Jonas barely gives me time to recover from my orgasm before he takes my hand and tows me into the kitchen. I take one of the bar stools as he opens the oven and pulls out a delicious smelling casserole. He examines it and nods. “Not burned.”
I’m still a little loopy from coming so fast. “You know, you could have just held off on making me come.”
“No, I couldn’t.” He sets the pan on a hot pad and gets started dividing up the casserole. My plate’s portion is much too large, but I don’t say a word as we start eating. I…like this. I like it even more once I’m finished and Jonas sits back with a sigh. “How are things going now that you’re running the company?”
I freeze in the middle of reaching for a glass of water. “I thought you didn’t want to talk business.”
“Consider it a shared interest.”
I pick up my glass and stare into the clear water. “I don’t know how to answer your question without it looking like I’m trying to angle for sympathy, so I’d rather not.”
“Blake.” He waits for me to look at him, his expression serious. “Tell me.”
I don’t mean to. I really don’t. But the truth is that I’ve kept my fears bottled up for six long months and there’s only so much sympathy my friends can offer me. They’re so sure that I’ll land on my feet. It never occurs to them that I might ruin the company my father spent half of his life building. Jonas is one of the few people who can understand, because he worked for my father for years before his brief stint as partner.
I pour out everything. The contracts that won’t renew because their faith was in my father and not in the company itself—especially now that it’s run by what they consider a little girl. It doesn’t matter that I’ve paid my dues, that I’ve learned everything my father could teach me. It certainly doesn’t matter that plenty of men who are my age and in the same type of legacy position are taken far more seriously. The little failures that have added up so quickly into a mountain I’m not sure I can climb over.
It’s only through sheer self-preservation that I manage to stop myself without talking about the Henderson account. It doesn’t matter. Jonas will know enough details about it to know that I’m failing here, as well.
He stares out the window for a long moment. “Coffee?”
I blink. “I tell you all that and all you can say in response is coffee?”
“Do you drink coffee or not, Blake?”
I cross my arms over my chest. I don’t care if I look like I’m pouting. This whole conversation has been one big minefield and I feel like Jonas just tossed me onto one without warning. “Yes, I drink coffee. Black.”
He gets up and makes quick work of it. The machine is one of those fancy ones that takes thirty seconds to brew an entire pot, so it’s only a brief pause before he slides a mug in front of me and resumes his seat. Jonas rotates his stool to face me. “Do you want the hard truth or do you want me to blow smoke up your ass?”
“I don’t need to be babied.” It’s something I’ve never asked for. Never wanted.
“In that case…” He shrugs. “You’re the reason this is happening.”
I jerk back as if he reached out and slapped me. “Wow, Jonas. Thanks for the hard truth. You think I don’t know that already?”
“Put your pride in the backseat and listen.” He arches his brows. “Or you can throw a fit and we can stop talking about this and get back to fucking.”
It would be simpler that way. I didn’t mean to confess my fears to him, and he’s obviously garbage at comfort. Still, I asked for hard truth and I need to be able to take it. I draw myself up. “Please continue.”
Something in his eyes softens a little at that, but his tone is just as no-nonsense as ever. “You are not your father, Blake. You’re trying to emulate the way he did business, and it’s not going to work. You need to find your own path and style, and that takes time. Some of those accounts are going to cancel because of a variety of reasons that are all beyond your control. Clinging to that as failure is just going to turn you into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then you really will fail.”
“I don’t have time. If we keep losing accounts—”
“You have time. Stop prioritizing the wrong things and work on strengthening the relationships with the clients who already trust you. If you neglect them because you’re chasing the ones who are already gone, then you’re really in trouble.”
I stare. “It’s not that simple.”
“No. Fuck, no. It’s not simple. This kind of thing is why I got out of the business when I did. I’m too stubborn and I’m no good at the politicking bullshit. But your father is—and so are you. You just need to reprioritize.”
I pick up my mug, more for something to do than because the coffee is a drinkable temperature. “Doing things that way will change a lot.”
“Maybe things need to change.” He shrugs. “Victor wouldn’t have given you the company if he didn’t believe you could run it successfully. He loves the fuck out of you, but he’s not a fool. There are people whose livelihoods depend on you succeeding.”
“Thanks for that reminder,” I say faintly. “No pressure.”
He snorts. “You’re doing a hell of a job of putting pressure on yourself. Like this shit with the Henderson job.” He waves at himself. “I am not the only architect around, and I’m not even close to the best. There are plenty of up-and-coming people who can do what I do and do it better—and cheaper. You know that, but you let yourself get so afraid of failure that you stopped even registering the other options.”
He might be right. Hell, he probably is. It still stings something fierce. I set down my mug. “I really don’t want to talk about that client.”
“You have things covered, Blake. Trust yourself enough to see it through.”
Something like anger sparks in my chest. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I do or don’t have covered.”
“I know enough.” Now it’s his turn to look away. “You don’t think Victor talks about you all the fucking time? It’s annoying as hell.”
“So sorry that news about me is annoying. You should tell my father to stop.”
“If I do that, I have to tell him why.” He looks back at me, eyes almost too intense. “Then I have to tell him that I’ve been jacking to his daughter’s taste for six fucking years, and that is not a conversation I’m ever going to have.”
Shock steals my anger. “What?”
“Is that so surprising?” He gives a smile that’s more like a grimace. “Fuck, Blake. I didn’t even hesitate last night. You gave me the green light and I had my fingers in your pussy seconds later.”
I shiver. Obviously I know he wants me. Jonas isn’t the type to have sex with someone he isn’t interested in, let alone the kind of intense sex we’ve been having. But there’s something about hearing him admit that he’s wanted me just as long as I’ve wanted him washes away what little worry I had about this. “Well, you did find me fingering myself with my face in your pillow.”
“Yeah, I did.” His lips curve a little. “Shocked the fuck out of me.”
This conversation feels a bit like walking a tightrope over a pit of crocodiles. “He talks about you a lot, too,” I finally admit. “I find it equally annoying for the exact same reasons.”
Jonas exhales slowly. “What a pair we make.”
“You can say that again.” I tentatively sip my coffee. It’s barely cool enough to drink, but that’s okay. “This is really good.”
“I know.”
Things threaten to spiral into awkwardness, so I pull together the tattered shreds of my pride. “Thank you for your advice. I’ll think about it.”
Jonas drinks his coffee, his focus on the rain falling in sheets outside the window. “You’ll figure it out one way or another.” The quiet confidence in his voice isn’t feigned. I don’t think he’d know how to feign something like that. He’s too frank, too honest. He’d never say such a thing if he didn’t mean it.
That knowledge warms me far more than it should. My parents believe in me, but they’re biased. Even when I fuck up, they act like I walk on water. It would never occur to them that I might fail. It’s the same with my friends. They offer advice when I want it, but they aren’t in this industry and don’t really know all the pitfalls awaiting me.
Jonas does.
He still has the utmost belief that I’ll figure it out.
“Thank you,” I finally manage.
“Don’t thank me. It’s the truth.” He sets his mug down and gives me his full attention. “I’d like you to do something for me.”
The heat is back in his gaze, signaling that we’re shifting into safer—sexier—territory. “Okay.”
“You’re not going to ask what it is?” He arches his brows. “You have a lot of trust in me, baby girl.”
The thing is… I do. I trust him a whole hell of a lot. Far more than I should off twelve hours of fucking. It makes sense, though. Even if I have only seen Jonas in passing since that Christmas party, he’s still a pillar in my life. An unseen one most of the time, but my father really does talk about him so much, it’s as if he’s in constantly in the room. I know far more about him than I would about some random person I’d hook up with.
I lick my lips. “What would you like me to do?”
Jonas leans back. “Bake me cookies.”
