Big Pickle: A Secret Boss Romantic Comedy - JJ Knight Page 0,68

formal clothes look good.

Then there are tons of pictures of him with other women. Girls in gowns or slinky club dresses. There’s an entire Instagram feed that seems to center on him at the beach. The French Riviera, according to the tags. Despite the sick feeling I have that I’ll see him mugging with some other woman, I click through to look at them.

This feed is owned by a woman whose profile picture makes her look like a supermodel. Long blond hair, perfect white dress, tilted straw hat.

The images I’m initially led to are months old, before he came to Austin in March. Jace is the quintessential party boy in them, arms around men and women alike, laughing, always dressed in smart, perfect outfits that fit each occasion. There are club pictures, beach pictures, sitting at sidewalk cafes. My heart hurts looking at his perfect face.

One is a closeup of him in pale-blue swim trunks. I trace the lines of his abs, the muscles of his chest, my finger gliding along the screen. I remember his body so well. I bite my lip to stuff down the emotion that threatens to well over.

The party pictures go on without him during the two months he’s here. I hold my breath as I reach late April, when he left.

And he shows up again.

But it’s not the same. Gone is that easy, open expression. He sits apart from the others. He doesn’t show up in the club pictures, only the beach ones.

And within a few days, he’s missing again.

Did he go back to New York?

I click through some of the tags and find another woman’s feed. She seems to fancy herself as an artsy photographer, so there are tons of individual portraits of this circle of friends. She has many shots of Jace. In most of them, he’s looking out at the ocean, or sitting by a fire pit, partially lit by orange light. She titles them, “Brooding Jace” and “Jace lost in thought.”

He disappears for her, too, confirming he must have left the Riviera. But as I’m about to leave her feed, I see an odd picture that makes me click through.

It’s the side of an apartment building, balconies overlooking the curve of the beach. It’s shot from the ground, looking up, and centering on a figure standing on a balcony three floors up.

I can’t make out who it might be from the image, but the caption on it makes my throat tighten. “Our lost Jace. Wishing he’d come down from his tower of torment.”

The date says it was shot only a week ago. So, he hadn’t gone away.

He just left the scene.

I press my hand to my chest as I realize he’s hurting as much as I am.

33

Jace

This franchise meeting is bullshit.

I’ve owned Austin Pickle for eight years, and we’ve never had one. The case against my former manager, and the two women who were accessories to her theft, is practically closed. They all took deals to avoid a jury trial. They got off easy, if you ask me.

In fact, I can’t exactly figure out what Dad wants out of this meeting in New York. It’s too early for him to announce the winner of the brother battle, unless maybe Max and I are so far behind Anthony we can’t possibly catch up.

Or maybe since Max wants to become the next Mr. Universe, or whatever, and I have royally screwed my chances of winning, he’s going to call it early. Spare us all the trouble.

Regardless, it’s going to be torture sitting in the same room as Nova.

Her brief, professional responses to my early messages were worse than being ghosted. Everything she wrote told me she wouldn’t ignore me, but the only thing between us now is the manager-boss relationship.

I have to be fine with that.

Dad tries to insist I stay at the same hotel as everyone else. He’s bought out the floor of one near Manhattan Pickle and expects everyone to stay there to be available for meetings and brainstorming sessions.

But I don’t. On the day of the first official gathering, I wake up in my own Midtown loft, flicking through a lengthy list of outraged messages while I brush my teeth.

Six are from Dad, increasingly incensed, asking why I’m not at the hotel in my room.

Three are from my brother Anthony, asking why I can’t do this for Dad.

One is from Audra, asking if I want to use my afternoon time slot for a private meeting with the accountant and