Cloud nine wasn’t a strong enough term to describe my feelings. Jack had made me single-handedly feel better but in a way that I had never expected. It was on my mind. The sex, there was no getting rid of that out of my head. For the first time in my life, I was thinking about sex a couple of days later. I guess that spoke of what the relationship that I had with Oliver is. He wasn’t bad in bed. But we definitely didn’t have the spark that Jack and I had.
Speak of the devil. Their Oliver was walking through the hallways at work. His suspension must have been up. Or whatever Jack had done to keep him away from me, that was over. I guess I shouldn’t have gotten too comfortable that he was gone for a bit. He did work there, after all. And he was Jack’s stepson. No matter how often I had sex with Jack, Oliver was his family. Anywhere I stood. I just had the hope that I meant more to Jack than I thought.
“Hi, Isabella. I heard Jack hired you back.” His tone was cold. His eye contact was minimal. My mind had played the hypothetical situation of bumping into him numerous times before I had actually done so. So everything that was happening I had expected. Maybe I had even expected it to go a little bit worse.
“He did hire me back as his assistant. It’s going great. I couldn’t be happier.”
“He’s probably not going to be happy that I’m in the building.”
Realization. It struck. “You’re not supposed to be here. And why are you?”
“You actually care?”
“I care because I don’t want to see you. I care about you leaving. So yeah, that way, I do. Do you actually think that I want to be standing here talking to you? There’s a reason that Jack made sure that you weren’t in the building for a good while.”
“Yeah, well, frankly, I think he should have minded his own business. That was between you and me. He should have stepped in.”
I was trying to hold back my smirk. There was something funny about him having a problem with Jack. Jack was such a man, and he felt like such a boy. His immaturity was the only reason he had an issue with his stepfather. “All he did was off for me a job.” Sex flashed across my mind. “It’s his business choice, not yours. I think you’re just salty because he owns the company, and you feel a little small right now. You fired me for absolutely no reason other than you didn’t want to date me anymore, which had nothing to do with the job, and then your stepdad hired me. That’s got a sting a little bit, no?”
“I’m just here to get my things,” Oliver said before pursing his lips. “You won’t have to worry about seeing me after this. Because I don’t know what Jack will do with me.”
I almost chuckled at that but restrained myself. The last thing I wanted was to look as immature as he did. “Am I supposed to feel bad for you or something?”
He shook his head. “Not at all this, Bella. Just telling you why I’m here.”
“Cool.” I walked off and felt my independence following me. He was a reminder that I didn’t need a man. Oliver was a reminder that pain happens in relationships.
This thought process that crossed my mind was why I started to doubt everything that had happened between Jack and me. It sounded rash and a little bit impulsivity. But if I was just going to fall for another man right after being dumped, that sounded foolish to me.
I needed to figure out what I was going to do moving forward. Because I certainly didn’t want to get hurt again. Maybe Jack wasn’t good for me. Perhaps I would need to start pushing him away a little bit.