Page 62 of Tempting Eden

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JACK

Six months later

BESS PERCHED ON THEcorner of my desk.

“Any big plans tonight?”

I stopped typing my notes for our next design project and leaned back. “Nothing too special.”

She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Going out with Diana?”

“Yes. She wants to see a movie.”

“How’s the whole dating life going? Seeing anyone else?”

“You sure are curious all of a sudden.”

She let the lock of hair fall and gave me a frank expression. “I’ve been curious for the past six months that you’ve been working for me. For the first couple of months, I could barely get two words out of you unless it had to do with work. You won’t tell me what happened with Ms. Rochester. You won’t take her calls. And now you’ve been seeing this Diana St. John for a little while. I just want to check in and see what’s going on. Are you happy?”

“I’m happy working with you.”

“That’s not what I asked and you know it.”

I wasn’t happy.

Atlanta was a dynamic city. Bess was a great boss. When in her natural, unstressed state, she was friendly and winsome, not the harsh perfectionist she displayed for her clients.

Xiao and Co.’s staff had welcomed me with open arms. I’d hit my stride with my design work, my more utilitarian tendencies meshing well with her flair for high-end wow factor. In the past month, we’d designed the interiors for a new high rise in downtown Atlanta.

The listing broker had already sold every unit, and it wasn’t even set to hit the market for three more months. In the short time I’d been with Bess, her business had tripled.

Our office was at the edge of downtown in a glass building near a park. The daylight streamed in at all angles and made our work somehow brighter. My walls were covered with drawings—both mine and Bess’—of the work we’d been commissioned to do for the various real estate projects throughout the city and elsewhere. I was in my element.

After work, when I fought traffic to get to my tiny Midtown flat, things weren’t so rosy. I drank and painted until late into the night, my works growing darker with each passing day. I began to welcome the solitude. My new prison cell was far more livable than my old one. Here, at least, I could do what I pleased.

Ms. Temple called every few days. She’d finally given up on asking me what happened at Belle Mar. I didn’t think she’d ever give up on asking me to come back home to Birmingham.

“I just miss you is all.” Ms. Temple’s voice cracked on the last word.

Her pain glanced off my heart. I didn’t truly feel it. “I miss you, too.”

“Could you come to visit maybe, sometime soon?”

No. “Maybe.”

“It’s been too long, and you never want me to come see you there even though it’s only a few hours—”

“I told you. I have to work. We have a lot of projects going at the same time.”

She sighed. “I know. So you tell me. Look, Jack, I don’t know what happened between you and Eden, but she’s been coming to see me every week. Every week she pours her heart out to me about you, about Adele, about the court case with Mason. Couldn’t you just come b—”

“I have to go.”

Her silence weighed on me, but I was already six feet deep and covered in frost. Her sadness was just a dusting of snow over the top.

“Fine.”

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