It would take a few days to readjust to the time when we returned. I could get a head start if I tried to at least pretend my body was ready for a full night’s sleep.
“Maybe I’ll eat something later.”
“I’m just going to—”
“Work. I know,” I answered for him.
“I have to go over the investor profile before my meeting in the morning.”
I yawned. “I get it. I’m going to sleep.”
It wasn’t long before the tapping of the keys was enough to lull me to sleep. I thought there was a soft pink baby in my dream. She had auburn ringlets and she smelled like baby lotion. I thought Jeremy was there. And my mom and Frannie.
It was fuzzy. I tried to pull it back to focus, but I felt the plane jostle me awake. My eyes opened.
The honeymoon was over.
We were back in New York.
6
Jeremy
“You look tan.” Sasha pressed her cherry red lips together. Her ivory skin was just as even and pale as always.
I nodded, crunching the numbers on the spreadsheet again. I didn’t like the figures she presented.
“How was Tahiti?” she asked.
I pushed back from the conference table. “It was good. I recommend the time off.” I grinned, diving back into the report.
“I don’t take vacations.”
“Neither did I, but things change.”
It was an oversimplification of what the honeymoon had meant. I came back a different man. I left New York, trying to convince the world my marriage with Evie was real. I discovered in Tahiti it was. I didn’t know what other people’s marriages were like, but I knew ours. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it.
“No one changes that much.” She cleared her throat. “Enough about your personal life. What do you think about the new investor lineup?”
I caught the dig at my relationship. I had hoped the time away would soften Sasha, but it seemed to only stoke her anger. She was lying through her teeth if she wanted me to believe nothing had changed. She had.
We felt less like business partners and more like rivals. I didn’t like the direction this was headed.
“They look solid, but we both know they can’t affect the bottom line the way they should. They aren’t heavy hitters.”
She jutted her chin forward. It accentuated the sharp lines of her cheeks. “Who did you bring to the table?”
“I don’t bring people to the table. You do that. I close them. You pitch. I close. It’s always worked that way. And it has worked pretty damn well. We’ve built this company together on that practice.”
Sasha rose from the table. Today’s light gray pencil skirt was extremely tight.
“I think you got too much sun. Or had too many fruity drinks.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She started toward me. “It means you haven’t been available for the past two weeks. You left me here to deal with this shit.” She was close to baring her teeth. “You have no idea what I’ve been dealing with, Jeremy. None.”
My phone rang. I looked at it, knowing she was likely to slap me if I picked it up, but I saw Evie’s number and grabbed it.