. I remember you graduating. It’s not like you to leave a project incomplete,” he said. The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I assumed you always had your nose in your book because you enjoyed studying.”

Claire stared at the floor and shook her head. She’d had a long line of tutors and had always been enrolled in classes during the summer. It had been agony. She’d wanted to do anything but study and attend school.

“It wasn’t until a math teacher in high school suspected I might have a visual processing disability that I was tested.” She still had trouble saying the word.
Disability
. It was almost as difficult to say as the word
disorder
. Both labels reminded her that she wasn’t as good as her sisters. She had felt defective compared to them.

“And after you got tested you got the answers you wanted?”

Wanted? Hardly. The tests proved that Claire’s school performance wasn’t the result of being lazy, but there had been no magic pill to take away the struggle. The answers had thrown her into a tailspin, and the relationship she had with her parents had suffered.

“I guess it depends on how you see it.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “I got answers. It turns out my brain works differently. But that only disappointed my parents. I had failed their expectations. Especially when they read the IQ test.”

She heard her heartbeat thumping in her ears. She felt as if she was about to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. She knew she should step back but she wanted to be free from this secret. She needed Jason to see the real her and want her for who she truly was.

“Claire?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. Claire turned her back on him and stared out the window. The cold rain beat against the glass and she heard the constant pinging against window. She couldn’t see anything outside other than the gray sky.

“I can work around my learning disabilities,” she promised. “I can keep up with others as long as I give myself plenty of time. I can work harder and longer but it’s never going to change my below-average IQ score.”

The silence throbbed in the room. It felt as though it went on forever. Jason awkwardly cleared his throat. “When you say below average...”

She winced and hunched her shoulders when she heard his cautious tone. What was she doing? She shouldn’t be sharing this information with Jason. It was too soon. It was too much for a five-day fling. There were boundaries and she had overstepped them.

Jason was right; she was not the kind of woman who could have a casual sexual relationship. She was telling him things most of her family didn’t know. Her face grew hot. She had felt close to Jason and she wanted to hold on to the connection. She didn’t want to push him away the way she had the other men in her life.

This had been a mistake. Opening up to Jason was wrong. This wasn’t going to make him understand her. They weren’t going to get closer after this. The news was only going to create distance.

She slowly turned around. “I’m not intellectually disabled, but I will never be as smart as I want to be. As I needed to be,” she said quietly. “I can work as hard as I want to, but it won’t make a difference.”

Claire saw the IQ number in front of her eyes but she didn’t dare speak it out loud. It wouldn’t mean anything to Jason but it meant everything to her. It had changed the way she thought of herself. It had changed how her parents treated her.

And from the look in Jason’s eyes, she didn’t need to give him anything more. She felt the vicious twist of disappointment in her chest. She had already revealed too much. Her confession had changed the way he saw her. He would never respect her again.

8

“W
HO
TOLD
YOU
that crap?” Jason asked.

“Experts. Many, many experts.” She wasn’t surprised by his anger. It seemed to be the common reaction.

“They’re wrong.” He slapped his hand against his desk. “You are smart and creative. You solve problems on a daily basis and you’re an independent, successful businesswoman. They are wrong,” he emphasized.

She would have been happy to prove the results wrong, and for a while she had acted as if the diagnosis hadn’t existed. But no amount of work made her grades improve and she’d had to accept the truth. Her goals and the future she had imagined were unreachable. Pursuing an Ivy League college was no longer a possibility. Her learning disabilities meant she’d never be a researcher or a scientist like her parents. They still refused to discuss that there was something different about her.

“I was diagnosed with dyscalculia, which is a learning disability for math. I don’t understand the logic in algebra or geometry. I can’t even subtract numbers in my head, and forget about multiplying and dividing,” she confessed. “That’s why I use a calculator every time we talk numbers.”

Jason frowned as he studied her blank expression. “I’m sure you can do it. You’re just being hard on yourself. You’ve always been a perfectionist.”

She wanted to sigh. Perfectionism had nothing to do with it. She couldn’t do simple math operations in her head. She never could and hadn’t realized others had that ability until she had been tested.

“And don’t you think it’s strange that I take notes for everything?” Claire asked. “I know you’ve noticed. You tease me about it all the time.”

He winced and clenched his jaw. “I—”

“That’s not a complaint. I don’t mind your teasing,” she said with a small smile. Jason was never unkind when he poked fun at her. He was playful and flirty. She liked that.

Jason spread his arms out in exasperation. “I only brought it up because I didn’t want you to take an extra step. You’ve always been too hard on yourself.”

“I take notes because I have problems remembering details.” That had been one of the many recommendations the neuropsychologists had made. “I would record our meetings on my phone but some of my clients have a problem with that.”

“That doesn’t mean you have low intelligence,” he argued. “Why would you believe these test results?”

Claire bit her lip as she considered her next words. How could she explain that she’d gradually learned to accept the results? There had been times when she’d wished she didn’t know what was wrong with her. She would have liked to go through life blissfully unaware of her disorders.

But then she remembered how unhappy she had been before she’d been tested. All the times she’d wondered why everything had to be such a challenge. She had felt so lost and confused, out of her depth. She hated how she couldn’t get anything right. So despite how much she despised the labels, Claire was thankful for her diagnosis. She shouldn’t regret knowing the truth about herself.

Claire did, however, already regret telling Jason. She shouldn’t have said anything. She had followed an impulse, a need to get closer to him, and it had backfired.

It was clear that he didn’t want to believe her. He couldn’t accept this part of her.

But she’d wanted him to. She’d hoped he would understand why she was often anxious and quiet. She had spent so much time hiding her true self and being apologetic when she couldn’t meet expectations. When she didn’t improve. She wanted to be with someone who didn’t lecture her or get embarrassed when she made mistakes or couldn’t keep up.

This was her fault. She had expected too much from Jason. Claire didn’t know why she thought he’d be different. She had been desperate to see understanding light his eyes. That he would realize they had something in common and that he would also share his stories of struggle.

Or was it something more? Did she want him to realize that she was more than the quiet, hardworking woman who sat on the sidelines? She ached for him to recognize that she was something more. She had the spirit to keep at it even when the fight was stacked against her.

“I don’t discuss this with a lot of people.” Her shoulders felt tight and heavy and she rolled them back. “In fact, you and Kim are the only ones I’ve told. I would appreciate it if you kept this quiet.”

He drew his head back and gave her a curious stare. “Why would I tell anyone?”

Claire shrugged and looked away. Clearly there was no need for her to add that disclaimer. Really, why
would
he want anyone to know that the woman he was sleeping with was not smart? He was infamous for dating women who were silly and superficial, but that was different. Some of those women only pretended to be dumb blondes to get attention.

“I should go,” she said as she hooked her messenger bag firmly over her shoulder.

He seemed surprised by her abrupt attitude. “You can’t leave now,” he argued. He stepped away from the desk and blocked her way to the door. “We’re not done here.”

“Sorry, I have to get some work finished. There are a few deadlines I need to meet before tonight.”

“Didn’t you want to show me the work you’re doing for the party?” he asked in a rush. “Was it the e-newsletter?”

Claire gave a sharp nod but didn’t look at him. Her attention was solely on escape. She needed to get out of here. “I’ll email it to you for approval before I send it out tonight,” she said as she walked around him. “It will give you a better sense of how it will appear on-screen.”

“You can show me tonight,” he offered.

She froze and stared at her hand gripping the doorknob. “Tonight?”

“I can come to your apartment after I close up here.”

No, she couldn’t let that happen. She had already revealed too much to Jason. Claire knew what would happen if he came to her home. She wouldn’t be able to resist him and they would fall into bed. Her skin tingled just at the thought of it. But as much as she wanted to, she had to start protecting herself. She was already too vulnerable.

Claire turned around slowly. “Oh, not tonight,” she said, her mind racing as she tried for a breezy tone. “I’m going out with some friends.” She had made the plans before their fake fling had become real. Now she was grateful for having an excuse not to see him for a night.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. Claire suspected he was surprised she would prefer the company of friends to his. Women had a tendency to cancel plans for a chance to be with him. “We don’t have a lot of time to work on your reinvention.”

“You know, that reputation is gaining momentum as we speak.” She gestured to the door. “Deanna just told me a rumor about us skinny-dipping in the Sammamish River. I mean, if she thinks I’m stupid—” she cringed and wished she had chosen a different word. Claire forced herself to keep talking “—enough to do that, then I’ll do anything.”

“We should do whatever we can to maintain the myth,” Jason decided. “Don’t you have a list of things to accomplish for this transformation?”

Her list was on her phone. She hadn’t checked it for a while because she had been more interested in going through her list of erotic fantasies starring Jason. The list for her reinvention included a few ideas that would establish her party animal reputation. So far, not one item had been crossed off.

“A list? No,” she lied.

Jason gave her a look of disbelief. “Come on, Claire. You have a list for everything.”

“Max is going to be here from Friday to Saturday night.” The prospect of Max Blair invading her town still made her nervous. “I’m not going to take him on a tour of my supposedly favorite hangouts and try to act like a regular. All I need is for people to tell him that I’ve done those things.”

“I should still see the list.” Jason slid his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his feet. “Get an idea of how I’m supposed to talk you up.”

Something close to panic squeezed her chest. “You want to meet Max?”

“Yes, of course.” Jason’s eyes glittered as his features grew harsh. “I’m curious about this guy. I want to make sure he’s not pulling a fast one on you. You should bring him to the party.”

She closed her eyes as the tension seeped into her muscles. “That’s a bad idea.” She didn’t want Jason to see her with Max. She was nervous and defensive when she was with the social media expert.

Max had a tendency to talk down to everyone, but she had felt slow and stupid as he talked circles around her. But then he’d dangled this potential job offer in front of her and it had given her a boost of confidence.

She wanted to get this job and prove once and for all that she was good enough. That she could be creative and come up with great ideas. Once she got this job offer she could finally show her parents that she could be the best in something.

“Think about it,” Jason said quietly. “Having me there will only help to convince him of what you’ve accomplished.”

Claire’s shoulders sagged. He was right. Having the town’s golden boy in her corner could only help her. Her career, at least. “Yeah, sure, I’ll bring him to the party,” she said weakly. “It should be...fun.”

* * *

J
ASON
WALKED
DOWN
the spiral staircase as he tried to hide his bad mood. He wasn’t blind to the cautious way his employees approached him. He also knew he shouldn’t be in a bad mood at all. He was looking forward to the reserve label party on Friday. Even better, he had crunched the numbers for the wine bar. They were performing twice as well as this time last year.

He should have a ridiculous grin on his face, but it was Wednesday and he hadn’t seen Claire since Monday afternoon.

She was professional when he had a question about the promotional efforts for the party. He couldn’t fault her on that. Claire was prompt to respond through emails and texts at all hours of the day. Cheerful but to the point.

It was obvious that she was embarrassed for oversharing and she was now avoiding him. Jason sighed as the weariness settled on him. He had a feeling that he had done something wrong. But what? And would Claire tell him? Probably not.

And now he wasn’t sure whether he should give her space or if he should act as if she’d said nothing. All he knew is that he wanted to be with Claire. Talk to her. Hold her and make everything better.

Jason glanced at the bar below and did a double take. He gripped the metal bannister as he stared at the woman sitting on the bar stool. The beautiful shade of blond hair falling past her shoulders was instantly recognizable. Claire was finally here.

Pleasure, bright and warm, spread through him as he walked to the bar. He drank in the sight of her. Instead of her customary blazer, Claire wore a long-sleeve gray shirt and dark jeans. She sat stiffly at the bar but it seemed as if she was trying to play it cool.

Fine, Jason decided, he would follow her lead. “Claire, it’s good to see you. Have you been waiting long?”

She glanced up and her dark blue eyes flared with joy only to be replaced by wariness. “I came by to give you the marketing portfolio from our last campaign.” She tapped the glossy folder that sat next to her arm.

“Thanks.” Jason didn’t reach for it. He didn’t care about business at the moment. All he wanted was to find out where she had been and why she had been avoiding him. “How was your evening out with your friends?”

She groaned and slowly shook her head. “It’s been two days and I can barely walk.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me show you.” Claire pushed her sleeve up and revealed several bruises on her arm. They were dark blue against her pale skin. “The ones on my legs and hips are worse.”

Jason gently grasped her wrist with one hand and slid her sleeve up past her elbow. Every protective instinct screamed in his head. She had gotten hurt and he hadn’t known about it. She hadn’t called him or asked for help.

“What happened?” he asked gruffly.

She pressed her lips as if she was reluctant to tell him. “Roller Derby,” she mumbled.

Jason’s mouth dropped open and he snapped it closed. “You joined a Roller Derby team?”

“No, no, no.” She pulled away from his grasp and waved her hands as if she could clear that thought from his head. “You have to try out for the team. You actually have to be
good
at it. My friends and I went to a Roller Derby workshop. I got the pictures to prove it,” she said proudly.

“You went through all that?” He gestured at her bruises. “So you could get pictures? You got injured, but it’s okay because it was all to impress Max?”

“It was one night.” Claire rolled her sleeve down her arm. “A few hours.”

Jason shoved his hands through his hair as he held back the anger. He wanted to forbid her from doing something crazy like that again but he knew he didn’t have the right to say it. “Why are you doing this to yourself?” His voice came out raspy. “No job is worth all this.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” A smile played on her lips. “I want the bragging rights. I want to have the job that everyone in my field would kill for. I’ve never been the envy of others and this is my chance.”

“Does Max test everyone this way or just you? And don’t you think it’s weird that he wants you to be someone completely different?” Jason paused and held his frustration in check before he blurted out how perfect Claire already was. “Why is it so important for Max to believe you’re a wild party girl?”

She ducked her head. “I needed an image that was the opposite of who I am.”

He gritted his teeth. “Is that the only reason?”

“Maybe I wanted to know what it felt like to be the center of attention.” Claire motioned with her hands and she tried to come up with the words. “There’s no respect in being the quiet one,” she finally said. “You’re forgotten and overlooked. But a party girl commands attention. Every man wants to be with her. Every woman wants to
be
her.”

“That’s not true,” he argued. “Some party animals are obnoxious and drunk and no one wants to be around them.”

“Still, they get all the glory.” Claire leaned forward and spoke softly. “It’s like when I was at the Roller Derby workshop. My friends gave up early but I kept at it. I earned their admiration for putting myself out there and taking the hits. No one is that impressed with my work or what I’ve achieved in life.”