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Chapter7
Melanie
Jade Lodge is mind-blowing. So borderline fantastical that, as our car pulls up, I actually laugh out loud. After a four-and-a-half hour flight to Colorado, I’m a little buzzed on in-flight cocktails and anxiety.
Jenson gives me a cursory glance before turning his attention back to some last-minute sign offs. Despite his position as CEO, Jenson still oversees most of the tech department, specifically the area that’s concerned with algorithms and innovation. It’s what attracts some of the biggest healthcare companies in the country to Dupont Analytics.
The driver opens the door—something I’ll have to get used to, all these men with manners—and I step out, staring up at Jade Lodge.
It’s truly a lodge. A luxurious one. No rustic look to this place. It’s all pristine and polished, wood and dark rock, water features everywhere, and lush greenery. And it’s about a thousand metaphorical miles from the city.
The air is tantalizingly cool in the shade, an oddity since it’s actually in the eighties today. Jenson joins me as our bags are unloaded and takes my hand, the tips of my fingers in his palm.
“Ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
We walk into the open lobby side by side, right up to the front desk and the polished staff. They handle check in effortlessly, confirming that we’re booked for the Mist Suite.
“Suite?” I ask quietly as we’re led down a long hallway.
A few people back in the lobby, Dupont employees I’m guessing, are whispering in our wake. But I don’t recognize any of their faces yet and make a note to ask Jenson who they are later, once we’re alone.
“You’ll have some time to settle, Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe—” neither of us corrects the man, though my lips part “—and then there will be a cocktail hour on the patio. We suggest arriving at or around 4 p.m.”
A curt nod from Jenson. I’m guessing we’ll be attending that, then. A frisson of nerves runs through my body from head to toe.
We’ll make our grand entrance today, he’d said earlier, on the flight. Effortlessly. As though he pretended to be engaged and in an intimate relationship regularly, and it was easy.
We stop before towering doors carved with waterfalls and cranes. Before I have a moment to admire them, the man swings them open.
The suite takes my breath away.
Jenson strides in and I follow, much slower, and stunned. Everything is robin’s egg blue and dove gray, a calming color palette that actually does give the impression of mist. The space is massive and we’re only standing in the receiving area. Off to the right is a sitting area with couches and a TV recessed into the wall. To the left, there’s an expansive dining area with a luxury kitchenette, though I can’t imagine Jenson cooking. Not in his designer trousers and twill shirt, the least vacation-y clothing I’ve ever seen.
“Thank you, Reuben.”
Some money exchanges hands, the man bowing himself out of the room and closing the massive doors behind him.
And now we’re alone.
Jenson turns, his eyes locked on me.
Please don’t kiss me again, my brain pleads irrationally, even as my body thrills at the memory of the stolen kiss in the elevator.
“Are you ready?” he asks, the words coming out primal somehow. Another thrill that my mind tries to attribute to the alcohol still in my veins, but I didn’t drink nearly enough for it to affect me like this. No, this is all Jenson Sharpe, his eyes boring into me as he takes two strides forward.
“R-ready for what?” I stutter, moving one step back.
A smirk slowly, tantalizingly, tugs up one corner of his mouth. The breath goes out of me. Right then, I want him to press me up against the ornately carved pillar just a few feet away and drown out the voice of doubt telling methis is a horrible idea.
“Ready to play the game. Tonight, we make our grand entrance.”
I swallow. The buzz slowly slips away as Jenson turns, eyes scanning the accommodations. “We’ll have to go to the cocktail hour, of course.
“Who were those people in the lobby?”
