Tied to the Tycoon (10 page)

“I know. I’m sorry, it’s just…”

She had been thinking about the first time they’d slept together, all those years ago. He seemed to know it. He looked at her for another moment, a beat longer.

“What?” she said.

“Just thinking. We’re here for a reason, you know. I’ve got plans for you,” he added with that sly, dark smile.

Adrenaline shot through her, and she suddenly became very aware of her entire body. It unnerved her that she had no idea what he could be planning. It was exciting, and yet, it was another reminder of how much she didn’t know about this newer, older Jackson Reed.

But then, Jackson reached into the pocket of the blazer he was wearing over an old vintage t-shirt and dumped a few single serving dairy creamers on the table. He’d obviously brought them with him. It was apparently still the only stuff he’d put in his coffee. With deliberate care, Jackson took one of the gleaming silver forks and poked several holes in the top of a creamer.

The sense of
déjà vu
smacked into Ava at full force, knocking her out of herself and shrinking the world around them until she felt they were alone together in this moment. She remembered a late night in college, when she’d called Jackson after a night of partying, and he’d met her at an all night diner where they sat in comfortable silence while he did exactly what he was doing now: poking holes in the foil lid of the creamer, then tipping it over his coffee and squeezing out little streams of cream so that it was “like a little cow.” He’d explained that to her with his shy, boyish grin, and then he’d laughed and done it all over again. It was silly, and kind of gross, and it was just a little way to play and have fun in the world, and she loved that he still did that. That he’d kept that weird little quirk. She loved that he was still that guy, even if he was now a world-conquering Dom, too.

She laughed softly. “Moo,” she said.

“You making fun of me?” he said, looking up from his coffee. “You making fun of my cows? Say what you want about me, but leave my cows out of it.”

“I didn’t say anything,” she demurred. “I think that was Bessie complaining.”

“Now I know you’re making fun of my cows.”

“Moooo.”

He shook his head, like a reluctant disciplinarian. Suppressing a smile he said, “Reeedddd…”

“Jackson!” The access word was a fantastic idea, but not in public!

“Velv—”

“You wouldn’t! Not here!” Ava leaned forward across the table and jerked her head towards the oblivious couple in the corner, as though that could emphasize her point, acutely aware that this action pressed her breasts together in the low-cut v-neck sweater that Jackson had provided for her. By the looks of it, he was very aware of her breasts, too.

“As a matter of fact, I would. And that,” he said, motioning towards her cleavage, “is not helping your case.”

Ava didn’t know what to say. She felt frozen, trapped between arousal and horror at the very idea of…

“You seem to have mixed feelings about that idea,” Jackson said, sipping his coffee. “Interesting.”

Ava was sure she would have had the perfect witty retort, she was sure she would have exactly figured out what she wanted and how to handle Jackson, if they had not been interrupted in the very next moment.

By a woman. A very thin, very elegant looking brunette, maybe a few years older than Ava, with her hair pulled back in a severe but fashionable sort of asymmetric knot, and a long, graceful hand that she let rest on Jackson’s shoulder.

“You can imagine how surprised I am to see you here,” the woman said to Jackson. She didn’t look at Ava.

Jackson put his coffee down slowly and turned to meet the woman’s gaze.

“Probably not as surprised as I am to see you, Lillian,” Jackson said. “How are things back at ArTech?”

The woman called Lillian smiled. “Check your email.” And then Lillian reached out and ruffled Jackson’s hair. Ava had never been more irritated by a gesture in her entire life. “I’ll be here for the weekend; I’ve had it planned for ages. Maybe I’ll see you around the estate.”

Lillian finally looked at Ava with a cool, flinty smile for one silent beat. Then she walked over to the quiet couple in the corner.

Ava tried to keep her voice as normal as possible. “Who was that?” she asked.

You have no claim on him, Ava. No reason to be jealous of grown up mean girls in expensive designer tops and skinny black jeans. Jackson hasn’t lied to you; he hasn’t hurt you.

Ava instinctively bit a nail at the thought of Peter, the only other guy she’d been with who’d claimed to be a Dom, and who had cheated all over the place. Peter was the reason she’d transferred schools, and so he was indirectly responsible for her meeting Jackson, but otherwise Peter wasn’t worth thinking about. Instead she focused on Jackson, who, to her dismay, looked pretty perturbed.

“That was Lillian,” Jackson said. “My chief operations officer.”

Ava gave him a moment to continue. He didn’t.

Well, if you have no claim on each other, there’s no reason for this to be awkward. There’s no reason not to ask him. It would be more awkward
not
to ask, right?

“That’s all she is?” Ava asked. Her voice came out high and thin.

Jackson frowned. “That’s all she is now.”

Ava felt slightly queasy.
So maybe there was a reason not to ask.
Clearly this Lillian woman had been here before, to Volare, to this Country Kinkmas Estate or whatever the hell it was, with Jackson. That was just about the worst thing Ava could envision at that moment. It did not help in the least that, on top of just generally hating the idea of Jackson and anyone together, this was a clear indication that she was failing spectacularly at keeping her heart out of it.

Jackson didn’t seem particularly happy, either. Just moments ago, everything had been relaxed, happy, with the promise of more incredible sex, and now they were sitting here in awkward silence, each of them apparently unhappy with something.

He said no strings, Ava. Don’t make it a thing.

“Fantastic,” Ava muttered, and blushed when Jackson looked up. She was saved—if that was the right word—by a further interruption.

“Jackson, you have to meet the Sharzis,” Lillian cried from across the room. She smiled like someone out of a catalog. Ava didn’t trust anything about her.

“Ava, we can leave if you want.”

“It sounds like it’s business, though.” It was true. As much as Ava felt instinctively bound to hate Lillian, she recognized that tone: professional smooth talk. Lillian probably didn’t mean to be working, either, but Ava knew you couldn’t always pick and choose when a business opportunity arose.

Like, say, at a freaking BDSM Christmas retreat.

Ava honestly didn’t know if she should be quite as mortified as she felt as Lillian maneuvered the previously unobtrusive couple over to their table. On the one hand, holy crap, all of these people were now aware that she was at BDSM club. On the other hand, so were they. Nothing about this was comfortable. It was like everyone’s private business was just everywhere.

Even so, the Sharzis proved to be a dignified couple with gracious manners.

Oh God, don’t think about what they’re into!

Too late, Ava realized that she probably
looked
as surprised and uncomfortable as she felt, based on the quizzical looks she was getting.

Lillian smoothed it over.

“Jackson, the Sharzis are extremely interested in ArtLingua.”

Jackson frowned. “We haven’t announced that publicly yet,” he said.

“That’s part of what’s so intriguing,” said Mrs. Sharzi. She had the rare beauty of a woman in her late fifties, and she seemed comfortable in her skin in a way that Ava envied. “Formalizing a visual, artistic language, into a series of—what did you call them? Linguistic automata? Or, I suppose, a new language all itself. I’m not sure I understand it,” she laughed, “but I can tell you we’d be interested in your next round of financing.”

Language through art? Ava looked wonderingly at Jackson, not seeing him necessarily as he was, but him as he had been, years ago: a fellow student in her art classes, a brilliant computer programmer just learning about what one could do through artistic expression. Eager to learn with her, to have her teach him. He’d been like a little kid with a new toy back then.

“That’s what your company does?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Jackson said. His face was darkening by the second. “Right now it’s just apps and social networking.”

“He’s being modest,” Lillian assured the Sharzis. “He’s a genius. The commercial problem solving applications alone—”

“That’s not why I built it,” Jackson said. “It could be critical for various behavioral therapies, and people with verbal difficulties.” He shot Lillian a
look
. It was a look that said entire paragraphs, the kind of look that can only exist between people who have had a lot to say to each other at one time or another, and Ava wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. For the first time, she felt very much on the outside looking in.

Lillian flashed that catalog smile at the Sharzis. “Well, all the best ideas are inspired by the desire to help people. Of course, we know we owe it to our investors—”

Jackson rose from the table and pointed at Ava. “Actually, I owe it all to her,” he said. “And no one else.”

Lillian paused for just one second. “Oh, are you an artist?” she said, finally looking directly at Ava.

Ava shook her head. “Not anymore,” she said quickly.
That
was personal.

There was a polite silence.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to excuse us,” Jackson said, staring at Ava. “We just got here, and need to settle ourselves in.”

He took Ava’s hand. It wasn’t a request. They were leaving.

Bewildered, Ava followed him out of the dining room, moving at a brisk trot to keep up with his long strides. For once she didn’t care about what the people she’d just met thought of her, or if she’d made the desired impression, or about what the social undercurrents she’d perceived actually meant in context. Ava was thinking about only one thing.

What does Jackson Reed think he owes me?

chapter
11

Jackson seethed. The halls of the Bedford Volare estate had never seemed so long and serpentine before this, but then he’d never wanted to get away quite like this, either. He’d had to sit there and watch Ava close up when confronted with other people, with the business of his outside life, with Lillian. Perhaps most of all with Lillian. Ava had been open to him just barely, slowly, letting him in inch by inch, and then…

GodDAMN it.

He’d seen her reassemble her armor lightning quick, retreating into herself to watch and observe, the way she used to around people she didn’t trust. Retreating away from him.

Ava was never one to be comfortable baring herself in public. He remembered the first time she’d shown him some of her private paintings, how different they’d been, how clear it had been to him that the things she did in the studio were deliberately for public consumption, and a poor representation of the beauty she was capable of.

He’d seen her face when Lillian had touched his shoulder, too. That hadn’t been good. Too late, Jackson had remembered that the relationship Ava almost never talked about, the one that had hurt her so much that she had transferred in her senior year and cut herself off from her former life, had involved some kind of infidelity. Only he wasn’t sure how, or who, or what. Christ, he wished he’d been smart enough or wise enough or just good enough to just
listen
when she’d tried to open up back then.

When he thought back on that time, Jackson always remembered, most of all, the sensation of moving forward. Both he and Ava had been characterized by a kind of relentless forward momentum, a need to leave the past behind without so much as a backwards glance. That was the thing that had drawn them together, besides their inherent affinity for each other.

The thing was, it seemed like Ava’s forward momentum had tripped up since then. Like she’d made a wrong turn somewhere, or had gotten stuck in the wrong gear, or had stalled out. He was more and more certain now, the more time they spent together, that something just hadn’t come together for her. And he had to face the fact that he, Jackson Reed, might be partially responsible for that.

Especially because Jackson had been all jammed up, too, ten years ago, and Ava Barnett had been the person to set him right. Even though she’d run away, Ava had left him with something real, something tangible, to guide him through the last ten years. That picture she’d painted for him had become without a doubt his most prized possession. Now it was hidden behind his shirts in the back of his closet, lest Ava see it and get kind of spooked. One day, he’d tell her what it meant to him. One day, he’d explain to her that she’d been his north star, and why. But in the meantime, he had to face the fact that she’d left him the thing that had saved him, and he’d left her with nothing but a bad memory and some emotional scars.

And she didn’t even paint anymore.

That had hit Jackson like an actual punch to the gut. She didn’t paint. He was probably the only person on the planet who knew what that meant. The way Ava had said it, it had seemed like even she didn’t know what it meant, like it had been so long that she’d forgotten.

“Jackson!” she called from behind him, and he stopped and turned to see that she was actually panting a little, her chest heaving up and down in that low cut sweater. He’d practically run them through this big old house, just looking for a place where they could be alone together with no memories of anyone else. They were in an old hallway in one of the wings—some unused part of the house, judging by the faded wallpaper and the dust in the corners. Ava was looking at him funny.

“What is
wrong
with you?” she said, brushing her auburn hair out of her face. “What was that about?”

She really didn’t seem think it was at all strange that she would announce that she didn’t paint. It made the distance between them suddenly vast and imposing, and Jackson couldn’t stand it.