Entwine (Billionaire Series) (3 page)

Jennifer carefully
folded the note and slid it back across the desk to where it had fallen.
Apparently, she hadn't learned her lesson with Brad. She was seriously
regretting taking the note. Though vague, it indicated a deep and personal
connection with Philip, a history and level of intimacy that didn't appear to
need any explanation. It hadn't been perfect, she could see, but whoever J was,
she seemed to be willing to forget about it and try to start again.

Brad immediately
sprang to mind. Wasn't this exactly what he was doing? He'd asked her to put
aside their rocky past and try again. She hadn't wanted to consider it, not
really, since she had Philip, but now it seemed like Philip was more interested
in mending his previous relationship with J than starting a new one with her.
Sure, the note was crumpled, but he'd kept it, and J had kissed his cheek. He
hadn't disagreed when she'd suggested seeing him again and he'd obviously been
intrigued enough to watch her walk away. Jennifer wasn't stupid. If her time
with Brad had taught her anything, it was what it looked like when a man was
cheating.

Okay, she conceded,
maybe it wasn't actually cheating because it hadn't sounded like Philip and J
had been doing anything, not yet anyway. And, it was true that she and Philip
didn't necessarily have a real relationship, or at least not one that they'd
defined. If they didn't know what they were to each other, could it still be
considered cheating?

“Well,” Jennifer
stood. “He could've at least told me that we weren't anything serious.” She
wasn't speaking loudly, but she had to speak the words. Sometimes things came
across differently, more clearly, just because they were heard with ears rather
than in her mind. Her habit of talking to herself had driven Brad crazy.

Brad. Jennifer sighed
as she gathered her things. The two men just kept circling each other in her
head, alternating which one seemed to be the smarter choice. With Brad, she had
this tumultuous history that made her suspicious and untrusting. Their break-up
had been one of the hardest things Jennifer had ever had to go through, but she
ended up thinking of it as being the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Now, he was back, promising a new life with all of the good and none of the
bad. And there had been good between the bad. Or had it been bad between the
good? Did it even matter?

Then there was
Philip. Like Brad, he seemed to shift personalities, but none of Philip's
quirks included making Jennifer feel bad about herself... well, at least not
intentionally as far as she could tell. When they were together, Brad had
defined their relationship, what they were, what they weren't. Philip, on the
other hand, either didn't want to, or wasn't able to, define them. She knew how
things had been with Brad, but not how things would be. People could change
from bad to good. Philip, however, was a complete unknown.

It was
a week after my encounter with Mathis, and I was sitting at my desk, reviewing
the final touches on a project our small team had been working on for the past
four months. Although it felt good to finally finish this project, my rare
work-related satisfaction was completely obscured by my intense anxiety.

It had
been a whole week, and Mathis still hadn’t contacted me. After I’d gone to bed
that night, my head in a whirl, I could barely sleep, thinking about Mathis –
about how I felt, and about what was going to happen.

The
morning after, I had woken up groggy and still exhausted at 6am, completely
unable to fall back asleep. I knew I’d have to get up for work in an hour
anyway, so I crawled sluggishly out of my bed and dragged myself into the
shower.

Under
the relaxing jet of hot water, I mulled over my feelings. I still hadn’t
settled down from last night. As I combed the shampoo through my hair with my
fingers, I remembered the gentle caress of Mathis’ hand on my silky locks the
night before. As I massaged my breasts and soaped over my stomach, I could feel
Mathis’ mouth kissing and exploring every inch of me. My head was still full of
him, my senses alert to his every touch and caress.

At
least I knew that the night before had not been a mistake or a coincidence. I
felt with every fiber of my being that this was right – that I wanted to be
with Mathis more than anything. But even as I thought it, my mind came up with
all the hundreds of things standing in our way.

With
Mathis’ reputation so prominent, there was no way that he would ever want to be
in a relationship with me. All the women who admired him and the men who
respected him would see me as some little nobody trying to edge her way into
their glamorous, exclusive world. In the long run, what did I really have to
offer Mathis? He deserved someone with model looks who was high-class,
sophisticated, and well-connected.

Then
there was the problem of the crime organization. If I got involved with Mathis,
would that just make matters worse for him? I didn’t know how he was planning
to cope with it – would he call the police? I failed to even entertain the idea
that he might pay them off. That just wasn’t the Mathis I knew. I didn’t want
to put him in any more danger by making him worry about me, and I didn’t know
how much I should get involved. After all, it was a situation I knew very
little about, and I couldn’t even begin to deal with it.

Rinsing
the soap suds off my body, I realized that I was completely helpless.
Hopelessly smitten with Mathis, I was entirely at his mercy. Although I badly
wanted to see him, to talk to him, all I could do was wait for him to contact
me and hope that somehow, miraculously, everything would work out.

Even
though I wanted to put him out of my mind, I couldn’t help thinking about what
must be going on in his mind. I imagined his past, how desperate he must have
felt. What’s it like for him now, knowing that it had come back to haunt him? I
wanted to hold him, to tell him that I still cared about him – even though I
knew it was probably hopeless. Now more than ever, I felt like he needed
someone, and I worried that I couldn’t be there to help him.

***

Once I
was at work, I tried hard to concentrate on my tasks for the day. My team was
at a critical point in finishing a project for the client, and I needed every
ounce of my concentration to review the data and make sure that everything was
perfect. It was hard to get the image of Mathis out of my head. It felt like
every minute lasted for an entire hour, and I had to fight to resist checking
my phone to see if he had messaged me, or to check that my ringtone wasn’t on
silent.

By the
evening, I was getting anxious as to whether something had happened to Mathis.
Of course, I realized that I was being neurotic. I knew how busy Mathis was and
I knew that he had more important things to do than to talk to me. Perhaps he
didn’t want to bother me until he knew something definite about the situation.
Maybe he was even communicating with the police about the whole ordeal and he
didn’t want to worry me. Then again, sitting at home and not knowing was a
thousand times more nerve-wracking than if I had been by Mathis’ side and in
the loop about everything.

Over
the next few days I could barely eat or sleep. Every moment I wasn’t thinking
about Mathis was spent either at work, furiously concentrating on finishing our
project, or writing my novel, which was taking shape more through sheer
desperation for a distraction than anything else.

I
checked my phone constantly, to the point where I had practically worn
finger-grooves into its sides. What if for some reason Mathis had lost my
number? Should I call him? What if he was hurt and he needed help? But he had
explicitly told me not to call him, and I didn’t want to break my word. It
might even be dangerous for me to call him, and the last thing I wanted to do
was to get him into even more trouble.

As the
days dragged on and I
still
didn’t hear from him, I began to think that
he had either been forced to go into hiding and was unable to contact me, or
that he had never intended to call me at all, and that I had simply been a
convenience at the time. With the passing hours, my feelings rocketed back and forth
between giving up on Mathis ever calling me and wondering if there was
something stopping him.

By the
end of the week, I was a mess of anxiety, insecurity and fear in case something
had happened to Mathis. I was also trying and failing to fight off the lurking
thought that he truly didn’t care. The fact that our project was completed at
work was only a minor source of joy as the rest of my emotions churned like a
load of laundry in a washer. I snuck another look at my phone, although by now,
I didn’t really believe that he was going to contact me.

As I
put my phone away again with a sigh, I saw my boss, Gina, walking towards my
cubicle, her face split into a wide smile.

I
smiled back, happy to have a distraction. If she was smiling, it was hopefully
good news about the project.

“How
are you doing, Amanda?” she asked kindly. “I know the last week has been
hectic, and you’ve been working hard for months.”

“I’m
doing well,” I lied. “It’s been a challenge to get everything done, but it’s
worth it – everyone on the team has done their best.”

“Well I’m
glad to hear that,” she smiled. “I just came over to let you know that we’ll be
meeting with Mr. Sherman, the client you’ve been working for on this project,
in twenty minutes. His company has some sort of announcement to make to our
team about the project we’ve just wrapped up.”

“Okay,
I’ll be right there,” I replied.

I was a
little nervous, since Sherman Inc. was a huge corporation and I had been one of
the key members of his project team, but I knew that the work had gone well, so
I had some hopes that we would be getting some thanks, or maybe even a bonus
for our efforts.

After I
had applied a fresh coat of lip gloss and hastily rebraided my hair, I made my
way to the conference room. I bumped into Helen, a fellow member of my team, on
the way.

“Do you
think it’s something good or something bad?” Helen asked nervously. She was a
petite Asian woman with beautiful chocolate brown eyes and a very kind nature.

“I’m
sure it’s nothing bad,” I assured her, “didn’t you see the way Gina was smiling
when she came to tell us to come to the meeting?”

“I
guess … I did hear a rumor that the client’s company often throws parties or
dinners for the people they work with! Do you think we might get to go to a
party?” She sounded almost painfully hopeful.

“Maybe,”
I said, although I thought it was unlikely. I listened to Helen talk about what
her six year old daughter was doing at school as we went up to the conference
floor in the elevator. We were the first ones out of our team of five to get up
there, but we were shortly joined by Michael, who looked perpetually tired,
Barbara, who looked like she’d spent the entire weekend on a sunbed, and Colin,
who was hastily tucking his shirt (which was always hanging out) back into his
pants. A slightly rag-tag collection, I liked and respected each member of my
team and we worked well together. That was one of the main reasons I had
managed to work for this company for the past seven years without drowning
myself in the water cooler.

We
filed into the conference room, where our boss, Gina, was seated with our
client, Steven Sherman, who greeted us with a warm smile. I mentally thanked
providence that I had worn my best shirt this morning.

“I just
wanted to collect you all together to give you our heartfelt thanks for all the
hard work you’ve put in for us over the last few months,” he said. “We want to
reward your efforts!”

We all
smiled politely and murmured our thanks, and Gina gave us a little thumbs up
away from the client’s peripheral vision.

“This
Saturday our company is holding a private gala at The Four Seasons Hotel,” Mr.
Sherman continued. “We’d like to offer you tickets to the event, and we hope
that you will all be able to make it! Plus-ones allowed!”

I felt
Helen bouncing her legs up and down in excitement next to me as he made the
announcement, and there was a general murmur of excitement in the room.
Everyone on my team loudly expressed their thanks and excitement. Gina’s smile
was so wide it looked as if her face might split in two – as far as I knew, this
had never happened at our firm before, or at least not to our department. Even
I couldn’t help feeling a little bit hopeful. I’d never been to a fancy event
before, and this was a good chance to take my mind off all the drama with
Mathis and simply enjoy myself. God knew I had little enough going on in my
life.

“This
is going to be amazing,” Helen grinned at me as we exited the room a little
while later, everyone excitedly discussing the coming weekend. “I’ll get my
sister to stay with the children and my husband and I can go to this event
together. We haven’t been to a party together since my brother’s wedding, and
that was almost two years ago! What about you? Are you bringing a plus one?”

“No,” I
smiled, bracing myself for the pity that was sure to follow. “I’ll just go
solo.”

“Maybe
you’ll meet some handsome businessman,” Helen teased, and I forced a smile
although this caused a pang as I thought of Mathis. “Do you have a cute dress
to wear? Oh no!” She suddenly looked alarmed. “I hope I can still fit into my
dresses! I haven’t had a chance to wear any of them since before Katie was
born. I’m going to have to find time to go shopping!”

“You’re
already gorgeous, Helen,” I told her as she started squeezing her arms and
belly with an air of consternation. I was glad to share in her excitement.
Although the event would be a nice distraction, I couldn’t muster the same
level of enthusiasm which I might have a few weeks ago.

“Well,
I’ll have to make do,” sighed Helen. “But you should go all out – there’s no
point hiding away that stunning body of yours.”

As
Helen talked on about the upcoming gala, I imagined myself in an elegant,
strapless dress and Mathis in a striking tuxedo. In my mind’s eye, we danced to
a live band and toasted each other with champagne. Even in my mind I wasn’t
sure if we matched, and I felt silly even for thinking about it. I shook the
image away, deciding that I would simply focus on enjoying the evening and
forgetting about Mathis.