Seducing the Old Flame (25 page)

Deep in her heart she knew this was true.
 
Jason placed loyalty up there as a top
priority.
 
He gave it and expected it in
return.
 
In his eyes, she’d betrayed him
in the worst way imaginable.

“If he could have, he’d have done so long before.”
 
She sighed.
 
“And I couldn’t walk away from him.
 
It was the only way.
 
As crazy as
it sounds, it was the right thing to do.”

Just as it had been right for her to walk away from his
apartment without trying to hang on to something that could only be a fantasy.

“Let me get this straight.”
 
Jenny rubbed her temple, trying to make sense of Tabitha’s
admission.
 
“After thinking you slept
with another man on the very day ya’ll broke up, you show up at his apartment
two years later and he still took you in for a weekend of hot sex?”

Tabitha’s head dropped, weighing too much to hold up.
 
“He did.”

“What’s wrong with this picture?
 
I know why you were there, but what about him?
 
Why would Jason agree go along?”

She had wondered how he’d greet her, if he’d turn her away.
 
That’s why she’d gone to him in full sex
kitten mode.
 
Because if he’d rejected
her physically, that she could have handled, but if she’d gone to him heart in
hand and he’d turned her away…no, she wouldn’t even think about it.

Lifting her shoulders and meeting her sister’s eyes, she
shrugged.
 
“Nothing wrong with a weekend
of hot sex with an old flame, Jen.”

Jenny threw her hands into the air.
 
“The man’s as warped as you are if that’s what
this weekend was about.”

“Yep.”

“Either that, or the flame still burns, which is what I
believe.”

Oh, it burned all right.
 
Hot and wicked.
 
But that was just
sex.

Sex with Jason wasn’t enough.

She wanted the whole shebang.

A happily ever after with her Prince Charming.

Jason.

Impossible.

“You gonna eat the rest of that?”
 
Jenny pointed to Tabitha’s box.

“No, take it.”

Jenny did, scooped out a big chunk and surprised Tabby by
feeding it to She-cat, who up to that point had been rubbing against Jenny’s
leg.

“You’re spoiling my cat.”

“She’s butt ugly.
 
It’s
the least I can do.”

They sat in silence watching She-cat, having finished cleaning
the rice and chicken from the floor, lick her paws.

“Okay, you’re my sister and I love you.
 
I suppose you know what you’re doing.
 
All I can say is that it took balls to go to
his apartment for sexual healing this weekend after what he thinks you did to
him.”

“That’s me, balls of steel.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing, because I think you’re going to
need them to get you through losing Jason a second time.”

Tabitha didn’t say anything.

“You did lose him a second time, didn’t you?”

Lose him?
 
“No, I know
exactly where he is.”

“Don’t be a smart aleck,” Jenny accused.
 
“You know what I mean.”

“He’s gone.
 
Only, this
time we ended the way we should have last time.
 
With no screaming, no supposed cheating, no anything except saying
goodbye.
 
A good goodbye.”

Jason wiped his hand across his forehead and headed toward the
office trailer, only to stop short as his foreman caught his attention.

“What the hell now?” Jason cursed when he saw Rooster’s
expression.

What else could possibly go wrong today?
 
No, he didn’t want to know.
 
Because things could always get worse.
 
Always.
 
He’d learned that lesson long ago.

Was it really only Thursday afternoon?
 
Surely, his watch had quit and it was close
to time to go home?

Well, no because then he’d just have that many less hours to get
this job finished and that much more time to dwell on his empty apartment.
 
His too quiet apartment.

No Meow.

It sucked.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Like he needed another one.

“What this time?”

“Bill Banks is on the phone.”

Jason groaned.

“Needs to talk with you.
 
Doesn’t sound happy.”

Jason cursed again.
 
“Can’t be good.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that one out for myself, Einstein.”
 
Rooster rubbed his chin.
 
“Guess when it rains it really does pour.”

Jason shot him a glare.
 
Now wasn’t the time for smart-ass clichés.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“First your girl dumps you and now this.”
 
Rooster wasn’t fishing for answers, just
stating facts as he saw them.

Jason’s jaw clenched.
 
“Who said my girl dumped me?”

Rooster snorted and nodded toward him.
 
“Man, look at you.
 
You didn’t have to say a word.
 
For the past three weeks ain’t a single man
on the crew who’s not asked what crawled up your crack and died.”

“Damn.”
 
Just what he
needed.
 
The guys talking about him
behind his back.
 
Couldn’t be good for
morale and this job had enough problems of its own without Jason creating
more.
 
“Fine.
 
I”ll deal with that after I find out what Banks’s
problem is.
 
This time.”
 
He shoved his hardhat further back on his
head, determined to hold his tongue and grit through whatever Banks
wanted.
 
“For a man who’s not even
awarded Kelly Construction the bid, he sure has worried the crap out of me.”

“Well, from the way he sounded on the phone, he may not be a
problem much longer.”

Crap.

Jason cast Rooster a sideways look, jogged to the portable
office, avoided looking at the steps because he saw Tabby sitting there holding
that raggedy cat every time he did.

He slammed into the office, dropped his hat onto his desk, and
picked up the phone, knowing he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

“Kelly,” he said into the phone receiver.

“Jason?” a voice he’d grown to dislike over the last two weeks
said.
 
“This is Bill Banks.
 
We’ve run into a problem with the Savannah
Blue project.”

Great, he’d given the bid to someone else.
 
Just f-ing great.
 
Now, he really didn’t like the man.

“What kind of problem?”

“One of the project’s major funders has pulled out.
 
Wife hit the poor bastard up for a
divorce.
 
Fool should have seen it
coming, but apparently he didn’t.”
 
Banks
sighed in sympathy or in shame Jason wasn’t sure.
 
“Anyway, all his assets have been frozen.”

“So the project’s on hold?”
 
On hold was better than the bid being given to another construction
firm.

Jason could deal with on hold.

At the rate this project was going, on hold might not be a bad
thing.

“If I can’t come up with another funding source pronto, it may
be on permanent hold.”
 
Banks dropped his
bomb and Jason’s vision of his future exploded.

He never should have put so much on this one project.
 
He knew better than to count his jobs before
the ink dried.

“Do you have prospective funding sources?”
 
Did he really want to know the answer to
this?
 
Probably not.
 
The way his luck had been over the past three
weeks, he’d be lucky if the project didn’t fall apart completely, taking with
it his dream of building his home next spring.

At least the other three commercial sites Kelly construction had
going were running smoothly.
 
And not a
hint of a problem on any of the residential jobs.
 
For now, anyway.
 
Not that he was looking at his cup as half
empty or anything.

There would be other projects this big, this profitable for
Kelly Construction.
 
He’d just have to be
patient.

Of course, he could take out a mortgage and build still, but he
didn’t want to do things that way.
 
He
wanted that house to be his from the beginning.
 
Not some mortgage company’s.

“Not really.
 
With the
economy the way it is, no one seems interested in sinking that much money into
a project this big.”

His cup just hit empty.
 
Not half empty.
 
Not one-quarter,
but down to the last drop empty.

“Damn shame.”
 
For both of
them.

“Yes, it is because the project would not only pad the investors’
pockets, but it would be a big boost to this part of town and bring even more
development in.
 
Restaurants, gas
stations.”
 
Banks sighed.
 
“I’ve a friend from my university days.
 
He and his partner are always looking for a
deal, a chance to make a buck or two.
 
I’m meeting with them in hopes of securing
interest if nothing else.
 
Maybe get a
verbal agreement.”

A verbal agreement.
 
Yeah
that would hold up in court when he tried to collect to pay his suppliers, his
workers.
 
A university buddy.
 
His dream home’s foundation lay within the
hands of Banks’ buddy.
 
Great.
 
He might as well resign himself to another
year in his apartment.

“Fine,” he muttered into the phone, resigned the project wouldn’t
be pulling Kelly Construction to that next level, but that he’d find another
project, another way to strengthen Kelly Construction’s financial foundation
and built his house.
 
“Let me know how it
goes.”

“Will do.”

A thought occurred to Jason.
 
“Does this mean Kelly Construction has the bid if you obtain financing?”

“Well, yeah, boy, why else would I keep calling and bugging
you?”

Why indeed?

“Yeah,” Jason agreed in his most good ole boy tone.
 
“Only you never put it in writing and in this
biz nothing’s concrete until it’s on paper.”

“Nothing’s concrete?
 
Ha,
that’s a good one.”
 
Bill Banks
laughed.
 
“If things work out next week,
I’ll send the papers over.
 
If not, well,
I’ll be putting a prime piece of real estate back on the market.”

“Let me know.”
 
Jason hung
up the phone, not sure if the call was good news or bad news.

Kelly Construction had the bid.
 
If there was even a project.

“So, how bad is it?”
 
Rooster asked when Jason walked back to the site.

“We got the bid.”

Rooster scratched his chin.
 
“Then why ain’t I seeing your purty pearly whites?”

“They’ve lost funding.”

Rooster let loose with a string of curse words.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“So, we’re screwed.”

“Unless they find someone with a few million dollars lying
around just waiting to build another shopping center.”

“Oh, hell.”
 
Rooster shook
his head and walked off.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Jason repeated.
 
He looked up at the cloudless blue sky.
 
What next?

Chapter Thirteen

The following week, Tabby sat at her office desk reviewing a
client’s portfolio.
 
Barely skimming over
the numbers, she made notes on ways to increase the client’s return.

Finding her thoughts once again on Jason, she closed out the
computer program and sighed.

She had to stop thinking about him.

She’d done the right thing, had walked away so he could have the
life he wanted.