Irrational (Underneath it All Series: Book Two) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

Even in his two piece suit, ever the picture of calm and class, I still saw every feather I'd ruffled in his glare. That was the difference between the two of us. I acted like I could check my personal shit at the door but Joe actually tagged his and when he walked into the office, his game face didn't falter from 9am until the market closed.

"Sorry, it's been a long night," I lied. It
could
have been a long night. I could have gone to The Tower, anywhere, and fucked anything female that moved until Sadie became,
Sadie Who?
When my third text went read and summarily unanswered, I'd considered it. A worse thought kept me in my loft: what if hooking up with someone else just confirmed the obvious? That everything and anyone would be just a little off and unsatisfying because they weren't who I wanted? Because they weren't her?

I cleared my throat and tried to clear my head. "Let's get back on track, okay?"

"I've been on track," Joe huffed. "I've been right here. You're MIA. You've been MIA. Maybe we should have gone with that overpriced smart conference room table so I could hold your attention. Or I could bring in some hot chick in a business suit that can hold your attention." I must have made a face because he rolled his eyes. "Okay, hold the hot chick, you'll just have to settle for me, doing the job you hired me to do. I can't steer the damn ship all by my damn self though."

"Whoa," I held up both hands. "Is it your time of the month? Should I have brought chocolate and a heating pad instead of your ridiculously complicated latte?"

His anger defused immediately, but it didn't mean I was out of the woods. If it wasn't for my cat-like reflexes, the Colt Enterprises pen he hurled in my direction would have hit me squarely in the face.

"There ain't nothing complicated about a grande double shot soy mocha, extra wet, with a drizzle of caramel." He puffed out his chest like he'd just scored a three pointer and didn't even wait to watch it go in. "In fact, that drink is sexy as hell. I'll tell you what's not sexy: you pining over one woman when you could have a different one every night of the week." He went from champion to the losing team before my very eyes, hanging his head in shame. "I don't know who this dude in front of me is, but maybe I should buy you some Tampax."

For once, I didn't have a witty comeback, dropping my eyes to the table. “So, about the quarterly earnings for CyberSol Industries..."

"Ah, so
now
you wanna get back to work." He let out a whistle that he held for several more seconds than necessary. "What's going on? I refuse to believe that Jackson Colt is all out of sorts over some woman."

"Well, for starters, she's not some woman," I growled. I took a finger, and not the finger I wanted to fly, and pointed at the stack of shit we had to go through. "I thought you wanted to get back on track. If I wanted to talk about it, and I don't, the last man I'd turn to would be a dude that hasn't had a girlfriend since middle school."

My shoutout to the past officially derailed the work meeting as he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "Misty Carr," he sighed dreamily. "Blonde, big lips, and legs that went on and on and on..." He trailed off and closed his eyes like he was doing more than conjuring memories. He was back at Westwood Middle School, clutching Misty's trapper keeper and doing the very thing he was giving me crap about now. Reminiscing about what could have been. "That girl could have told me that up was down and down was up and I would have believed her." He caught a glimpse of my bemused smile and drummed his fingers impatiently on the conference room table. "But we aren't talking about me and the girl who got away. We're talking about why
you
let the girl get away when you clearly care about her."

"Clearly, the meeting is over," I groaned, massaging my temple. "Are you TMZ now? Since when do you care about my romantic endeavors?"

"Since you half listen at meetings and spend more time checking your phone for texts than the spreadsheets in front of you," he answered without missing a beat.

His face held no mercy. It was why he was at my right hand. Fearless. Some would say heartless, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He seemed hard to the outside world, but it was because we'd started from the bottom and sold pieces of our soul to get here. Joe Wright didn't fuck around when it came to the bottom line and our profits. Business always came first. A few days ago, that philosophy was one we shared. Sadie showed me that there could be more. That I wanted more than making lists and acquiring wealth and solidifying the name I'd made for myself. What good was an empire if you had no one to go home to at the end of the day?

That was a question I never thought I'd ask myself. Fortunately, the sappy, philosophical musings that had haunted me were leaps and bounds away from the question at hand. It paled in comparison to the smoldering glare that was about to melt my face of.

I exhaled and pushed the memory of her from my mind. "Let's get back on track."

"Is it the girl from The Red Room?"

I arched an eyebrow. "Can't have it both ways, man. You either get to complain about how distracted I am, then we get back on topic, or we can have a heart to heart."

"I ain't asking for us to braid each other's hair.” Joe cracked a grin and eased backward in his chair. "I'm just hoping if you get all this out, we can get back to business, firing on all cylinders."

I could barely handle sorting through all of this in my head. Taking it to my friend? That felt tantamount to taking a pair of pliers and yanking my own teeth out. But if there was one thing me and Joe had in common, it was our stubborn streak. His was currently chiseled onto his face. He wouldn't drop this. And there was a spark of something else there that was even more disconcerting.

He was worried.

Was I that off my game? If he was trying to get something, anything out of me, it was proof that whether I wanted to look at it or not, something was there. The cat had clawed its way out of the bag when I wasn't paying attention, foolishly thinking I was handling my shit. Joe had joked about the smart conference room table, but I was wishing I'd signed off on it too because apps and projections would have been better than the resignation on my face.

"She came out of nowhere," I began with a sigh. "You know me. This wasn't a match.com situation. I didn't seek this, whatever this is, out." I gestured between me and Joe, then dropped my hands to the folder I wasn't even paying attention to. I used to know the ins and outs on my own accord, not because he'd put bullet points around the information that was of interest. Our meetings were thorough, quick, and efficient because my head was more than just 'in the game'. I
was
the game. I could barely get the words out and my stomach was in knots and I was pretty sure it wasn't normal to keep checking my phone. "She blindsided me...and I've loved every minute of this whirlwind-" Romance was too much, even if I thought about her smile, holding her, knowing her, as much as I thought about how she felt wrapped around my cock. "And now that I've screwed things up, I’m-” I stopped myself before I could finish and cleared my throat. “I mean, you’ve met her.”

“For two seconds,” Joe clarified. “To be honest, she seems like a lot of trouble, and for what? It can’t be about sex-”

“Keep the words ‘sex’ and ‘she’, whatever out of your mouth,” I seethed, gripping the edge of the table.

Joe cocked his head to the side and I wrangled my inner caveman; the piece of me that was ready to fight anyone, Joe included, if they disrespected her.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a groan. “Sorry.”

“Uh huh,” he grunted. There was no answering fight in the sound though, and when I warily looked in his direction, amusement flickered in his eyes. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

I had a feeling this conversation was going even further into heart to heart territory than I was ready to venture, but we’d pretty much reached the point of no return. I knew the answer and knew that I’d never hear the end of this, but I asked the question anyway. “And what day is that? Tuesday?”

“Nice try.” Joe slid away from the table and rose to his feet. He buttoned his jacket and dusted invisible lint and wrinkles away until he was the picture of success and straight up business.

I felt like I was in my element when it came to making hard choices and taking on any competitor foolish enough to get in our way, but at times, it felt like I was playing dress-up. Most days, I’d pick a t-shirt and jeans over cufflinks, but appearances were everything in this business.

Joe was testament to that. He looked and acted his part, suave and professional from the boardroom until we hit some club and he let his metaphorical hair down. His element was generally surrounded by beautiful women, arm raised to the sky with a bottle of Cristal in his fist. Toasting life. So full of life that you could see it beaming from him like the sun.

Now, even standing in front of the window with light streaming in from the blinds, he seemed somber. Quiet.

Like, well, me.

“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d let a chick get in your head,” Joe confessed.

“In my head?” I repeated with a  frown. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

“Like you completely passing on the orgy that could have been yours at The Red Room.” I opened my mouth to tell him that if I ever had an orgy, he would not be on the invite list, but he scoffed and finished, “Dude, you know what I mean. I’m not calling you a player, that title is mine, but I hope we can agree that you coupling it up is just weird.” He didn’t wait for me to confirm the obvious. “And it’s impacting what we’ve got going on here. And I’m half expecting you to pass on the Vegas trip this weekend-”

“That’s this weekend?” I cringed. “I don’t think I can make that.”

“Of course you can’t, because you’re too busy with the ball and chain.” His shoulders slumped. “Is she worth it?”

Yes
.

The word popped in my head instantly, dancing on the tip of my tongue before he even  got to the question mark. Sadie was worth it and then some. I knew it the minute she cut her green eyes at me in that room. Her taste, her moans, and the fight in her told me there was so much more to know. A broken person, like me, was dying to be seen.

Someone telling me to ‘fuck off’ should have elicited a smilier response, but the allure of a woman who demanded more of me, and didn’t take shit from anyone, monsooned my ego.

Scratch the yes.

Was she worth it?

Fuck yes.

I had a feeling he wasn’t ready for my emphatic answer, as a friend or as my business partner, so I tempered my response. “I think so.” I waited a beat, wheeling my chair back to the front and away from his disdain of commitment or anything resembling it. It was coming off him in waves.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, she’s worth it.”

The room got so silent that I almost turned back to make sure he hadn’t booked it out of there so quickly that I missed it. Certainly the chance that I had someone wasn’t so unacceptable that he had zero, zilch, nada to say. No joke to crack. No hard time to give.

“If she’s the one or whatever people call it these days, why are you checking your phone every five minutes and all moody?”

“There’s trouble in paradise,” I explained bitterly, flipping my folder back open. “I’ll handle it. I always do.”

His indiscrete snort told me he wasn’t convinced, but we shared a vicious stubborn streak and neither of us wanted to see who would back down.

He returned to his seat. “Knowing you, you did some dumb shit. You should try saying you’re sorry.”

“I-” The rest got caught in my throat and heat flew to my cheeks. I’m not sure which was worse, that I was blushing on top of all the mushy gushy crap that had just transpired or that I was a grown ass man and shouldn’t need anyone to tell me that when I screw up, the thing to do is own it and apologize. I’d reached out to Sadie, but the apology...it got lost somewhere.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d apologized. That I laid it all out for someone to see, take it or leave it.

I fired off a two word text and tried to ignore the newly discovered and highly annoying part of me that wanted to do more. Say more. Things like, “I’m sorry I was a colossal jerk, please forgive me’ and ‘Don’t give up on me yet’.

The last brought unwelcome insecurities storming back to the forefront of my mind.
Don’t give up on me
...with the exception of the man who sat across from me, who I was taking for granted yet again because I was half listening at most, it was a common theme. The thought of me ending up as just another rich schmuck that breezed in and out of Sadie’s life was so much to take.

I discreetly turned my phone back on, hiding my weakness beneath the table like some texting tween and nearly let out a whoop of excitement when I saw that she was typing a response.

Even if it was a threat to go away or else, I’d take it over the silence. It was maddening. I was the master of my universe and I was completely at her mercy. The scariest and most beautiful part was, there was no place I’d rather be.

My phone vibrated in my palm and it nearly clattered to the floor as my heart lurched to my throat. My man card was definitely in danger of being null and void. Shredded up. Burnt to a crisp.

And I didn’t give a damn.

I reread her text twice.

9:30 AM : (Sadie) - It’s okay...wanna come over tonight?

My fingers pounded out when and where and I sent it off in a manner that should have bothered me. I wasn’t playing a damn thing cool here. The cards weren’t close to my chest. They were millions of miles away and laid out for her to see. If she responded, it would probably be along the lines of ‘Just kidding!’.

The excitement had barbs of doubt when I saw those three dots a second time, after days of nothing at all.

I waited.

I almost held up a finger to tell Joe to give me a second so I could analyze her follow up text, but my eyes weren’t deceiving me.

She’d given me her address and a time to meet her for dinner.