Beneath the Surface (8 page)

At least his mind wasn’t ready. His body was another story, cock hardening as if in dissension, making its displeasure with him known as it throbbed in his sweats.

Jade stepped closer, tilted her head to one side, staring at him. “Is something wrong?”

EJ shook his head, pivoted and headed for his workstation. He took a seat in the swivel chair and turned to face Jade. “Let’s discuss this publicist.”

Jade instantly brightened, came over and planted her shapely derriere on the corner of his desk. “So you’ll hire her?”

“After we hammer out some details first. Like what’s her fee schedule, the scope of her duties, you know, the whole business spiel.”

“I’ll set up a meeting for you two. How’s that sound?”

Sounds like I’ve had more meetings set up for me in the last week than I had my
entire career on Madison Avenue.

Wasn’t nearly close to the truth, but the exaggeration helped keep his mind off of his aborted encounter with Tabitha, and how much he wanted her.

He needed the diversion that his writing just wasn’t providing at the moment.

Maybe hiring and working with Jade’s protégée and marketing
Reaching Out
would satisfy that need.

“Do you have a resume for this very talented and gifted publicist?”

38

Beneath the Surface

“As a matter of fact I do.” Jade dipped two fingers into her bag, emerged with one neatly typed, eight-and-a-half by eleven piece of paper and handed it to him.

“Sure of yourself, huh?”

“Sure of what a warm and philanthropic guy you are.”

EJ rolled his eyes. “Yeah right.” He quickly perused the curriculum vitae, instantly recording vital statistics and work history highlights, before flipping over the paper and quickly jotting down several questions to ask Ms. Jodie Klein.

“Should I tell her to give you a call?”

EJ glanced up from the paper just in time to see Jade cross one curvaceous thigh over the other, her black mini seductively riding up to barely decent proportions. She leaned forward, palms resting on his desk as she gave him a bird’s-eye view of her fantastic cleavage. His cock stirred, but not painfully so, nothing he couldn’t tame with a little effort.

But why exert the effort?

This was Jade! On-again-off-again, get-his-groove-and-freak-on, call-him-in-the-middle-of-the-night-I’m-coming-over-to-rock-your-world-better-than-any-woman’s-ever-rocked-it-before Jade.

Any other time he’d have shamelessly flirted with her, if not outright gotten down to the nitty-gritty. Any other time, he’d have glided a palm up her legs by now to see if she had on stockings and garters or plain old panty hose. Any other time he’d have slid a hand under her skirt and between her thighs to check if she were wearing any panties.

Except this wasn’t any other time and hadn’t been since that pixie-faced woman had walked into his life.

Damn, what was he thinking?

He’d never been indecisive about what to do with a woman who was throwing herself at him before. Rarely turned down accessible pussy, just went with the flow and saw where it took him.

“So, I can tell her it’s all right to call you?” Jade repeated, arching a brow as she waited.

He glanced at her, noticed her irritation and something else glinting in those blue eyes.

Probably confusion since he’d never said no to her before.

Like he was about to do now.

EJ stood, went to the door, and held it open. “Yep, tell her to give me a call.”

Jade blinked, hopped down from his desk and sauntered over as EJ extended her leather jacket. She took it, sweetly smiled. “So, uh, you’ll call me after? Let me know how it goes?”

“You bet.”

39

Gracie C. McKeever

Jade could still smell that Tabitha woman on EJ, the bitch’s cloying scent adhering to his skin like some sort of parasite, smothering his familiar piquant musk.

She could only imagine what they’d been up to before she’d arrived, but from his reaction to
her
—he’d stepped away from her! Stepped a-
way
as if she were a dirty street person—there was no telling how far they had gotten.

Jade thought it must have been pretty far, far enough to make EJ turn down
her
advances.

He’d never turned her down before. If she came over to his apartment, or he hers, or even if they met at the apartment of an acquaintance for some sort of get-together, they never left each other without getting off. If it was nothing but a quickie during their lunch breaks, or a blow job and a little cunnilingus in a restaurant bathroom before they each ran back to their offices, somewhere along the line she and EJ came together for some toe-curling love-making.

Admittedly, their trysts had been few and far between of late, and that was something she had been working on correcting. Before that cat-eyed bitch walked into the picture.

Could she have poured on the sweet and innocent act any thicker? Batting those big hazel eyes at EJ as if he was Superman and she was Lois Lane.

Give me a break!

Jade sat in the front seat of her Lexus now, put her Chanel handbag on the passenger seat beside her, removed her compact and opened it to glimpse her face in the mirror. No broccoli in her teeth, every golden-blond hair in place, make-up immaculate and smooth.

What reason could EJ have had to deny her unless he was falling under little Ms.

Personal Shopper’s negligible charms after only a few days of knowing her? How much more entrenched in his life would she be weeks from now? A month?

40

Beneath the Surface

Jade didn’t intend to find out, had been around too long, worked too hard and gotten rid of far worthier romantic adversaries than to allow some new Jill to just step into the picture and take EJ away from her. She’d scratch out Ms. Uptight Personal Shopper’s eyes first.

Jade turned the ignition, started her car and pulled out into the relatively light early evening traffic. She wasn’t sure where she was going, she just knew she needed the comfort of a bracing shot of good liquor and even better company.

As she made a right at the next light, she realized just where she needed to go and steered her Lexus uptown, aiming for the east side and her favorite bar and restaurant.

Her heart palpitated with nostalgia and first-date anticipation, as if she were on her way to a rendezvous with EJ at what had turned into their preferred haunt.

Jade had to admit now the “friendly rival” comment EJ had used to introduce her to Ms. Uptight Personal Shopper had been pretty accurate, even if it did rankle her.

Even when they’d been rivals—EJ’s agency competing with and beating out her agency for the right to do the advertising for several big-name accounts—EJ had always been a charmer, friendly outside of the confines of their respective offices without rubbing Jade’s nose in her agency’s flops.

In this way, he actually hadn’t changed much since high school—always the charmer, always the crowd pleaser, an estrogen magnet wherever he went.

But Jade hadn’t known exactly how charming and gracious EJ had remained until—a year after they’d first “met” at some official business function at The Waldorf—

her agency finally beat out his for an account.

Jade had been out celebrating, her agency’s director in the midst of toasting her and her team for winning the coveted multi-million-dollar account, when EJ sauntered to the bar from across the restaurant where he’d been having dinner, and congratulated her accomplishment.

Far from drowning in his sorrows, he seemed genuinely happy for her success, a fact that didn’t fail to surprise as well as turn her on.

Jade watched as he hobnobbed with her associates, accepting their good-natured ribbing and promising redemption.

She refused to believe he could be as nice as he appeared, that his girlfriend’s suicide hadn’t irrevocably damaged his spirit, and just knew that he was harboring some deep dark animosity, if not for Sinclair for checking out on him so early, then for the cruel world that had taken her away from him.

But then she realized she was judging EJ by most of the boys she’d associated with in high school, most of the executives in her agency now, all men, and even a few women like herself with giant-sized egos who would cut a rival’s throat as soon as look at her to hook an account.

As the evening progressed and her gang left the bar to take two prime tables in Smith and Wollensky’s dining area, EJ smilingly lingered at her elbow, showing no signs of disinterest or wanting to leave, nor any signs that he recognized her or had heard 41

Gracie C. McKeever

anything untoward about her and Sinclair in high school. Of course, it helped that Jade and EJ had gone to different high schools, their only connection being Sinclair Donatelli with whom Jade shared one class: creative writing.

Also, despite his allure and charming personality, EJ had been a serious student with no time for frivolous rumor mongers and backstabbing cliques; too wrapped up in his family and very few close friends, especially Sinclair, to entertain the negative social aspects of high school.

After Sinclair’s suicide, he’d retreated even further into his school work and family, until by the time graduation had rolled around, he had totally disappeared from the social scene and Jade’s radar, rendering all her, to that point, well-planned machinations with Sinclair, her supreme sacrifice, null and void.

To think she had let Sinclair kiss her; had let that awful girl touch her! Which wouldn’t have been so bad had she acquired her principal target.

Rather than bringing Jade and EJ together, Sinclair’s death had made it impossible for them to ever meet in high school without EJ becoming suspect. Jade had never forgotten him though, had been lost from the first moment she’d seen him at her school’s campus visiting Sinclair and made her wonder what the Goth girl had that she didn’t; what the Goth girl had that could hold the attentions someone like EJ.

Jade had had her doubts that she’d completely escaped the high school gossip structure before her introduction to the adult ad man EJ, but at his total lack of recognition, she didn’t consider the doubts anymore, was relieved and looked forward to them making a fresh start.

Surely enough years have gone by for him to have gotten over the girl by now.

Jade turned to face him full now, one elbow on the shiny mahogany bar top as she held onto her brandy. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to your…date?”

“Is that a not-so-veiled attempt to get rid of me, or find out if I was dining alone?”

She chuckled. “Definitely not the former. I already know you’re not dining alone.”

“And how do you know that?” He grinned.

Her stomach somersaulted, collided with her heart and sped it to Mach-10. He had the most gorgeous dimples! They had been one of the first things she’d noticed about him and, from afar, fallen in love with in high school. “Because no one who looks like you dines alone.”

He frowned, but didn’t stop leaning on the bar, his relaxed posture contradicting the serious penetrating look on his face.

God she was a sucker for blue eyes, despite having a pair of her own. Hers didn’t come anywhere near close to the hypnotic beauty and intensity of his; she knew it was a cliché, but she could actually drown in them, and didn’t think twice about diving into their dark depths.

42

Beneath the Surface

She could almost understand why that pathetic Goth girl had rather died than disappoint or hurt EJ with her and Jade’s antics.

Almost
, Jade thought, because only a weak loser would go out like that and not fight for her man. Just went to show, Jade had done the right thing befriending Sinclair, getting her confidence enough to influence the girl’s already questionable judgment.

Sinclair hadn’t been good enough for EJ, hadn’t deserved him and certainly wouldn’t have known what to do to keep a shining star like him happy.

But Jade knew what to do and was more than willing to do it.

“I could say the same thing about you,” EJ said now. “But then you aren’t alone, are you?”

Jade shook her head rather than spoke, occupied her mouth wetting her whistle instead, trying to ease the sudden dryness of her mouth. No other man, past or present, had ever made her nervous before. Men trembled in her presence, not the other way around.

“Hey Jade! We’re waiting for you back here.”

Both she and EJ turned to the caller, the art director from Jade’s agency who had created the dynamite mock-up that had knocked off the client’s socks. He stood at the threshold of the dining room, waving at them.

“You’re being summoned,” EJ said.

“You guys start without me,” Jade called back.

The art director nodded and headed back into the dining area.

“You’ll be missed.”

“I’m sure.”

EJ laughed, the deep honeyed timbre reverberating down her spine and pooling like liquid heat between her legs. “I like you, Aliberti. You’re a straight shooter.”

“Are you?”

He moved nearer, slid his free arm around her waist and leaned close to her ear, slowly tracing the outer shell with his tongue, and creaming her panties when he whispered, “Let’s go find out.”

That night was the beginning. Not of hand-in-hand moonlit walks and whispered sweet nothings, but the foundation of a friendship that was based on more than just sex.

The sex was good. The sex was great, just not the end-all and be-all. Jade wouldn’t have stuck around all these years if she had believed the relationship was all about sex and not shared interests and likes or similar senses of humor.

Not that she’d been sitting at home twiddling her thumbs nights.

She and EJ were not exclusive, though he was one of the most stable and constant forces in her thirty-four-year-old existence. No matter what was going on in her life, or where she was, she always found herself drifting back to him and him drifting to her.

43

Gracie C. McKeever

Jade hated the terminology, had never thought of herself as much of a “drifter.”