Taking It All (Surrender Trilogy #3)(49)

Jensen snorted but remained silent.

“The other thing, and I know this is complete chicken shit of me, Kylie, but can you call Joss in the morning and give her the rundown for me? I don’t know if I have it in me to rehash it all over again. And I didn’t want to barge over to her house at this hour and potentially upset her. She hasn’t been sleeping well and her mornings have been hell with all the morning sickness, so maybe you should wait until she’s feeling human to dump all of my misery on her.”

Kylie patted Chessy’s hand and then squeezed. “Of course I will. I don’t want you to worry about a thing. Tomorrow we’ll send Jensen over to pick up the rest of your things. Just give him a list so he’s sure to get everything you want.”

“I can go,” Chessy said quietly. “I need to go. Maybe moving my own stuff will be the beginning of closure. Of acceptance that my marriage is over.”

“No way,” Jensen said emphatically. “You aren’t going over there to face him by yourself.”

Chessy smiled sadly. “Oh, he won’t be there. I’m sure he has some important client meeting. Why else would he have been on the phone when he was supposed to be paying attention to me?”

“Still, I think it’s a better idea if Jensen goes with you,” Kylie soothed. “For that matter I’ll come too. Won’t take long with the three of us working. Dash can man the office by himself for the day. And when he and Joss learn what’s happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dash doesn’t show up himself.”

“All right,” Chessy conceded.

“Now, do you want a drink or would you prefer to go straight to bed?” Jensen asked. “I’m sure Kylie doesn’t mind staying up with you as late as you need her, and since I’m her boss I get to tell her she’s going to sleep in tomorrow and blow off work.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “Just wait until I get that promotion, Jensen. Then we’ll see who’s the boss of that operation.”

“Oh I know,” Jensen said in a fervent tone. “Dash and I will spend the days in our offices hiding under our desks.”

Chessy laughed and then because she couldn’t fathom how or why she could be laughing when her entire world was crumbling around her, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Can you take her to bed, Jensen?” Chessy heard Kylie say. “Our bed. I don’t want her to be alone tonight. Can you take the guest bedroom?”

Chessy lifted her head and shook it vehemently. “No. No way I’m putting Jensen out of his bed. That’s where he belongs. With you, Kylie. I would never do anything to change a thing about y’all’s relationship.

Jensen smiled and tousled Chessy’s hair affectionately. “I assure you our relationship will survive me sleeping in a different bedroom this one night. If it can survive me being tied to the headboard I think it’s safe to say that we’re pretty solid. Besides, if I sleep there, I don’t have to be tied up by my kinky girlfriend.”

“Jensen!” Kylie hissed. “For God’s sake! Do you not have any sort of a filter when it comes to what spills from your mouth?”

“And yet that’s what I love about him,” Chessy said in amusement. “I suppose my taste in men isn’t quite so horrible after all.”

“Let’s get you to bed, sweetie,” Jensen said in a gentle voice. “You look like you’ve reached the limit of your control. Get some rest. Tomorrow you and Kylie and Joss can have one of your terror … er … uh I mean girl lunches where y’all threaten the demise of the male population. If I wasn’t so pissed off at the ass**le for what he did, I’d actually feel sorry for Tate about now. But he made his bed and now he has to lie in it. Alone.”

“You know,” Kylie said thoughtfully.

“Uh oh. I recognize that voice,” Jensen said in a dry tone.

“We get up with Chessy whenever she’s ready to go over and tackle packing whatever she wants to take. Then I’ll call Joss, give her the 411 and have her meet us back at your place. And you can be the sweet, adorable guy who gets us takeout so we don’t have any messy upsetting issues in a public restaurant. You’d be invited of course,” Kylie said teasingly.

“It’s a good plan and I certainly don’t mind getting all my girls something to eat, but you’re going to need to give Joss a heads-up before we go over there because I have to call Dash to tell him neither you or I will be in the office and I’ll have to explain why. And then Joss finds out important information about her best friend from a third party, which will hurt her feelings and cause her to instantly freak and run out the door to go and help with the packing. I think we can all agree that doesn’t need to happen.”

“Then it’s a plan,” Kylie said, hugging Chessy to her once more. “Now let’s go get you into bed. You look like hell, Chess. I can only imagine how exhausted you are right now. I’ll stay up and talk to you as long as you want.”

But as soon as Kylie returned from the bathroom after taking the towel from her hair and combing it out she saw that Chessy was already passed out on the bed, her expression one of sorrow.

Kylie’s heart clenched. She knew all too well how much love had the power to hurt but also to heal. The question was, which would it do for Tate and Chessy?