It’s Complicated (Her Billionaires #5)(72)
Author: Julia Kent

Three sets of eyes zeroed in on her.

“No pressure,” she mumbled.

“No. Pressure,” Laura insisted. “Pressure most definitely there. Do it,” she hissed. Dylan rocked in place, mercifully having thrown on some sweatpants. Mike stood over them all, eyes calm but exhausted.

“You’re serious?” Josie asked, incredulous. “I thought Laura was just out of her mind with being 158 weeks pregnant!”

“We’re serious,” the three said together.

“Salary?”

Dylan named a figure. A damn fine figure.

“Benefits?”

“The guy who handles our HR issues at the ski resort can help with the new venture.”

“My own parking spot?”

“Oooooooh, tough negotiator,” Dylan joked. “How about a bowl of red-only M&Ms at your desk every morning and a Justin Bieber butt plug for each day of the week?”

“Why would I want a Justin Bieber butt plug?”

“If you’re going to put that guy’s face anywhere, it might as well be—”

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Jillian’s cry pierced the air.

“I’m not deciding now, guys,” Josie said as Dylan handed the baby to Laura, who reached under her neckline and unclicked the bra, latching Jillian on with an expert hand that belied her three weeks of motherhood.

“But you’re considering it?” Laura asked hopefully.

No Gian. No Alzheimer’s patients. No worrying about how to break bad data news to various researchers. More money. More flexibility. Working with Laura regularly.

What could be better?

“I am.”

Laura bounced in place with excitement, unable to move because of the baby sucking milk out of her. Josie wondered what it felt like. Was it the same as getting a hickey? It couldn’t be, right? You’d bruise all the time. She just stared.

“Hello? Earth to Josie?”

“What?”

“You said yes!”

“No, I didn’t!” she huffed. “I said I’d think about it.”

“Close enough.”

Mike wandered in to the living room and took a good look at the chaos. “We need to clean this up.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean you and Dylan,” Laura piped up.

“Absolutely.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Laura’s head, then did the same with the now-happy Jillian, who opened her eyes wide and stared up at one of her dads.

“Come over to the dark side,” Dylan called out from the kitchen, then joined the group with his own cup of coffee, plopping down on the laundry on the floor.

They were so happy. Exhausted and messy and overwhelmed—but happy.

Vulnerability didn’t wear well on Josie but Laura and Mike and Dylan showed her that being vulnerable and willing to take emotional risks could be … a different kind of strength. Being self-contained, Josie was independent, relied on no one; her strength was in her thick skin. She was proud of thinking through every contingency in any given situation, so she was prepared for disaster when—not if—it struck. But maybe the secret to being OK wasn’t to close herself off and keep all the heartbreak at bay.

What if there were a different way to navigate life emotionally? Opening herself up to Alex felt like being flayed emotionally. Stripped of that thick skin.

Alex represented something more.

And Laura was offering something different.

Indecision ate away at her soul. Ed’s deterioration was evident, and Alex had put his finger on something that Josie wished weren’t true. His grandfather was in decline, and nothing anyone said would make a difference, the attempts at denial so obvious that even the people who tried to claim that Ed was fine couldn’t do it with any sort of conviction. In contrast to Ed, other patients on the project, patients who had been at about Ed’s level when they’d started, seemed to be doing so much better. It was as if the fog of Alzheimer’s were lifting. Not gone, but burned off a bit, so that what had been an opaque, thick mist had turned into a light transparency, making the disease much easier to manage, rather than a beast that victimized.

Too much knowledge tore Josie in half. She felt like Meredith Grey in an episode of that television show, Grey’s Anatomy. In the exact same ridiculous situation where looking into the files to know whether Ed was in the control group or was actually getting the medication that was at the center of the research trial meant jeopardizing the integrity of the project and her job. Never one to take professional chances, Josie found herself frozen solid, fear permeating every cell of her body, her brain, and now, her heart. There was no way out.

If she didn’t look up Ed’s status on the research trial, and he wasn’t receiving the medication, he could lose out on the benefits. If she did look up the information, then everyone who was benefiting could lose access to the experimental drug, and there was the tiny, insignificant little issue of violating every ethical and moral tenet of her profession.

Alex was a man of great integrity, of tremendous moral character, and it was part of what drew her to him. Violating that, even for the sake of a higher moral principle, would destroy his sense of respect for her.

Respect. She shook her head and laughed, so deep in her thoughts that her coffee cup went cold in her hand. Respect wasn’t exactly something that she had become accustomed to in relationships, so the thought of losing it created a kind of pain inside her that had no outlet. What words could she use to describe the loss of something that she’d never really had before? Having it now was like being handed a crown to a country that you’re supposed to rule over, just because of sheer luck, not because you were born into it, or because you were worthy, or because you earned it. Her own insecurity made her think that the respect Alex poured over her was invalid.

Self-sabotage was a finely honed skill in Josie. It was, in fact, filed to such a sharp point that the threat of using it was enough; she never had to actually plunge it into her heart. Some rat-brainedpart of herself was steadily concocting a crazy set of ideas that would add up to her downfall. It went something like this: You don’t deserve Alex’s respect, therefore, why not do what you know is morally right and lose his respect?If he follows a higher moral order than just following rules, then you’ll keep him and have even more respect from him. If he doesn’t, you can both walk away, having averted disaster.

On the surface, that made perfect sense. It was rational. It was analytical. It weighed and balanced, and carefully managed a variety of principles that all added up to a simple series of steps and beliefs. Deep inside, though, Josie knew that it was a bullshit justification to do something that she knew would help Ed, but that would destroy her career, her relationship with Alex, and her sense that maybe, just maybe, this one time, she really was worth the respect, and the desire, and—dare she say it—the love.