The rest of the night went painfully well. I was growing more and more attracted to Jordan with every gesture he made and every word he said. His smile turned me on in ways that I didn’t even know existed. I found myself more and more excited to be with him. We didn’t talk business at all and he seemed truly interested in me.

We laughed and never once suffered from an uncomfortable silence. At the end of dinner, Jordan ordered some wine and we toasted each other. We walked out of the restaurant holding hands and we continued to talk all the way home.

"Jade, I’ve had a great night." Jordan said and kissed my hand when we arrived back at my apartment building.

Slowly, I admitted that I had had a good time as well. He licked his lips in a way that drove me crazy and before I knew it, I was practically diving onto his lips. We calmed down long enough to tell the driver to drive around the block a few more times.

I don’t know how it happened, but I was eventually in his lap, kissing him as passionately as I could and his hands had free reign over my entire body. I plunged my tongue into his mouth and hearing him moan against me made me even more turned on. Slowly, he worked his way down my neck with a trail of kisses and eventually reached the neckline of my dress. As he reached up to pull it down, I stopped him with my own hands.

"Not yet." I breathed against him. It had been a very long time since I had experienced the act of making love and I was not about to change that one my first date with Jordan. I was supposed to be experiencing that with Nick.

Whoa! Where did that come from? What the hell am I doing? I’m making out with a gorgeous guy and I was supposed to be mad at Nick. Why was I always thinking about the way that he could win me back?

"Jordan, I think it’s time to end our night. I’m not ready to take that step with you right now. I’ve had a great time tonight. I’m just not sure if it would be good if we continued to see each other." I said and removed myself from his lap.

He took my hand in his and looked me in the eyes. "Jade, I understand completely. I mean, if we have to keep it secret, we can do that."

"No, I’m not going to keep it a secret from my best friends. I’ll talk to them about it. But I have a lot of things going on right now that I need to work out." I said and told the driver to take me back to the apartment building.

"What kind of things do you have to work out?" He asked as he pulled me closer. I moved a little away from him so that I could look at him.

"My friends need me more than anything right now, and I need to experience being single for a while. I just got out of a relationship that was emotionally taxing and I need some time to recuperate. I mean, maybe we can try to cultivate a relationship. We’ll be seeing each other almost every day for the next 14 months, so I’m sure that we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other." I lied. I just really needed to get out of this car and go talk to the girls.

The driver finally pulled up to the curb again and he got out and opened the door for me. Jordan and I exchanged good-byes and I went inside the building. I saw James and he opened the elevator for me.

"Hot date tonight Ms. Carroll?" He asked with a slight smirk on his face.

"More like a business meeting that turned into a date, thing. But I’m not as into him as I thought I was." I said and tapped James on the arm.

"Oh, really? Why not?" He asked.

"I think I’m interested in someone else. And he wants to keep the relationship secret. And I just couldn’t do that to the girls. They would kill me first of all for even thinking about mixing business and pleasure; and secondly for lying to them. I’d probably be so beat up that I would never be a model again." I said and laughed.

"So, this "someone else". They don’t happen to be living on the 25th floor do they?" James asked. I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks and James just nodded his head. "I get it Ms. Carroll. You’re cheating on me."

I laughed and James did too. "James, could you please call me Jade? I know that you’re probably supposed to call me by my last name, but it makes me feel really old." He nodded and the doors to the elevator opened. I kissed his cheek and said, "Thanks for the ear. I’ll see you tomorrow!"

At first, I pressed the 24 button, but about half way up, I pressed the 25 button. I needed to talk to Nick.

When the elevator opened to my floor, I looked down the hall and saw that the lights were still on inside the foyer. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 10:30 p.m. I quickly pressed the "Door Close" button and waited as the elevator took me up one more floor.

Once the doors opened, it took me about a minute to gain all of my composure. I walked up to their door and knocked five times. AJ opened the door and smiled at me. "Hey Jade. What’s up?"

"Nothing really. I hope I’m not interrupting anything. Is it too late to be stopping by?" I asked carefully before stepping into his living room.

"No, not at all. Are you looking for Nick?" He asked.

"Yeah, um, actually I came to talk to him. And apologize for my reaction today." I said and looked around casually to see if I could find Nick on my own.

"Ah, I see. So, my little talk today sunk in huh?" He winked.

"Yeah, actually it did." I said. "But I’d really like to talk to Nick. If that wouldn’t be too much to ask."

"Yeah, um, I’ll go check and see if he’s in his room. I’ll be right back, wait here." He said.

I looked around the apartment and walked into his living room. I sat down on his big, fluffy white couch and sunk in. I stuck out because of the black outfit contrasting against the white background.

Nick’s POV

"Hey man, Jade’s here." AJ said as he stuck his head into my room.

"No she’s not. We’re not talking to each other right now." I said and kept flipping through the magazine I was reading.

"Dude, you’re seriously gonna wanna come out here and talk to her. She looks fine and if you don’t get your ass out here in 10 seconds, I’m gonna make a move on her." AJ prodded.

"Whatever." I said and got up from the chair I was sitting in. I walked into the living room and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Jade sitting on the couch, decked out in a hot black dress.

"Jade?" I asked from behind the couch.

"Hi Nick. Um, I wanted to stop by and talk." She said and got up from the couch. The asymmetrical hemline barely brushed the top of her knees and her make-up made her look like a goddess.

"You look beautiful." Was all I could mutter. She smiled and walked over to me.

"Nick, I’ve been thinking. And I had some help from a mutual friend. But I’m so sorry for the way I reacted today. I know that you were just trying to protect yourself from me, or from who I could have been." She said and stepped closer to me.

"Jade, I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry that you ever had to find out, but I knew that I wanted to pursue some kind of relationship with you and relationships are always supposed to be honest." I said. I could feel her breath on my face now.

"Well, if honesty is the policy, then I have a confession to make." She said and looked up at me with her big, brown eyes. "I went on a date tonight. With my tour manager. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be a date, but somehow I ended up in his lap by the end of the night and we were making out." I was so hurt by her words. I just looked at her and tried to focus.

"How was it? I mean, do you like this guy?" I asked her slowly.

"No. I hate him, actually. He was a great kisser, but the entire time I was kissing him, I was thinking about you. I wanted you to be the guy I was sitting on. I wanted you to be the guy kissing my neck. Ok, I’m sure that you didn’t need to hear all of that, but I wanted to be honest. I want you Nick. You and you only. I know that right now we can’t be together because of Kirsten, but I just though you’d like to know how I feel." She said and began to walk away.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. "Do you really mean all of that?" I asked her.

Her eyes were filling with tears as she slowly nodded her head. "I want you as a friend, as a man, as a lover. But right now, things can’t work that way. I don’t know if I’m going to wait, but I’m willing to try."

The words spilled out of her mouth at the same rate as the tears spilled from her eyes. I didn’t know what to do, but I started to wipe away her tears. I brought her into a close hug and kissed the top of her head. "Everything will work out Jade. I want to be with you too."

"Then be with me. If only just for tonight." She said and took my hand and led me back into my bedroom.