Paris Is Always a Good Idea - Jenn McKinlay Page 0,135
what? I slumped back in the bed. My sleep-deprived brain was sluggish, and I couldn’t understand what this meant. Boston? But Severin was supposed to be coming here.
I hesitated for one second but then scrolled through the conversation. I refused to think of it as an invasion of Jason’s privacy. It was work, after all.
The messages sent my heart plunging into my feet. Dated the same day we had left Paris was the first message from Eleanor.
Eleanor: Sorry. Change of plans. Mr. Severin has been called back to Boston for an important meeting. Please let me know when we can schedule a meeting with the board upon your return. Thanks.
Jason: No problem. We’re happy to meet wherever at Mr. Severin’s convenience. I’ll be in touch when I have dates.
What followed was Jason and Eleanor trying to coordinate our schedules. Reading between the lines, I realized it was Jason who had been stalling until he had an exact date for our return. My return. I thought about our conversation last night and how he’d asked if we could go home, and my heart started beating hard in my chest in a panicked staccato that made me dizzy. Had I been played?
It was pretty clear. Severin wasn’t coming to the wine festival, but he wanted a meeting with the two of us. Everything Jason had told me since he’d arrived at the vineyard about Severin arriving soon had been a lie. Why? Why would he have lied to me?
The bathroom door opened, and Jason stepped out in a plume of steam with a towel draped loosely around his hips. I stared at him. Shock. Denial. Hurt. Rage. They all battled to be the front rider in the four horsemen of the apocalypse of emotion I had surging through me. Rage won, and I threw his phone at him.
It missed him. Drat! It bounced off the wall by his head. He looked stunned. “Chelsea, what’s wrong?”
I was too busy flailing my way through the sheets and blankets, trying to get out of the bed, to answer. I was so furious I couldn’t even look at him. I grabbed my underwear and yanked it on. My bra straps gave me fits, so I didn’t even bother and flung it away from me like I was tossing beads at a parade. I grabbed my dress and yanked it over my head.
Jason started across the room, looking concerned.
“Stop,” I snapped. I finger combed my gnarled hair out of my face. “Do not come any closer.”
“Okay, darling, what’s going on?” he asked.
I glared at him. Darling, my ass. “Severin.”
Just the one word and I knew from the tense look on his face that he knew that I knew that he had lied. He put a hand on the back of his neck and said, “I can explain.”
“Not necessary,” I said. “I figured it out.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Did you?”
“Yes. This”—I gestured to the room as if it represented what had happened the night before—“was all just a way to hustle me home.”
He shook his head. “Excuse me?”
“Severin wants to meet with both of us in Boston, but you knew I wouldn’t leave until I finished my quest, so you seduced me into thinking that I should be with you, so you could get me on the next plane out of here to finalize the ask.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “What are you talking about?”
“You got a text from Eleanor this morning, trying to schedule a meeting with the two of us in Boston,” I said. I pointed to his phone on the floor.
“Oh.” He didn’t deny any of it. I was devastated.
“So what happens when we get back?” I asked. My throat was so tight I could barely squeeze the words out. “We meet with Severin and then what? It ‘accidentally’ comes out that you and I had a thing in Paris and Italy, and then I’m in a whole lot of trouble, aren’t I?”
“That’s not—” he began, but I interrupted.
“Of course it is. Do you see how this looks? I’m just the idiot female who slept with her coworker. If company policy prohibits relationships, and it does, who do you think they’re going to fire? No matter how you look at this, I’m the senior employee. I’m the one who should have known better. I’m the one who is going to get ousted, leaving you all the glory of nailing down the Severin ask. Well played, Knightley, really well played.”