Knocking had taken Jane's attention from the book she was engrossed in and the continued knocking was irritating her. She made her way to the door, angrily throwing it open and stopping dead in her tracks.
"Jacqueline?" Jane was shocked.
The blonde stood on the apartment's stoop, the very apartment Jacqueline had looked in Jane's employee file to find the address of despite knowing she could have sent a text or email and received an actual invitation from the woman. If ever there were something inappropriate it was this. Or maybe that ship sailed with the hugs in the office and the lingering brushing of hands.
"Hi."
Jane snapped out of her surprise and stepped aside to let Jacqueline in.
"I didn't know you knew where I lived. It's a bit of a trek to Brooklyn," she was still shocked enough to see the editor that her nerves hadn't taken over yet.
Jacqueline was fascinated by Jane's home. She noted titles on bookshelves and color choices from the wall to the throw on the couch. It was perfectly Jane. She noticed the bed in the main living space and saw the corner of another bed in an adjoining room that must have been the bedroom. She knew Sutton had moved out. In fact, she wouldn't be there if she thought she'd not have Jane to herself.
"Is everything okay?" Jane asked the highly distracted editor.
"I..." she started, turning to face the brunette. "I know things haven't calmed down and I don't want to rush you, but I was hoping we could talk, Jane."
It had only been a few days since the writer had asked if they could eventually resume their conversation about their feelings.
"We don't have to dive deep into it," Jacqueline noticed the panic rising in Jane.
"Would you like something to drink?" Jane had a wine glass out and headed to the kitchen to fetch whatever Jacqueline wanted.
"Whatever you are having."
When Jane returned with a wine glass and a second bottle of the wine she had been drinking, she found Jacqueline seated on the couch, sandals discarded on the floor, with her feet pulled up beneath her, her painted toes peeking out. Smiling, Jane refilled her own glass and filled the second. When she handed it to the blonde their hands touched and their eyes connected. Jane's breath hitched and Jacqueline's heart beat wildly against her ribs.
"Something like that..." Jacqueline held her glass with one hand while running her other through her tousled hair. "I'm not imagining it?"
"No, of course not."
Jane sat on the opposite side of the couch with her back against the arm. She held eye contact until it felt uncomfortable. Those painted toes kept catching her attention and she had to drag her thoughts from them.
"Why didn't you say anything that night?" Jane wondered. "Boss, married, age gap. Isn't that what I said? The obstacle, if we want to call it that, was your marriage and you didn't say anything other than asking if you could be the one to worry about it."
Jane drank her wine more out of the need to hide behind something than thirst or the calming of her nerves. She already had alcohol in her system. She watched the various expressions dance across Jacqueline's face and realized she has become skilled at interpreting most of them. There was one that she couldn't tease out and it bothered her. She hoped whatever Jacqueline said would explain it.
"It was very new, very raw," Jacqueline set her wine glass aside and entwined her fingers in her lap as she gave Jane every bit of her attention. "Honestly? I thought it would blow over. He had been upset with me since, well, Paris. I didn't realize that it was a symptom of an underlying disease in our marriage. I thought he wasn't happy that I didn't invite him to Paris. He simply wasn't happy."
Jane nodded and tried to imagine what she would do if in the older woman's shoes. Her recent relationships had been her longest. She couldn't comprehend a twenty-year love affair. It must have been very painful to hear her husband say he no longer was in love with her. She wished she could have been able to comfort Jacqueline.
"I would have been there for you," she found herself saying aloud.
"I know, Jane," Jacqueline leaned forward and reached for Jane's hand like she now had on more than one couch. "I didn't know you felt as I did. Not yet."
Jane nodded at this. Had the timeline been reversed, the kind of comfort the writer wanted to provide would have been influenced by the two women knowing of their mutual attraction.
"What brought you to my door tonight?" the brunette asked.
With her hand still holding Jacqueline's on the back of the couch, she was certain the other woman could feel her pulse beginning to race. What was she hoping the answer would be?
Jacqueline was at a loss for words. She should have expected the question. And yet she hadn't thought out a coherent explanation for why she was here. Yes, she wanted to continue their discussion of the attraction between them, but they could have done that anywhere. Why did she pick tonight to show up on Jane's doorstep? What was so important now?
"Would you believe that I was lonely?" the editor shook her head in shame. "I was sitting in my silent apartment thinking about how little I cared to interact with anyone despite feeling a deep loneliness and it occurred to me that there was someone I wanted near—you."
Taking the explanation in stride, Jane gave a slight squeeze to the proffered hand and lost herself momentarily in a haziness of blue the same color as the sky on a windy day.
"Did he know you were feeling or had felt something for someone else?" Jane bravely kept her eyes on Jacqueline's. She wasn't hiding from the major questions that had to be answered between the two of them.
"Feeling," Jacqueline's clearly defined state of being meant everything to Jane. Too much had been left undefined for too long. "No, he didn't and I didn't say anything. His leaving was about him. It was and is about his lack of desire for me. It had nothing to do with what or whom I desire."
Jane found herself tracing the length of each of Jacqueline's fingers. She glanced at their hands together and then back at the beautiful woman on her couch. There were many things she wanted to say though she couldn't be sure now was the right time.
Sitting up further, her hand leaving Jane's to travel up her arm to her shoulder, she grasped it and leaned forward. Jane's eyes closed briefly. When she opened them, she no longer felt the need to recite the matter of Jacqueline being the editor-in-chief, her editor, married and twice Jane's age.
"Jacqueline…" Jane hummed the name as a question and a prayer.
"Say yes," the older woman whispered.
Taking shallow breaths, Jane took the hand on her shoulder and directed it to the back of her neck. She nodded her head faintly. She thought Jacqueline's lips would come to hers, but it turned out that her own impatience moved her forward first. She found the tinted lips that had tempted her for years. The full bottom lip begged to be pulled and Jane did so without hesitation. Until the opportunity presented itself, she hadn't considered what she'd want in a kiss from Jacqueline. She was taking it one breath at a time.
Jane's hands framed Jacqueline's face. The blonde's features were traced delicately by petite hands. As the kiss slowed so did her fingers.
"Whoa," the writer breathed.
Smiling, the blonde pressed a gentle kiss to Jane's forehead. She allowed herself the pleasure of smelling honey-enriched shampoo and the perfume she already associated with the younger woman.
"I honestly don't know what to say," Jacqueline's eyes found Jane's.
"Are you okay with that?" Jane's hands fell to the editor's shoulders. She couldn't bear to stop touching the woman.
"I turned up on your doorstep, Jane. If you remember our talk on another couch, I told you I was attracted to you with no hesitation despite my messy, expired marriage or my position as your boss. I am not about to regret kissing you, my dear," Jacqueline's sincerity was something Jane loved about her and something she wished all the critics and haters could see.
"I could never regret kissing you," Jane hummed, her hands slipping together behind the editor's head, fingers entwined with stray blonde strands joining them.
"Never?" Jacqueline Carlyle was the world's biggest flirt.
"Mmhmm," Jane leaned even closer.
When but an inch existed between their mouths, a simple, but meaningful smirk tilted the corner of Jane's mouth, earning it a different kind of knowing tilt—a perfected Jacqueline eyebrow raise.
Their lips met once again and instead of the slow, cautious kiss they had shared, neither held back. Jane's legs were nearly in Jacqueline's lap and Jacqueline's hand was slipping under Jane's shirt. The kiss spread fire through their bodies.
"Whoa."
This time Jacqueline used the word and it wasn't out of shock or whatever had driven Jane to use it, this time it was out of caution and consideration for what happened next.
"You're right," Jane panted.
"Far enough, but not too far?" Jacqueline's calm, even tone pulled them back to reality.
They didn't stop touching.
"When you were sitting in your office looking up my address, what did you hope to achieve by coming here?" Jane's voice was light and not accusatory.
This made Jacqueline smile. Of course Jane would know exactly how her boss had managed to find her in Brooklyn. She was too proud to have asked Richard. And she clearly didn't want to be that woman who asks for an address in a text message sounding like a booty call.
"I wanted to see you. I wanted to be near you," she explained. "I already admitted to my loneliness."
"Did you intend to kiss me?" the brunette felt no confidence in what the answer might be.
"Come here?" Jacqueline stood and held a hand out to Jane.
Interested, Jane took the hand and followed.
"Which?" the blonde asked when they stood equidistant from her bed and Sutton's old bed.
Nodding in the direction of her bedroom, Jane's heart rate spiked and she heard buzzing in her ears. When they reached the foot of her bed, she searched Jacqueline's blue eyes for any indication of what was about to happen. In those eyes she didn't find the type of desire or lust that suggested the woman before her wanted sex. This understanding brought with it a wave of relief. The relief she felt wasn't because she didn't want to have sex with Jacqueline, she did, she felt relief because she didn't want to be in the position of having to say 'no, not yet' to this exquisite woman. It would take time for her to be confident in this setting with Jacqueline. She hoped that was time she had.
Standing before Jane at the foot of the bed, Jacqueline took the girl's hands and stared back into brown, intense eyes. Even in the foreign, dark space Jacqueline spoke with a unique gravitas:
"What I intended was to come here and talk. I didn't look you up, grab a cab and show up here with the intention of kissing you or...more. My only intention with you was as it has always been—to be what you need. I hoped that you might need me, too. I hoped that this loneliness I have felt tonight—a loneliness not for simple human affection or because my husband left me—might be something you were feeling, too. I miss being with you, Jane. I long for your presence. What I intended when I came here tonight was for just that—to be with you. And now that I'm here, we're here, I'd like to lie down with you. I want to keep looking in your beautiful chestnut eyes. I want to continue to hold your hands. If you'll let me."
Jane was overcome with emotion. She had no idea what specifically in what Jacqueline had said got to her, but she had a lump in her throat. She didn't know what to say. Instead she turned, taking Jacqueline's hand and leading her to one side of the bed. Throwing back the blankets, the young woman crawled into the bed and patted the space next to her. The blonde followed.
Settling into their positions, the two women looked into each other's eyes until Jane leaned forward and pecked Jacqueline on the lips.
"Whatever your intentions had been when you arrived," Jane's broke into a smile. "I would have gone along."
Long, toned arms pulled Jane close. Their breathing slowly synced. Inhale for inhale, exhale for every exhale.
They fell asleep.
...
The ringing of Jacqueline's phone woke them. They'd been asleep for two hours. Attempting to clear her throat and wake enough to speak, the blonde finally reached her phone and answered.
"Hey, honey," she said earning her a raised eyebrow from the woman lying next to her.
"Mom, will you come get me?" Jane could hear Connor's voice through the phone.
"Is everything okay?" Jacqueline quickly sat up and was now wide awake.
"Yeah, I want to come home," he said.
Jane was on her own phone requesting an Uber for the woman whose children came first always, but especially right now.
"I'll be there in..." she looked over at Jane who held up her phone to show the ETA. "45 minutes."
"Thanks, Mom."
The call was over and Jane went looking for Jacqueline's things.
"It's still so new and Ian's place is temporary. Connor is my sensitive boy."
The editor was walking into the living room toward Jane as she said this.
"You don't have to explain," the brunette turned and handed Jacqueline her sandals.
Touching Jane's hand as she took her shoes, the editor looked into those supportive eyes with genuine affection.
"I want to, Jane."
This made Jane smile.
Once her shoes were on and she had her purse, Jacqueline moved toward the front entryway.
"Thank you for the Uber," the older woman turned back and her face was considerably less worn than when she had arrived.
Jane wasn't sure what to do or say. She stood still and never lost contact with dazzling blue eyes. Jacqueline made the move to kiss her. She received the kiss happily.
"Goodnight, Jane," Jacqueline said, her eyes smiling as she moved away.
"Goodnight."
Jane stood watching as the blonde made her way into the dark car and joined the slow Brooklyn traffic.
That was something, she thought.
...
"Patrick, may I have a word?" The editor-in-chief summoned the digital editor to her office, many eyes on them including Jane's.
Jane would have loved to be a fly on the wall. Alas, Jacqueline closed the door behind them.
Inside Jacqueline invited Patrick to sit.
"There are a few things that aren't working for me," the woman said.
"Oh?" Patrick presented as clueless. He wasn't. He knew what this was about.
"Jane Sloan is one of our best writers and most read. Having her solely on digital is hurting print. I know your goal is to sink print and make Scarlet exclusively digital. That doesn't work for me."
"It has not been my intention to harm print," he tried a charm offensive that fell flat.
"Don't bullshit me, Patrick. I know you are gunning for my job. Everyone knows it," she stared into him to the point of making him squirm.
Patrick should have known the kicker would be Jane. He should have expected that Jacqueline Carlyle would put up a fight.
"Aside from Jane, what else should I correct?" He corrected his posture and attitude.
"Use a conference room for your team meetings. The staff not working on digital don't need the distraction. I'll allow a short column on the website from Jane on a weekly basis. Otherwise she will do investigative reporting for the magazine," Jacqueline ordered.
"That will work for me," he stood and reached the door. "By the way, I was sorry to hear about Ian."
The smarmy editor exited the office having left his dig at Jacqueline heavy in the air. She shot the back of his head daggers from her chair. Jane happened to glance up and saw this before making eye contact with the editor-in-chief. Two fingers waved Jane to the office.
It was Jane's turn to be summoned.
She reached the office, standing in the doorway somewhat apprehensively. They hadn't spoken this morning. Jane had sent a text last night to ask if Connor was okay, but the two hadn't talked about what had happened at Jane's apartment.
"Hi. Come in," the blonde was caught smiling at Jane's refusal to take the chair Patrick had been sitting in. "Patrick and I have decided you will be returning to writing for the magazine. It won't be exclusive as you will have a short column weekly online. Eventually I'd like to transition you to print only."
"Both of you decided, huh?" Jane smirked.
This made the boss smile.
"I am the editor-in-chief, after all."
"That you are. Is this a good idea?" Jane asked without elaborating on what she meant.
"Don't you think so?" Jacqueline quirked an eyebrow.
"I don't foresee any problems," the writer seemed to be actively considering it.
"Do I need to point out that this has nothing to do with—"
"No," Jane cut her off. "I know you wouldn't make a decision that wasn't in the best interest of Scarlet."
"Good. Can you stay this evening to give me a pitch?" the corner of Jacqueline's mouth twitched.
This made the writer laugh aloud.
Jane knew that staying late meant sitting on Jacqueline's couch and sitting on Jacqueline's couch had come to symbolize an intimacy between them that had previously been confined to that space alone.
"I think I can manage that."
Jane stood, smoothed out her skirt and looked up to find blue eyes on her. Not on her own eyes, not on her face, but on her body. Her legs, her hips, her belly, her breasts—everything. She gulped.
"Perfect."
The writer left the boss's office with a much different look on her face than the man who'd gone before her had. And from behind her she knew that instead of sending daggers those blazing blue eyes had to fight the desire to watch the brunette's hips as she went back to her desk.
...
Jane walked into the fashion closet to find Kat and Sutton staring at her. The two women had clearly teamed up against her and she had no idea why.
"What?" she cluelessly asked.
"Is there anything you would like to tell us?" Kat was stone faced.
"About what?" Jane worried.
"Anything at all?" Sutton had less luck keeping a straight face, a sneaky smile surfaced.
"You guys! What?!" Jane stomped her foot.
"Ryan told Richard that when he went to drop off some of your things at your apartment you were entertaining a guest," Sutton said.
"Ryan and Richard are talking?" The writer was genuinely surprised by this.
"Don't answer a question with a question, missy," Kat stood and pulled over another ottoman for Jane.
"When did he?...oh."
Jane was unable to hide the blush on her cheeks.
"She stopped by to talk that night and—"
"And?" Sutton was literally on the edge of her seat looking at Jane.
"We talked?" Jane tried desperately to keep a poker face. It was bound to fail and it failed spectacularly.
"And if Ryan had come by the following morning would he have seen our boss leaving your apartment?" Sutton didn't beat around the bush.
"No! She left. Her son called. He woke us up and—" Jane had stepped in it.
The two women could not have given a more uniform look in that moment. Words were unnecessary when they could say it all with pointed eyebrows and slack-jawed stares.
"Oh, god," she groaned into her hands and avoided those stares.
"Is somebody sleeping with the boss?" Kat tried to be as light as possible with what was, ultimately, heavy.
"No, it's not, we're not. We did sleep, that's it. We hadn't intended to fall asleep."
Sutton burst out laughing at how crazy it was to be having this conversation. She had always known Jane to be enamored with Jacqueline. It was unspoken truth among the three of them. What she didn't expect was for something to actually come of it.
"Look, Jane, we both know this is hella complicated and you've got to be scared out of your damn mind. Setting that aside, whatever did happen or is happening, I'm glad Jacqueline has you right now. She needs a friend, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on—"
Kat was cut off by the adorably smirking fashionista.
"A body to feel warm against hers and...hey!" Kat shoved her nearly off the ottoman.
"Seriously, she needs a person to lean on and we know best that you're a rock," Kat smiled warmly.
"Thanks, Kat."
"I have a billion questions," Kat leaned in conspiratorially.
"You and me both, sista," Sutton added.
"There's really nothing to say. You guys are the ones that said I should go to her," Jane huffed.
"To warn her about her husband! Not to get her into your bed."
Jane mockingly glared at Kat.
"Can I ask one question?" Sutton requested and her friend nodded reluctantly. "Was something going on in Paris?"
"What? No," Jane was suddenly going over her behavior in Paris and wondering what might have caught her friend's attention. "Why?"
"I don't know. There was a moment, I guess. At the Scarlet party. The two of you were in your own bubble as if the rest of the world had fallen away."
Kat smiled at this because she, too, saw something that stuck with her.
"Nothing happened in Paris," Jane answered truthfully.
"Except Jacqueline threw caution to the wind and printed your attack on Safford's policy on fertility treatments. She risked her job for you, Jane. That act alone was not without undertones of affection."
Jane thought about this and knew they were both right. She hadn't allowed herself to think of it that way in Paris. She had Ben at home and, like that night on Jacqueline's couch, she had assumed Jacqueline's marriage was solid. There had been a spark. When was there not a spark when they were around each other?
Breaking her out of her thoughts, Sutton and Kat ambushed Jane with bear hugs. No reason was needed. They knew as well as Jane did that the road ahead, if there was going to be one, would be bumpy. Their hugs reminded Jane of who has always had her back.
To be continued…