Ensnared (The Accidental Billionaires #1)(59)

Granted, my brain had been fried from my illness at the time, but could I have done anything more stupid than send Jade asinine messages like the ones I was staring at?

Nope. Probably not.

What I’d thought I’d said, and what I’d really typed couldn’t have been more different. Yeah, I hadn’t wanted her to come to San Diego because I was afraid she’d end up sick, too. Actually, I’d desperately wanted to see her, and I’d wanted her to be with me. But I’d preferred to be alone because of the contagious nature of my initial illness.

I’d been so fucked up that I’d felt like I’d poured my heart out to her. But in reality, I’d pretty much dumped her via text message.

Shit!

I tossed my phone on my desk with more force than was really necessary because I was disgusted with myself.

I should have looked at what I’d texted to her earlier, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d sent something that idiotic to the woman I couldn’t live without. Besides, I hadn’t wanted to look at the unanswered messages. It would have made me even more miserable than I’d already been when I was really sick.

I was going to do what I absolutely had to do in my office, and then I was driving my Bugatti to Citrus Beach to see Jade in person as fast as I could haul ass to get there.

No more text messages.

No phone calls that she could easily ignore like she had in the past when she’d been angry.

Now that I was finally lucid, I planned on getting it right. And that might involve groveling until I could get Jade to let me explain the jumbled messages I’d just discovered an hour ago.

“And I wondered why she wasn’t calling me?” I said aloud in my empty office.

Hell, she had to think I was even a bigger prick than she’d first thought.

We’d slept together.

And then I’d sent her a rambling message that sounded more like I didn’t want her than its true intention—to tell her how I actually felt.

I would have been better off to leave my phone alone while my mind had been messed up when I was sick. But I was so damn obsessed with Jade that even when I was barely coherent, all I’d thought about was trying to explain everything to her.

I looked at the files and papers that had piled up in my absence.

The only things I planned on taking care of before I left for Citrus Beach were anything urgent or time sensitive. Then I was getting the hell out of the office so I could take all the time I needed to convince Jade that we needed to be together.

Not for ten days.

Not until our passion faded—which was never going to happen.

Not as friends—because I’d never survive just a friendship.

I was getting forever. And I’d camp out in Citrus Beach until she agreed.

“Jade Sinclair to see you, Mr. Stone.” Alice’s voice rang out from the intercom, her tone professional.

Jade?

Damned if my heart didn’t start to accelerate just from knowing she was standing outside my office.

I looked up from the papers I was signing, my mind suddenly on alert. Unfortunately, my dick was suddenly at attention, too. All it took was to hear her name.

Not that I could exactly do anything about that right now. But it was good to know that everything was still functioning after over two weeks of misery.

It had been seventeen days, five hours, and a handful of minutes since I’d seen Jade. I felt every single second of not hearing her voice or seeing her beautiful face.

Today had been the first day I’d felt reasonably human again, and I’d known from the moment I’d gotten out of bed that I couldn’t go another day without talking to Jade.

Yeah, the doctor had told me it would take some time until I felt back up to my normal speed after the drain of having bacterial pneumonia. But I’d been on antibiotics long enough to be certain I wasn’t contagious anymore. It hadn’t mattered that I was still dragging ass. I knew I was going to see Jade or die trying.

But she’s here now.

And holy fuck . . . I needed to see her.

I was irritated as hell about being sick. I hadn’t gotten the flu since I was a kid, and it had been the last thing my relationship with Jade had needed.

I pressed the intercom button. “Give me a minute, Alice,” I instructed my secretary.

“Let me know when you’re ready, Mr. Stone,” she replied.

I stood up and walked to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and then stared at my reflection.

At some point over the last few weeks, I’d finally figured out that I didn’t need to be Austin. My brother would always have a place in my memory, but he died because he had an addiction problem. Nobody could cure him when he hadn’t wanted to be sober himself. We’d all tried. My parents had done everything they could to get him straightened out, and I’d pretty much begged him to stop. But the will had needed to come from him, and he’d never made the effort to stay clean. Not really. He’d gone to rehab to satisfy my parents and not himself.

Only after I’d lost it with Jade had I been able to actually evaluate the emotions that hadn’t seen the light of day in four years.

And I wasn’t very happy with the way I’d handled Austin’s death.

I also wasn’t pleased at the fact that I’d been offered the chance to be with an amazing woman like Jade, and I’d pretty much pissed away the opportunity because I’d been a dick.