CHAPTER ONE
“Test
today was negative,” Laynie said as I walked in the office, not
bothering with any greeting. “I’m
never going to get pregnant, Gwen.”
I
dropped my purse on the couch and bit the inside of my cheek before I
responded so that I didn’t
laugh. “You’re
kidding, right?”
“Nope.
It was a big fat minus sign. Which means negative. Not pregnant. No
baby. Infertile. Nothing’s
growing in this soil.”
I
couldn’t
help myself—I
laughed. “It’s
been two months since you started trying. That’s
not even long enough to let the Depo run out of your system yet, is
it? Have you even had a period?”
Alayna—Laynie—had
only gotten married in April to Hudson Pierce, one of the country’s
richest men under thirty and the owner of The Sky Launch, the club
where we worked together as co-managers. I hadn’t
heard a word about her wanting children the whole time they’d
been engaged, but by the time she’d
come home from the honeymoon, she was in full family-planning mode.
Technically my boss, Laynie’s
most notable trait was her ability to focus intently on a project
until it was completed. In other words, she was a little obsessive.
It
was actually a great characteristic when it came to work. She always
thought of everything, never missing a detail. Her brain worked on
overdrive, and while she liked to talk incessantly about business,
her passion and creative ideas made sure the subject never grew old.
An
obsessive partner was good for me, really. Besides my family and
friendship with Laynie, work was all I had to fill my time. Well,
pretty much all I had. And since she and the other two important
people in my life—my sister Norma and my brother Ben—had
significant others, I spent a lot of time focused on my job. It
definitely helped with the loneliness.
But
now Laynie was obsessed with having a baby.
God,
I knew nothing about babies. Or pregnancy. Or marriage. Or being so
in love and committed to a person that I wanted to procreate with
him. Somehow the constant talk about it made me feel more alone than
ever. And she hadn’t
even conceived yet. What the hell would it feel like when she
actually had another human to fixate on?
“I
have not had a period yet,” Laynie said as I crossed over to my
desk, which was set at a perpendicular angle to hers. “And that
makes it even harder to guess when I’m
supposed to test. But I had all the symptoms of ovulation two weeks
ago—the raised temperature, the change in cervical fluid and
firmness. That means I should have started today. But since I didn’t,
it’s
possible I’m
still pregnant and the test just didn’t
say it yet—right?”
“You’re
not really asking me that, are you?” I slumped into my chair and
logged into my computer as I spoke. “Because you know I have zero
knowledge about anything related to conception.”
“But
I just told you everything you need to know on the subject. I should
be having a period. I’m
not. Test says negative. Those contradict. So I could be pregnant.
Right?”
“Sounds
like you answered the question on your own.” I could sense she was
about to protest, so before she did, I added, “Hey. You’re
on your own with this. I can’t
give you any insight or opinion. Now if you want to talk about
narrowing down the selections for the new chef, I can say plenty.”
She
opened her mouth to say something then shut it. When she opened it
again, she said, “I’m
obsessing, aren’t
I?”
I
put my thumb and forefinger up and indicated an inch. “Little bit.”
She
groaned and dropped her forehead to her desk.
“Aw.
Don’t
beat yourself up. I know it’s
frustrating. You decided you wanted something and now you can’t
see anything else.” Man, did I know how that felt. But I also knew
that life could go on through waiting. Even when the wait was
indefinite.
At
least she didn’t
have to do the waiting alone.
I
stopped myself from saying that, afraid it would come out bitter, and
it wasn’t
her I was bitter at. “It’s going to take time. Didn’t
the doctor say it might be a year before your reproductive system was
reset?”
Her
head still down, she let out another muffled groan edged with an
exaggerated sob.
“I’m
not saying it will take that long. Just…be
patient.”
Easier said then done. I knew that. “Meanwhile, keep trying. Have
as much fun as you can being a newlywed.”
She
sat up abruptly, her brown hair flying from the movement. “Oh,
believe me, we’re
trying. All. The. Time.” She waggled her brows and her suddenly
upbeat tone suggested she was next going to erupt into a sordid tale
from her insanely abundant sex life.
Her
stories had only recently begun to induce a streak of envy that
blazed hot and fierce inside me, but I refused to let her know. Once
they brought to mind vivid memories of my own—of the man I was
waiting for, of the way he and I had been whenever we were together.
I’d
liked those memories. They’d
given me something to hold onto. Something to look forward to.
Now
they only reminded me of what I didn’t
have.
But
I forced an encouraging smile, preferring her spicy talk to her baby
disappointment. “Please, Laynie. Don’t
act as if you’re
doing it any more than you were when you weren’t trying. You two
have sex drives that are insatiable.”
She
grinned. “It’s
H. He can go forever. This morning, he woke me up before five, and he
still was only half dressed when his driver rang the bell at a
quarter to eight. The Pierce stamina…I tell you…”
“No,
don’t.
I can barely look at him with all I know as it is.”
“I’m
just saying I bet there’s
a cousin or something we could fix you up with.” She winked.
It
was my turn to groan. “Please, no.” As for Pierce stamina, I had
a feeling it was more Hudson
stamina. I certainly hadn’t
found my own Pierce lover to be able to go very long. Though, perhaps
that was just because of their differences in age.
And
that little extracurricular arrangement was not one I was sharing
with anyone, least of all my coworker. It was embarrassing and
wrong—on
so many levels, not just because of the years between he and me. I
was sure Laynie and I were close enough friends that she wouldn’t
judge or scold, but still. I felt guilty. As I should. I should feel
every rotten feeling from shame to disgust to remorse.
Laynie
would tell me I was being ridiculous. She’d
said before that I couldn’t
waste my life away waiting for someone who had obviously flat-out
disappeared. And maybe a part of me agreed. Maybe that was why I’d
let that other Pierce work his way into my life. Into my bed.
But
I hadn’t
let him anywhere near my heart, because no matter how much time had
passed, it belonged to someone else.
“Fine.
No setting you up with Hudson’s
family. As soon as you say the word, though, I’m
fixing you up with someone. Just let me know when you’re
ready.”
I
chewed on my bottom lip and gave her a tight, “Mmhmm,”
pretending to be distracted with what was on my screen. Thank
goodness she couldn’t
view it from where she sat or she’d
see that I was staring at the desktop. It wasn’t
that I didn’t
want to discuss the topic, necessarily. I just didn’t
know what else to say to her. “Don’t
bother, I’m
hopeless,” would
only urge her to convince me otherwise. And I didn’t
want convincing. Because as far as I was concerned, I’d
never be ready.
“Well,
whenever.”
I
felt her staring at me for a few seconds before I heard the
clickety-click of her fingers on her keyboard. She really was
thoughtful to try like she did. It was just still difficult for me to
know how to deal with people who cared about me besides Norma and
Ben. People like Alayna and Hudson and Boyd—Norma’s
boyfriend—and Eric, my brother’s
fiancé. It hadn’t
been that long since I’d
been closed off to everyone, shut up inside, unwilling to let go or
let others in, and it was sometimes awkward to respond to the
attention. Which was silly, probably. It wasn’t
like I’d
turned into the captain of the cheerleading squad in terms of social
life or anything. But I’d
definitely changed. And that took getting used to.
Alayna
wasn’t
pushing, thankfully. That meant I was off the hook, and I willed my
attention to turn to work.
I
let out a long breath and opened up the shared folder on my computer
labeled Restaurant.
While
I was mainly in charge of operations and Laynie was in charge of
marketing and human resources, we found our best innovative ideas
happened together. So even though she primarily worked days and I
worked nights, we made sure our hours overlapped several times a week
so that we could collaborate and touch base. Friday nights we ran the
club together. She wasn’t
needed then—we had more than enough qualified managers to cover all
the shifts without her having to take a weekend night—but she said
it kept her in touch with what made the club thrive. Frankly, I was
surprised Hudson let her work when he wasn’t
at the office. He was as controlling as she was obsessive. Somehow
the two made it work. Perfectly, even.
However
they did it, I was grateful that we had shifts together. Besides
being a good friend, she was an amazing businesswoman. She had worked
at The Sky Launch for several years, but she’d
only taken over as manager at about the same time I did. I’d
been impressed from day one with her plans for expansion of the
nightclub, including her idea to highlight the club’s
best feature—the private bubble rooms on the second story that
overlooked the dance floor below. We’d
focused on bringing in more small parties, partnering with various
businesses around town and starting a citywide promotion campaign
through one of the best advertising firms in NYC.
Recently
we’d
moved our focus to her idea of having a restaurant on the premises
during the day hours. The last club I’d
worked at, Eighty-Eighth Floor, had a similar model of day-to-night
presence that we’d
tweaked to bring to The Sky Launch. Presently, we were looking at
chefs.
“Did
you confirm with Fuschia MacDonahough for tomorrow?” I asked,
looking at our To-Do List. For months, we’d
met every Thursday for dinner at the penthouse she had with Hudson.
It was our chance to hang out in a non-work setting, though for the
last couple of weeks, we’d
added a bit of the job to the routine by bringing in one of the chefs
on our short list of potential hires to prepare the meal so we could
audition their cooking.
The
recurring date had strengthened our friendship. Norma, my sister,
sometimes joined us, and every now and then Ben and Eric as well.
We’d
become a family of sorts, pieces of broken people coming together
like a patchwork quilt. It was a night that I looked forward to with
as much intensity as I dreaded the loneliness of the Wednesday night
that preceded it.
“Yep.
Then next week we’ve
got Jordan Chase confirmed. After that we’re
going to have to make a decision.”
Her
brow wrinkled, and I prayed she didn’t
go where I sensed she was going.
“Jordan
Chase,” she said again. “That could be what JC stands for.”
And
there she’d
gone.
JC.
“JC
wasn’t
a cook.”
“Are
you sure?”
“Yes.
I’m
sure.”
And the C likely stood for a middle name, definitely not his last. Of
the few things he’d
told me, one had been his last name—Bruzzo.
I’d
kept that information to myself like most of what he’d
told me that final time I’d
seen him.
“His
name could still be Jordan.” Good old Laynie. Obsessing again. “I
kind of like that. It has a nice ring.”
If
I had the strength, I’d
let her ramble on and not react.
But
I had no strength when it came to JC, and Alayna knew it.
I
twisted my seat toward her and glared.
She
was staring out into space though and missed my evil eye. “Gwen and
Jordan. Jordan and Gwen. I like that. Real catchy.” Finally, she
looked at me. “What?”
“One
minute you want to fix me up with someone, the next you’re
bringing up JC. Do you want me with him or not?”
“I
don’t
want either. I mean, I want you happy. And from what you’ve
said about this guy, I think he makes you happy. So I wish he would
come the fuck back from wherever he disappeared to and do that.”
Me
too.
I
didn’t
want to go down this road tonight. I nodded and hoped she’d
take my cue when I swiveled back toward my screen.
She
didn’t.
“But if he’s
not going to come back…”
“Then
you think I should move on. I know, I know.” She’d
told me enough times in enough ways for me to feel like I understood
her position on the matter.
She
surprised me, though, saying, “I’m
torn, Gwen. He sounds amazing. Perfect for you. And after everything
Hudson and I went through, I believe that love can overcome
incredible obstacles.”
Nice
sentiment. I wanted to believe it too. “But our only obstacle is
that he isn’t
here.” Well, that and he’d
gotten married to someone else in Vegas while he was too drunk to
know what he was doing. That was another thing I hadn’t
told Alayna.
“Exactly.
He has to be here. And he’s
not. So you need to make a decision about how long you’re
going to wait for him. How much of your life is worth letting pass by
while you wait for him to show up? What if he never shows up?”
It
was the question I asked myself every day.
The
answer was, I’d
be lost. I was
lost.
Because of him, I was open and looser and closer to happy than I’d
been for most of my life. But the heart of me—the part that
believed in love and ever after and sweet kisses and romance—that
part of me was lost.
Honestly,
I wasn’t
sure that I’d
ever completely found it. I’d
glimpsed it, though. Seen pieces of myself that had hinted it was
inside me. If it really was there, I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t
find it for real without him. Without JC.
But
Alayna had a point. How long could I wait before at least pretending
to move on?
“I
don’t
know,” I said with raw sincerity.
Laynie
was silent for a moment, and I could hear the wheels in her head
turning. “I get you,” she said finally, “I
do. I’ve
wasted so much time on less promising relationships than yours, and
the ways I coped were far less healthy than you simply taking
yourself off the market. But Lauren, my favorite therapist, used to
say that sometimes we aren’t
even interested in the thing we’re
after anymore. We’ve
just gotten in the habit of focusing on it.”
Was
that what JC had become for me? Merely a habit?
I
didn’t
want to think that was all he was. But if he’d
taught me anything, it was that living in the past was not living at
all.
I’d
never struggled with addiction, yet now I felt like I had a smidgeon
of an idea of what it must have been like for Alayna when she’d
had to face her obsessive tendencies over men. How hard it must have
been to finally try to “quit.”
It was why my father had never been able to put down the bottle and
why he’d
turned to heroin—because it was that
hard
to give up the thing that you lived for.
In
the same way, it was nearly impossible for me to think about giving
up JC, even when he’d
only become a memory.
And
with that clarity, I realized that was exactly what I had to do—give
him up. Because I didn’t
want to be anything like my father.
Laynie
was right. I had to check in to JC Anonymous. I had to quit.
Tentatively I asked, “What would this Dr. Lauren of yours say is
the way to stop?”
“Well.”
She was just as tentative in her answer, all too aware of the
difficulty it took for me to even think about “quitting.”
“She’d
suggest setting a date. A date that you plan to quit waiting, or in
my case, obsessing, and then on that date, you stop. Like a job. Hand
in your notice today and know that this is all the time you have left
before you move on.”
“So
I should pick a date to be over JC? That sounds a little simplistic,
doesn’t
it?”
“It
does. But it works.” She thought for a second then corrected
herself. “Or it helps anyway. Nothing really works
except
not giving up.”
I
twisted my lips, considering what she’d
said. It would be easy to apply her words to reasons to not
quit JC. If I truly believed we could be together then I shouldn’t
give up.
But
it had been almost a year since he’d
left me. Almost twelve months since he’d
told me that he was the key witness in a murder. That he had to go
into protection until the trial. I had no way of knowing when the
trial would end, and when it did, he was the one who had to find me.
Which could prove difficult since I’d
left every part of my old life in my own need for protection. In my
case, protection from my father.
I
had faith that he could find me. But would he look? Because, yes, I
still had feelings for him, but really, when I thought about it
logically, it was ridiculous that I did. Because in the seven months
I’d
known him before he left, our relationship really only added up to a
total of two weeks time together. Ninety-five percent of that had
been just sex. So what was it I was actually waiting around for? A
man who had openly loved me for the space of…what? A day and a
half? That and good sex. Amazingly good sex.
It
wasn’t
enough to justify being stuck for so long.
And
if he actually did
love me like he’d
said he did, I had a feeling he’d
say the same thing.
There
was only one smart thing to do.
I
looked down at the keyboard where my fingers were absentmindedly
tapping over and over on the same two letters—J
and C.
No.
I couldn’t
live like this forever.
I
pulled my hands into my lap and sat back in my chair. “The Fourth.”
I’d
been silent long enough that Laynie took a moment to register my
meaning. “Of July?”
I
swallowed. “Yeah. Independence Day. Sounds like a good day to let
someone go.”
She
nodded, her expression somber, her eyes both compassionate and
hopeful. “It sounds perfect,” she said. “A total celebration.
We’re
all going to be on Hudson’s
boat for the night. We’ll
watch the fireworks and everyone will think they’re
going off for this big patriotic holiday thing, and only we will know
they’re
really just for you.”
The
year before, I’d
spent the holiday watching the fireworks alone, missing JC with every
fiber of my being. Yet somehow this year’s
celebration sounded even lonelier.
“Perfect,”
I said. I’d
expected to feel a weight lifted from me, but instead, it felt almost
suffocating to commit to this new plan. Felt like something inside of
me was tightening and constricting, making it hard to breathe. Like
my lungs were full of sand and my heart that had once been open was
starting to close.
FIND ME is the HIGHLY ANTICIPATED sequel to FREE ME and the Conclusion of Gwen and JC's Story and will be available on August 25th!
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Blurb
Gwen Anders came to The Sky Launch to begin fresh, away from the horrors of her past. She fit in quickly, becoming good friends with her co-manager, Alayna Withers and the owner of the club, Hudson Pierce. Though the circumstances that brought her here were not the best, she's never felt more at home.
But starting a new life means letting go. And there are some things she doesn't want to leave behind - like JC, the man who taught her how to let loose. The man she wasn't supposed to fall in love with. The man she doesn't want to lose.
Now, with the reason she ran still a threat, Gwen fears she'll never be able to move on completely. And if she does, can she still hold out hope that JC loves her enough to come and find her?
**ADDITIONAL TEASERS ATTACHED**
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About the Author:
NY Times & USA Today Bestselling author Laurelin Paige is a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there’s kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn’t seem to complain, however. When she isn’t reading or writing sexy stories, she’s probably singing, watching Mad Men and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Adam Levine. She is represented by Bob Diforio of D4EO Literary Agency.
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