Bought by the Boss

Aria’s mouth twitches. “We

’re best friends. We talk. Get over it.”

“Moving on,” I grumble, not wanting to hear anything more on this particular subject.

“I know Mallory as well as I know myself,” she continues. “This hasn’t been easy for her.”

I drop my head into my hand and rub my eyes, a thousand-pound weight pressing on my chest. “Is she hurting, Aria?”

When I lift my head again, Aria watches me closely. “It’s Mallory, she’s a tough cookie. So, on the outside, no.”

“What about on the inside?”

Aria’s eyes turn sad. “That’s another story, I’m afraid. She likes you. I could tell that the second she saw the email you sent to Liam. She can hide her feelings well, but not from me.” Aria pauses. Then, “And the way you’ve been moping around, all lost in your thoughts, makes me think that you like her, too.”

“Fuck, I didn’t mean to do anything like this.” I rise and move to the window, staring out at the high-rise Mallory is in, hands stuffed in my pockets. “I never meant to touch her. I meant to piss off Liam. I thought we’d have a nice time away. She’d come home relaxed. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.”

“But it did end up like this.” I sense Aria behind me now. “So, then, do something about it.”

I glance over my shoulder. “What exactly am I supposed to do about it when she won’t talk to me?”

“This is all very simple, Jackson.” She raises her brows. “Do what you did in Muskoka.”

“Which is?”

Aria smiles. “Surprise her.”

Mallory

After a solid session of retail therapy at the Santa Monica Pier, our numerous shopping bags in the trunk, I follow Aria out of her car and slam the door, trailing after her to Liam’s beach house. For all the days that have passed since I closed the door on Jackson, I thought I had been doing a pretty good job of hiding how much the whole thing bothered me. When Aria and Liam invited me away this weekend, I realized I was failing miserably.

The truth is, I’m missing him.

It’s not just the sex either. It’s the way I laughed with him. The way I felt around him. The way he surprised me by doing super sweet or thrilling things. I miss that guy.

But was that guy real?

That’s what I keep asking myself, over and over again. Because the second I saw that email, I knew that while Jackson does have a sweet side, he also has a side that can hurt me. Sadly, I learned a long time ago from a shitty ex-boyfriend not to get involved with men like Jackson.

I like my heart unbroken.

Still, a part of me feels like it stayed back in Canada.

I keep behind Aria as we approach the dark gray stucco beach house right on the shores of the Santa Monica Bay. The house is modern and stunning, and everything that I’d never own in my life. Not only for the high price tag, but I’ve always been a lake lover at heart.

When we near the corner of the house, moving toward the front porch, Aria reaches back and grabs my arm, her eyes huge. She raises a finger to her mouth and then taps her ear.

Not a second later, my heart sinks into my stomach as Jackson’s low voice spreads over me, raising goosebumps on my arms. “My father broke my mother,” he says, emotion thick in his voice. “He left her. Ruined her. She was the saddest woman I’d ever seen. Sophia would have done that to you, Liam. Maybe not right away but she would have eventually, because that is what people like her do. They only destroy what is in their path.”

There’s a pause, then Liam asks with a hard voice, “You’re telling me that you want me to believe that you fucked Sophia because I was blind to the type of woman she was, and that you did this to protect me?”

I place my hand on my chest, hoping my heart doesn’t fly out of it. Jackson told Liam? Why? I’m trying to understand what would have changed between when he wouldn’t speak up at the condo and now.

“You can believe whatever you want to believe,” Jackson replies. “But that’s the truth. I saw her for what she was, a money-hungry bitch. You saw the good in her that perhaps was there, but I imagine now isn’t.”

Aria’s eyes are wide, and she mouths, “Did you know about this?”

I nod.