Page 17 of Tempt Me

I leaned forward. “Still, I think you should designate a response team. It’ll keep you out of the spotlight and allow you to focus on your work. If you don’t want me involved, you can probably loop in Winslow and some folks from your marketing team. They should be able to handle it.” The response team was key, according to what Della had told Hannah and me. Jamila might pretend the whole thing didn’t bother her, but she was too emotionally involved to handle the situation rationally.

“I don’t need a response team because there’s nothing to respond to. This whole situation is ridiculous.”

“You might see it that way, but you can’t control what everyone else thinks or says.”

She raised her sculpted, dark eyebrows. “Can’t I?”

“No!”

“So why do you think a response team can help me? The whole thing is pointless. When I don’t play their little games, they’ll go away and find someone else to fight with.”

I should’ve known better than to argue with someone as brilliant as Jamila. “But—”

“No, Nat. I’m not giving this nonsense one more minute of my very valuable attention. End of story.”

“What about this financial services partner of yours? What will they think?”

I knew I’d touched a nerve from the tightening of her mouth. “I can handle them too.”

“Can you? Most finance people are pretty risk averse. Every time I go visit Charles at work, I feel like I’m in a black-and-white movie.”

She lifted her nose. “There you go again, focusing on appearances. You don’t have to put on a show on my account. Not like you did at Billie Woods’s party.”

The blood drained from my face. “I—”

“You know I’d never hurt you, right? Not even by association. I value my relationship with—with your family, especially Jackson and Alicia.”

“No, I…” My head spun. Hurt me? I’d been the one who’d offended her with my drunken confession. “I’m sorry, Jamila. I got nervous, and I drank too much. I didn’t mean to…”

“To tell me you loved me?” She snorted. “You know I didn’t take you seriously.”

I cringed. I’d been one hundred percent serious. I’d crushed on her for so long it felt like love. Especially when I’d had too much wine. “You were so nice to me. You said I didn’t have to hide my true self.” That’s when the wordlovehad tumbled out of my mouth.

“I meant it,” she said. “And then you went all in with the airhead act.”

I shut my eyes, but that was a mistake because the whole scene played out in my memory. She’d shrugged my arms off her shoulders and told me to play at love with someone else. And that’s exactly what I’d done. I fluttered over to my friend Daniel and loudly and expressively confessed my love for him too. He laughed it off, but since I didn’t love him, it hadn’t hurt the way Jamila’s laughter had.

“Why’d you get so drunk that night?”

I pressed my lips together. I’d accepted the glass of champagne because I could nurse a glass of the disgusting stuff all night. But that night, with Jamila’s full attention on me, I didn’t know what to do with my hands or any other part of me. I drank what was in my glass, and Billie’s waiters kept refilling it. When I was drunk, I acted like a brainless trust funder, which was exactly what everyone expected me to do.

“It was an accident.”

She glared at me. “I suppose it was also an accident that you went home with Daniel what’s-his-biscuit.”

“Daniel van der Poel is my friend. My platonic friend.”

“It looked platonic when you kissed him.”

My cheeks burned. Daniel and I had gone to so many events and parties together that pretending to be dating was second nature. After Jamila’s dismissal, he’d gone along with my sloppy kiss, but when I’d tried to sell it with my tongue in his mouth, he’d hoisted me up in his arms and carried me out of the party, loudly proclaiming that I couldn’t hold my liquor.

Daniel was a good friend. Another guy might’ve taken advantage of me, but he held my hair while I puked in Billie’s hydrangeas.

But Jamila wasn’t even my friend. “Why do you care who I kiss?”

She jutted out her jaw. “I don’t. I just hate it when you undervalue yourself.”

Undervalue myself? I was a rich girl who didn’t have enough brains to settle down in a career. My only asset was my looks. Everyone knew it, including my family. Jamila thought it that night too. I crossed my arms.

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