They all looked her over as if they knew her and because of that, their smiles and hugs of welcome frightened her just a little. But despite herself, she ended up having a bit of a good time. Even chatted with Carter’s parents, his mother who she knew was COO but didn’t know what a woman with a steel spine looked like until the person she’d caught cuddled with her husband in a hidden alcove also proved to be absolutely unbendable, graceful and a little frightening.
“So, you’re the one,” Carter’s mother said to Jade after the toasts had been made to Kingsley and Adah.
“The one?” She stared back at the beautiful older woman. “Oh, you mean the one who Kingsley hired to help with the...situation? Yes,” she plowed ahead before his mother could answer. What else could she be asking about?
“Of course, dear. What else could I be talking about?” Hyacinth Diallo looked past Jade’s shoulder at someone or something, but Jade kept it cool and managed not to turn around and look in that direction. “You seem like a lovely woman, my dear. I hope you’ll be able to fit in to the position as well as my children think.”
Fit in to the position? But she had already been hired. It was a done deal. But again, she didn’t ask for any clarification. That was what Carter was there for.
When most of the people had already flowed out the door and on to another event much more interesting than what Jade was heading to after this, Carter found her at the punch bowl chatting with Lola Diallo about California and the merits of San Diego over Miami.
The woman knew a lot of San Diego and seemed to like it well enough, although at the end of their conversation, Jade actually thought she hated it a little and had the opinion that anyone wanting happiness needed to move immediately to Miami.
But Jade hadn’t known much happiness in Miami. Only in theory when she’d had stupid, and brief, thoughts of moving back there with a family of her own.
“Miami has its downside,” Lola said with a careful shrug of her narrow and elegant shoulders. “But have you checked out all the cool stuff to do here? The place has changed a little bit since you were a naive college kid.”
“It hasn’t changed that much,” Jade said. From what she saw, except for a few buildings, smaller bikinis and higher taxes, things had stayed pretty much the same. And that same place was not somewhere she would ever consider living.
“You ready, Jade?” Carter appeared at her shoulder, tucking his phone in his pocket.
The man lived with that damn phone in his hand. With all his responsibilities, it only made sense, though.
“Sure,” she said. “Whenever you are.”
The siblings exchanged a look and Carter’s jaw flexed. “In that case, let’s go. I’ll take you back to your hotel before it gets too much later.”
It was already nudging close to midnight. The daytime engagement party had turned into a nighttime celebration, complete with dancing in the gazebo and pretty much anywhere in the house there was room to move.
“Okay.” Jade smiled in apology at Lola. “It was great to meet you. Maybe we’ll see each other again soon.” And she wasn’t lying. She’d liked talking with the extroverted and slightly irreverent woman who was nothing like Carter.
“I’m sure we will,” Lola said. Then leaned in to squeeze Jade in a tight hug. “Don’t let this one drive you off. We like having you around and would love for you to come back around more often.”
We?
But before she could think to ask, Lola was nudging Carter’s shoulder and walking off toward the kitchen to scandalize someone else.
It didn’t take long for her and Carter to say their goodbyes and climb back into his gorgeous car.
They drove for miles before Jade thought of anything to say. The whole day had been a bit surreal.
“Your family seems nice.”
“You’ll realize the error of that statement soon enough,” he said drily. “They do like you though, which is why they were on their best behavior.”
Jade choked on an unexpected breath of laughter. Best behavior?
Thinking of the steady stream of dirty jokes Lola told her all night and the identity trick Paxton played on her, she wondered briefly how the family treated people it didn’t like.
The smile fell from her face but the warmth from Carter, from the evening with his beautiful family, remained.
“Jade.”
She lifted her head to look at Carter as the car slowed to a stop at a light. His dark eyes settled on her, heavy and warm.
“I didn’t say it before, but I want to tell you now.” His deep voice sent ripples of awareness into her belly. “Thank you for staying with me and my family tonight. It means a lot.”
“I—” I didn’t know how much I wanted to stay until you asked me. “You’re welcome. It wasn’t so bad.”
But she made sure he saw the humor in her eyes. Carter huffed a laugh and turned his attention back to the road.
More miles passed.
Jade breathed into the strangely comfortable silence and curled into the luxurious leather seat. The sensuous leather smell and movement of the cityscape past her window accompanied her confused thoughts for the rest of the ride.
Beside her, Carter handled the car with sensual speed and efficiency, hand always on the gearshift, his eyes straight ahead except for the few times he glanced briefly her way. The definition of quiet strength.
He was a good man. Not at all the runner she labeled him as after he disappeared on her in college. So now, where did that leave her and the anger she’d carried around against him for so long?
In its own way, that anger had been comforting. It was familiar.
Now, though, she had to put it aside.
But what else did she have to hold on to?
Chapter 8
“So are you absolutely sure you don’t want to keep the property?”
Jade, pretending to be relaxed in the chair across from the lawyer’s desk, curled her toes in the royal blue stilettos she’d worn on a whim. Well, not quite on a whim. After seeing Carter and being battered by her own uncertain feelings, she’d needed every confidence booster possible. So she’d put on one of the sexiest dresses in her suitcase, screw-me-silly shoes, done her makeup to savage perfection and shown up again at the lawyer’s office.
Of course, she rationalized it by saying she had a later dinner with her cousin after this—a cousin she’d only known as a kid wanted to give her condolences in person on her parents’ death. She’d told Melody it was no problem, no condolences needed, but her cousin had been insistent and Jade hadn’t had enough willpower to push back and claim an evening eating ice cream and watching reality TV for herself.
So, yes. Here she was at her lawyer’s office, or her parents’ lawyer’s office, dressed to kill—or at least for sex—while he tried to convince her she didn’t hate the idea of keeping the house where her childhood died.
“I intend to sell it.” She turned her wrist to look at her watch. “I’ve already signed the papers necessary for claiming their estate.” A fancy term for what was basically their house, the furniture in it, her mother’s little Honda Civic and the few dollars they’d saved up over the years. None of which Jade needed.
Even with the job of dealing with the Diallo’s problem child—or at least the one who was giving them problems at the moment—all she wanted to do was jump on the fastest plane out of Miami and get back to her normal and Carter-free life in San Diego.
There, she wouldn’t have to worry about the annoying pulses of feeling for Carter that pressed under her skin whenever she was near him. Or thought of him. Or when he was in Miami with her.
God...
“Did you say something?” The lawyer looked at her with obviously faked concern.
“Nothing you’re listening to, apparently.” She stopped swinging her foot. “Listen. Just do as I ask.” Sh
e might just be done playing nice. “This...flotsam is nothing I want or need. Let’s just arrange for the sale of the lot. I’ll sign whatever you need to make that happen.”
Another frown of concern. “Ms. Tremaine—”
And then she’d had enough. “I have another appointment, Mr. Harris. If you can’t handle my parents’ affairs as I’ve instructed, then I’ll have someone else tend to it.”
The man’s mouth tightened. “No. We are perfectly capable of dealing with the estate as you’ve requested. It just seems a shame—”
“Perfect.” Jade got to her feet. “That’s all I need. Please start the process.” With a flick of her fingers, she adjusted the drape of the dress over her legs then shouldered her purse. “Thank you for your time with this and, of course, your promptness in dealing with this matter.”
A sputter of words left his mouth as he stood up so she wouldn’t loom over him. “If you’re sure...”
“I am.” She offered him her hand to shake over the desk then turned to leave as soon as that basic courtesy was exchanged. “Have a good day, Mr. Harris. And thank you so much for your time.”
With the harsh thud of her heart in her ears, she practically ran out of the office, down the short flight of stairs and into the early evening. The lukewarm Miami air rushed into her lungs.
In. Out. And again.
Even from the grave, it seemed like her parents were intent on torturing her. Cold fingers clutched at the strap of her purse, but she held her head up and marched to the cool and elegant lines of her car in the parking lot where it was by no means the only expensive ride.
She badly needed to blow away the agitation the conversation with the lawyer had stirred back up. A drive with the windows down and her music blasting loud enough to obliterate her thoughts was just the trick.
* * *
An hour later found her at the restaurant where her cousin wanted to meet.
The bright October full moon and cool Miami city lights surrounded her when she climbed out of her car and began making her way toward the sidewalk seating where her cousin told her she would be waiting.
The sidewalk area overflowed with a laughing and drinking crowd, a typical Miami sight Jade had never been part of in her hometown. Home. Parents. Homework. Fears of what she was missing while her peers had whole “sinful” lives.
A quick glance at her watch told her she was at least fifteen minutes early and she headed toward the front door of the restaurant.
“Jade!”
Startled, she stopped at the sound of her name. A woman in gray stood up from a table for two, waving. “Hey, cuzzo!”
Cuzzo?
She threw out a smile and detoured to the woman who, as she drew closer, coalesced into the familiar features of one of the kids, her aunt’s only girl, she used to play with as a child.
Jade’s footsteps faltered as fragments of memories came back to her.
Running around a cluttered backyard.
Eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with two other children at a kitchen table while music played and a woman, plump and flashing a gold tooth, sang along.
Swapping stories from the bottom of a bunk bed.
Yes, she had played with other children when she was younger. She’d always been isolated in her parents’ lake view house and away from “outside” influences.
But it wasn’t long before her father put the brakes on those playdates with his sister’s children, insisting that Jade being with her cousins would lead to a life of looseness and sin. Never mind that she hadn’t even been eleven years old yet when they were yanked out of her life.
“Hi, Melody.”
She was vaguely aware of eyes on her as she made her way to her cousin, her hips swinging in the high heels and soft A-line dress.
Now that Jade wasn’t elbows deep in worry about her parents or property or anything else, she remembered how Melody’s parents had been nightclub singers and musicians. They’d loved to sing at gatherings. And Melody actually had a great singing voice. But she still didn’t know why her cousin had reached out to her.
“You got a hot date tonight, girl?” Melody asked with a teasing smile.
She was gorgeous and deliciously thick with her wide hips, generous bosom, and wide mouth showing off a warm and giving smile. Her wavy, permed hair was thick and long around her face and shoulders, and she wore a gray dress and purple shoes and looked ready for a photo shoot.
The memories came rushing back and they made her smile. Her cousin, irreverent and with a smart mouth at eleven. A talented singer who could read music and had already memorized over a dozen songs and had written one of her own by the time she and Jade had been ripped from each other’s lives.
“Do you have a hot date?”
Melody sucked her teeth and gave Jade a playful sideways look. “Girl, I stay ready for Mr. Right in these competitive streets!”
Jade couldn’t help it. She laughed long and loud as she and Melody exchanged a lasting and warm hug.
“Well, obviously you look great,” Jade said as she sat down.
“Thanks, girl. You’re not too bad,” Melody said. The look she gave Jade’s dress, shoes and hair said that was a hell of an understatement.
Only two glasses of water and a place setting for two sat on the small table.
“Thanks.” She flashed her cousin a smile, suddenly glad that she came. “You look amazing. I love those shoes.”
Melody’s eyes twinkled. “Wanna exchange?” She knew good and damn well the difference in the prices of the shoes was as far as the earth was from the moon.
“I’ll let you know after a glass or two of wine.”
“In that case, let’s get to it!” Melody signaled a passing waiter.
They settled down to a shared bottle of midpriced but delicious dessert wine—Jade wasn’t very hungry and Melody confessed to a large and late lunch before she got to the restaurant.
“Thanks for coming out to meet me, Jade. I know you weren’t feeling it.”
Jade shrugged, not bothering to lie. They hadn’t seen each other since they were children, true, but even at the peril of hurting someone’s feelings, Jade wasn’t in the habit of lying to family.
“Your call caught me by surprise,” she said instead.
“I bet.” Melody winked at her, honest to God winked. “But when I heard about your parents, I figured you’d come this way. Since I didn’t have your number, I asked the lawyer to pass your info my way and here we are.”
“Here we are,” Jade repeated. She sipped from her long-stemmed glass and rolled the sweet red over her tongue.
Melody’s game was warm and fond, even a little nostalgic. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to keep in touch. My folks didn’t want me to piss your father off.”
Understandable. For a spiritual man, her father had a hell of a temper.
“Held a lot of people by a short leash,” she said. In school, he and her mother determined what friends she had, what her school activities were, what she knew about the world. And she had been too scared to push back against any of it.
Only when she’d escaped to college and ended up meeting Carter had she made her very first decisions about more than basic things as an adult.
And her father had been the very first one to throw the consequences of that right in her face.
“But you’re okay now, right?” A frown of concern sat between Melody’s bright eyes. Artificially lightened to a strange gray, they matched her dress.
“More or less.” Jade let her shrug speak for her.
“I’m sorry, honey.” The pity in her cousin’s face twisted like a knife in Jade’s stomach.
“Nothing to be sorry for. None of it was your fault. We were both kids, right?”
“Yeah, but I could have at least...I don’t know. Asked my parents to help you
out?” She looked as helpless sitting across the table as she must have felt as a child.
“They had kids and a life and worries of their own. Please, it’s fine, Mel. Really.” The old nickname fell naturally off her tongue and her cousin smiled softly at the sound of it. “The present is what counts.”
“Well, in that case, tell me what you’re doing now, in the present.”
Jade shrugged again. “Working. Dealing with the house they left me. I’m selling it as soon as possible and taking my butt back to California.”
“Oh...” Melody paused with her wineglass held up to her lips. “You’re not sticking around?”
“I don’t—” The trill of Jade’s cell phone, a tone that belonged to her office in San Diego, interrupted her. “Oh, sorry. I have to take this.” She fished the phone out of her bag. “Hey, Corrie.”
“Hopefully I’m not interrupting anything important,” her partner greeted her, sounding irritated and distracted. The clicking of computer keys came clearly through the phone.
“You are, but you’re already on the phone so lay it on me.”
“Van Tyle is up to some real obvious foolishness right now. In your town. Not far from you, in fact.”
“Seriously...?”
“If I had any sort of sense of humor left, I sure wouldn’t be using it right now,” Corrie muttered.
“Okay, I’ll go handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
Jade barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes at Corrie. “That’s what you called for me to do, right?”
“I was just trying to be polite and respectful of whatever thing you have going on now.”
This time, Jade did roll her eyes. “Thanks. But you know as well as I do that business is never secure enough for us to blow off a client and not expect repercussions.”
The day before, when Corrie had sent the message to Jade about Owen Van Tyle, Jade didn’t doubt she could deal with it.
While at the engagement party, she’d put out a few feelers for the errant husband but nothing panned out beyond a confirmation that he was in Miami and spending an alarming amount of cash. The search during that day before her visit to the lawyer had yielded practically the same thing.
Her Perfect Pleasure Page 12