Jamie shook his head in disbelief, then cupped her cheeks and planted a kiss on her luscious lips. “You are remarkable. You’re the one he treated so badly, and you’re sticking up for him.”
“No. I’m definitely not sticking up for him. I’m seeing things more clearly, that’s all. When you love someone, you do things that feel right at the time. Sometimes that means hurting someone else—with words or fists.” She looked down at his hands, her eyes serious and contemplative. “And other times, you hurt them in other ways, like leaving the Cape, hoping not to cause any more trouble for them.”
Jessica moved into his lap and rested her forehead against his. “And if you’re lucky, the person you hurt realizes why you did those things, and you work through them and come up with guidelines and understandings that create a safety net around the two of you.”
“Like the three-date rule?” He kissed her again.
She rolled her eyes. “That was the one rule I’m glad we broke.” She looked away, twisting the ends of her hair in her fingers, and sighed. “You know what?”
“I know lots of whats, but probably not the what you’re asking about.” He patted her butt, drawing her eyes back to his.
“That is very true. For a woman with almost no relationship experience, I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
“Yeah, you are.” He took her in a delicious, greedy kiss. How could he leave the envelope unopened after everything she’d said? Maybe it was time they cleared the air and put this all behind them. “Before we open this, I just want to be clear. You don’t want me to fire Mark? After everything? After this?”
She shook her head. “Would you stop being friends with him if he’d been right about me?”
“No, but…”
“Jamie, you have to admit, I have a strange situation with my name, and we did move very fast, and that night, heck, even now, you don’t know where I live.” She handed him the envelope. “But I have a feeling you’re about to find out.”
His chest constricted as he tore the top of the envelope and withdrew the papers. He held them against his chest. “This is your last chance. I can burn them. There’s a fire pit right across the patio. One match…”
She took the papers from him and read the cover letter clipped to the front. Her hand covered her mouth. “Oh, Jamie.”
He closed his eyes. “There are matches in the kitchen.”
“No, Jamie. You have to read this.”
He opened his eyes. “Read it to me.”
She shifted her eyes to him, and when she spoke, her voice was filled with compassion, and sorrow, and all the emotions Mark had written and been unable to say.
Jamie,
If you ever repeat this to anyone, I will take you down slowly and painfully.
Jamie shook his head. Mark. Idiot.
She continued reading.
You know I’m always right. Of course you do. I’m laughing, and know you are, too. It appears that in this instance, I jumped the gun. I know I went against your wishes by checking into Jessica’s background, but you also probably knew I would. We’ve known each other too long for you to expect otherwise. It’s why we make a great team. In these pages you’ll see that Jessica is everything she’s claimed to be, but I’ve found that she’s far more than you led me to believe, or maybe more than you were aware of. All that stuff aside, I’m truly sorry for the pain I caused you both. I know this is big. Huge. You love her enough to hit me, man. I owe you one for that, by the way.
Jessica paused and reached for Jamie’s hand. Their eyes connected, and he nodded, wanting to hear the rest of what his friend had to say. She cleared her throat before continuing, obviously as touched by Mark’s confession as he was.
I know you might fire me, and I wouldn’t blame you, but before you pull that card, remember this one. The dragon and the warrior, through thick and thin, and all things in between. Brothers until the end. Eyes to the sky, Dragon II.
Jessica set the papers on the table and sighed. “See? I guess he knows, or he’s learned, more about relationships, too.”
“Eyes to the sky.” Jamie shook his head with the memory. “We made that up when we were in college. Every time one of us did something stupid, or we broke up with a girl, or blew off a class, we said, Eyes to the sky. Eyes to the sky. We never even really defined what it meant. The closest we could come to defining it was to say that whatever we did, whatever mistakes we made, we’d keep moving forward, push ourselves harder to reach whatever it is we were going for at the time. Grades, graduation, business deals.” He laughed with the memory.