Mark touched his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Jamie. It’s me, Jamie. We’re friends, remember? Put me down. We’ll talk, and then if you still want to rip me to shreds, you can.” He dropped his eyes to his nakedness.
How had he missed that? Jamie shoved him toward the bed. “Put some pants on.” He paced the hotel room. Mark’s clothes were thrown over a chair, a woman’s high heel was beside the dresser, and a half-empty bottle of wine was beside the bed. Ugh. He spun around as Mark pulled on his khakis, fear in his eyes, but beneath that, Jamie saw the calculating eyes of the manipulator that he’d always known was there but had chosen to ignore. Jamie never imagined Mark would use that sleazy, manipulative side against him.
“What did you say to Jess?” They stood a foot apart, Jamie’s hands fisted, ready.
“What? That’s what this is about?”
Jamie landed one punch to the side of Mark’s jaw, then grabbed his tee as he reeled sideways and yanked him up, so they were nose to nose. “Don’t play with me.”
Blood dripped from Mark’s nose. His eyes went dark as he lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
“Say it. I want to hear it from your disgusting mouth.” Jamie’s arms shook from the storm blazing through his body.
“Let go. I’m not saying a single word until you do.” Mark held his stare.
Jamie threw him backward. He stumbled into the large, low dresser. He touched the blood streaking over his lips and chin, grabbed something that was bunched up on the dresser—a shirt, pants, who knew or cared—and he wiped his face.
“Assaulting an attorney isn’t smart.”
Jamie closed the distance between them and pinned him to the floor with another dark stare.
“Fine, fine.” Mark went to the chair by the small wooden table beside the bed and sat down.
Jamie paced, his anger leashed by a fraying thread. He planted his legs like pilings in the earth and crossed his arms over his chest, locking another dark stare on Mark.
“I told her the truth, that you need to focus on your business. Jamie, you don’t even know her.”
Jamie reached for Mark’s shirt and Mark held his hands up. “I don’t give a damn what you think I know. What else did you say to her?”
“Okay, okay, okay.” He wiped the blood from his nose with his forearm. “Man that hurts. I told her that she was no different from the other women you dated, and you’re not some stupid knight in shining armor who’s here to save her. You’re a businessman who needs to focus before you lose everything you’ve worked for.”
Jamie put one hand on each arm of the chair and loomed over him. His voice was cold as ice. “And what makes you the expert on what I feel?”
Mark blinked up at him, rearing back as far as he could from his seated position. “Jamie, I’m your best friend. I’ve known you for years. You trust me with everything. I protect you. Come on, without me you’d have lost half your business years ago.”
There was an ounce of truth in what he said. Jamie hated that. Mark had saved Jamie too many times to count.
“She’s the woman I love, and I don’t need your protection from her.” Jamie pushed away from the chair and paced again, hands fisted by his sides.
“The woman you love? Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Get a grip here. How long have you known her? A few days? A week?”
He spun around, venom in his voice. “I don’t care how long I’ve known her. What makes you think you have the right to say any of that garbage to her?”
“Because I’ve never seen you turn your back on your business, and someone had to think with their head instead of their you know what.”
Jamie stepped closer, and Mark held his hands up again.
“Jamie, you didn’t run a check on her. What do you really know? What she told you? You’ve been down that path before. She could be playing you like a two-dollar fiddle, for all you know. How many women have told you they were models when they were working at some rancid topless bar, looking for a sugar daddy?”
“You heard her play. She’s not lying about what she does for a living.” He had no proof, but he didn’t feel like he needed it with Jessica. Sure, she’d been a little cagey giving up that particular information, but he understood her reasons, just as he kept his own career from most people.
“Okay, so she plays the cello. BSO? OneClick will tell you if that’s true in five seconds or less. What else do you really know about her? Where does she live? What do her parents do? Has she ever been arrested? Come on, Jamie. Do you even know how many men she’s slept with?”
Jamie stopped pacing and stared at Mark. He didn’t know any of that stuff, except how many men she’d been with. But he knew he loved her. Damn, did he ever love her.
“Jamie, your look tells me that you have no clue about any of this. Well, maybe the sex part. If she’s inexperienced, she’d be a novice in the bedroom, but…”
A novice in the bedroom. He remembered the expert way she’d made love to him. She’d told him it was all new to her, and her eyes had been full of truth and such depths of emotion that he hadn’t questioned it.
No, he refused to believe she’d lied about that. He’d felt her—saw the heady excitement of newness in her eyes. No way had he misread those things.
“Let me do one quick search. Right now. Just one. It’ll tell you what you need to know in under five seconds. I can run a full background check later, but let’s just see if she’s with the orchestra.” Mark moved toward his laptop.
“No.” He grabbed Mark’s arm. “Don’t you dare search her name. This is my life, not yours. I appreciate your concern, but if you ever…” He pulled Mark closer and tightened his grip on his arm until he saw pain in Mark’s eyes. “If you ever say one word to her again, I will kill you with my bare hands.” He tossed him to the bed and stormed out.
Chapter Eighteen
JESSICA PUSHED HER coffee cup across the small table. She couldn’t stomach looking at it, much less the smell of it. It smelled like the acid swirling in her stomach. She glanced into the bedroom at her unmade bed. Tears welled in her eyes as quickly as if someone had struck her with a hot poker. She turned away and shuffled across the floor in her sweatshirt and underwear. She was cold to the bone despite the warm seventy-five degrees of the second-story apartment and the sun-drenched air blowing in through the open window. She sat on the couch, then rose to her feet again. Nothing felt right anymore. Would it ever? Was this her window into reality? That life outside of the orchestra could be blissful and heavenly and then barf her up like a bad meal without ever looking back? She didn’t want to believe it, but all night she’d waited for Jamie to return. She’d even turned on her stupid cell phone in case he texted or called.