CHAPTER 28
Trista
I open the single steel door to the three-story building on E. Bridger Avenue. It’s a unique building and I’ve seen it before but never knew what it was until now.
The Jameson Group.
To the brief glance and why it looks weird is that it appears to have no windows. White stucco square columns rise from the street to the roof on the third floor. In between, it looks like where windows could be placed, there is nothing but stucco walls. But as I approached, I saw they’re glass windows that are somehow frosted so it’s impossible to see inside. I wonder if they can see out from inside.
The steel door is a little intimidating. It has a classy, welcoming silver sign on the front proclaiming—The Jameson Group – International Security Services. The fact it’s steel and the outside of the building looks like pure concrete, it gives the overall message of stay the hell out.
Still, I don’t have time to be intimidated, so I step inside. I’m immediately stunned by the elegant lobby I find myself in. Cream marble flooring, dark paneled walls, and richly upholstered guest seating in a mocha-colored leather. I also note it’s possible to see outside from the inside through the frosted-looking glass but it is hazy. There’s no one in the lobby except a receptionist behind a curved desk who is looking at me with a light smile on her face. Not exactly welcoming but not exactly not.
“Can I help you?” she asks politely.
She’s quite beautiful, and that doesn’t surprise me. Jerico’s staff at The Wicked Horse are phenomenally gorgeous, so why not here? She’s wears her blonde hair in an asymmetrical bob that hangs just above her shoulders with bangs cut straight over her eyebrows. It’s a severe cut, but her face is practically perfect so it can handle it.
“I’d like to see Jerico,” I say as I walk up to the desk. I’m glad to note my voice sounds strong and confident, despite the fact I feel completely out of place. I should have dressed up or something because my white jeans and pink button-up blouse seem way too casual for this place.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not available,” she says with a mixture of apology and aloofness, but without her facial expression changing at all.
Botox! I knew it.
I’m not put off by her tone even though it clearly says, “You can’t just walk in here and demand to see the owner of this company.”
“I insist,” I say firmly. “It’s an emergency.”
Her expression doesn’t change at all. She just blinks those baby blues at me slowly. “As I said he’s not available.”
Leaning over, I place my hands on the edge of her desk. “Listen… I was just at The Wicked Horse and he’s not there, so I’m pretty damn sure he’s here. Just call him and tell him Trista is here to see him.”
She just smirks at me without even having the decency to say a word.
I come dangerously close to losing my cool. It has not been a good day.
Hell, it has not been a good weekend. I spent Saturday alone in my room, feigning sick to my mom and Corinne, but really, I was so angry and hurt I could barely speak without vile curses flying from my mouth… or hysterical sobbing. I was a mess. A complete and utter mess to find out that Jerico was using me for some sick and twisted plot to strike out at my brother.
I hate your brother, he’d said.
I’ll admit that had given me slight pause at first, because his voice was saturated with pain, not anger. For someone who hated Jayce enough to do what he did to me, it gave me more than slight pause. I knew there was something huge underlying that pain in his voice, and for a second, I even thought about staying to find out.
But then my pain roared to life as I realized all the intimacy we’d shared wasn’t real. This slow burn we had that flamed hot in such a quick time, along with feelings that developed in such a natural way between us… it wasn’t real at all, and that almost killed me.
Sunday morning, I woke with gritty eyes from crying and a hole in my heart that was felt more keenly since I’d expended some of my anger.
I hate your brother.
Gah… his voice. The pain. It made my ears almost bleed despite how destroyed I felt. How could I be so angry with someone, yet at the same time feel immensely for him?
I needed to know what happened, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. All day while making pancakes with Corinne and doing some outdoor gardening, it was on my mind. Finally, by midafternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore and drove to see Jayce.
I was stunned when he opened the trailer door and glared at me with one eye swollen and a huge cut on his bottom lip. His jaw was twice its normal size on the left, and he was holding his hand over his rib cage.
“What happened to you?” I asked, but I knew without him needing to answer.
Jayce’s voice was defeated. “Jerico is what happened. Now you need to get out of here. I’m under strict orders not to even look at you wrong.”
“He did this to you?” I asked. Not because it made me angry or I felt sorry for Jayce, I just wanted to make sure it was Jerico and not someone else.
“Of course he did,” Jayce snapped. “Now go.”
He started to shut the door, but I called out, “I can’t repay you the money.”
“You don’t need to,” he muttered, still shutting the door.
My hand slapped out on it to stop the momentum. “What?”
“Jerico handled it,” he said angrily. Why he was angry, I have no idea. He got his money.
But that was something I really didn’t care about. I honestly was not put out at all by the fact I was losing the extra fifteen I owed to Jayce had I just stayed on a few more days and completed my contract. I had decided that Jayce could go fuck himself on that money. He was an asshole, and I wasn’t afraid of him.
Something else interested me. “Why does Jerico hate you? You sent me into a lion’s den to a man who had a vendetta against you, and I want to know what it was.”
Jayce’s eyes glittered with malice. He sort of leered at me as he hung onto the door for support. “Go ask him yourself. I’m sure he’d tell you all about it. You’re his girl, right? I’ve got busted ribs and I’m pissing blood because you’re his girl.”
“I’m not his girl,” I muttered.
I never was.
Jayce didn’t care though. He slammed the door in my face, and I heard the lock snick.
And that, I’m sure, was the last time I’d ever see my brother.
Sunday night, I fretted. I couldn’t sleep. A dozen times, I almost called Jerico to ask him to tell me the truth about everything. I needed someone to tell me the reason I was hurting so badly, yet I never dialed because I wasn’t sure I could handle it.
Instead, I woke up Monday morning, my eyes still gritty from intermittent crying and my inability to sleep, and decided I had to have the answers.
Unfortunately, Jerico wasn’t at The Wicked Horse. The few staff members I ran into were aloof when I walked in, but it didn’t stop me from asking if Jerico was in. No one knew, so I went to his office and knocked.