Bad Influence, page 15
Yeah, this was an epic mistake.
* * *
Annie held on to Joseph’s arms as she lowered herself down. Her legs were Jell-O infused, making the rest of her body shaky and uncertain.
You told him you missed him. What the hell were you thinking?
At least she’d managed to keep her celibacy a secret. That would have been worse. That she was so pathetic in her pining for him that she hadn’t been able to move on.
Sucking in a big breath, she looked up. “Well, that was…”
“Fun? Reckless?” He was so disheveled and handsome that it was physically painful to look at him. “Ill-advised?”
“All of the above.” She sucked on her lower lip.
The water was still warm—one of the perks of living in an expensive condo building. She shifted under the spray to clean herself up and then wrenched the taps shut. Joseph kept a hand on her shoulder as he reached outside the shower to grab a towel, like he thought she might bolt.
She would have if it wasn’t for the stupid Jell-O legs.
“Do you regret coming in here?” He wrapped a towel around her shoulders and rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
“No.” It was the only honest way she could answer him. Because her body hadn’t felt this satisfied in a long time. Her limbs ached, and the spots where his facial hair had rubbed against her skin felt sensitized in a way that was exciting and new. But that was the key thing to remember: it was physical. Nothing more.
Any feelings attempting to push their way into the equation could be written off as nostalgia. They’d had good times. A lot of them, in fact. But that didn’t change anything.
They stood in the shower, his magnificent body spattered with water droplets and looking so perfectly cut, she suddenly felt a little intimidated. She tugged the towel tighter around herself. Joseph’s hair was darkened by the water, and against the slate-and-stone backdrop of the bathroom, his eyes appeared even more vibrant.
“So…” She averted her gaze. “This is a little awkward.”
Usually after sex, they would curl up on the couch or in bed. They’d talk and laugh and often end up going for round two. And since she had no other experiences to draw on, she wasn’t sure what to do. Neither one of them was making the first move.
“I can make some coffee,” he offered. “Is that… Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, me neither. This is kind of unchartered territory.”
The tension eased a little in her chest. For some reason, the fact that he also seemed a little awkward made her feel better. If he’d turned into a playboy with smooth moves, she would have wondered how he’d honed those skills. And with whom.
You know he’s been with one other woman since you. At least.
Annika Van Beek. Daughter of wealthy Dutch expats living in Singapore. Tall, blond, slim but curvaceous like a Victoria’s Secret model. An It Girl who frequently graced society pages. She’d even been photographed for the Sartorialist in leather trousers and vintage YSL. And the one interview Annie had read about her made it seem like she was a genuinely lovely person.
The woman was literally everything Annie was not.
“Why don’t you get changed? I’ll get us something to drink.” Joseph’s lips pulled into a smirk. “Something stronger than coffee.”
“Stronger is good.” Annie swallowed and went to turn away.
But before she could leave the fantastical bubble they’d created in his shower, Joseph lowered his lips to hers. The kiss was searing and exploratory; he coaxed her mouth open and tipped her head back. It was possessive. Passionate. The kind of kiss that could truly destroy her.
When he released her, she groped for the shower door to steady herself. This was insanity. Tomorrow she would wake up, and the world would be colored by this mistake.
You’ve done it now. Having a drink isn’t going to make a difference.
Annie clutched the towel as she padded to the guest bedroom to change into something warm. Outside, rain pelted the windows, blurring the city skyline and making streaky patterns on the glass.
“Just a drink.” She shook her head and wriggled back into her jeans and a fresh sweater. She was out of clothes now, having not packed enough for more than two nights. Tomorrow, she would need to face her apartment. “One drink. Keep your hands to yourself.”
Easier said than done. Even after shower sex hot enough to melt the floorboards beneath her feet, she didn’t feel sated. There was a lot of catching up to do, and her body’s needs would not be hushed with this one offering. No matter how good.
She followed the sound of clinking crystal and found Joseph in the main room. He stood at the sideboard, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, broad shoulders hugged by a white cotton T-shirt. It wasn’t anything special, but on him… Well, the guy could make a potato sack look like a million bucks.
She watched the muscles in his back flex as he moved, grabbing two heavy tumblers from the cupboard. There were three crystal decanters sitting on a silver tray, but only one had anything in it. She recognized the items from when they’d lived together. Two of them were old—family heirlooms that’d belonged to his grandfather. The other had been a gift from her. A ship’s decanter that she’d found for a steal at an antique market.
For some reason, it surprised her that he still had it. Maybe because she’d scrubbed all presence of him from her possessions, tossing out gifts and cards and mementos as she’d found them. Every so often she’d come across something tucked away at the back of a drawer or in the pocket of a bag that hadn’t been used for some time. And every single time, that item would be donated, sold, or tossed in the trash.
Yet he’d kept that special item. Perhaps he’d forgotten who had gifted it?
“Don’t hover, come and get a drink.” He hadn’t even turned around, yet he knew she was there, quiet as a mouse.
He poured two glasses of whiskey and went to fetch her an ice cube.
“You remembered?”
“That you like to butcher your drinks?” A cheeky smile crossed his lips.
It was an old joke. Something he’d teased her about. On their second date at a fancy bar, she’d wanted to do something nice for him. Knowing he liked whiskey, she’d forked out more than she could afford for a glass of Blue Label…with Coke. At the time, he’d politely drunk it and hadn’t said a word, but later on, he taught her to appreciate his favorite drink. Although she preferred it with ice, and he would always go for a splash of water.
“Yeah, I remembered.” He handed her glass over and held his up. The soft chime of their clinking crystal rang through the room.
Annie took a sip, relishing the warmth in the back of her throat contrasting with the cool knock of the ice cube against her lips. “So, do we need to set some ground rules for this thing?”
She walked over to the couch and sank deep into the corner. Then she pulled one of the throw pillows into her lap for added protection.
“This thing?” Joseph followed her and sank down into the opposite corner. He pulled one long leg up to rest his ankle over his knee, his free arm stretching along the back of the couch as if in invitation.
This thing does not involve snuggling.
“Yeah, like…what happens in the shower stays in the shower.” She took another sip, this time longer. “Or in this apartment, at least.”
“You’re worried I’m going to tell someone?”
She snorted. “I guess not. You probably want people to know even less than I do.”
He frowned. Joseph had a lot of different frowns—one for when he was angry, one for when he was sad, one for when he was confused. It was like his parents hadn’t taught him any other facial expressions as a kid.
“Well, I can guarantee my mother knows now. No doubt the old man would have gone home in a rage because I didn’t invite him in.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He settled his glass against his thigh. “I couldn’t be bothered dealing with his shit, to be honest.”
Annie blinked. In all the time she’d known him, Joseph had never said anything bad about Morris in front of her. It was a line he’d never previously crossed.
“Things have been a little…tense since I got back.” He laughed in a way that told her he was making an understatement. “And he could tell the whole world for all I care. You came to me with a problem. I chose to help. It’s none of anyone’s goddamn business.”
“Wow, Joseph Preston. Since when do you have a rebellious streak?”
He shot her a look. “People change, you know.”
Had she changed since they’d broken up? She still cared about the same things: her family, her work, and now the people she could help with Bad Bachelors. Maybe she was more guarded.
Maybe?
Okay. She was definitely more guarded. But that wasn’t change so much as evolution. Growth.
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Bad Bachelors, I mean. Why did you create something like that?”
She sipped her drink. “Something like what?”
“Something so…controversial.”
“It wasn’t meant to be controversial,” she replied.
“You had to know it would ruffle feathers.”
“Sure. But sometimes feathers need ruffling.” She watched him, waiting for a sign of judgment. Disappointment. But she got nothing. “I felt powerless when you left me. Then I watched Darcy get her heart broken. And Remi too. We all deserved so much better than to be discarded.”
His jaw ticked. No doubt an argument or a rebuttal sat on the tip of his tongue, but for whatever reason, he chose to stay silent.
“I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to give women a tool to help them navigate the dating world. A safety net.”
“It sounds like you have.”
“You think so?”
He nodded. “I read through a lot of emails last night. It sounds like you’ve helped a lot of women.”
“I’ve upset a lot of people too.” She drained the rest of her whiskey and placed the glass on the coffee table. “Even my friends.”
She had no idea why she was telling him this. She had even less idea why he would care. But it was like she’d popped the cork from a champagne bottle, and all the words fizzed out of her. She told him about Remi.
“The director of her show was reviewed a lot on Bad Bachelors. It caused him problems with his business, and he lost funding from one of their big investors. She came to me, wanting me to remove his reviews.” Annie cringed at the memory. Remi had been so upset, and Annie had been forced to choose. From one day to the next, she vacillated on whether or not she’d made the right call. “I said no. The integrity of the site is based on the fact that I don’t curate reviews. I don’t want to influence people’s opinions. I only want them to have the truth.”
Well, after her slipup early on when she’d posted information about Darcy’s fiancé, that was. What she’d done was utterly wrong; she knew that. And she’d made it a point not to repeat that mistake.
“And she wasn’t happy with that?”
Annie shook her head. “No, she was furious with me because she said the reviews weren’t only hurting her boss and the show. They were hurting her too. We haven’t spoken since.”
“Have you tried to make up with her?”
“I’m scared,” Annie admitted. “I’m scared that she’s going to hate me forever. If she did, I wouldn’t blame her even a little bit.”
Joseph didn’t say anything. He simply sat there and bobbed his head.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve done something horrible?” Annie asked, shifting on the couch so she was facing him head-on. “Aren’t you going to tell me that it’s an evil idea to think we can rate humans? That it’s simply my broken heart talking?”
It was easier to use her words as a defensive shield. Because he’d already gotten too close. Far too close. He’d waltzed back into her life, and she’d gone to him. It was just like the hacking attack she’d fallen for—effective because she’d made the connection. She’d been the one to suggest further contact.
And she couldn’t blame him at all. It was her doing and hers alone.
“Why would I say that?” he asked.
“Because if you read the emails, you must have seen the bad ones too.”
His blue eyes were so unnervingly still. Luminous. It was like stepping out onto a frozen lake and not knowing whether the surface would be strong enough to hold you. She waited with bated breath to see if a crack would form beneath her feet.
“I did.” He studied her, and she clutched the throw pillow tighter to her chest. She hated the way he could see through her like that. Like he knew everything. “And if you think I’m going to side with people who are threatening your safety over the fact that you built a website, maybe you don’t know me very well after all.”
That was her Joseph, always so levelheaded. She’d been the firecracker in that relationship. Hot-blooded. Quick to spark. She was fire, and he was ice.
It’s why they’d been so combustible, and ultimately incompatible.
“Have you told your family about it?” he asked.
She bit down on her lip. “No.”
For a moment, she wondered if he might ask why, but he didn’t. Her answer was ready—she didn’t want anyone to know because the crazies would inevitably come after her, so the fewer people who knew, the better. It was a safety thing—for them and for her. But he wouldn’t buy that. He’d know there was more to it.
They would be ashamed of you…
She shut down that nasty little voice in the back of her head. Her parents would understand. They’d seen firsthand what the breakup had done to her. How she’d crumbled and turned in on herself. They would support her… Wouldn’t they?
“I should get to bed,” she said, pushing up from the couch.
Joseph’s eyes tracked her awkward movements. Her mind was at a disconnect with the rest of her—one part telling her to reach out and grab his hand, to lead him to bed with her. And the other part was ringing warning bells.
It was one thing to have hot and heavy sex in the shower, but it was quite another to crawl into his bed, knowing she’d fall asleep entwined with him the way she used to.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said.
She headed to the guest room and closed the door softly behind her. When Joseph didn’t follow, she knew he’d received her message.
Chapter 12
To: Query@Bad-Bachelors.com
From: Mr.Justice@fakemail.com
Subject: It’s about time I introduced myself…
Dear Leanne (or do you prefer Annie? I found both names in your files.),
I guess by now you’ve figured out that I got a whole lot more out of your computer than just a happy snap from your webcam. I have your address, your phone number, your date of birth, your personal photos…
I could post that information online for the enjoyment of the thousands of men you’ve pissed off with your website and app. Did you know there are entire forums dedicated to what people would want to do with that information? I bet you hadn’t even considered that. Why would you? You’re stuck in your own little bubble, thinking about nothing and no one but yourself.
Now, I have to admit you’ve done a good job with protecting your site. Cloud hosting has made my attempts at a DDoS attack difficult. (Do you know what DDoS stands for? I doubt you’ve ever heard of it, so I’ll tell you in case you’d like to google it. Distributed denial of service.) Not to mention your biometric encrypted passwords. Well done.
Oh…but you made one critical mistake. Do you know what else I have? The code for Bad Bachelors. That’s right. Do you remember saving the source code to your hard drive for safekeeping? No?
I had a close look and found something very interesting. You left a little message in there. Do you even remember writing it? Maybe it was your way to remind yourself why you started Bad Bachelors. It’s a dedication, of sorts. A love letter in a website that’s clearly been created by someone who had their heart broken.
“To Joseph, this is for you.”
It didn’t take me long to work out you were referring to Joseph Preston. Lucky you kept those pictures of the two of you. You have a high-profile ex, it seems. He’s a CIO now. What a big shot! I bet it would be awkward for him if it came out that his ex-girlfriend created Bad Bachelors. Maybe people would wonder if he had a hand in it. I could certainly make it look that way.
I don’t have to release this information.
Shut the website down. Issue an apology to all the people you’ve hurt. I’ll be kind and give you a few days because I’m a nice guy.
Mr. Justice
Annie walked into her favorite café and ordered a latte. The words came easily, because she was on autopilot. The truth, however, was that her brain had short-circuited. Overnight, Joseph had heard back from his contacts. It seemed no one had leaked her details online, at least not on any of the major forums where that stuff tended to appear.
Which meant they were likely dealing with one sicko instead of a mob.
Based on that, she’d convinced Joseph she would be fine to head out on her own and start doing some of the necessary things—like changing her phone number. He’d wanted her to go to the police, but that would have to be a last resort. After all, the police would want to know why someone might be targeting her, and she couldn’t answer those questions without exposing that she was behind Bad Bachelors. As far as she was concerned, too many people knew already.
