“Well, look at you.” Jane stood up and gave me a hug as I entered Craftsmen and Wolves bakery. She was sitting at a table directly to the right of the door and looked like she hadn’t slept well. “You’re glowing. What the hell happened?”
“Jagger happened.”
“What?”
“We had sex.”
“You had sex?” she screamed and then lowered her voice. “Oops, sorry.”
“Yes, and it was amazing.” I reached down and grabbed my phone. “And look at this message he sent me a few minutes ago.” I showed her the text that read, Missing you already.
“What the hell happened?” Her jaw dropped. “You hated him just a couple of days ago.”
“Well, I didn’t hate him. I was pissed, but I realized that the past is the past, and it was time to move on … plus he’s sexy as hell.” I grinned. “Let’s just say that last night was all I’d hoped it would be.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I fanned myself with one hand. “It was hot as hell.”
“I had a feeling it would be.”
“How are you feeling about Tate?”
“I’m not even thinking about him.” She shook her head. “He’s an asshole.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I know what it feels like to be around a guy you think is cute but who has an awful personality.”
“Tell me about it.” She rolled her eyes. “At least one of us is having hot sex.”
“Yeah, we even had a quickie in the shower this morning.”
“No way!”
“Uh huh.” I grinned. “Well, I’m not sure if it counts as a quickie.”
“Was it over ten minutes?”
“It was twenty minutes.” I giggled.
Jane shook her head. “That’s not a quickie. That’s full-blown.” She pouted. “I’m so jealous. Enjoy.”
“I’m trying to.” I looked at the front of the store. “Okay, I need to order something to eat.”
“Worked up an appetite, huh?” She flashed me a sly grin.
“Something like that.” I yawned. “I’m tired as well. I need caffeine.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s go up and order, and then we can discuss the plan for today.”
“Sounds good.”
We walked to the front of the restaurant and my phone started beeping. I looked down to see a text from Jagger.
Jagger: Thinking of you. What are you doing?
Magnolia: I’m working.
Jagger: Already?
Magnolia: Well, no, we’re eating first.
Jagger: I wish I was eating you.
Magnolia: Jagger!
Jagger: Fine. I wish you were eating me, he wrote back.
Magnolia: I bet you do.
Jagger: When will you be back home?
Magnolia: Not sure yet.
Jagger: :(
Magnolia: Don’t you have work? You still need to tell me what you’re doing now.
Jagger: I’ll tell you tonight. After we fuck.
Magnolia: Really, Jagger?
Jagger: What? Now that I’ve had you, I can’t stop thinking about you.
Magnolia: I can’t stop thinking about you too.
Jagger: That makes my heart happy.
Magnolia: <3
Jagger: I love you, Magnolia.
Magnolia: I love you, too. I have to go now.
I put my phone into my handbag so that I wouldn’t continue texting. Jane was staring at her own phone, frowning deeply.
“Hey, sorry about that.” She didn’t answer and I wondered if she was angry at me for ignoring her while I texted Jagger. “You okay?”
She looked up at me then, her face pale. “I just got an email from Tate.”
“Oh?”
“He told us to take the day off.”
“What why?”
“They’re making some changes to the company.” She looked dazed. “All of us are to take the next week off.”
“What changes?”
“They’re changing the name of the company.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, to 800 Club. Did you tell Tate my idea?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I thought you did.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I never worked up the courage to tell him.”
“That’s weird. I swear I never told him.” I froze, remembering something. “But I did tell Jagger last night.”
“You told Jagger?” Jane looked surprised and then she also froze. “Oh, shit. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That Jagger is our other boss?” My stomach lurched.
“Do you think he’s the silent partner?” Jane ran her hands through her hair. “That would make sense.”
“Yes, he also made some comments about Tate that made me suspicious. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me the truth.” I shook my head. “What is up with this guy? Why does he keep lying to me?”
“Well, he’s not lying, right? He’s just omitting the truth.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” I sighed. “If anything, it makes me feel worse. All this time, I’ve been going on about my job and he knew all about it.”
“Maybe he didn’t tell you for a reason.”
“Maybe.” I rubbed my forehead. “Do you mind if I leave? I need to go home and talk to Jagger. I need to understand what the fuck is going on.”
“Girl, go ahead. I totally understand.” She gave me a huge hug. “I’m here for you if you need anything.”
“Thank you. I’ll call you.”
I hurried out of the store and decided to get an Uber home. More text messages from Jagger popped up on my phone but I ignored them. I was not in the mood to hear about how horny he was. I’d given myself to him last night and he still hadn’t been completely truthful with me. I was over it. If he didn’t have a good explanation, I was never going to speak to him again.
“Hey, sexy,” Jagger opened the door with a huge smile on his face as I knocked on the door.
“You don’t look surprised to see me.” I pushed past him and walked into his apartment.
He frowned, sensing my anger as he closed the door behind me. “What do you mean?”
“Just thirty minutes ago I was texting you, and now I’m at your door, obviously not working.”
“I assume you got the day off?” He smiled. “You must have a nice boss.”
“Jagger, I know.” I walked up to him and poked him in the chest.
“You know what?” His smile faltered.
“I know that you’re a part-owner of Cool Credit.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“Uh huh.” I rolled my eyes. “When? In ten years.”
“No.” He sighed. “Of course not.”
“Jagger, I’m so mad at you, I can barely even talk. What the hell is going on?”
“We need to talk. You should sit down.” He walked over to the couch. “Please?”
“Fine.” I walked over to the couch and sat next to him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“This is long and this is hard, and I might not come off in the best light.” He made a face and sighed. “But this is the truth and the whole truth.”
“Why doesn’t this sound good?” My heart lurched. What else hadn’t he told me?
“Ten years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life.” He took my hands in his. “Actually, twelve years ago. I wanted to ask you out, but I waited too long and then you started dating Doug, and my whole world crashed around me.”
“It did?”
“It did.” He nodded. “Why do you think I was home so much? Why do you think it was always you and me hanging out when you came to hang out with Doug?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because I wanted to be with you. I wanted to see you. I wanted to hang out with you. I loved hearing you laugh and watching you smile. I was in love with you, and I wanted to be with you, only I didn’t know what to say once you started dating Doug. I always knew he wasn’t right for you, but he was my brother.” He shrugged. “So I did nothing.”
“Well, not nothing. You did date my sister.”
“That was another mistake. I never should have agreed to help her. I thought it would make you as jealous as I was.”
“It did.”
“I know that now.” He shook his head. “When you left me that note to seduce me, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone—have you for myself and have both Daisy and Doug off of our backs. But it totally backfired.”
“It wasn’t a great plan.” I shook my head. “Though my seduction plan wasn’t that smart, either.”
“So, after that blew up in my face and you ended up hating me, I resolved to become a better man for you. I thought it would blow over and you would wind up back with me, but you never came back. You avoided my calls, my texts, you changed your number, I never saw you. It broke my heart.” He rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t know what to do, and then Anna asked me if she could borrow ten grand.”
“What?” My face went red. “For me?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “She told me you’d moved to San Francisco and were having a rough time. She didn’t have much money but knew I’d been very successful. I had already been approached by Tate to invest in his company. He and I went to business school together, and I saw it as a sign that I needed to try and win you back.”
“So you moved to San Francisco?”
“So I moved to San Francisco. And became a silent partner in Tate’s new venture with the condition that he hired a certain someone.”
“That’s why the tech company approached me?” It was all starting to make sense now.
“Yes.” He gently played with my fingers. “I knew your address because Anna gave it to me, and I contacted the building management and offered to pay your neighbor fifty grand if he would move out immediately.”
“So you moved here on purpose?”
“I knew I had to be close to you. I had to see you.”
“But why didn’t you just knock on my door and introduce yourself? Why the notes?”
“I did knock on your door initially, but you never answered.” He smiled crookedly. “And then I got the idea to leave notes.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you did for me all those years ago.” He grinned. “The night you wanted to seduce me, you’d left me a note. I thought it would be romantic.”
“So you knew you were writing those notes to me the entire time?” My jaw dropped and he laughed.
“Yes.”
“But you called me Number 4!”
“I thought it was fun to keep it going. I loved getting your notes.”
“I called you the Rude Guy in Apartment Five.” I shook my head. “Well, I guess I was right about that, at least.”
“Touché.” His smile made my heart race. “I deserved that, I suppose. You see, I’ve been waiting to win your heart for a really long time, and I was scared that if I told you too much, you would feel overwhelmed. I knew as soon as I saw you again that I still loved you and wanted you. And, well, you were sexier than ever before. I wanted to touch you and be with you. But then you got all mad at me. You thought I only cared about sex. I needed you to know it wasn’t about sex. It’s never been about sex.”
“What’s it about, then?”
“It’s about love. It’s about how I’ve never stopped wanting you. It’s about me moving across the country to show you that.”
“But are you happy here?” I asked him. “You always said you wouldn’t leave New York. You always said there was no better place on the planet.”
“I said a lot of things when I was younger.” He shrugged. “But the truth of the matter is I didn’t want to leave New York because that was my home. Who wants to leave their home?”
“But you did leave. You’re in San Francisco now.” I stroked the side of his face. “This isn’t New York though, Jagger. No matter how beautiful and cool it is here, it’s not home.”
“Aw but that’s where you’re wrong, Magnolia. I am home.” He beamed at me so brightly that my heart seemed to skip a beat.
“What do you mean? You’re not home.”
“Love brings you home,” Jagger said tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “It doesn’t matter where I am as long as I’m with you.”
“But I’m just one person.” I shook my head. “There’s so much back in New York for you.”
“Magnolia, you may be just one little person, but in my heart you’re everything. You’re all that I need. Don’t you understand that yet?” His crinkled smile made my heart leap. “Don’t you understand that you’re my everything?”
“Are you sure?” I whispered as he stared into my eyes.
“I’m more than sure.” He leaned forward to kiss me. “I invested in a company for you. I moved here for you. I left you sweet little notes every day just to know you were reading my words.”
“The notes weren’t sweet.” I giggled. “Some days I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes.”
“I’ll never write you another note then.” He grinned. “I promise.”
“Don’t you dare stop, Kingston Jagger Scott.” I leaned forward to kiss him. “You owe me ten years’ worth of notes.”
“I owe you ten years’ worth of loving as well, and I’m willing to start now if you are.” He kissed me back passionately, and as his tongue slipped into my mouth, I knew that everything was going to be okay. I understood why he hadn’t told me everything. I understood and I forgave him. I forgave him because I still loved him and I thought that what he’d done had been the most romantic thing in the world.