Five

Jennie

"And you're sure we'll get the signatures on time?" I asked my assistant, who checked her watch and jotted something down in her notepad.

"Yes. Aaron's on his way over there now. We should have them back by lunch."

"Good," I said, closing the files and handing them back. "We'll give it a final look before the meeting and if everything goes—" The door to my outer office opened, and a very determined-looking Lisa walked inside. My assistant let out a terrified squeak and I waved for her to go. She practically sprinted out of there.

Long legs carried her across the room in only a few strides, and she stopped just on the other side of my desk, slapping two crisp white envelopes down on a stack of marketing reports.

I looked down to the envelopes and then back up to her. "Something about this is so familiar," I said. "Which one of us is going to slam the door and storm out to the stairwell?"

She rolled her eyes. "Just open them."

"Well, good morning to you, too, Ms. Manoban."

"Jennie, don't be a pain in the ass."

"You'd rather be a pain in mine?"

Her eyes softened and she leaned over my desk to kiss me. She'd gotten home late last night, long after I'd fallen asleep. I'd woken to the sound of my alarm clock to find her warm and very naked body pressed against mine. I deserved some kind of a medal for managing to leave that bed.

"Good morning, Miss Kim," she said softly. "Now open the damn envelopes."

"If you insist. But don't say I didn't warn you. Slamming things down on desks has never really ended well for us. Well, for me. Maybe you could rectify that . . ."

"Jennie."

"Fine, fine." I lifted the flap on the one with my name and pulled a printed sheet of paper from inside. "ORD to CDG," I read. "Chicago to France." I looked up at her. "They're sending me somewhere?"

Lisa beamed, and frankly, she looked so good while doing it I was glad I was sitting down. "France. Marseille, to be exact. The second ticket is behind that one."

Plane tickets, one envelope for each of us. Scheduled to leave Friday. It was Tuesday already.

"I . . . I don't understand. We're going to France? This isn't about last night, is it? Because we have busy lives, Lisa. These kinds of things will always happen. I promise I wasn't upset."

She rounded the desk and kneeled in front of me. "No. This isn't about last night. It's about a lot of nights. This is about me putting what's important first. And this," she said, motioning between us. "This is what's important. We haven't seen each other anymore, Jennie, and that's not going to change after the move. I love you. I miss you."

"I miss you, too. But . . . ahhh, I'm a little surprised. France is . . . really far and there's so much to do and—"

"Not just France. A private house—a villa. It belongs to my friend Bambam, the one I went to school with? And it's beautiful and huge and empty," she added. "With a giant bed, several of them. A pool. We can cook and walk around naked; we don't even have to answer the phone if we don't want to. Come on,Jen."

"I love that you threw in the walking-around-naked part," I said. "Because that's most definitely how you'd close the deal."

She moved closer, clearly aware my resolve was breaking. "I pride myself on always knowing my opponent, Miss Kim. So what do you say? Come with me? Please?"

"Jesus, Lisa. It's like ten in the morning and you're killing me with the swoons here."

"I debated tranquilizing you and throwing you over my shoulder, but that might make things sticky at customs."

I took a deep breath and peered down at thetickets. "Okay, so we'd leave on the ninth and come back . . . Wait, is this right?"

She followed my gaze. "What?"

"Three weeks? I can't just drop everything and go to France for three weeks, Lisa!"

She stood, confused. "Why? I was able to make arrangements and—"

"Are you serious? First, we're moving in a month. A month! And we haven't even picked out an apartment! Then there's my best friend, who was cheated on by the world's biggest asshat last week. And let's not forget theminordetail called my job? I have meetings and an entire department to hire and move to New York!"

Her face fell; clearly this was not the reaction she'd anticipated. The sun was behind her and when she turned her head, tilting it the slightest bit, the light caught her eyelashes, the angles of her face.

Ugh. Guilt swelled in my chest like aballoon. "Fuck. I'm sorry." I leaned into her and laid my head against her shoulder. "That is absolutely not the way I meant to say all that."

Strong arms wrapped around me and I felt her exhale. "I know."

Lisa took my hand and led me to the small table in the corner of the room. She motioned for me to take a seat, while she took the chair opposite me. "Shall we negotiate?" she said, a challenge in her eyes I hadn't seen since she'd stepped into my office.

This I could do.

She leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows on the table in front of her. "The move," she began. "Admittedly, it's a big one. But we have a Realtor; I've seen the top threecontenders. You just need to decide if you need to see them, or if you trust me to choose. We can let the Realtor handle the rest and pay people to do the actual packing and moving part." She raised a brow in question and I nodded for her to continue. "I knowhow muchyou care about Jisoo. Talk to her; see where she's at with all of this. You said you didn't even know if she was leaving him, right?"

"Yeah."

"So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And your job . . . I'm so incredibly proud of you, Jennie. I know how hard you work and how important you are. But there will never be a perfect time. We'll always be busy, there will always be people who want our attention, and there will always be things that feel like they can't wait. It's a goodexercisefor you in delegating tasks—I love you, but you suck at delegating. And it's going to be even more hectic when we move. When's the next time we'll have a chance to do this? I want to be with you. I want to speak French to you and make you come on a bed in France where nobody can just drop by on the weekend or call either of us away for work."

"You're making it very hard to be the responsible adult here," I said.

"Being responsible is overrated."

I felt my mouth fall open and could do nothing but gape at her. I was just about to ask who this easygoing person was, and what they'd done with my girlfriend, when there was a knock at the door. I pulled my eyes away from a very pleased girlfriend to see a terrified intern walk in, staring at Lisa with fear in her eyes. No doubt she'd drawn the short straw and been sent down to retrieve the Bastard.

"Um . . . Excuse me, Miss Kim," she stuttered, gaze locked on me instead of her real target. "They're waiting for Ms. Manoban in theconference roomon twelve . . ."

"Thank you," I answered. She left and I turned back to Lisa.

"We'll discuss this later?" she asked quietly, standing.

I nodded, still a little off balance from her change in attitude. "Thank you," I said, vaguely motioning to thetickets, but meaning so much more.

She kissed my forehead. "Later."

Travel had . . . never really worked out for Lisa and me. San Diego had been perfect while we were still tucked away in our own little bubble. It was when we tried to rejoin the living that it had all gone to hell. In abig way.

And then we'd planned to travel last Thanksgiving, and ended up canceling the trip because of work. We tried again in December; Lisa had been drowning in a huge fitness account that was set to launch just before the New Year, and we both had the Papadakis launch in early January. Somehow, though, I'd convinced her to come home with me for a long weekend over the holidays.

To meet my father.

Lisa hadn't wanted to—she'd been in the final stages of this huge campaign, had a family of her own to contend with. And a girlfriend who had spent the better part of the last year telling her father what a giant, overbearing dick her boss was, only to then finally admit she was having sex with this boss. This trip had disaster written all over it.

Lisa had been quiet throughout most of the flight, and when she hadn't suggested we join the Mile High Club even once, I knew something was going on.

"You're being awfully respectful over there, Manoban. What's up?" I asked after we'd landed and were making our way to the rental car.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you haven't made one inappropriate comment or referred to me riding, sucking, licking, touching, stroking, grabbing, or otherwise praising your dick once in the last three hours. I can practically hear you thinking and frankly, I'm a little concerned."

She reached down and smacked my ass. "Better? Your tits look great in that sweater, by the way."

"Talk to me."

"I'm meeting your father," she said, pulling at her collar.

"And?"

"And he knows what an asshole I was." I cleared my throat and she glared at me. "Can be."

"Can be?"

"Jennie."

"It's all part of the Lisa Manoban charm everyone goes on about," I said, batting my lashes at her. "Since when did you apologize for that?"

She sighed. "Since we're going to see your father. And if he owns a calendar, he would have figured out that I was sleeping with you while we worked together."

"I had to face your family after all that, too. I'm sure Mina told Louis about the Bathroom Incident, and if Louis knows then Marco knows. And if Marco knows . . . oh my God, your mother knows we had sex in her favorite bathroom . . . when Kai was there on a blindsetupto meet me." I smacked my palm to my forehead.

"Yeah, well, my family practically walks around wearing Team Jennie shirts under their regular clothes so it's a little different."

We reached the door to the rental agency and I took her hand, stopping her. "Look, my dad knows who his daughter is. He knows I can be a little spirited—"

"Ha!"

It was my turn to glare. "And he knows I give as good as I get. You're fine."

She sighed and leaned forward to rest her forehead against mine. "If you say so."

Dad let out an evil whistle as he circled the shiny blackBenznow parked in his driveway, boots crunching in the snow. "Always figured there was only one reason a man would drive a car like this: compensating for something. Wouldn't you agree,Lalisa?"

"Lisa," she corrected under her breath, before smiling tightly over to me.

"It's Christmas, Dad. All the four-wheel-drive vehicles were gone."

Things didn't improve at dinner, either.

As we sat around the table, my father stared at Lisa like he was trying to match him up with a face he'd seen on the news. "Lisa, huh?" he said, shooting a skeptical eye over his wineglass. "What kind of a name is that?"

I groaned. "Daddy."

"Your first name, Frederick," Lisa said, with a small smile. "It's a good name, if you don't mind me saying so. Frederick is also the hardworking, self-made protagonist in Persuasion. My mother made me read all of Austen's novels when I was in high school, and I generally do what my mother tells me." She took a bite of her dinner, chewed, and swallowed before saying, "That advice also includes dating your daughter."

"Hmmm. Well, be careful with her," Dad said, glaring at Lisa from across the table. "My hygienist's boyfriend is in the mob, and I doubt anyone would miss you."

"Dad!"

She looked at me, eyes wide and innocent. "What?"

"Mark's boyfriend is not in the mob."

"Of course he is. He's Italian."

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"Trust me. I've met him. Drives a black car with very dark windows. Mark called him Fat Don at the office party."

"His name is Glen, Dad, and he's studying to be a CPA. He's not in the mob."

"I don't know why you have to be so damn argumentative all the time, Jennie. God only knows where you get it."

At that point Lisa started laughing so hard he had to excuse herself from the table.

Later, after Lisa won my father over by letting Dad beat her at Monopoly—how anyone would believe Lisa Manoban lost a game involving money, I'll never know—she snuck in from the guest room and climbed into my bed.

"You're going to get us busted," I said, already climbing on top of her.

"Not if you're quiet."

"Hmm, I don't know. Can't tell you how many times my dad busted me for sneaking out when I was in high school, and I was very quiet."

"Can we not talk about your dad right now? It's seriously distracting me from how hot it's going to be to fuck you in your teenage bed. And Jesus, Jennie. Are these even considered underwear?" she said, twisting her hands in the tiny straps of my panties and pulling. Hard.

"Oh my God!" I whisper-shouted. "Those were new and—"

"You loved it," she finished, grinning. "Just doing my part to uphold tradition."

I wanted to argue but 1) she was right and 2) I was distracted as Lisa slid the torn fabric to the side and slipped a finger inside of me. She took my hip in her other hand, encouraging me to move over her.

"Like that," she said, lips parted and eyes trained between my legs. "Fuck—take your shirt off."

Ripped panties forgotten, I nodded, lifting my T-shirt over my head and tossing it behind us. She slipped in a second finger and I sped up, the bed frame squeaking softly beneath us.

Lisa sat, whispering "Shh," against my mouth. "Sit up a little."

I shifted onto my knees and watched as she pushed her pajama bottoms down her hips.

"Are we really doing this here?" I whispered. The bed was too small, the room too hot and too quiet—and my dad was just two doors down. It was stupid and inconvenient and I couldn't remember wanting something more.

I switched on the small lamp so I could see her better. Her lips were swollen, her hair a mess, and her grin was totally ridiculous when she said, "I fucking love you, you filthy fucking girl. You want me to watch?"

"Yeah."

"Touch yourself," she whispered.

I did, way too slowly to get me anywhere, but the perfect speed to make her eyes grow to the size of saucers before she stretched to kiss me. She mumbled something against my lips, her tongue moving lazily against mine. She was all soft noises and hands everywhere, her cock sliding over my clit before finally pressing slowly into me.

It was a blur then, the feeling of being so full, of warm breath and warmer skin. Lisa sucked on my nipple, teeth dragging while I slid over her. I was so lost to everything else that I didn't even notice the familiar squeak of the hinge on my bedroom door.

"Oh for the love of Pete!" my dad yelled, and suddenly it was legs and arms and blankets being tossed everywhere. I heard the distant flailing of my father as he rushed back down the hall, muttering about his little girl and sex in his house and telltale signs of a heart attack.

Let's just say that neither Lisa nor I had ever been so grateful for anything as we were for the NDSU football player who needed an emergency root canal the next morning and whose coach, an old friend of my father's, insisted that only Dad could handle it. Dad was at the office, waiting on their arrival from Fargo before the sun was even up.

No, vacations never really seemed to work out for us.

Guilt ate away at me the rest of the morning. I shouldn't have been so hasty to tell Lisa it was impossible. Here she was, trying to be flexible, and I was the one telling her to consider work. What the hell was wrong with me? I tried to catch her between meetings. I tried to meet up with her for lunch. The closest I got was passing her in the hall, a group of executives babbling around her like fanboys around a celebrity.

"I need to talk to you," I mouthed.

"Bat signal?" I think she said back.

I shook my head. "Dinner?"

She nodded, blew me a kiss behind everyone's back, and was off, herded down the hall and into the elevator.

"So how are things?"

Jisoo shrugged, dragging another fry through ketchup before popping it into her mouth, butdefinitelynot looking at me. "Things are fine."

I glared at her. Things were always fine with Jisoo.

"I'm serious!" she insisted, leaning back in her chair. "There's so much noise about it all. I'm just trying to figure out what is truth, and what isn't."

"Sounds like a good plan," I said.

"I've known him for so long it's just hard to reconcile it all. But, honestly, I'm doing fine."

"Jisoo, pardon the intrusion, because I suppose technically it's none of my business, but that is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard."

"What?"

"You heard me! This thing withAndyis a huge deal! Lisa wants us to go to France and besides the obvious twelve hundred fifty-four reasons why I shouldn't go, near the top of that list is you!"

"What?" she repeated, though a bit louder this time. "Lisa wants you to go to France! Oh my God that's amazing! And wait, what do you mean 'me'?"

"Yeah, she wants us to have some time away to reconnect before the craziness of New York is upon us all," I said, before balling up my napkin and throwing it at her. "And I hesitate to leave for three weeks because I'm worried about you!"

Jisoo laughed, standing to walk around the table and hug me. "That is the sweetest, most idiotic thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you, Jennie."

"But I'm moving," I added, squeezing her tightly. "These were going to be our last three weeks together."

Jisoo took the seat next to me. "I'm a big girl, and there are planes. I love—love—that you wanted to stay here and take care of me. But . . . I think Lisa might be right," she said, wincing a little. "You guys need this, and if you can make it work, well, you should throw some skimpy clothes in a bag and drag that one to France."

I laughed, leaning on her shoulder. "God, it would complicate things so much. I'd have tofind someoneto do interviews, sit in on all my meetings—"

"But would it be worth it?"

I smiled, remembering how excited Lisa had been when she'd told me about the trip, and how her face had fallen when I hadn't shared her enthusiasm. "Yeah, it would."