Tempting the Corporate Spy(13)
“Too much?” Liv asked, and his gaze wandered back to her face. “I feel ridiculous. I can barely breathe.”
“Please!” Jen popped off the desk. “You look great. Doesn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Last chance to come with us.”
“No, I wish I could. But I can’t.”
“Scared, huh?” Jen made an exaggerated face at him. “We’re too much woman for you, aren’t we?”
“Leave him alone, Jen. I just got through telling him he didn’t have to put up with sexual harassment.”
“That sounds interesting.” Jen looked between the two of them.
“Come on.” Liv grabbed a bulky black blazer from a hook and shrugged into it, instantly transforming her sexy outfit into a shapeless lump, giving no hint as to the luscious curves beneath.
“Oh, no, you’re not wearing that!”
“It’s late October, Jen. I’m cold. Walk out with us, Jon?”
His phone rang and he saw his sister’s number. “No thanks. This one I have to take. I can lock up, if that’s okay.”
“Sure. No problem. Extra keys are in the drawer. See you tomorrow.”
The two women walked out, arm-in-arm, Jen sniping at Liv about the overcoat, warning her she better take it off in the bar.
When they were gone, he picked up the call. “Hi sweetie.”
“Hi, Jonathon. I’m sorry to call.”
An apology was always hovering on his little sister’s lips—for something, for anything—her voice high, like a child’s, and often quivering as it was now.
“You don’t have to apologize for calling me, Julie. You know I’m never doing anything important.”
She laughed. “Huh, you’re probably solving the problem of global warming.”
“Only if it doesn’t interfere with binge-watching Breaking Bad. So what’s up?”
There was a lengthy silence on the other end, and for the first time it occurred to Jonathon to wonder whether Julie might know about the existence of the tape and be worried about it. He’d been so concerned with getting it back, he hadn’t thought about that.
“Nothing,” she finally said. “Are you upstate?”
“No, I’m in the city for a bit.”
“You are? Do you think maybe we could have dinner?”
“Sure, of course. How about the beginning of next week?”
“Oh…yes…thanks.” The cadence of her response told him she had meant right now. Tonight. But he couldn’t. He had to use this time to work. He was doing this for her, even if he wasn’t comfortable discussing it with her yet. He wanted to bring it up only when he had ensured the threat was safely eliminated.
But what if it wasn’t an isolated incident? Why should he believe Dickhead that it was just the once. “You’re, ah, you’re not seeing anyone, are you, Jules?”
Like that decadent asshole senator who lured you into God-knows-what?
“No,” she said in a rush. “Of course not.”
“There’s nothing wrong with, ah, all I meant is, you need to go slow on things, Julie, you know? You’re not as old as you think you are.”
Christ, he wasn’t equipped to talk to his little sister about this.
“I’m not using again,” she said flatly. “I’m going to my NA meetings.”
“I know, I know. You’re doing great. Way better than I could.”
“As if. You do everything better, Jonathon.”
“Don’t believe that crap. You’re a great kid. You should think about going back to school.”
Julie had always struggled with her studies as well as the rest of life, not because she didn’t have the intellect, but because she didn’t have the emotional armor to focus in on them. She had dropped out of Columbia, where she should be age-wise, but she could have been working on her doctorate by now, if she didn’t have all her other problems. She had inherited their mother’s brains, but not their father’s fuck-you ability to deal with the world. Jon, for better or worse, had gotten both, he supposed.
“I don’t know. I feel like school would be too much now.”
Jonathon picked up a pen on the desk and clicked it open. Then closed. Again, in rapid succession. He needed to talk to Julie about what she was apparently doing, or had done, but he certainly didn’t want to over the phone. He dropped the pen. “We’ll catch up at dinner. So I’ll call you, okay?”
He hung up. Right. Like father, like son. He wasn’t any better at personal relationships than his old man was. And Julie needed him. Well, at least he could do this for her.