Taming the VIP Playboy

“Great. Now I have to do everything else.”

“When is the dream night going to take place?” Cam asked.

“Tomorrow night. I think…will you call Jen tomorrow and tell her to take the day off. I’m going to arrange for a day at the spa for her…to make up for all the long hours she put in here at the club.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. The rest is up to me.”

After Cam left, Nate stayed there on the rooftop garden area making notes and a long list of all the things he had to do. When he had the list finalized he got in his car to head home but found himself in Jen’s neighborhood sitting in front her house.

He knew it was crazy but he needed to be closer to her. Now that he’d admitted to himself he loved her, he wanted to go to her and tell her. He needed to try to fix everything that he’d nearly let slip away.

He hoped he could fix it. Prayed that he hadn’t ruined everything by letting her walk out of his life. Because he’d just realized that his mom had been wrong about men and weakness. Sometimes, Nate realized, something like love could make a man weak in one sense but having the right woman love him back could make him stronger in his entire life.

Fifteen

Jen tried to relax at The Boutique Spa at the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove. She’d been surprised when a courier from Cam’s office had arrived at her home at ten this morning and told her she was taking the day off. He wanted her pampered and rested before she arrived at the club at five o’clock tonight.

She’d almost turned down the offer of the day off but the courier had told her she had no option. He was to take her to the spa and stay with her to drive her home when she was done relaxing.

She had been massaged and pampered like a princess and she loved every second of it. She had a manicure and a pedicure and a facial and that made her a little sad because she was going to be glowing and beautiful when she left the spa but the only man who she wanted to see—Nate—would never know.

She had to stop thinking of him all the time. But that was hard. She still had the picture he’d taken of the two of them on his yacht stored on her phone and she found herself looking at it more and more often as the days went by. It was exactly two weeks today since they’d broken up.

She wished she could report that she no longer loved him, but that wasn’t about to happen. Her heart was stubbornly sticking to Nate as the man for her. And she didn’t know how she was going to keep going until she fell out of love with him—if she ever did.

Her phone rang as she was finishing up at the spa. “Hello, Marcia.”

“Jen. I have the afternoon off and thought we could meet up and go shopping,” her sister said.

“Meet up where? I have one of the Luna Azul employees who is driving me around today.”

“I’ll come pick you up and we can go to Nordstrom’s and do a little dress shopping. I need something nice to wear to a dinner with the partners next week. I think they are going to offer me junior partner.”

“Really?” Jen asked. “I’m so excited for you, sweetie. All of your hard work is finally paying off.”

“Yes, it is. And yours will, too. I want to have a girls’ afternoon.”

“Okay,” Jen said. “I’m so relaxed from my massage and treatments. That sounds like the perfect way to continue my day off.”

“Good. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Do we need to get Riley after school?”

“No, Lori is picking him up. The boys have a project they are working on.”

Twenty minutes later, Jen was seated in Marcia’s Audi convertible driving toward Nordstrom’s. They spent the rest of the afternoon trying on dresses and both walked away with two new purchases. She had fun with her sister just laughing and for a few moments she forgot her heart was broken.

That was an eye-opening thing because for the first time, she realized she could still have a good life without Nate. It wouldn’t be as happy as it could be if he’d loved her back, but she wouldn’t be a miserable woman with her broken heart.

Her cell phone pinged just as they got home and she glanced down at the screen to see it was a text message from Nate.

She hesitated for a moment then opened the message. I need to see you tonight. Please meet me at the rooftop club at five-thirty.

“Nate wants me to meet him tonight. Why do you think he wants that?”

Marcia shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Last night, Cam tried to convince me that I should have taken the job with Russell. Do you think that Nate is going to try now?”

“I don’t think so.”