Page 35 of Secrets We Keep
“She’s in her element like this,” Dom says, sitting back in the chair opposite.
“Like what?”
“In a crisis. It’s how she ended up working for Adrien.”
This piques my interest. I never put much thought into how she got to the position she was in. Of course, working in the building, I’d heard stories they respected his assistant a lot, and those that didn’t respect her were not in Adrien’s inner circle.
“She worked with him in San Francisco. She was with a key person involved in making his first multi-million-dollar deal. You know we will both be here for you, right?” Dom says.
Talking about my feelings has never been my strong suit. It’s why I lasted all of three months in therapy. I don’t know what it is about Dom, though. We’ve bonded as friends instantly, and it’s not just our shared interest in Jenna. Dom is actually someone I know I can be myself around. I don’t find that often.
“I know, and I appreciate it, man.” I run my hands down my face. It shouldn’t be this hard. I realize Jenna has been taking her sweet time. “Is she really making coffee?” I laugh.
“She is, but I didn’t know if you wanted to open up in front of her two. Her words, ‘I know what you Dom guys can be like.’”
I laugh, a real belly laugh, for the first time in hours. “Jenna Michaels, get your sexy ass in here!” I shout. I know instantly she must have been listening because she has that face on that she had in her office the other day.
“You don't need to shout,” she says with a half drank coffee in her hand.
I walk over to her and pull her into my arms. “This is my favorite, Jenna,” I whisper, kissing her under her ear.
“Yeah?” she smiles.
“Yeah.” I walk over to the wet bar in the corner of the room. “Whiskey or vodka? Beers are in the fridge?”
“Whiskey,” Jenna says, surprising us both. “What? Did you think I won’t want the hard stuff because I have this coffee too?”
“Whiskey,” Dom laughs as he summons Jenna with his finger.
She puts her coffee cup on the table and then struts over to him. I turn my back on them even though it’s the last thing in the world I want to do. I hear him kissing her, and that makes me smile more. What I don’t expect to hear is the solid slap of his hand on her ass. I turn, a smile fighting to take over my entire face.
“That’s for being a brat.”
“What if that was exactly what I wanted?”
I hand Dominic his glass, and he nods at me. The guy equivalent of go on, we’re all ears.
Jenna takes hers off me. I sit, and Jenna has a look on her face that tells me she has a million things swirling around that pretty head of hers.
“What, babe?”
“Can I sit on your lap?”
God, she kills me sometimes. Where has this woman been all my life?
“You never have to ask.”
She kisses Dom before coming and sitting on my knee and curling up against me. What I’m about to tell them both is hard for me, but keeping this shit from them is harder. If we are going to make this relationship work, then I need to open up to them.
I stroke my hand up and down her thigh. It’s soothing me, and I can feel her relax into my body with each stroke of my hand.
“So, you know I was in a successful TV series from about fifteen to twenty?”
Jenna tenses on my lap; I continue my strokes because I find this cathartic, and I don’t know if I can get it all out if I don’t have something to distract myself with. “I don’t speak to my family anymore. They didn’t help me out of a situation I needed them to. Money and greed being their driving force.” My eyes stay looking at my hand. No way in hell I can look at either of them until I get all of this off my chest. “That show made me a huge star, a household name overnight. My family pushed me to take every endorsement deal and everything that comes with being a breakout star on a show like that. Whether I wanted to or not. I was still a minor for most of it, so my parents had a lot of say. The showrunner on the show was a bully, and I have so many issues with him, but I got off lightly compared to my female co-stars. I’m not going to go into those details, and it's not my story to tell. But the way I run my show is different, in large part because of Adrien. It’s why I sold my show to a smaller studio. I could have gone with any of the big names. But I needed the control I could only get from a smaller studio. Adrien knows everything; I know he wants things to change in this town. Only a handful of people know this story, and I can count them on the one hand. The press never got wind because my security team is that good.” I look over at Dom, and he’s sitting forward in his seat, elbows on his knees. I can’t look at Jenna. Not yet, at least. She puts her hand over mine and squeezes it.
“You know about Sara?” she whispers.
“Yeah, Adrien confided in me not long after she turned up at the company. Adrien is a good guy. He won’t screw you over.”
