Sweet Surrender (Sweet Jealousy, Book Two) (3 page)

She imagined them alone, together, in a room, him grilling her on her qualifications. Then she pictured the way he’d looked last night, after his father had left, so lost and alone. She’d been able to make him feel better, and it had been like a drug.

Somehow, even after knowing he was engaged, she had the burning desire to take away his pain.

Stop it,
she told herself.
You’re acting crazy.

“You should definitely submit your resume,” Tia said. “You’re a great writer, Addison.”

“You really think I have a chance?” Addison knew her friend would give her the honest truth. It wasn’t Tia’s style to pull punches.

“You’re writing is good enough,” Tia said. “But that job is all about politics.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there are a lot of good writers at Intuition. And the ones who get promoted are the ones who do a little something extra.”

“You mean like staying late?”

“Well, yeah, that.” Tia pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “You definitely have to go the extra mile. But you also have to know how to network. You need to get on someone’s radar.”

A lump rose in Addison’s throat. This was exactly what she didn’t want to hear.

Getting on someone’s radar was the last thing she wanted to do, and now she was on Nathan Sweet’s. Big time.

Tia’s eyes brightened. “Hey, I know! You should come to the Technology In Journalism party on tonight!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Addison said, shaking her head. “Isn’t that kind of a fancy affair? The tickets are, like, a hundred dollars.”

Tia waved her hand, like the price was inconsequential. “They never actually check tickets at those things, and there’s always a bunch of people who don’t show up.”

“You want to crash it?” Addison shook her head. “Oh, Tia, I don’t know…”

The Technology in Journalism party was an annual gala held at the Covington Hotel. It was one of those high-class, swanky events, the kind that included a cocktail hour and a step and repeat. It wasn’t a big deal to people outside of journalism, but it still usually got a small mention in The Post or The Times.

“Come on, live a little,” Tia said. “Everyone will be there. It will be a great way for us to network.” She looked around the little café to make sure no one from the office was there. “And you can meet people from other websites and magazines.”

It was tempting. After the current situation with Nathan Sweet, Addison had no idea what was going to happen with her job. It might be time to start looking at other options, and if going to this party was going to help her do that, then maybe it was a good idea. On the other hand, the thought of crashing a party seemed a little immature. And if they got caught, everyone would probably know about it, making her look bad in front of the very people she was trying to impress.

“I’ll think about,” Addison said.

Tia sighed and shook her head, like she knew there was no way Addison was going to agree to go to the party.

When she got back to the office after lunch, Addison began to panic. There was only a few hours left in the day, and she had no idea what she was going to do or where she was going to go. Was Nathan’s assault on Mr. Gold enough to keep her landlord away from her? Or was she still in danger?

She checked her email, but besides a few internal memos, there was nothing.

Nathan hadn’t bothered to reply to her article about having sex with your boss.

There was nothing left to do.

She was going to have to call her parents.

She’d have to spin the story of course – she wouldn’t be able to tell them her apartment wasn’t safe. She’d have to say something else. Maybe that the landlord had decided to sell the building.

A wave of nausea built up inside of her as she imagined her mother’s reaction when she asked if she could borrow money. Her parents were proud of her, but Addison knew they were secretly expecting – maybe even hoping -- that she would fail and come back to Georgia.

She reached for her office phone. Personal calls weren’t allowed during work hours, except in the case of emergencies, but Addison didn’t care. This felt like an emergency, and besides, when you’d been naked in your boss’s office the day before, making a personal call didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

But before she could dial, Addison felt the presence of someone standing beside her.

“Addison Maxwell?” It was a girl, with long straight dark hair. She was holding a large manila envelope in her hand.

“Yes,” Addison said, putting the phone down. “Can I help you?”

“This is from the office of Mr. Nathan Sweet,” the girl said. She handed Addison the envelope.

“Oh,” Addison said. Her mouth going dry. “I don’t –”

But the woman had already turned on the heel of her sensible Oxford shoe and was striding back down the hallway. She was probably Nathan’s assistant, Addison thought. He’d probably sent her.

She turned the manila envelope over in her hand, wondering if there was a pink slip inside. It would make sense. Nathan Sweet seemed like just the kind of coward who would send his assistant here to fire her instead of doing it himself.

Her hands shook as she unclasped the envelope. There was a folded up piece of white paper inside, along with something else. Something that was jangling around at the bottom.

Addison turned the envelope over, and a key fell out and bounced onto the carpet.

She reached down and picked it up. A key? Why was Nathan Sweet delivering a key to her desk?

She unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a printout from a real estate website. A charming one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. For sale.

It had gorgeous wood floors and crown molding, and a bathtub, which was hard to come by in New York. There was a walk-in closet in the bedroom, and the kitchen looked bright and airy.

A handwritten note was scrawled on the bottom of the paper.

“Addison –

I have made arrangements for your things to be brought to the above address.

Please go there after work and wait for me to arrive.

I hope you find the apartment to your satisfaction.

Nathan”

Addison reread the note in disbelief.

He hadn’t actually gone to her apartment and collected her things, had he? That was stealing. She could have him arrested! She imagined herself calling the police and them showing up at the Intuition offices and carting Nathan away in handcuffs. There would be headlines in the newspaper, about how a successful millionaire (billionaire?

She wasn’t quite sure of his net worth) had given up everything just so he could steal his employee’s things that were hardly worth anything. It would be just like the time Winona Ryder ended up arrested for shoplifting.

She reread the note again, her pulse speeding up at the part where she was supposed to wait for him. Was he going to come to her tonight? Would they do what they’d done last night? The thought made her light-headed. She took a deep breath.

All around her were the sounds of her co-workers returning from lunch – the tap of computer keys, the soft sound of phones ringing, the drone of voices. How could everyone be acting like everything was the same, when Addison’s whole world had been turned upside down in the span of twenty-four hours?

For the rest of the afternoon, Addison sat at her desk, pretending to work. She oscillated between wanting to go to this new apartment, and wanting to tell Nathan Sweet to screw off. But by the end of the day, she was angry.

How dare he? He had a fiancé for God’s sake! She’d googled her after letting herself hope for just a moment that Belle had somehow been mistaken, that maybe her and Nathan weren’t engaged.

But it was there, all over the internet. Pictures of them together at events, at parties, walking a dog in Central Park. There was even an engagement announcement, with a picture of the two of them in Nathan’s apartment. His eyes burned bright blue in every picture, and even though Belle was unarguably beautiful, it was Nathan who Addison couldn’t keep her eyes off.

But when she came across a quote from him, about how he was looking forward to planning their future together, her anger overtook any longing.

And so when the clock finally struck five o’clock, she decided she would wait for Nathan, just like he’d instructed. Only it wasn’t going to be at the apartment he’d gotten for her.

She would wait for him outside of the office, and when he got out of work, they would have it out. She would demand her things back. She would tell him he had been completely inappropriate with her. She would make it very clear that even though he was obviously used to getting what he wanted from other women, she wasn’t that kind of girl.

And then she would tell him to go home to his fiancé and leave her alone.

The thought excited her. She couldn’t wait to yell at him. She even considered the possibility of perhaps threatening him with a potential lawsuit. Maybe telling him that if he tried to fire her, she would go to the police. Well, okay, not the police. But definitely a lawyer. Maybe even the press.

She imagined the headline.

“Nathan Sweet: Womanizer!”
would be splashed all over the New York Post.

She gathered her things and headed out, ready to put her plan into action.

The anger inside of her was so strong that it distracted her from the fact that she had nowhere to go. There were no thoughts of the future in her mind, just the immediacy of yelling at Nathan Sweet.

Once on the sidewalk, she wasn’t sure exactly what to do. So she bought an orange juice from a café and then sat on a bench outside the building. She was determined to wait all night if she had to.

Luckily, it didn’t come to that.

Half an hour later, Nathan came striding out of the building.

At the sight of him, Addison felt a pressure in her chest. He was as beautiful as always. She hadn’t seen him all day, and now that he was here, in front of her, the longing that overwhelmed her was almost unbearable.

Almost.

She walked over to him, pushing her chin out and forcing herself to keep her shoulders back. There were two other people with him, a man and a woman. Addison didn’t recognize them, but from the way they were dressed, they were probably important. But instead of discouraging her, the fact that Nathan wasn’t alone just emboldened her.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sweet,” Addison said sweetly. She held up the envelope that was in her hand. “I’d like to talk to you about something.”

She’d expected to see fear in those deep blue eyes, worry that she was going to expose him for what he was – a lying, cheating, no good bastard. But instead, there was just anger mixed with confusion.

“Just a moment,” he said to the people with him, his tone conveying his annoyance.

He grabbed Addison’s elbow and steered her down the sidewalk.

“Don’t touch me,” she growled, trying to pull away from him. But his grip was tight, and he was much stronger than she was.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, hustling her into a coffee shop half a block down.

“What the hell do I think
I’m
doing?” She turned over the envelope she was holding, letting the paper and the key drop to the floor. “What the hell do you think
you’re
doing?” Her voice sounded slightly hysterical, and she could tell she was losing it. But all her emotions over losing her apartment and what happened with Nathan swirled around in her brain, mixing into a hurricane.

“You are acting like a child,” Nathan said calmly. He bent down and picked up the paper and the key, then took the envelope from her hand and slid them back inside.

“I am not,” Addison said. “I’m acting like someone who spent the night with her boss and then found out he was engaged the next morning.”

“Ahh.” Nathan nodded. “So that’s what this is about. You must have met Belle.”

“Oh, I met her all right. How could you have done something like that?” She held her breath and waited for the explanation. She hadn’t realized it, but all day she’d been hoping that maybe there’d been some misunderstanding. Maybe Nathan wasn’t engaged to Belle. Maybe she lied. Maybe she was a crazy ex-girlfriend, maybe they’d broken up and those pictures on the internet were from back when they were together.

“Something like what?”

“Something like sleeping with me when you were engaged!”

Nathan shook his head. “Addison, it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“So she is your fiancé?”

Nathan hesitated. “Yes.”

She went to push past him, furious tears pushing at the back of her eyes. Nathan reached out and grabbed her arm.

“No,” he said. “You’re not leaving.”

“I don’t know what kind of twisted pervert you are,” she said. “But I’m not having any part of it.”

“I’m not a twisted pervert.” The thought seemed to amuse him, which infuriated her.

“What would you call sleeping with me and then sleeping with her?”

“Belle and I don’t sleep together.”

“You don’t…” she trailed off. “You expect me to believe that?”

He shrugged. “Believe it or don’t. But it is the truth, Addison.”

He was still holding her hand, and he pulled her close to him, crushing her against his chest. Her nipples hardened and her heart sped up.

“Let me explain it to you,” he whispered into her ear. “And then you can decide if you want to see me again.”

His breath tickled her skin, reminding her of the way he’d held her down yesterday on his couch, the look in his eye as he’d taken her.

“Go to the apartment,” he said. He released her and pushed the envelope back into her hand. “And wait for me.”

And then he brushed by her and out the door, leaving her standing there looking after him.

***

The apartment was on the Upper West Side, in one of those cute little neighborhoods that reminded Addison of Sex and the City. Brownstones lined each side of the street, and trees cast dappled shade onto the sidewalk. She found the address and walked up the front steps. There were two apartments in the building, and hers was Apartment B, which, from what she could tell, was on the second floor.