No, she wanted to tell Bradley exactly where he could shove the mockups she had to go print, because he hadn’t bothered to tell her in person.
She was doing her damnedest to keep things normal and professional around the office, and he wasn’t returning the favor. He refused to look at her in meetings, and when he did need to address her in person he usually directed whatever he was saying to a spot over her right shoulder.
Their usual Friday meeting had been stilted and awkward, and now he was sending her emails instead of walking the twelve steps from his office to hers.
This breakup had shown her a new side of Bradley, and though a part of her still missed him, another, bigger part of her was wondering if he wasn’t half the man she’d thought he was.
Taylor double-checked her print settings, then selected the big color printer in the copy room and sent her job over. She pushed back from her desk and headed toward the copy room, sticking a hand into Hunter Cross’s open office door to wave hello as he talked on the phone, then blowing a kiss at Brit where she sat talking on her phone.
Taylor’s eyes flicked to the desk where Nick sat on the days he came into the office. Empty. She wasn’t entirely sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Taylor rounded the corner into the copy room and skidded to a halt.
She might not have been sure if she wanted to see Nick—or Bradley, for that matter. But she was very, very sure that she didn’t want to see the woman who stood in front of the printer.
Jessica Hayes’s back was to Taylor, and Taylor took a silent step backward, hoping she could retreat before Jessica saw her.
The other woman turned. Locked eyes with Taylor.
Damn it.
For obvious reasons, Taylor had made every effort to avoid Jessica since that first uncomfortable encounter in Bradley’s office, but there was no way to get out of this without betraying just how much the other woman’s very existence hurt.
“Hi!” Taylor chirped, forcing a bright smile.
“Hey.” Jessica’s expression was a little wary, and maybe a little…pleading. “You sent something to the printer? Mine should be done in a few.”
“No problem,” Taylor said, hating how false her voice sounded. “I’ll come back.”
Taylor started to spin away on her stilettoes. She wasn’t particularly proud of running away, but neither could she stomach small talk with Bradley’s new lover. Or old lover. Whatever.
“Taylor.”
It was the quiet, desperate note in Jessica’s voice that had Taylor pausing when what she really wanted was to turn on her heel and drag Brit to a boozy lunch.
“Can we talk?” Jessica asked softly.
Taylor hesitated for a fraction of a second, not at all sure she wanted to hear from the woman she’d been left for.
But then, she supposed that if Nick was correct, Taylor herself was also the other woman.
Perhaps she and Jessica owed this to each other. And to themselves.
“Sure,” she said, turning to face Jessica fully.
The other woman really was pretty, Taylor realized. Not flashy, but beautiful in a subtle, classic way that didn’t require bronzer or lip gloss.
For a moment there was only the quiet whir of the printer spitting out paper, and then Jessica spoke.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t know that you and he were involved when he came back to me. He told me he’d ended things, but I didn’t know…” Her blue eyes glanced down at her ballet flats, then back to Taylor. “I didn’t know how he did it. The timing of it.”
“So he finally told you?” Taylor said. “That he left me the day we were supposed to move in together? That he broke up with me in a letter?”
“If it makes you feel any better, he broke up with me in a letter too,” Jessica said. “The first time, I mean.”
Bastard.
“And yet you went back to him,” Taylor said.
Jessica’s lips parted, and then she lifted her shoulders. “I love him.”
“Me too,” Taylor replied quietly. Although even as she said it, it felt…wrong.
Or maybe not wrong so much as…old news.
For that matter, she could have sworn there had been just the slightest question mark at the end of Jessica’s statement as well. As though maybe she, like Taylor, was starting to wonder if Bradley was the perfect guy they had once believed him to be.
It seemed there was nothing else to say, and Taylor had started to turn away when Jessica spoke again. “He didn’t tell me,” she blurted out.
Taylor didn’t understand, and she gave Jessica a questioning look.
“About how he broke up with you. He refuses to mention your name. I heard it from Nick.”
Taylor went still, a little shocked to realize that hearing Nick’s name coming from Jessica’s lips made Taylor feel a hell of a lot more possessive than hearing Bradley’s name.
“Yes, he mentioned that you proofread his books,” Taylor said, wanting to make sure Jessica was aware that she knew Nick. Even though she wasn’t entirely sure she actually did—Lord knew she was no good at reading the man.
Jessica’s lips twitched just the slightest bit, as though she understood Taylor was staking a claim on her roommate.
“Nick wasn’t gossiping about you,” Jessica explained. “I think he just…wanted me to have the whole picture.”
“And do you?” Taylor asked.
The printer finished Jessica’s print job and paused for a few seconds before beginning Taylor’s. Instead of answering Taylor’s question, the other woman turned and picked up the stack of papers.
When Jessica turned back her eyes were unsure. “I don’t know. It hurt when Bradley left me for you. I mean, I understood. You’re gorgeous, confident. He told me it was love at first sight….”
Taylor flinched, both at the memory Jessica evoked and in sympathy for the other woman. It couldn’t have been easy to hear.
And then, because she had to know, Taylor asked, “Did he tell you why he came back to you?”
Jessica looked away.
Taylor took a step forward. “Please. If our situations were reversed, wouldn’t you want to know?”
Jessica blew out a breath. “He said that he started thinking long-term, big-picture.”
“So was I!” Taylor couldn’t help but exclaim. “I signed a lease with the man!”
Jessica winced. “This isn’t my business.”
“Respectfully, it sort of is,” Taylor said with a slight smile.
Jessica looked down at the stack of paper in her hands, then back at Taylor. “Okay. Okay, fine. He said that he realized he wanted marriage and children, and that you didn’t want any of that. But I do want that, so…”
Taylor felt a surge of hurt come from deep inside her, not just from Jessica’s words but from Bradley’s betrayal.
“But…” She licked her lips. “He told me he didn’t want that either. The family thing, I mean.”
Her mind was reeling.
She and Bradley had talked about kids. Taylor had told him early on that she didn’t see herself having them ever, the way she told all men she got involved with.