Helpless. He felt completely helpless, but it was also the first time he’d had to lie here and pretend like she wasn’t going to do something dangerous. Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way. So much of life was about adjustment, and he hadn’t had time to adapt. He just had to get through about a hundred nights of praying no one shot the woman he loved and then he would be used to it.
He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. He would never get used to it, but maybe he would be better about hiding how worried he was. He would find a way to put her at ease.
For now, he would make a pot of coffee and sit up waiting for her.
She might be mad, but he wasn’t going back to bed. They would have to find a compromise because he couldn’t let her go.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and thought seriously about going down to the gym. He had a key. Maybe he could run his worry off.
But he quickly discarded the idea because she would want to talk to him if something had gone down tonight. He was the client in this case, and he might have decisions to make.
About people he’d known for years. He made his way to the coffeemaker and started a pot. It was still nauseating to think someone so high up in his organization could betray the company like this.
Deanna would be the worst. They weren’t friends. They didn’t hang out, but he had relied on her for years. He’d made sure she was the highest paid assistant in the business.
Although he couldn’t help but think about what she’d said when he’d hired her.
I’m not going to be an assistant forever, Mr. Malone. You will promote me and I’ll be running part of this company in five years.
That had been seven years ago.
Was she doing this because he’d passed her over for a promotion? When the position had come up, the timing couldn’t have been worse. There had been some chaos in his office and he couldn’t let her go. He’d promised her she would get the next job.
Was she tired of waiting? Had she found another way to get everything she wanted?
It was hard for him to believe, but he had to consider it.
There was a knock on the door and he hurried to open it because it was likely Nina. She’d probably forgotten her key in her need to rush out. He swung it open and then realized he was a dumbass.
“JT, I’m sorry to wake you up so late, but we need to talk.” Deanna was standing in the hallway.
A chill went over him. Had he been a fool all this time? Why the hell would she turn up at his door at two thirty in the morning? “Talk about what?”
She swung her head back and forth, looking down the hallway. “Can I come in? It’s important. There’s something going on that we need to talk about.”
Fuck. Nina was going to kill him but he wasn’t sure what he could do since Deanna strode right in, brushing past him in her normal brusque manner.
“What do we need to talk about?” He closed the door behind her but not before flipping the security latch out so the door wouldn’t lock. He didn’t want Nina to have to use her key. She would see the door was open and know something was wrong. She would be on her guard.
She set her bag down on the table near the bar. “First of all, you’re an asshole. Second, where’s your girlfriend?”
He put his hands on his hips and faced her. He wasn’t about to tell her the truth—that he had no idea where Nina was but he kind of hoped she was riding in to the rescue right now. “She’s asleep and she’s not my girlfriend. She’s my fiancée.”
Deanna’s eyes rolled. “We’ll see about that. We all know how good you are at keeping your word when it comes to promotions.”
So she was pissed. Was that the reason she’d decided to betray him? Was she about to offer him a deal? His mind was racing. How should he handle this? Should he go along with her until Nina came back? He could play this role if he had to. The key was to not let her see him sweat. “What’s going on, Dee?”
“How much do you really know about her?” Deanna’s face had gone stony.
“Enough. If this is about trying to get rid of my fiancée, you should leave.” He was going to feel like the biggest idiot in the world if he’d worked with her all this time and never seen that she was crazy about him. He knew he wasn’t the world’s most self-aware human being, but he should have seen this coming. She hated every woman he went out with. He’d written it off because she hated a lot of people, but now he had to consider the fact that he’d been wrong. “Deanna, you have to know nothing is going to happen between us.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
That should be his question. What was she playing at? And why was she pulling this stunt now? “I know you set a private investigator on her. You’re not going to find anything that makes me turn from her to you. I don’t have those feelings for you, Dee. I’m sorry. This is never going to happen.”
“This?” Deanna’s face had gone a bright pink, but he wasn’t sure it was embarrassment. It looked more like rage, but then lots of emotions looked like rage on her. “This meaning a relationship between you and me that I am supposedly desperate for because no woman in the world could possibly not want you?”
Definitely rage, and he might have been mistaken. “Now, Dee, maybe you should…” Nope. He wasn’t saying calm
