Jax pushed her hair out of her eyes, trying to tame her hopelessly tangled mess. “We should look for a different way out of here. I don’t want to walk by ballroom doors together in case Cam or one of the guys see us.”
“You go first, and I’ll make my way to the bathroom and then take a taxi back to Cam’s apartment.”
“What do you mean? You’re coming with me, right—back to my place?”
“No… I can’t. I need to go back to Cam’s house. I told Alec I was going there. I can’t just disappear without an explanation. That wouldn’t be fair.”
The muscle in his jaw tightened. “I’m not letting you go back to Cam’s. You’re coming home with me, and we’re going to talk about us.”
“The only person I need to see and talk to right now is Cam, and until Cam and I figure out what’s happening between us, I can’t talk to you. You need to give me some space—” She pushed his chest lightly. “Just back off.”
He cursed under his breath. “No.”
“We’re not doing this now. When and if I decide there’s room for you in my life, I’ll let you know.”
“Are you serious? You’re going to go back to him, climb into his bed with him with the smell of me, of us, on you. Is that your idea of fair?” he said scathingly.
“Jax, that’s not the point. I’m trying to be fair to both—”
“That is exactly my point.” Jax ran his hands angrily through his hair, making it stick out at odd angles. “And if he decides he wants to fuck you tonight too, are you going to agree because it’s only fair that he gets a turn, too?”
Bre’s shame and temper exploded simultaneously, and she wanted to hurt him as much as his comment hurt her. She slapped him so hard that his face whipped to the side, leaving a red handprint on the side of his face. Her forceful reaction startled her, and with a mixture of satisfaction, shame and dread, she braced herself for his retaliation.
“I guess I deserved that,” he remarked imperturbably as he casually ran his hand over the side of his reddened cheek. “However, I wouldn’t make a habit of it. Some men aren’t so forgiving when they are treated so dismissively after sex.”
Bre gawked at him, trying to think of something insulting or mocking to say, but her mind momentarily failed her, so she glanced around the deserted conference room while tightly gripping her clutch purse because it seemed like the last bit of reality to hold onto in her increasingly messy life.
Barely restraining her tears, she said with a trembling voice, “Why are you being so mean to me?”
He lifted his face and his once beautiful warm eyes now looked like empty shards of glass. “You aren’t going to be tiresome and cry, are you, Bre? I thought you were stronger than that. If you want to go, then go—run back to Cam if you think that will make you happy. I’ll follow you in a few minutes. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us. It’s not worth it. You’re not worth it.” Jax turned around and pulled his phone out of his pocket, ignoring her, making it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her. He dismissed her just as he did with hundreds of other devastated women.
When she didn’t move to leave, he turned to look at her, shoving one of his hands in his pocket and leaning his opposite shoulder against the wall. “Well, are you leaving? I don’t want to wait all night. I have plans,” he drawled in a cool conversational tone.
“I’m not going to cry.”
“Of course you’re not. After all, you still have Cam. I’ll call the front desk so they have a taxi waiting for you when you walk outside.” He sounded distant and cold, as though he didn’t care what she did as long as she left him alone.
“Don’t bother. I can take care of myself,” she said, her stricken paralysis giving way to angered indignation.
Tilting his head to the side, he paused; then he lifted the glass of whiskey he had abandoned earlier off the edge of the conference table in a mockery of a toast, and said in an indifferent voice, “Of course you can. Good luck with that, Bre.”
He opened the door to the conference room and left her standing alone without looking back.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The interior of Jax’s loft in West Hollywood looked like a fusion of mid-century modern and Hollywood glamour all wrapped up in an oversized industrial space, all courtesy of his mother’s new career.
While he could say with no regrets that he didn’t like his father, he genuinely adored his mother. Rather than embittering herself in the world as a lonely, self-absorbed housewife, Jax’s mother had taken up one hobby after another. Her recent foray into interior design was admittedly one of his mother’s better undertakings.