Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (37 page)

“What kind of business meeting?”

“A meeting with this asshole guy about some
land I want.”

“And he wants it, too?”

Jaxon nodded.
 
He knew he should have told her he was
leaving, but there hadn’t really been a good time to bring it up.
 
They’d been busy with each other last
night, and this morning he hadn’t wanted to add a heavy discussion to their last
moments together.

And
maybe you don’t know for sure that you want to leave.

He took a deep breath.
 
It was only seventy-five or so out, but
the air inside the parking garage felt like it was about a hundred.
 
He wasn’t sure if it was because it was
actually hot, or because he couldn’t stop thinking about what he and Anna had
just done.
 
His cock twitched, ready
for more action.

He took a step back from her, not trusting
himself to get too close.

“So I guess I won’t see you again before you
leave,” she said.
 

“I guess not.”
 

He searched her eyes for any hint that she was
upset about this, that she wanted him to stay, or at least wanted to see him
again. But there was nothing.

“It was nice to see you again, Jaxon,” she
said.

“It was nice to see you too, Anna.”
 
He realized the absurdity of the words.
He’d just made love to her in the back of his car for Christ’s sake, and now
they were talking as if they were acquaintances.

“Have a safe flight,” she said.
 
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, then
turned around and walked toward the elevators, her shoulders back, her head
held high.

He opened his mouth to call after her.
 
But what would he say?
 
That he wanted to see her again
tonight?
 
That would only prolong
the inevitable, would only make it harder.
 
He was leaving to go back to Los Angeles tomorrow, and she was heading
back to London at the end of the week.
 
It would never work, no matter how much he wanted it to.

Even so, if she’d given him any indication that
she’d
wanted
it to work, that she
wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her, he would have tried
to stop her.
 
But she hadn’t.
 
In fact, she’d made it perfectly clear
what the last couple of days had meant.

And so after another moment, Jaxon got in his
car and pulled away.

***

As soon as she was in the elevator, Anna
collapsed into tears.
 
He was
leaving.
 
The same way he’d left her
fifteen years ago.
 
Only this time,
he hadn’t even asked her to come with him.
 

Sobs shook her body, and she reached up and
wiped the tears away, the mascara she’d applied this morning leaving dark
streaks on her skin.
 
Damn.
 
She didn’t even have a tissue or
anything – she’d left her purse in Katie’s hospital room.
 
The elevator doors pinged open on the
labor and delivery floor, and Anna stepped out.

“You okay, hon?” a friendly looking nurse asked
her.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Anna lied, forcing a smile onto
her face.

She ducked into the bathroom, knowing she’d
have to do some damage control before she saw Katie and Adam.
 

It was worse than she thought.
 
Her hair was a mess from all the
tumbling around in the backseat, her eyes were puffy from crying, and her make
up was smeared all over her face.

She grabbed some paper towels from the
dispenser on the wall, and got to work.
 
She had gotten over Jaxon Hale once before.
 
She would just have to do it again.

C
hapter
E
ight

That night, Jaxon couldn’t sleep.
 
He tossed and turned in bed, wondering
what the hell was wrong with him.
 
Was he forgetting something for his flight tomorrow?
 
No.
 
He’d checked and rechecked his bag three times.
 
He’d tried to read, but the words swam
on the page.
 

The house was too quiet, he decided.
 
In Los Angeles, there was traffic
outside his window, the sounds of the city streaming through his condo.
 
With Katie and Adam both sleeping at the
hospital, and the quietness of the suburban street, there was no noise.

He put on some music.
 
There.
 
That would make things better.

But it didn’t.
 
He tossed and turned, the numbers on the
digital clock next to his bed changing from one to two to three.
 
Finally, at three thirty-seven, he threw
the covers back and headed downstairs.
 
He pulled an apple out of the refrigerator and bit into it angrily.

Stop,
he told himself.
 
You’re
just keyed up because of your meeting with Cuban, that’s all.
 
This
has nothing to do with Anna Webb.
 
But it was a halfhearted try.
 
He knew that of course his mood had everything to do with Anna.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
 
Every time he tried, another picture of
her would pop into his head.
 
The
walks they used to take then they were teenagers.
 
The way her legs looked in those short
skirts.
 
Her laugh.
 
The way she would wrinkle her nose and
pretend to be exasperated by something he said when he knew she secretly liked
it.
 
How she didn’t let many people
in, but when she did, it was worth it.

Go get
her.
 
He pushed the thought down.
 
His flight was leaving at eight in the
morning.
 
He needed to be back in
Los Angeles.
 
If he scored this land
over Donovan, it could be the biggest thing that had ever happened in his
career.

It won’t
mean anything without her.

The thought was enough to make him pause.
 
He thought about it as he poured himself
a glass of orange juice.
 

A deal had never caused him to stay up all
night.

 
A
deal was not worth giving up the love of his life.

But the deal was only part of it.
 
The other, perhaps bigger, part was his
pride.
 
How much of a fool would he
be to put himself out there again, to ask Anna to come with him, or give up
going back to L.A., just for her to shut the door in his face again?
 

Yes, she’d made love to him.
 
But that didn’t mean she wanted to be
with him.
 
He sat at the table and
looked around the empty room, drinking his orange juice and thinking about
Anna.
 
Anna, Anna, Anna.
 
Her
name reverberated through his mind.

Fuck it.
 
If she shattered his heart again, he would deal with it.

He had to know for sure if she would be his.

***

It was four in the morning, and Anna wasn’t
asleep.
 

She’d spent the early afternoon hanging out in
Katie’s hospital room with Katie, Adam, and Tyler.
 
The three adults had spent most of the
time cooing over the baby, marveling over how tiny his feet and hands were, how
his little slip of hair slid over his forehead, how his skin was so perfectly
smooth.
 
The baby lay there
dutifully, oblivious to the fact that he was being put on display.
 

Anna was able to keep it together – the
last thing she wanted to do was break down in front of Katie and Adam.
 
She didn’t want to stress Katie
out.
 
Yes, Katie seemed fine, but
she had just been through a major surgery.
 
A pump next to the bed whose purpose was to deliver pain relievers
served as a reminder of this fact, along with the nurses who kept coming in to
check that Katie was okay.

So Anna had kept the smile on her face.
 
The only time she’d come close to
betraying how devastated she felt came when Adam laid Tyler in her arms.
 
She’d looked down at the tiny baby, and
Tyler had looked back at her and then let out a little sigh, as if to say, “I
can’t believe I’m here, but I guess I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

She smiled at him, wondering what it would be
like to have a baby of her own, a person who she’d created, a person who would
be completely dependent on her.
 
A
flash of Jaxon’s face flashed into her mind, him over her hospital bed, holding
her hand and smiling down at the baby in her arms, much like Adam had done for
Katie.

Tears pricked at her eyes like pins, and her
heart skipped a beat.
 
A sick
feeling bloomed in her stomach.
 
She
blinked hard and took deep breaths until it passed.
 
A few moments after that, Katie was
getting tired, and so Anna had returned the baby and said her goodbyes. It was
only when Anna was safely in her car that she allowed herself to cry.
 

When she’d gotten back to her parents’ house,
she’d hoped to find it empty, but her mom and dad were both home, both wanting
to hear all about Katie’s new baby.
 
She filled them in as much as she could, including the part about her
staying the night at Katie’s, but leaving out the part about Jaxon being
there.
 

Anna had dropped hints that she was tired, but
her mom either didn’t get them, or had just decided to ignore them.
 
She’d insisted that the whole family go
strawberry picking.

So Anna had spent the last hours of the
afternoon at the Hallifax Farm strawberry field, berry juice staining her flip
flops, dirt sticking to her fingers as they filled baskets with fruit.
 
Her mother had insisted that Anna wear a
sunhat, but the damn thing kept falling off, and by the time they got back to
the car, Anna was sweaty and cranky.

When they got home, her mother had made
strawberry shortcake, and Anna had taken a double helping in an effort to make
herself feel better.
 
Her father had
wanted them all to watch a movie together, some Nicholas Sparks thing, which,
inexplicable, he loved.
 
But Anna
had begged off, claiming she had a headache.

She’d headed upstairs and stripped out of her
dirty clothes, then climbed into the shower and stood under the hot stream of
water, letting it strip the past couple of days off of her.
 
How had she gotten here?
 
she wondered.
 

When she’d arrived in Connecticut, she’d been
happy.

Yes, she had things in her life she needed to
work on, but who didn’t?
 
For the
most part, things were going her way.
 
She had an apartment and a job and a life.
 
And now she had a broken heart.

She leaned her forehead against the cool tile
of the shower stall and let the hot water pound against her back until she felt
her muscles relax just a little bit.
 
She returned to her room, where she tried to read.
 
But she couldn’t concentrate, and after
a while, she gave up, shutting her eyes.

She drifted in and out of sleep, mostly
out.
 

And so, at four in the morning, she was still
awake.

And that’s when she heard it.

Something hitting her window.

She sat up in bed, her heart pounding.
  
Was it Jaxon?
 
She held her breath, waiting for the
emotional crash to overtake her, not wanting to get her hopes up.

But then it came again.
 
The familiar sound of pebbles hitting
her window.

She ran to the window and opened it.
 
There he was.
 
Standing on her front lawn, the only boy
she’d ever loved.
 
The only man
she’d ever wanted, even after all these years.
 
He was wearing a blue t-shirt and a pair
of grey sweatpants, and his hair was rumpled.
 
What was left of the moonlight shown down
onto the lawn, illuminating what would soon be the morning dew.