I remember a woman crawling into my bed, telling me she was back and she’d missed me, and then she kissed me. I swear to God I thought it was Lacey and she was home early, that is, if I was thinking at all. What I didn’t know or even sense was Jenna had crawled into my bed.”
“Oh, no.” A horrified expression crossed Jordan’s face, and he wanted to die. “You have to know that, sober, I would never cheat. I grew up with my father fucking around. I wouldn’t do it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t sleep with my friend’s girl. But I was so far gone I was still half drunk the next morning. When Beck walked in and Jenna popped up in bed, crying, telling Beck she was sorry, it just happened, I could barely lift my head.”
“But he didn’t want to hear it,” Jordan guessed.
Linc shook his head. “She wanted his attention, and oh, boy, did she get it. Meanwhile, I got a punch in the jaw and would have had a black eye if one of the other guys didn’t come in and pull Beck off me. Then, I finally threw up.” Linc drew a deep breath and leaned back against the couch. “Needless to say, I lost my best friend and my girlfriend. Beck ditched both me and Jenna, who tried to play the martyr for him, and when that didn’t work, she had the gall to attempt to convince me to go out with her.” The woman was a psycho.
“Linc, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” Jordan asked.
“Nobody knows and I mean nobody. Would you admit you screwed over your best friend?” He could barely look at her now.
She sighed. “Let me ask you a question to put this into perspective. If a man climbed into bed with a completely drunk woman, pretended to be someone he wasn’t, and slept with her, would there be any actual consent? If someone did that to Chloe, would you blame her for sleeping with someone she thought was her boyfriend?”
He lifted his head. “Hell no.”
“Right.” She pinned him with a determined stare, the one she used when she wanted him to think the same way she did.
And when he thought about his sister in his position, he could look at things differently. “I would consider it rape and I’d beat the shit out of the guy.” His hands were already clenched into fists.
She braced her hands on his shoulders, getting his attention again with her touch. “Linc, Jenna set you up. You didn’t want to sleep with her. You didn’t agree to sleep with her.”
He appreciated her not calling it rape. He didn’t think that was something he could discuss or consider. “None of that matters since I did the deed. I slept with Beck’s girl, and now he clearly somehow managed to partner with my father, and if I can’t come up with the money to cover this down payment, Beck will become my partner in my business.”
And the more Linc thought about it, the more pissed off he became.
Jordan squeezed his shoulders before dropping her hands. “Listen. He’s been holding a grudge for over a decade. It’s time for him to get over it. And if it just so happens it was a good business deal? There’s no doubt he saw the upside of sticking it to you.”
Linc nodded, relieved and grateful Jordan was looking at this from a rational point of view and not thinking he was the scum of the earth he’d thought himself at the time. And had for years after. He’d kicked himself so often, he forgot to think about how he missed Beck as a friend and regretted that things had gone south between them and he’d lost a man he’d once thought of as a brother.
“Since you know who it is, can you go see him and discuss possibilities to fix this without losing a piece of the company?” Jordan asked.
Linc winced. “I can try. But we’ve been bidding against each other for years without actually having face-to-face contact. But I plan to see what I can do because Dad owes much more than our liquid assets.”
A few quiet seconds passed and Jordan finally spoke. “Are you okay?”
He rolled his stiff shoulders. Now that she knew everything, much of the emotional burden had been lifted. But the future of his company was at stake, and he’d be damned if he’d let an