Over the Edge (Bridge #3)(28)

“That’s reassuring,” she purred. “We should catch up. Maybe tonight?”

“I can’t,” I answered automatically.

“Come on. I could use some downtime.” She reached over and brushed her fingers over the back of my hand. “I might even miss you, Will.” Suggestion glimmered in her deep dark eyes.

Jia was a beautiful woman. Dangerously so. She pined after no one, took what she wanted, and left shame at the door. Those qualities made her a perfect bed companion on nights when I wanted a hard, uncomplicated f*ck.

Tonight wouldn’t be one of those nights.

“I met someone.”

The dark wing of her eyebrow lifted. “You’re in a relationship?”

“No, but she’s someone I plan to spend a lot more time with.” As soon as possible, in fact. We’d barely seen each other the past few days outside of work, and the withdrawals were harrowing.

Jia didn’t speak for a second, her smile tight. “Sounds serious.”

“It’s not serious at all. Nothing against you. She’s just who I’m focused on right now.”

She sat back in her chair, withdrawing her touch. “Focused on or preoccupied with? I’ve never heard you talk about someone this way.”

I resented the unimpressed tone in her voice. I drank from my glass of scotch, refusing to give her an answer. Olivia had caught me completely off guard. I had pursued her, thinking I was taking another rich girl to bed. I didn’t expect her wit or her fire. And I didn’t expect her submission to be so goddamn captivating. I didn’t expect her to respond to me the way she did, like she wanted to give as much as I wanted to take, even as it betrayed everything she’d been taught.

“Can I ask who she is? She must be striking to give you pause.”

I worked my jaw. As far as I knew, outside of Ian and her brother, no one knew about our little affair.

Jia laughed quietly. “God, Will. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just curious.”

“Her name is Olivia Bridge. Our families know each other. Under the current circumstances, I’m sure she’d appreciate if they didn’t know we were f*cking.”

She nodded. “Understood. Reputation is everything these days.”

Glancing out to the street where a couple was walking hand in hand, she looked almost wistful. When she returned her attention to me, her expression was harder.

“I spoke with Bill recently. He thinks I can talk some sense into you. According to him, pissing away a billion-dollar opportunity isn’t a matter of choice.”

I shrugged, pretending not to care even as fresh guilt took root. “He’s the one pissing it away, not me.”

“You have the power to turn this around, you know,” she pressed.

My jaw was tight. Frustration coiled in my muscles. “Is this why you wanted to meet?”

“It’s not the only reason, but since you’re not up for company, I suppose it is now.”

She crossed her arms. The defensive position told me she wasn’t fond of being rejected. But something else was at play. The way she jumped from sharing a bed with Ian and me to something she knew was a hot topic was unsettling. Jia worked from an agenda, always.

I laughed quietly when it struck me. “He wants to bring you on, doesn’t he?”

She hesitated a moment, her dark eyes steady with calculation. “Yes, he’s mentioned it. They were scouting for a COO before all this happened. We’ve been in loose discussions since then. He doesn’t trust a lot of people right now, but he trusts me. Would that bother you?”

“You can do what you want, but why would you want to be associated with this shit?”

“It’s a mess, Will. No doubt about it. It’s risky getting anywhere near it. You know this as well as I do. But it’s an opportunity to make a jump. I’m sick of climbing the ladder at the firm. If I can help you turn things around with Reilly Donovan Capital, it’s a game changer for me.”

“If he has you, why the hell does he need me?”

She stared out to the street and back to me again. “I’m not going to jump without you. I need you just as much as he does.”

OLIVIA



I’d spent the past few days between the two gyms. The renovation was moving ahead of schedule, and Cameron and I were suddenly busy with the finer details of getting the gym functional and ready for members. I also had a ribbon-cutting to coordinate so we could announce to the neighborhood that we had officially arrived and were ready for business.

Through it all, I’d seen Will regularly enough. As promised, he heard my opinion from time to time. As promised, he bent to my wishes. When he pushed back, I never hesitated to make my case, which seemed to intrigue him as much as it irritated him. By the end, I could tell he wanted to resolve the matter once and for all back at his apartment, and most of the time so did I. But the tension that strained his interactions with Cameron made me want to focus on the task at hand—getting this done so we could all move on with our lives.

In the meantime, being with Will had created a different kind of tension in me. An unsettled edgy feeling had gnawed at me ever since I’d originally agreed to be his no-strings-attached f*ck buddy. Except new strings were popping up all the time. Exclusivity, except when it came to his head-to-toe gorgeous roommate. And his fiercely passionate style of f*cking that pushed me past all my boundaries and resulted in a seemingly never-ending stream of sheet-tearing orgasms.