Page 79 of Big & Bossy

“Do you need any help?”

“No,” I said. Reality was slamming in faster than I wanted, and I knew I’d fucked up. I’d bent to him again, given him myself too many times when he didn’t deserve it. It hurt, and all I wanted to do was fucking cry, but I pulled my straps back up, put my underwear back on. As I stood on my heels, I gave a little shake, letting the fabric fall back down over my ass.

“Mandy.”

I turned to him. Wild, tired eyes searched mine for an answer I knew he wanted, one I couldn’t give.

“No. Come on. Please,” he breathed, taking a step toward me, but I stopped him.

“This changed nothing.”

Chapter 37

Jackson

Ishould’ve been happy. The grand opening was a success, the press was eating it up left, right, and center. Infinius was nearly finished. We were fully moved into the campus, leaving behind that shitty space I’d rented for the meantime. Morale was up. Even Angela was happy.

Yet after a week, my head was still clouded with thoughts about Mandy. How horrifically I’d fucked up, how I’d lost her again. Ten years later and I was still making the same mistakes by not being honest with her and letting my pride damage the people she cared about.

She’d mailed back the ring. Sent it straight to my office, wrapped in bubble wrap, and placed in a box with packing peanuts. My PR team was preparing a joint statement for us to release in the next few days. She was blanking my calls and texts.

It was enough to drive me permanently insane.

My phone rang on the table beside the treadmill. Wade’s name and face popped up on the screen, and in my haste to turn off the machine and towel off the sweat, I nearly fell face-first into the mechanics.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered, doing my absolute best to hide the sheer sense of defeat in my voice.

“Hey man,” Wade said. The huff and puff of his breath and the wind whipping into the speaker told me he was heading in from the slopes. “How are you? I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to text you back yesterday.”

I grunted as I wiped the sweat from my face. I’d almost forgotten the string of half-asleep texts I’d sent him the day before, just one random text after another about how I should be happy but I couldn’t be, how I wanted Mandy and I’d lost her. “Uh, yeah, I’m okay. Better than yesterday. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. You know you can always just call me, right? Like, whenever.”

“I know.”

“Are you holding up okay?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. I threw my towel down on the floor, needing to let out at least a little bit of the pent-up rage that still sat heavy in my stomach after my exercise. “I just don’t know where to fucking go from here. She’s done. She told me that. And believe me, I get it, but at the same time, I was just trying to protect her.”

“I’m not sure beating up her friend counts as protecting her, man,” Wade laughed. In the background, someone called his name, the voice high and shrill. I rolled my eyes.

“I know that. I fucked up. I get it.”

“Not sure how she’ll forgive you for that one. But…you said something about an email?” He asked, the sound of a door clicking shut behind him.

“A threat. We traced it back to a public library, but the gears of government grind so goddamn slowly that we still haven’t gotten the CCTV back. It’s torture.”

“Was it real?”

“We think so. But considering it was from the library… I don’t know.” I held the phone against my ear with my shoulder as I left my home gym, navigating my way to the bathroom. I turned on the shower, letting the steam fill the room as I explained. “Whoever it was knew about my past. So that’s credible enough on its own for me to take it seriously.”

“Fuck,” he grunted, another door shutting behind him. I could hear the creak of some kind of furniture as he sat down. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless you want to use your skis to stab whoever it is to death.”

Wade laughed, his deep chuckle the only thing making my lips twitch up into a smile. “You know I would. But I don’t think that’ll help with winning her back.”

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