Page 84 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

JACKSON

I didn’t drive like an ass when I pulled onto the quiet residential street where Hailey lived with her sister in a four-story apartment building. It was a charming place, especially in the summertime when the nicely manicured grounds were bright with flowers of every color.

Hailey had lived there for the last two years after not being able to afford the rent of her old place she’d lived in solo closer to the downtown core.

She’d hit some hard times with work and had to take a call-center job.

I’d been trying to talk her into leaving since she told me customers treated her like absolute garbage, and Hannah offered for her to move in with her rather than ask their folks for financial help.

The relationship was a bit strained between Hailey and her mother, who was well off financially and didn’t understand why her daughter wanted to set her own path and find independence rather than just accept her help.

But that was one of the best things about Hailey. Sure, she could be a little naive and too trusting, but she was determined as hell to build a life that was hers. On her own.

Even though I didn’t see how the call-center job fit into that equation, it didn’t matter. She was my best friend and I had her back.

“Don’t be too hard on Hannah.” I put the car in park and gave her a knowing look. “Maybe she didn’t know how much of a tornado this guy was.”

“Hannah doesn’t need you to protect her.” Hailey opened her car door and stepped out, but she paused to glance back at me over her shoulder. “Thank you for saving me. I was about ready to just start walking home.”

“In those shoes?” I looked pointedly at her ankle boots, which had thick but relatively high heels on them.

“I don’t think you quite understand how insufferable he was, Jack.”

“If you were willing to walk in those, I’ll take your word for it.”

She smiled. She had a pretty smile. I’d always thought so. Full lips. Deep pink. Large, white straight teeth. “What will I do when you’re gone, Jack?”

I said the same thing I’d been saying when she expressed sadness about me moving to New York City in a couple of weeks. “Come with me.”

Her smile slowly ebbed away. “My life is here. My sister. My job.”

“That job is—”

“Don’t.”

I bit my tongue.

“You’re the one leaving, Jack. Not me.” She got out of the car and leaned over to say goodnight through the open passenger window. “Have a good rest of your night.”

I thought about the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the Jacuzzi on my patio in her red string bikini and delightfully perky boobs. “I will. Goodnight, Hails.”

“Goodnight Jack.”

Brittney, the girl in the red string bikini, spent the night in my bed, and when she left at the crack of dawn, she left the smell of her coconut lotion on my sheets and a pair of panties under the bed frame.

She told me to call her, which I wouldn’t, and then she blew me a kiss and walked out of my place, leaving me to do what I’d been doing for the last two days.

Pack.

I stood at the doorway to my home office at seven thirty in the morning and sipped a black cup of coffee as I considered where to start.

The room had become a bit of a mess in the chaos of taking on new clients in New York before moving there.

My matchmaking business had definitely been keeping me on my toes these past few years, but now things were on a whole new level of crazy.

Everyone wanted love.

And they seemed to want it now. And I was their guy.

I wasn’t complaining but the prospect of packing up my office was more than a little daunting. Which was why I stood at the threshold mourning what my day was going to look like until someone rang the buzzer to my suite. I paced to the front door and called into the buzzer system. “Who is it?”

“Who do you think?” Hailey’s warm voice filled the speaker.

I grinned. “What are you doing here? Didn’t get enough of me last night?”

“Buzz me up, Jack.”

I did.

She’d see herself up, so I went back into my study and pretended to have already started packing so that when she did walk in with two lattes and a white pastry bag from our favorite cafe, Deliziè, I looked like I’d been hard at work and had earned those treats.

Hailey leaned a hip against the doorframe and looked around. “Have you just started the office?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to pack it up too soon in case I needed something in here.”

She stepped in and handed me my latte. She set the pastry bag down on my desk while I sipped at the decadent foam on my latte, rolled it open, and helped herself to a chocolate croissant inside. “It’s going to be so weird when this isn’t your apartment anymore. We have so many memories here.”

Money hadn’t been an issue for me for a long time.

I’d offered to let Hailey move in here when I moved out, but she had steadfastly refused.

That pride of hers was always getting in the way of good things.

I would have only charged her what she was paying to live with her sister.

It would benefit us both. She’d have a nice, luxurious pad, and I’d have a place to crash when I came back to Nashville to visit.

And I’d still be able to put that hot tub to good use.

Hailey made a lap around my office. As she walked around, she trailed her fingers along the edges of the bookcases and sipped her latte. She paused at a collection of books and rapped her knuckle against the creased spines. “W. Parker, huh?”

“I haven’t read them.”

“Uh huh. Sure you haven’t. I bet you get half of the moves you use on these bikini-clad women from these books. He’s a romantic genius.”

“He?” I asked skeptically. “Please. W. Parker is a woman. Nobody will change my mind. The scenes are too intimate. And the prose is too—”

“Careful.”

“I was going to say smooth.”

“Sure you were.” Hailey pulled one of the books free and flipped it over to read the back.

I watched as her brown almond-shaped eyes slid back and forth across the page.

The corner of her mouth curled in a little smile and she glanced up at me from beneath her dark brows. “I’m going to borrow this.”

“Keep it.”

Hailey opened the flap on her shoulder bag, the same obnoxious and worn-out brown satchel she carried every day to work that housed her day planner, lunch—most likely a ham and cheese sandwich, as per usual—and girly items. I made a mental note that she needed a newer, nicer one.

One that didn’t make her look like an Indiana Jones wannabe.

My W. Parker book vanished into the depths of the hideous bag and Hailey turned to me before leaning against the windowsill at her back. She sipped her latte as she was backlit by sunlight. It made her brown hair look far lighter than it was. “Thank you again for saving me last night.”

“Is that what the coffee and the scone is for?”

She eyed me mischievously. “How do you know there’s a scone in the bag?”

“Well,” I said, moving to my desk to peer into the bag, “I know chocolate is your favorite. And you know vanilla and orange scones are mine.” I plunged my hand into the bag and pulled out an icing-drizzled citrus-smelling delicacy. “You’re a good woman, Hails.”

She laughed. “Chuck wouldn’t agree with you.”

“Did you tell him to pound sand before you bailed?”

“Pretty much.” She set her coffee down on the windowsill and ran her fingers through her hair. It was still slightly wet from her morning shower.

Hailey had a committed morning routine. She’d always get up at the crack of dawn, make coffee, and read a chapter or two of a book.

Then she’d make herself a piece of toast with peanut butter and sliced apples—or banana if she felt inclined.

Next, she’d shower and get herself dressed for work.

It was always something extremely business casual.

Like today, she wore a pair of black straight-leg pants, black ankle boots with a low heel, and a light blue blouse tucked in.

The buttons, naturally, were done all the way up to the collar.

Always such a good girl, I thought to myself as Hailey pulled her hair up in a messy bun.

She never wore her hair down to work. Not even once. I’d know. She stopped by my place damn near every morning on her transit route to the office up the street from my apartment.

“Are we still on for dinner tomorrow night?” Hailey asked.

“Abso-fucking-lutely. Do you think I would spend my last night in Nashville with anyone else?”

“I’m sure you considered trading me in for the girl in the red bikini.”

I rolled my eyes and moved toward her. I took both her hands in mine and looked deep into her warm brown eyes. If she had been facing the sun, I would have been able to see those pretty streaks of hazel and gold in her irises. “Don’t be silly, Hails. You’re my MVP. Always will be.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I’d better be.”

Chuckling, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “ Always. ”

Hailey glanced at the light brown men’s leather watch on her wrist. “I’d better get out of here.”

I let go of her hands. “Wouldn’t want to be less than twenty minutes early for your shift.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Employers appreciate punctual employees, okay?”

“Yeah. Just think. If you keep this up, maybe they’ll upgrade you to a brand-name headset instead of those shitty knockoffs they keep ordering you guys.”

“Don’t be an ass, Jackson,” she said as she shouldered the strap of her bag and picked her coffee up from the windowsill.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I held up both hands like she was pointing a gun at me.

“You’re right. I don’t need to be going and making your day any worse than it already is.

You have to answer phone call after phone call and deal with shitty, entitled customers.

And on a Sunday. There should be a law against that, you know? ”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t laugh at my joke. She smiled though, and that was enough for me. “We can’t all live the dream, Jackson.”