Page 65 of The Fire We Make

Joy sighed and looked out at the skyline in front of them. “Getting my life together. I kinda left a mess when I left Texas. I’m hoping once I get it together I can go back home.”

“What kind of mess?”

“I… I lost control. And it cost me my job. My family. My… everything.”

“Is that why you’re so rigid and phony?” Ace asked.

Joy gasped and threw a fortune cookie at his solid chest. “I am not phony,” she protested.

Ace chuckled, tossing the wrapped cookie back at her. “You phony as hell, love. I’ll admit you have the first lady persona down to a tee but it’s fake as fuck.”

Joy wanted to protest. To insist that who she presented herself as was who she was but the lies wouldn’t fall past her lips. It was fake as hell but if fake is what she needed to be to go home then she’d be that. If Ace wasn’t fooled though, would her father be?

Joy swallowed her doubts. “Whatever. I don’t know why you think you have a PhD in Joy but this is who I am.”

Ace gave her a sidelong glance that told her that he wasn’t buying it but he didn’t comment. “When you say you lost control… What do you mean by that?” he asked instead.

Joy released a humorless chuckle. “I had a little breakdown,” she admitted.

“Oh?” Ace raised a brow.

Joy nodded. “I made a mistake that cost us a business relationship. I’m hoping once I prove I’ve learned, I can go home.”

Ace nodded. “So that you can get back to working for your dad?”

“Hopefully.” She sighed wistfully, looking off into the distance. “It’s all I know. I was groomed to take over my daddy’s business since I was a little girl…” she trailed off, her eyes becoming distant, getting lost in memories and seeing far beyond the New York City high rise.

“My older brother wasn’t built for it so all the pressure was on me to ‘secure the legacy’,” she spoke with air quotes. “I was such a daddy’s girl I would’ve done it anyway just to spend time with him. I didn’t get to do the things my brother and other girls got to do though. My only friends were my cousin and the nephew of one of my dad’s associates.” She ended her statement with a bitter laugh.

“Anyway,” she said. Whatever emotions she’d let slip were quickly masked again as she turned back to Ace.

“What about you? Are you looking for love or are you one of those niggas who are gonna hoe around until they’re 50 and realize they don’t want to die alone.”

Ace chuckled. “Nah never that. I honestly never thought about love or marriage much before. My life has been all business since I could remember. I get what I need when I need it but other than that, women have been the furthest from my mind. Just a distraction I don’t have the capacity for. Especially now.”

Joy listened as he relayed his reasoning with such practice, she wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself.

“I can understand that,” she said.

They sat there for a moment longer, their gazes and the silence lingering.

“Anyway,” Ace exhaled sharply, snatching his eyes away like he was shaking off a trance. “Guess we should get back to work,” he said, rolling his shoulders as he stood.

“Mhm,” Joy agreed.

Both of them having had enough sharing for the night, Ace took his place at his desk and Joy sat across from him.

Silently, they divided up tasks and fell effortlessly into sync.

“I went through the nearby camera footage and there were a few interesting things in there that I think can help us,” Joy announced, pulling files and blown up photos from her folder.

“Show me what you got,” Ace waved her over.

She rounded the desk and spread the enlarged images out on the surface in front of Ace. She stepped behind him, leaning over his shoulder as she pointed out elements in the photos but Ace couldn’t focus. Regret filled him as he felt her warm breath on his neck and her sweet cherry scent tickled his nose.

I should have invested in a projector screen, he thought.

His senses were going haywire at having such close contact with her again and he felt like a teenage boy. At the soft brush of her breasts on his shoulder as she leaned over further, Ace felt his dick harden. He did his best to shake off the lust clouding his brain and focus on what she was saying.