Pleasure ~ Jenlisa

Chapter 15 {M}

By the time I got back to the flat, my feet ached from the effort of hiking halfway across the London in heels. Jane's flat was dark when I entered, which was just as well, because I didn't really feel like talking. Rather, I felt like I should talk, a throwback reaction not to. Slipping off my heels, I took the stairwell up the three flights to out floor, rummaging through my purse for my keys as I came around the corner.

"Jennie."

I jumped at the sound of Lisa's voice, dropping my heels. But momentarily surprise quickly shifted to white-hot awareness. Taking a deep breath, I cursed my traitorous body for its reaction to Lisa's presence.

"Where have you been?." She demanded, cornering me against the door as I neared her. Lisa's suit jacket was gone and the sleeves of her button-down were rolled up. If Lisa in a suit was impossibly sexy, Lisa half out of a suit was devastating. A pang of longing shot through me, but I resisted the impulse to touch her, knowing what would happen if I did. Anger flickered in her eyes, and I felt barely controlled rage seething from her like steam from boiling water.

"Walking." I replied, too tired for playihg games or being witty.

"You leave without a word and then you walk home?." Lisa ran a hand through her blonde hair, and I noticed that it was already mussed, as though she'd done this a lot this evening.

"You pushed me away." I whispered, but my words weren't timid. I wanted her to hear me. I wanted Lisa to stop and listen, so that she would know that I hadn't run tonight. "I didn't run. I made a choice to leave."

"You came with me. I expected you to leave with me. I need to know where you are and that's not a request, Jennie." She yelled.

I stared at her, waiting to see if she even heard what she was saying , but from the serious look she gave me, she did. "I'm not a child. I can take care of myself." I said.

"That was before." Lisa said, stepping close enough that her heat surged across my skin. "You made a choice, Jennie, and when you did that I assumed the responsibility of taking care of you." How could she be so dense and infuriating and sexy at the same time? Was it a trick of evolution, the ability to distract a girl with charm while you were being a total bitch?

"I didn't ask you to do that!."

"No, you didn't. But you chose to come into my bed. You chose to stand by side this evening." If she thought that was going to be the extent of my choices, she had a big surprise coming. "Yeah, but we're not married or anything-."

"What message do you think it sends for me to bring a date to my Mothers birthday?" She interrupted me.

My breath hitched in my throat, caught on the lump rapidly forming there. I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry or shake her. Possibly both. "We barely know each other."

"That might be true." She conceded. "But we've been linked publicly, and after those texts were published today, people are going to make assumptions."

Between all the drama of Lisa showing up on my first day of work to the shit-storm that was this evening, I'd managed to forget about the hacked text messages. Adding that to the rest of today's events was too much to bear and I snapped.

"What kind of assumptions? I really don't give a fuck what people think of me!."

Lisa's head tilted, a glimmer of sympathy mixing with her anger. "It won't just be a small leak for long. There will be more legitimate news sources reporting on it. I live in the public eye, Jennie."

Lisa lived in the public eye, but I didn't have to. She was offering me a choice, one I thought I'd already made. She was giving me a second chance to walk away. But what didn't explain her action tonight.