A subtle flinch shook his shoulders. His sensual mouth flattened into a hard line and his blue eyes held hers.
His gaze looked muddled with pain as though his arm was still slashed open. Jaye fought the urge to caress his smooth cheek and kiss his tense mouth, but giving into those sensual delights would only prolong her anguish.
Fishing in her blazer’s pocket, she removed a photograph and placed it on his desk. The glossy picture captured her sitting in Mitch’s lap—taken by Phil a short time ago. She smiled sadly at the image. With their arms twined around one another, the two of them looked so happy.
Mitch glanced at the picture and grabbed her wrist, opening her hand with a gentle swipe of his smoke-stained thumb. He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss just above the heel of her thumb.
The gesture seemed a fitting way to end, just as they began.
“’Bye, pixie.”
Jaye trailed her fingertips along his hard jaw and closed her hand to hold onto the memory of what his warm mouth felt like against her skin. With any luck, his last kiss would sustain her while she lived with the sharp, keening sense of loss she carried out of Blake Glassware.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the sleek executive offices nestled in the corner of Davis Software’s headquarters, Jaye felt like a drone, wired together by chips and circuits rather than flesh and blood. No one had touched her since Mitch’s goodbye kiss seven days ago, which was probably a good thing. Having no distractions meant she could devote every minute of the past week finishing a report for her father. After downloading the document to an electronic tablet, she walked to his office suite.
She buttoned her gray blazer, smoothed her skirt, and swept her bangs to the side to make sure she looked neat and professional. Meeting her father always made her feel on edge, like she was being sent to the Principal’s office.
The plush carpet silenced the tap of her heels. She offered a smile to his secretary, who gave a short nod in return. The cold greeting made her miss Veronica’s loud laughter and Sarah’s jokes. A cramp of sadness pierced her side when she thought about the raucous poker games and chatty lunches they’d shared.
Her father strode out of his office with his cell phone pressed to his ear. “There’s something wrong with the kitchen faucet. Call the plumber.” He ended the call without a goodbye and slipped the cell phone into his suit jacket.
Jaye felt a spike of shock at his rudeness. “Were you talking to Mom?”
“Who else would I ask to call the plumber?”
“Good point. Here is the report for the Dominion project. I don’t think the software will appeal to a large segment of consumers. More market analysis is merited.” Jaye extended the electronic tablet. Her finger touched his hand.
He quickly shifted his grip, took the tablet, and paged through the report with brusque swipes across the screen.
Jaye watched the light from the device flicker across his stern features. He hadn’t always been so forbidding. When she was younger, he’d smiled more often. No doubt, the stress of running an international software business left little time for pleasure. “Do you want to go out to dinner tonight? We could pick Mom up on the way.”
His dark gaze stayed on the tablet screen. “Your mother has a fundraiser tonight.”
“Oh. Why don’t you and I go? There’s a nice sports bar a few miles from home. We could watch the Thursday night football game and eat some wings.”
He grimaced. “I’d rather not clog my arteries.”
Her chest tightened. For years, she’d been longing for a closer relationship. Why hold back her feelings? Even though her parents rarely expressed affection, Jaye knew those tender feelings existed. If she had to be the first one to vocalize them, so be it. “I love you, Dad. Let’s spend a little time together and not talk about business.”
“With two acquisitions looming and a number of software releases approaching, I can’t afford to relax. Neither can you.” He handed back the tablet. “You’re wrong about Dominion. I’m pushing the program into production.” With a frown at his watch, he headed toward the state-of-the-art conference room down the hallway.
Dread sank sharp teeth into her heart. Big events had always shaped her life—graduating from college summa cum laude, winning a large consulting contract for Cruz Technologies, agreeing to helm the Davis Software’s Chi Omega project just to name a few—but little, inconsequential events over the past seven days had made her life intolerable. The temporary living arrangements in her parents’ home gave her a front row seat to her father’s arrogance and her mother’s closed-off stoicism. At work, she’d invited several colleagues to lunch and they were all too busy to accept. To top things off, she’d spent seven days preparing a report her father dismissed without reading. Her recommendations meant nothing. What a waste of time.
Jaye had kept her word. She’d done everything her parents asked. She’d taken the steps to shoulder responsibility for Davis Software, but her father’s snubs and her mother’s antipathy made one thing clear—she wasn’t wanted. If she stayed, she’d become as soulless as the electronic tablets perched on every desk in the building.
Pivoting on one black heel, she strode into her office, snatched a yellow legal pad, and wrote her resignation letter the old-fashioned way—by hand, in ballpoint ink. Important things, like this declaration of independence, were best done in hard copy. Writing out the words on yellow, lined paper guaranteed her decision couldn’t be deleted with a careless press of a button. Her parents would have concrete evidence she was steering the direction of her life from now on.
With a determined thrust, she deposited the resignation letter in her father’s inbox. He’d find it when he brought his paperwork home this evening.
In two weeks, she’d be free. For the first time in
