Jade clapped her hands once and nearly smiled when both men looked at her with varying degrees of surprise. Which is to say that Carter just looked at her.
“This meeting is basically a courtesy, Jaxon,” she said. “I have a few strategies I want to put in place, including using newspaper articles, social media posts and other things to make you look like not quite an ass.”
“I work hard on this ass, thanks very much.” He smirked and turned to flex his glutes at Jade.
“That I don’t need to know.” Jade bit off the words. “I’ll have some people start cleaning up your social media image, deleting old tweets, things like that. In the meantime, try to act like a nice kid instead of... What you are?”
“A nineteen-year-old genius on the board of a multibillion-dollar company, who has his own successful app also making money and who happens to like sex with a variety of women?”
He had the nerve to act like it was a real question, his eyebrow going up, head leaned toward her like he was waiting for an answer.
“Or like an entitled ass.”
“Okay, then.”
“Cooperate with my people or I will make you cooperate with them. From now on, your social media accounts are being managed by me and my team. I’ll send over a couple of reporters to interview you about your college choices—” he’d gotten into Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Yale, as well as a small college in Miami, but hadn’t announced his decision yet other than to say he wanted to defer admission for a year “—and try to be nice. Just in case though, I’ll have someone there to give you pointers on niceness.” It wasn’t going to be her.
“You should totally take her to the engagement party, Carter,” Jaxon said, his pale eyes glinting with mischief and something else Jade couldn’t read. “The family would totally love her.”
They thankfully finished up the meeting a few minutes later. Jaxon practically ran out the door, leaving Jade and Carter alone in the heavy silence.
“You know, I actually don’t think that’s a bad idea.”
“What?” Jade narrowed her gaze at him.
“For you to come with me and meet the family.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “I promise they won’t bite.”
She opened her mouth to tell him no way, but he raised a quick hand.
“If you come to the party, you’ll get to see what we’re about. Not just the dynamic between me and the rest of the sibs, but the company mentality too.”
It didn’t really make any sense. She could do her job just as well, maybe even better, if she kept her distance from Carter and his beautiful and intimidatingly huge family.
But don’t you want to know more about him?
The dangerous voice that had ended up throwing her in bed and under him in the first place whispered at her. And she couldn’t deny she was curious what made him the guy he was in college as well as the man who stood before her now.
She licked her lips, knowing before she spoke what she was going to say.
“Why not? Let’s do it.”
What could it hurt?
Chapter 6
On the afternoon of the engagement party, Jade stepped out into the lobby of the South Beach Ritz-Carlton and found Carter exactly where he said he’d be waiting for her.
At first, she offered to meet him at the house where the party was supposed to be, but he’d refused, saying it would be strange for him not to at least pick her up. It seemed like a transparent play to come back to her hotel, but she gave in. It wasn’t that serious, and in the end, it wouldn’t matter. Yes, they’d ended up in bed together. That was in the past, though. It was never going to happen again.
But damn, did he have to look so good?
Seated in one of the plush chairs in the lobby, he looked effortlessly attractive in yet another one of his suits. This one was a blue pinstripe, perfectly cut to his muscular body. His big feet looked elegant and capable in a pair of saddle-brown monk straps.
If she hadn’t been paying such close attention, she might have missed the way other people—men and women—looked at him. He was so comfortable in his skin, elegant and...large, an ankle crossed at the knee to show off the gleam of his shoes and the mouthwatering muscularity of his thighs and calves. Unlike most of the people in the lobby already waiting, he wasn’t looking at any sort of electronic device. Just watching the people around him from beneath half-lowered lashes. When he spotted her, he rose easily to his feet.
Jade, like the rest of the room, she suspected, drew an admiring breath.
Good Lord. He was like a dream come true. A man tall and broad enough to protect and shelter a woman, and who looked good in a suit. Good enough to eat.
Her eyelashes fluttered down as she remembered that she had gotten a taste of him. And just how delicious it had been. But they couldn’t go there again.
“You look nice.” He looked her up and down, a subtle movement of his eyes. The warmth in them grew when he swept his gaze down for a second look.
Although she wasn’t quite sure about the crowd—what the hell were you supposed to wear to an engagement party anyway?—she felt relatively safe in the sleeveless burgundy dress. It hugged her body, but wasn’t too tight, and gave her legs just enough freedom of movement in case she had to run like hell out of there.
Hey, she didn’t know what she was going to be walking into.
“Thank you.” She walked the last few feet toward him in the four-inch designer heels her assistant back in San Diego had picked out. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
“I bet you say that to all your fake dates.” His tone was dry.
She didn’t bother replying to that foolishness. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
“No, you’re right on time, as usual,” Carter said. “I just like getting to a place early.”
“So you can catch people by surprise?”
He shrugged, a resettling of that elegant suit on his perfect frame. “Nope, unless it’s work, I’m not that interested in other people’s reactions.”
The thing was she knew why. As much as she felt he’d changed since college—and yet somehow was still the same in some ways—he was the one who always liked to sit and take things in. He hated to rush.
She remembered that about him, even when they’d made their friend dates to watch movies. When she got to the lounge with the TV, he would always be already there, just sitting and drinking the world in.
Quiet. Gorgeous. Unaware of his beauty. Or even his strength back then.
“Where did you park?” Jade asked.
“With the valet.” He gestured ahead of him toward the front doors of the hotel.
They made their way out to the valet’s station.
“That was fast,” the kid said with with a sinking expression. Like he was sad Carter was back so soon.
“My date was just as early as I was,” Carter said with an unsmiling look that somehow managed to convey a kind of warmth.
The kid spared Jade a brief but appreciative glance before calling another green-suited valet over. “Watch the stand, I’m getting his car.” He jerked his head toward Carter and grabbed the keys before the other boy could do more than sputter and frown.
“Do you come to this hotel often?” That was the only explanation she could think of for them to practically fawn over Carter like that.
“Is that the retro pickup line the cool kids are using these days?”
She ran back through what she’d just said and nearly bit her tongue clean through. She poked his side, then immediately regretted it. “You know that’s not what I mean.” Then she realized again what she’d just done. Treated him like they were still in college and were kids together with the same things on their minds, the same trajectory, the same understood desires.
But Carter remained expressionless, only the tiniest
tic of movement at the corner of his mouth betraying his awareness of what just happened. “I can only take you at face value. Isn’t that what you said?”
She could’ve kicked him in the shins if she wasn’t above such things. Just then, a car pulled up near the front steps where they stood. An electric-blue Bugatti Chiron with windows tinted so dark it had to be illegal even for Florida.
The car was absolutely gorgeous. A model Jade had admired before at car shows but never thought was a fit for her. She much preferred her cooler English ride, but this car was all power and quiet opulence from hood to bumper. A car made not just to be looked at—because damn, it was fine—but also to be driven. Her palms itched just gazing at it.
She opened her mouth to say how delicious it was. Then remembered that Carter wasn’t a friend, only a colleague and a reluctant one at that. The door opened and the valet jumped out. His smile looked big enough to light up a small planet. He practically floated across the asphalt to open the passenger-side door of the car.
He beamed at Carter. “Here you are, sir.”
Only a clench of her jaw stopped Jade’s mouth from dropping open. The Carter she’d known before would have never...
“Thank you.” Carter passed the kid a twenty-dollar bill.
Still in shock mode, Jade walked toward the door but stopped still when Carter slid into the passenger seat and closed the door in her face. He slid down the window and arched an eyebrow at Jade.
“You want to drive, right?”
She nearly tripped over her own two feet dashing over to driver’s side. Her heart thumped loud and hard as she slid into the plush leather seat, instantly overcome by the scent of new leather, new car and the spicy aftershave of the man seated next to her. But she firmly closed the driver’s side door and tried to play it off as best as she could.
“So where are we going?” she asked.
Her fingers curved around the leather-wrapped steering wheel without her permission and she may have been just a little bit breathless.
“Make a left out of here and head toward the highway.” The laughter in Carter’s voice let her know just how transparent she was.
She took off and just about wet herself from how smoothly the car shifted, how sweetly it took even the little side road. Maybe she should ask for the car as her fee instead of actual money. But even as she thought it, she dismissed it. Carter belonged with this car, this new version of Carter anyway. Just like she belonged with hers. The thought strangely disappointed her for a moment before the exhilaration of driving brought the pleasure pulsing deliciously through her fingertips, into her body, down to her feet as she shifted gears and headed in the direction he indicated. They took a few small streets before they finally got onto the highway.
“Now, drive until I tell you when you get off,” he rumbled.
She sneaked a peek at him to see if he was just being funny but he was as calm and expressionless as ever.
“Very smooth,” he complimented after a few moments. His gaze on her legs felt like a heated caress.
After minimal direction from him and barely any conversation, they pulled up to a high steel gate in Coconut Grove. A remote opened the gates and a long and elegant drive took them up to a large house. It looked too homey to be a mansion but was much too large to be a mere “house.”
“Here we are,” he said. “Just park next to any of these other cars and make sure we have room to get out if you need to leave early.”
She may have been raised an only child, but she damn sure wasn’t going to ask him to leave a family event just because she felt out of place. She could be an ass but not that much of one.
The large circular driveway already had nearly a dozen cars parked there. They ran the gamut from Honda to Mini Cooper all the way to a Koenigsegg Trevita. Jade couldn’t help but gawk at all the gorgeous cars as she slowly and carefully cruised past, looking for a place to park Carter’s precious baby.
Yes, she knew his family was rich. The numbers were all there when she’d checked over Diallo Corporation and its board members and officers who also happened to be members of one large family. But the house—grand without being ostentatious—the cars, Jaxon’s casual disregard for any other pleasure but his own, gave her the idea this was wealth she hadn’t really seen from up close before.
Not that she was going to let it intimidate her.
Jade parked the Bugatti and leaned back in the seat to enjoy a few minutes of quiet in the after-silence of the engine. She licked her lips and couldn’t stop herself from smiling, no matter how much she told herself it wasn’t a good idea. Or whatever.
“Your car is delicious.” A complete and utter understatement, although she would eat the little blue beast up if she could.
“Thank you. Did you enjoy the drive?”
What kind of question was that? She turned to him with an eyebrow up and incredulity in her face only to see his smile. She smiled back at him.
“Yes, yes, I did. Thanks for sharing.”
“Anytime,” he said.
The word throbbed in the car between them long after Carter finished speaking. This could become a habit. She fought against the childhood practice of lip-biting that had plagued her all the way through her freshman year of college.
Jade cleared her throat. “Ready?”
“Of course.” After a last look at her, significant and heavy, Carter got out of the car.
A swift breath later, Jade followed him and closed the door behind her. It shut with a firm sound she felt all the way through her body. She rolled her shoulders back at the loveliness of it. Fingers clenched around the key fob, she forced herself to hand it to Carter once she stepped over to his side of the car.
“You hold on to it. We’re leaving here together later, after all.”
She slid the key fob into her purse with a small frisson of satisfaction. “That’s not fair,” she said.
“What do you mean?” He started toward the wide stairs of the veranda and she fell into step beside him.
He was playing her, stroking her good side but she had no idea why. It was so obvious that it was almost laughable. But he didn’t crack so much as a smile.
“God, Carter. You are no good at this subterfuge stuff, are you?”
He only shook his head. “Come on, let me introduce you to my family and the happy couple.”
While they strolled up the elegant veranda with tropical plants lining the graceful railing and trailing green and luxurious up the white columns, he explained that his brother met Adah when he was in Aruba on one of his escapes from family life.
Escapes? She watched his face as he talked, thought she caught a hint of something like envy in the strong lines of his jaw and full mouth.
“Does he get to escape often?” she asked, because it seemed something worth asking.
“Once a year around the same time.”
“And what about you? Do you get to escape like the CEO of Diallo Corporation?” She thought she knew the answer.
It was in the way he had so quickly and capably taken on every responsibility within sight, even those he didn’t need to. It was in what they called him, The Magic Man, out there in the world. He was damn near a legend out there in terms of what he could accomplish in the name of his family.
She knew plenty of headhunters and companies who’d give up at least a million in assets just to have him work for them, hell, to have him for an afternoon. He made problems disappear, sometimes even before they started.
“I don’t really have time for that,” he said in response to her question.
Jade nodded. Of course.
“You should think about a vacation,” she said softly. “If the CEO can take off every year at the same time, you should be able to, as well.”
“The company doesn’t work like that,” he said. “Or at least I don’t.”
“Carter!”
A whirlwind with big cottony hair flung herself at him. “I was waiting for you to come.”
The whirlwind wasn’t a child exactly. The lack of childhood roundness was hard to miss in the beautiful face, as was the fox-like intelligence that seemed common to the Diallo family. But the unabashed enthusiasm, the eagerness to show love, was innocent and sweet and Jade couldn’t help but smile.
“Who are you, anyway?” The pixie looked up at Jade from her octopus-type grip around Carter’s waist. Definitely not innocent or childlike.
But Jade didn’t allow her smile to fade at the confrontational tone. “I’m a friend.”
“Don’t be rude, Elia,” Carter said at the same time, but he curved his large hand protectively around the pixie’s shoulder.
“I’m not being rude, I’m being direct.” Elia pulled herself from Carter just enough to put out a hand for Jade to shake. “I’m Elia Diallo. What’s your name?”
Jade gave her own name and watched with shock as the suspicion transformed to a look of pleased surprise. “Cool!”
What was this about?
Carter shook his head. “Don’t you have something else to do?” he asked, mock irritation in his tone.
But Elia shook her head. “Nope. The only thing I have on my agenda is to harass my favorite brother.”
Then Carter actually laughed. While they’d been talking, Jade noticed a few people throwing them curious looks.
Well, at least they weren’t giving her the side-eye.
“Come on in,” Elia said. “You know Mama’s been waiting for you to get here.” She threw her arms around both of their waists, putting herself firmly in the middle.
The house was packed. Servants uniformed in elegant black and white moved silently among the endless supply of beautiful people perched everywhere Jade looked. She and Carter moved through the sitting room—where no one was actually sitting—to a long and wide hallway decorated with family photographs, most of them with laughing and smiling people, with some sprinkling of art pieces here and there, out to the backyard.
Her Perfect Pleasure Page 9