“What did Mark say to you?”
She swallowed hard but held his stare. “He said that…” Her breath hitched and she swallowed again, then gripped his shirt—and chest—tighter. Her jaw began to tremble again.
“He said that you’re just playing around with me and that you can have any woman you want. That I’m no different from any other woman you’ve been with and if I don’t want to be responsible for the demise of your career, I should back off.”
She spoke so fast it took him a minute to process what she’d said. Breathing harder as understanding dawned on him, he was powerless against the rage that filled his veins. His hands fisted and his biceps flexed. Without a word, he lifted Jessica off of him and set her on the couch.
“Jamie?” Tears streaked her cheeks as she huddled on the couch, looking small and fragile and so damned broken it killed him.
Every muscle tensed. Fire seared his veins, but beneath that rage was his love for Jessica, and it battled the anger. He was afraid to touch her, afraid to get too close for fear that his anger toward Mark might move him to act too roughly.
“I’ll be back.” Blinded by anger, he moved for the door. He had to fix this shit, had to get to Mark and beat the living shit out of him for hurting Jessica—for putting any doubt in her beautiful mind.
“Jamie, wait!” She scrambled off the couch and followed him out to the deck. “Wait. Is it true? Was this all a game to you?”
“A game? Is that what you think? Do I act like it’s a game?” A fucking game? This is anything but a game.
“No, but—”
He stilled, his gut burning. “But?”
“I am a distraction. I know I am, so the most important part is true,” she whispered with a trembling voice. “I could cause you trouble in your business. I could make you fail.”
He closed his eyes to try to gain control of the storm brewing inside him. When he turned to face her, she looked impossibly small and scared, like a wounded bird. And goddamn Mark was the one who’d wounded her—and it was Jamie’s fault. He’d left her alone with a shark. What the hell had he been thinking?
“You’re not a distraction.” He hated that his teeth were clenched and his face was probably red, but the words were true, even if the emotions putting them forth were misconstrued. He wanted to hold her until she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loved her—but he was incapable of being gentle at the moment. This was the best he could do. “You’re the woman I love. The only failure was mine, for letting him near you.”
Chapter Seventeen
JAMIE SPED DOWN Route 6 and was at the Sheraton in less than five minutes. He cut the engine and gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white, wondering what the fuck he’d been thinking to let Mark anywhere near Jessica. He had too much fucking faith in Mark; that much was clear. His muscles corded tight, frustration brought his fist down on the dashboard, once, twice, three times—and after he’d cracked the damn thing—a fourth.
“Motherfucker,” he seethed.
More than ten years of friendship, and this was how Mark paid him back?
His eyes dropped to the stone on the ring on his right hand. Black. Nothingness. Angst so deep you can’t push your way out of it. He breathed heavily, his chest aching with anger and love and all the out-of-control emotions in between. He stormed from the car and into the hotel, nearly blasting through the glass doors that opened so damn slowly he wanted to shatter them. He blew past the reception desk, oblivious to the greeting of the woman behind it, and stalked down the hall, head bowed, blinded with rage.
Room 189 was in the back of the building, which was good. No one would hear him killing Mark. He pounded on the door, rattling it on the hinges.
“Open the fucking door, Mark.” He didn’t care that it was midnight, or that there might be families sleeping in the nearby rooms. He couldn’t have registered such a coherent thought if his life depended on it. He felt the weight of his anger like a two-hundred-pound gorilla, digging its claws into every muscle, snaking into his body and electrifying his nerves until they burned so hot, he could barely see straight.
He banged on the door again. “You have three seconds before I break it down,” Jamie seethed.
He heard the slide of the lock, the chain rattle, the doorknob slowly twist. He thrust the door open and grabbed Mark by his white T-shirt, lifted him off the floor, and slammed him against the wall, barely registering the door clicking closed behind him or the woman screaming in the center of the bed as she scrambled to pull sheets over her naked body.
“What the fuck?” Mark hollered.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“Nothing. Jamie, what the hell?” Mark’s body shook; his eyes shot to the bed.
Jamie turned and looked at the bed, his knuckles digging into Mark’s chest. “Leave. Now,” he said to the frightened woman, then turned back to Mark, ignoring her as she whimpered and cried, gathered her clothes, and tore out the door.
“Jamie. Put me down. We’ll talk.” Mark’s eyes were wide and fearful.
“Pleading is ugly on you, motherfucker, and talking is the last thing on my mind.”
Mark touched his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Jamie. It’s me, Jamie. We’re friends, remember? Put me down. We’ll talk, and then if you still want to rip me to shreds, you can.” He dropped his eyes to his bare, limp dick between them.
Fuck. How the hell had he missed that? Jamie shoved him toward the bed. “Put some fucking pants on.” He paced the hotel room. Mark’s clothes were thrown over a chair, a woman’s high heel was beside the dresser, and a half-empty bottle of wine was beside the bed. Goddamn it. He spun around as Mark pulled on his khakis, fear in his eyes, but beneath that, Jamie saw the calculating eyes of the manipulator that he’d always known was there but had chosen to ignore. Jamie never imagined Mark would use that sleazy, manipulative side against him.
“What the fuck did you say to Jess?” They stood a foot apart, Jamie’s hands fisted, ready.
“What? That’s what this is about?”
Jamie landed one punch to the side of Mark’s jaw, then grabbed his tee as he reeled sideways and yanked him up, so they were nose to nose. “Don’t fucking play with me.”
Blood dripped from Mark’s nose. His eyes went dark as he lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
“Say it. I want to hear it from your fucking mouth.” Jamie’s arms shook from the storm blazing through his body.
“Let go. I’m not saying a fucking word until you do.” Mark held his stare.
Jamie threw him backward. He stumbled into the large, low dresser. He touched the blood streaking over his lips and chin, grabbed something that was bunched up on the dresser—a shirt, pants, who the fuck knew or cared—and he wiped his face.
“Assaulting an attorney isn’t smart.”
Jamie closed the distance between them and pinned him to the floor with another dark stare.
“Fine, fine.” Mark went to the chair by the small wooden table beside the bed and sat down.
Jamie paced, his anger leashed by a fraying thread. He planted his legs like pilings in the earth and crossed his arms over his chest, locking another dark stare on Mark.
“I told her the truth, that you need to focus on your business. Jamie, you don’t even know her.”
Jamie reached for Mark’s shirt and Mark held his hands up. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think I know. What the fuck else did you say to her?”
“Okay, okay, okay.” He wiped the blood from his nose with his forearm. “Fuck that hurts. I told her that she was no different from the other women you dated, and you’re not some fucking knight in shining armor who’s here to save her. You’re a businessman who needs to focus before you lose everything you’ve worked for.”
Jamie put one hand on each arm of the chair and loomed over him. His voice was cold as ice. “And what makes you the expert on what I feel?”
Mark blinked up at him, rearing back as far as he could from his seated position. “Jamie, I’m your best friend. I’ve known you for years. You trust me with everything. I protect you. Jesus fucking Christ, without me you’d have lost half your business years ago.”
There was an ounce of truth in what he said. Fuck, Jamie hated that. Mark had saved Jamie too many times to count.
“She’s the woman I love, and I don’t need your protection from her.” Jamie pushed away from the chair and paced again, hands fisted by his sides.
“The woman you love? Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Get a grip here. How long have you known her? A few days? A week?”
He spun around, venom in his voice. “I don’t give a fuck how long I’ve known her. What makes you think you have the right to say any of that shit to her?”
“Because I’ve never seen you turn your back on your business, and someone had to think with their head instead of their dick.”
Jamie stepped closer, and Mark held his hands up again.
“Jamie, you didn’t run a check on her. What do you really know? What she told you? You’ve been down that path before. She could be playing you like a two-dollar fiddle, for all you know. How many women have told you they were models when they were working at some rancid topless bar, looking for a sugar daddy?”