Free Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) by Mina V. Esguerra Page A

after the others had left the room. “You earned your fee at the plenary this morning. We’ve got press asking me for quotes. I hope some of the foundation messages manage to get into the news.”
    “I’m in, as long as I’m here,” Jake said. He thought he had already said that, in meetings with Krup. “I’ve read up on the project reports.”
    Krup laughed, but his eyes were on his laptop screen, his attention obviously already somewhere else. “Jake, you happen to like giving yourself a hard time? You don’t like paid vacations?”
    “I wasn’t expecting this to be one,” he said, his voice going tight.
    It revealed tension when there had previously been none, and Krup looked up at him. “Sorry, that was...that’s something we tell ourselves. We usually make jokes about wanting to take a break. No one really enjoys having to ask for money to put up drinking water stations across the world. You really want to do this?”
    Jake paused. Did he? Would it make him sound naive to admit it? That was what this trip was about, what this whole damn thing was about.
    “I guess it’s time I find out, isn’t it?” he said instead.
     
    ***
     
    “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
    The question threw him off because she happened to say it while taking off her top, revealing a sleek black bikini, and he remembered how hot she looked in clothes like this, in warmer weather. He began thinking of where they could go, places with sunny beaches. Like France, where would he take her in France, where she’d get to wear that? He hadn’t yet told her about it, was planning to surprise her with a trip. Surely she could get away for a week or so.
    The night swim was her idea. They had come from dinner with her co-workers and some of their friends from the conference along the harbor. The Italian had been there, briefly, enough time to plant a kiss on both her cheeks and introduce a woman Jake assumed to be his date. Not that he cared.
    Most of their companions wanted out early, but back at the hotel, Lindsay wanted drinks by the pool. She must have really wanted to talk. (Drinks at his room would have meant something else.)
    He took his shirt off, and then stripped down to his Speedos. He watched her take off her shoes, lay them neatly beside her folded clothes, and walk toward the small, circular pool. An attendant saw their interest in it and the water began bubbling, blue lights coming on from underneath. They were the only ones on the pool deck, an hour before they were to close it for the night.
    “You’re asking me this?” he said, joining her in what looked like a boiling pot, sitting on a tiled step beside her. “On the day I meet the Italian asshole who keeps trying to rub against you?”
    The very ends of her hair were getting wet, clinging to her body. She frowned at him but turned the other way, called a waiter, asked for two glasses of red wine.
    “I slept with Rocco once, last year, at this same conference,” she said. “But it was in Rio de Janeiro at the time. I met him before that though, and he’s always been a flirt. I’m not telling you this to make you angry, or jealous...it’s just...what it is.”
    Was he angry? Jealous? He couldn’t be.
    Still wanted to punch the guy’s face.
    “What I mean is that this is the work I want to do, and it’s the kind of work that takes people everywhere, or brings people around to me, but temporarily, you know? I’m sure you understand.”
    Jake’s body was understanding several, contradictory things. The water he was in was pleasant, the vision in front of him attractive, and from the neck down he was buzzing with anticipation of good things. Happy things.
    The rest of him was flashing warning signs about what she was telling him.
    “Because I work on the show?” he said, trying to catch up.
    “Maybe? Short-term contracts, revolving door of projects and people, travel...” Lindsay’s wine arrived and she handed him his. “I noticed the