This is an adaptation of Judith McNaught's novel, Double Standards.

Secrets and Love

Chapter 6

Brenda slammed the book shut, refusing to believe what she had just seen.  Taking a few deep breaths, she slowly opened the pages again.  This time, she continued past the Nurse’s Ball photo with Ashley Brent.  She continued to see Jasper Jacks in picture after picture with a myriad of women.  Finally, she rested on a photograph of him in his office taken for a business magazine.  The light reflected off the high gloss of the page and she bent to study the face she saw.

Her hand trembled with anger as she traced his features, the features she’d become familiar with three nights before in her own bed.  He’d been lying to her this whole time.  Jax was Jasper Jacks.  Standing up straight, she walked a few steps away from the desk.  How could she have been so blind?!  She should have seen that he was hiding something from her!  He’d never told her his last name.  He was never specific about what he did.  He rarely gave her a straight answer before moving on to another topic focusing on her.

She was so stupid!  Brenda paced the office floor, back and forth, a few times.  She didn’t know what to do.  Should she confront him or should she wait?  She had so much pent-up anger in her, she was almost afraid of what she might do if she saw him at this moment.  Not only had he hurt her by leaving her to wake up alone, but now she came to find out he’d been lying to her the whole time.  She had to say something to him!

Brenda fumed silently at her desk for another hour.  She had accomplished nothing in the way of work and if Lois’s glances in her direction were any indication, someone else was starting to notice.  She stared at the photo album on her desk.  Finally, picking it up, she walked over to Lois’s desk.

“Marianne left this for you earlier,” Brenda said, handing the book to Lois.

“Oh, thanks,” Lois responded.  As Brenda was walking away, she stopped her.  “Brenda, is something wrong?”  Brenda didn’t respond to her, immediately confirming her suspicions.  “Is it Jax?”  The shoulders stiffened even further, if it was possible.  “What did he do?”  Still, she got no answer.  “Brenda?”

She looked at the book now in her hands and paged through the first few pages.  Suddenly, realization came over her.  “Oh my gosh, Brenda, you know, don’t you?”  It finally raised a reaction.

“Know what, Lois?” Brenda asked tightly.

“You know who he is.”  The tone of the conversation they were having so far told her she was right.

“And what makes you think I didn’t already know, Lois?”  She knew full well that Lois knew she’d been in the dark from the conversation they’d had the day before.  What she wondered about was how well Lois knew that Jax had been lying to her.

“I talked to him last night,” she admitted after a few moments.

Brenda stalked over to the desk.  “About me?!”

“Kind of.”

“What did you say, Lois?  Did you tell him about our conversation?”  She wouldn’t be able to face him if she had.

“No!  Brenda, I swear I didn't tell him about it!  That stays between us!”  Most of it did, anyway.

There was a tense silence in the office for several long minutes.  Brenda turned away toward her desk so that Lois wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes.

Quietly, Lois asked, “Are you going to talk to him?”

“I don’t know,” Brenda responded.  “I don’t know if I can.”  Or if I want to ever again, she thought to herself.

All that night, Brenda fumed about the lies Jax had told her.  Ironically enough, the more she thought about it, the more she realized he never lied to her whenever she asked him a question.  He always said enough for it to be the truth in some vague way.  Sure, he had a finance degree and an engineering degree and he had ‘helped’ design the J&J Enterprises building.  All those people at that party had flown in to talk to him about their own projects, but she was coming to realize it was because they wanted him to finance their projects, not design them.  He had even told her that Jax was only his nickname.  It was her own fault she hadn’t asked what his full name was.  She knew she was partially to blame for his conning her, but he was the one who should have been upfront with her from the start.

Like you have been, right?  Her conscience nagged at her.  She was the one who had gotten this job solely to benefit Edward, wasn’t she?  She should have known better than to get involved with anyone in the company.  She shouldn’t have become good friends with Lois or Nikolas.  She shouldn’t have dated even the designer, forget the fact that he turned out to be the owner of the corporation!

When all was said and done and she really thought about it, though, the one thing that hurt the most was the fact that she had started to really like him.

By the following morning, Jax knew something was wrong with Brenda.  She wouldn’t return a single phone call of his, even though he kind of expected that.  He was trying to apologize for leaving her after their one night together, but she wasn’t giving him a chance.  Then, he’d talked to Lois briefly when she had intercepted an attempted phone call and Lois had all but hung up on him.

Given the entire night to think about it, he had come up with two possible explanations.  Either Lois had spilled his secret or he had hurt Brenda more than even he cared to think about.  Neither of the situations was very appealing to try to get through.

Ned was waiting in the reception area of his office when the elevator opened on the top floor for Jax to get to his desk.

“Ned, what’s up?  I didn’t know we had a meeting this morning,” Jax greeted him.

Ned studied his friend and business partner for a second before answering.  “Geez, Jax, you look like hell.” 

He didn’t know anything of what was going on, but from the looks of it, Jax wasn’t having a good time of it lately.  He had faint circles under his eyes.  His hair wasn’t perfectly combed like it usually was.  It looked like he’d woken up and run his fingers through it to comb it.  He was impeccably dressed, as always, but there was still something off.

“Thank you,” Jax responded and kept walking.  Ned followed him into his office and closed the door behind them.  “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, really.  I just wanted to talk about the new merger you’ve got set to start.  I’ve got the paperwork almost finished.”

“Okay.”  Jax set his briefcase on the desk and opened it, taking out a folder of papers and leafing through it.

Ned could tell from his actions that he was more distracted than anything else and he seriously doubted if Jax was even listening to him.  “I was thinking we might want to redo the lobby downstairs to include some circus themes and a live elephant if you think that would be okay.”

“Whatever you say I’m sure is fine,” Jax replied.  He continued to leaf through the same file folder.

“Jax!”  Ned waved his hands in the air in front of him to get his attention.

Finally, Jax looked up and stared at Ned.  “What?”

“Jax, you just told me it was okay if I decided to put a live elephant in the front lobby.”

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked, puzzled.

Ned sighed.  “That’s exactly my point.”  He sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk.  “Come on, Jax, out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you.  You haven’t heard a word I’ve said to you yet.  You look like hell.  What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, Ned.”  Jax put down the file folder and sat down heavily in his desk chair.

“Are you sick?”  Jax shook his head.  “Is it the investigation?”  Again, another shake of the head.  “Is it a woman?”  There was no answer and his eyes remained diverted.  “Ah ha!  It is a woman!  Who is she?”

Jax closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.  He rubbed his forehead briskly, drawing a deep breath.  “She’s no one, Ned.”

“Yeah, right, Jax, and I’m going to hang a flying trapeze in the lobby because you said I could.  I know you better than that.”

“I’m surprised Lois hasn’t told you anyway.”

“Lois?  What does she have to do with this?”  Ned was confused and Jax wasn’t helping.  He thought about it for a moment.  “Wait a minute, does Lois know her?”

Jax sighed and turned his chair away from Ned, looking toward the window.  “Kind of.”

Ned drew a sharp breath and frowned.  “You wouldn’t be telling me this if it was Lois, would you?”

Jax whirled around again.  “No!”  He sighed.  “I mean, no, it’s not Lois.  Not no, it’s Lois and I wouldn’t—“ he stammered.

“Okay, Jax.  It’s okay.  Then who is it?  Do I know her?” 

Jax merely nodded and leaned his head into his hands.

He looked so forlorn that Ned didn’t know what to say.  All of a sudden it dawned on him who the woman was.  “Oh my God, Jax.  Are you sleeping with my secretary?!  With Brenda?!”  It all kind of made a weird sense now.  He had kind of noticed Brenda’s strange mood the last few days.  She wasn’t exactly the most friendly person anymore.  And now, Jax was here looking like he’d lost his best friend.

Jax wouldn’t answer him, so Ned was forced to draw his own conclusions.  “So, you slept with Brenda, whom I didn’t even know you knew, by the way.  Now, she’s mad at you and you’re probably trying to apologize.  What’d you do?”

“Something I can’t take back,” Jax finally said softly.

“You cheated on her already?!”

Jax vehemently shook his head.  “No! “  He sighed.  “I wish it were that simple.”

“It’s not?”  Jax shook his head.  “Then tell me what you did.”

“You’ll take her side.”

Ned nodded, grinning.  “Probably.  Tell me anyway.”

Finally, Jax told him every detail of the last few days he’d had with Brenda.  He started with how he met her outside and continued until he told Ned the same thing he had told Lois the night before about Ashley Brent.  When he finished, he propped his elbows on the desk and buried his head in his hands.

“She’s never going to forgive me for this one, Ned.  I really screwed up.”

A little awed, Ned nodded again.  “Yes, you did.”

“And you know what the worst part is?”

“What?”

“I was really starting to like her.”  Jax closed his eyes and put his head back in his hands.

Another day passed before Brenda finally got up the nerve to go to the top floor of the office building and speak to Jax.  She was still furious with him, but she felt like they needed to talk about it at the very least.  Since she was lying to him, too, she felt she owed him that much.

The elevator doors opened silently and she saw Jax’s secretary, Addie, sitting behind her desk in the middle of the reception area.  “Good morning, Addie,” Brenda greeted her quietly. 

“Ms. Barrett,” the other woman said.  “What can I do for you?  Did you bring the contract from Mr. Ashton with you?”

“Oh, no,” she responded somewhat sheepishly.  “I came by myself.  I was wondering if Mr. Jacks is in and if I can speak to him.”  She knew she must sound a little odd asking to see the president of the company when it would have seemed to Addie that she didn’t even know him.

“Well, actually, no, dear, he’s not in.  He’s had to go out of the country for awhile.  Would you like me to relay a message for you when he calls in?”

Brenda shook her head rapidly.  “No!  I mean, no, please don’t bother him.  I’ll just try again when he comes back.”

She headed back to the elevators and returned to her desk on the seventeenth floor.  Lois looked up curiously as she entered their office. 

“Did you see him?” Lois asked immediately.

Brenda shook her head again.  “No, he’s out of the country on business this week.”  She sat down at her desk.  “But that’s okay, right?  Because it’s probably a good thing.  I mean, maybe it’s a sign that I’m not supposed to talk to him.  Maybe we’re not supposed to work this out.”

“Brenda, you don’t believe in signs, remember?”

She sighed.  “I know.”  But she’d really been trying to.

Two more days and Brenda was beginning to go nuts thinking about Jax.  She was still furious with him, but now she was even starting to miss him a little.  She hated herself for it. 

Lois noticed for the fifteenth time when Brenda checked the clock above the door.  She picked up her phone, dialed an extension, and said, “Addie, hi, it’s Lois.  Can you tell me when Mr. Jacks will be coming back into town?”  There was a pause.  “Oh, no, I just wanted to ask him a question for Ned.”  Another pause.  “Okay, great, I’ll give him a call then.  Thanks!”

Brenda stared at Lois, her expression dumbfounded.  “Lois!  How could you do that?”

“Oh, relax, girlfriend.  It’s not like Addie knows anything about you.  Besides, I noticed you checking the clock every other minute and you were driving me nuts, so I put an end to it.  He’s on his way into the office right now, by the way.  He got back an hour ago.”  She turned her chair and returned to her typing.

Brenda fumed in Lois’s direction for a few more minutes until it was apparent that she was being ignored.  Now she was trying to decide what to do.  Should she be bold and confront him before he said anything to her?  Should she wait for him to ask to see her again and then have it out with him?  What if he never called her?  What if he didn’t care anymore?  Why, all of a sudden, did she care what he thought so much?

Jax breezed past Addie into his office, gathering his phone messages in the same quick stride.  The door slammed behind him before she even said a word to him.  He’d been too busy in the past few days to even think about anything but work and it looked like, for the next several hours, he would continue to be busy.  Running his fingers through his hair, he started in on the phone calls without another thought.

It was eight o’clock at night before he finally took a break.  Rubbing his exhausted eyes, he leaned back in his chair and turned to face the bank of windows.  The summer sun was beginning to set over the other office buildings, but the sky was still a brilliant shade of blue in the background.  He gazed down at the lake, watching as an import ship passed through the river inlet to the docks.  His eyes settled on the spot across the river where the restaurant he owned was located and his thoughts were suddenly flooded with Brenda.

He should tell her the truth.  He should just come clean with her and tell her everything.  If he told her why he had done it, she might even understand.  She might even forgive him for it.  Or she might not, his conscience nagged at him.  Right now, she wasn’t even speaking to him because she was still too upset over his abandoning her in the middle of the night.  She’d have to forgive him for that first.

Getting up from his chair, he paced the length of his office.  He remembered the first time she’d been there with him.  She’d been soaking wet, dirty from the construction, and oddly trusting of him.  He hadn’t even thought she was a day over eighteen until she’d cleaned up a little bit.  Then, she’d taken his breath away. 

The truth was, he suspected she might have been the best thing to ever happen to him.  She was funny, bright, beautiful, and so many other things there were too many to count.  He could picture himself falling in love with her.  He wondered if it was possible it was happening already.

The only thing he knew for certain was that he needed to tell her the truth and quickly.  He needed her to find out from him before she found out on her own.  If she did, he knew she would never forgive him.

 

Chapter 7

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