She had on sunglasses with very small oval lenses sitting horizontally, just barely covering over her eyes.
And last, deep red lips.
“Bonjour,” she sang from behind him, right before she made his side.
She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned in from behind to kiss his cheek.
As she rubbed at the lipstick she’d left, murmuring, “Ça va, Uncle Corey?” Corey’s annoyance at her shifted to the point it almost entirely evaporated.
Once she’d erased her mark, she tossed her small bag on the bench before she tossed herself in it, her hair gliding and bouncing as she moved, her body lithe as only young people’s bodies could be.
His gaze went back to the mirror.
Every man in the room had eyes to her.
He sighed before he greeted, “Hello, Chloe.”
She looked fed, well, though her skin was pale. It was late autumn in Paris, not the warmest season.
However.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she declared. “I haven’t seen anyone from home in ages.”
“This would be because you haven’t been home in over two years.”
She lifted a hand. “Uncle Corey.” She flicked out that hand toward a window. “Paris.”
Corey was who he was.
Therefore, as relieved as he was to see her looking her normal self (except the LA fashionista having two years of France injected into her bloodstream turned her into a fashionassassin), he didn’t fuck around.
“Your mother and father are worried sick about you.”
Her lips thinned before she asked, “Are you here to enjoy lunch with your favorite niece or are you here to get in my face for my parents?”
He didn’t answer.
He noted, “And according to your sister, you’ve had a recent breakup. Another one.”
To his astonishment, after he brought that up, she turned her head away immediately, her jaw going solid.
Corey paused, examining her profile.
And he realized, whoever this latest one was, it hurt.
“Talk to me,” he ordered.
She faced him again. “Can we just have lunch?”
Fortunately, for her, the waiter arrived.
They ordered drinks and starters and the waiter moved away.
“Share,” he essentially repeated, declaring her brief reprieve was over.
She made a huffing noise.
“Chloe,” he said warningly.
“You’re a pain in my ass, Uncle Corey,” she replied.
“Do I have to harm someone?” he asked casually.
For a second, she simply stared, her lips parting.
Then she whispered, “What?”
“Has someone hurt you?” he demanded.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said quickly and waved a hand in front of her. “He wasn’t that important.”
Corey made no reply but did not release his hold on her shades.
She tried to change the subject. “What are you getting for your main?”
“I had meetings in London,” he began. “I had meetings in Stockholm. And I have meetings in Johannesburg. I have delayed those last to be here, right now, with you. So do not waste my time by lying to me.”
She looked stunned.
“You changed your plans because—?”
“Because your family is worried about you and—”
“You’re my family,” she finished for him softly.
Though that was not what he’d intended to say.
And hearing her say it, the exertion it required for him not to display the effects of the feeling of his chest caving in nearly put him in a catatonic state.
But he managed to avoid it and recovered through his silence.
Their wine arrived.
The waiter was long gone before Chloe said quietly, “He made me the other woman.”
Another blow landed on Corey, this being the look on her face, not close to hidden by her sunglasses.
But more, the small sound of her voice.
Chloe was not small; she’d never been small in her life.
Whoever this man was, he’d made her feel small.
Corey made an instant decision.
He not only needed to harm someone.
He intended to.
“Pardon?” he asked menacingly.
She took her glasses off, tossed them on the table and reached for her wine.
After a sip, she returned her attention to him.
And her gaze was haunted.
Indeed.
Someone would feel that pain.
“I didn’t know he was married,” she shared. “He’s young. Not, like, seventeen or anything. He’s twenty-four. But he’s been married two years. I had no idea. I went to a party, and they were there. An acquaintance of mine who didn’t know I was seeing him told me who she was. He saw me and freaked out. But in a very French way.”
She shook her head, disgust mixed with anger that did not hide the pain in every centimeter of that movement.
And then she continued sharing.
“He called me later. That same night, if you can believe. Pretended not to know me when someone introduced us at the party, then I’m home, like, ten seconds and he’s calling me. When I lost it on him, he told me to stop overreacting. It was fine. He had deep feelings for me and there was no reason we couldn’t carry on. Yes, he actually said that and no, I still can’t believe it even though it happened a week ago. I asked if she knew about us, and he said there was no need for her to know. No need for her to know. Who thinks that way?”
Corey didn’t answer that question.
He presented his own.
“You cared about him?”
“He’s…” Now just a sad shake of her head. “He takes these amazing photographs, Uncle Corey. He’s…when his attention is on you, it’s like you’re in his lens. The focus. It makes you feel…it’s special.”
But yet, it wasn’t.
She took another sip of wine, set the glass down and said to it, “I was really happy with him. I felt something…I don’t know what it was. Then, when I knew what kind of person he was, it all turned ugly. Dirty. Every second we shared. Every word we exchanged. And worse,” she lifted her gaze to his, “I half wanted him to talk me into persisting.”
“Because you were falling in love with him.”
Her attention dropped back to the wineglass.
No.
She wasn’t falling.
She’d already done that.
Christ, his throat burned.
“Chloe, look at me,” he ordered.
Her gaze drifted back up.
“Never put up with anything from anyone that makes you uncomfortable, makes you feel wrong, makes you question the woman you are, or makes you go against who that woman is in her soul. Especially if any of that is coming from a man.”
The small voice returned, and Corey felt it in the back of his teeth.
“I thought, with him, I had what Mom and Dad have.”
And that made Corey’s mouth fill with saliva.
“That is rare, what they have,” he forced out. “But you’ll find it.”
“Right, right, I have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she muttered, watching her fingers twist the stem of her wineglass this way and that, bored with the metaphor that had probably been suggested to her one way or another with every boy she’d liked or boyfriend she’d snared.
All Corey could think about was the word “frog.”
The day they’d met Imogen, Duncan had thrown a frog at her.
She’d been incensed.
Years later, they were in love.
“Chloe,” he called, and she again focused on him. “There is a man out there who will worship you. Not because he’s intent to make you feel special. Because he understands to his bones that you already are.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes.
He gave her time and was unsurprised when she conquered that emotion.
“Do not think another moment about this piece of shit,” he advised. “Live your life being you, and one day, you’ll run into him, the man you’re supposed to find. And you know yourself so well, you’ll recognize him instantly. He won’t slip through your fingers, Chloe. And whoever that man is, he would eat a bullet before he made you feel dirty. But until then,” he picked up his own glass and tipped it her way, “have fun with what’s on offer. That day he’s in your life will come soon enough.”
He took a sip and did not dwell too long on the fact that her bright smile that was accompanied by bright eyes made him feel exactly how he felt when he’d earned his first billion.
They had lunch.
He insisted on driving her back to her flat and then going up to inspect it.
It looked like it’d been dressed by an award-winning Hollywood set designer.
This Corey found unsurprising too.
He knew she’d been working in an exclusive boutique on the Rue Saint-Honoré, doing this now going on a year and a half. He also knew that her parents were augmenting her income, because she didn’t make much money (and he’d just added to that, slipping an envelope with several thousand Euro next to the undoubtedly-bought-used, but that only made it stylishly retro espresso maker in her kitchen).
However, he should have known they had nothing to worry about with Chloe, at least not with all the trappings of life, and the trimming of it.
Her heart, well, that was different.
She walked him down to his car, and before he folded into the back seat, she got up on the toes of her pumps, kissed his cheek and said into his ear, “Thanks for dropping by Paris.”
Dropping by Paris.
When she rolled back, she was grinning at him as only Chloe could, showing nonchalant gratitude about a gesture that took two of his assistants three days to successfully shift his entire schedule so that he could make it.
Nonchalant in tone or not, her point was made, and the true depths of gratitude she felt were unhidden in her eyes.
He tilted his lips up for her.
Then he angled in his car.
She stood on the pavement as his chauffeur glided the car away.
Once they’d made a turn, he pulled out his phone.
It rang and then a deep voice answered, “Vaughan.”
Corey’s lips were absolutely not tilted up when he asked, “Rhys, how long will it take for you to get to Paris?”
“I can be there by the morning.”
“Good,” Corey replied. “I have a job for you.”
Chapter 17
The Hike
Chloe
Now…
As I ambled down the sloping walk to Judge’s front door, I did it trying to focus on the townhome development I’d already fully taken in as I’d driven through.
And not because it was small, even though it was.
It was because I could be convinced Judge had been consulted by the developers while they were designing it (yes, it was that perfect for him), and therefore it was fascinating to me.
I’d counted, and there were five lines of five townhomes, all of them inclining up steep rises and dotted over a rather large, densely treed area. The buildings were situated in ways that you had neighbors in another set of homes, but they weren’t all that close.
And the entire area around them was natural.
No tennis court, swimming pool, or play area.
These homes were for people who wanted to live in nature, perhaps in a community not far from others, just not a bustling one. And people who didn’t want land they had to maintain but did want space and views that were gorgeous.
Indeed, the area was so uncluttered, whoever owned the covered snowmobiles and uncovered four-wheelers were apparently required to keep them where they sat, down close to the road, which was at least a hundred yards from the first set of townhouses.
Judge’s building was at the top.
And he had an end unit at the top of that.
Which had the best view of them all.
I walked from my car toward the path to his door, thinking of this at the same time trying to prepare myself for the day (most especially seeing and then spending time with Judge). And with all of that, I was trying to wipe my mind clear of not only the research I’d done the last two days whenever I’d had the chance to do it, but the fact that I’d done it at all.
Yes, I had seen pictures of Judge as a little boy with my dad on a tennis court.
They reminded me how ridiculously gorgeous Dad was when he was young.
They also showed me how adorable Judge was when he was a toddler.
I had further seen photos of Belinda Oakley, his stunner of a mother. Strawberry blonde hair, ice-blue eyes and freckles that proved there was a God, because only God could dot those so perfectly across her upturned nose.
These pictures, however, included two mugshots that showed her at times when she was a fair bit less than stunning.
And last, there was Andrew Jefferson “AJ” Oakley, a second-generation oil baron who’d sired four children on his first wife, a woman he scraped off when she was in her early forties. He’d since married three others, all in their twenties, including his current wife, who was younger than me by a year.
She was twenty-three.
He was eighty-seven.
According to AJ, he was well aware of the age discrepancy, what it looked like on all accounts, and the small fortunes he had to pay when he was ready for a new model.
“In one way or another, a woman is always a whore. One thing I can say about these gals, they’re honest about what they want, they got ambition, and they’re willin’ to go the extra mile. Gotta hand ’em that.”
Yes, he’d said that.
And yes, he’d said it between wives two and three, and regardless that he had, he’d earned another one after that.
Apparently, AJ Oakley had a personality nearly as big as the vast amount of acreage he owned, was notoriously opinionated, loud-mouthed, mulish, chauvinistic, old-school, and as such, he was roundly hated by anyone who had no reason to stick their nose up his ass.
His first son and vehemently touted heir, Andrew Jefferson the Third, took an inebriated fall off a yacht on which he was partying somewhere off the coast of Greece, struck his head along the way, was not noted missing for hours, and washed ashore days later.
He’d been thirty-nine.
All Andy’s life, up to his death, his doting sire had dismissed his laddish behavior as “any real Oakley will be sowin’ his oats until the day he dies” (which, in Andy’s case, was prophetic).
Andy died competing with his father in one area, and that area was absolutely not AJ’s aggressive tactics to remain a wildly successful tycoon by any means necessary.
No, when Andy had died, he was in the midst of his third divorce and engaged to his fourth fiancée.
Not quite finished with branding the family name stamp on his offspring, AJ’s second son was named Jefferson Billings Oakley, Billings being AJ’s mother’s maiden name.
But he was called Jeff.
He was also frequently referred to by AJ as “the Waste of Space,” and by frequently, I meant that I read an article from last year where AJ again did just that.
On Jeff’s part, he’d spent a fair amount of his life earning this moniker, including, in his early thirties when he’d done some time after, in a drunken, coked-up haze, he’d pistol-whipped to within an inch of his life some poor barkeep in a busy honkytonk who’d had the audacity to tell him to hang on a second for his drink.
The sentence Jeff had served for this assault was four months.
The barkeep lost an eye, partial control of the left side of his face, full use of his right hand, but he gained the ire of AJ when he’d lodged a civil suit for damages.
“Probably asked for that whuppin’, tryin’ to make a dollar off the Oakleys,” was AJ’s supposition.
In his one court appearance, the victim’s one attorney faced off agai
nst AJ’s five.
Needless to say, he got his ass beat again.
AJ’s third child, a daughter, Patricia, clearly the second most intelligent of the bunch (if not the first), had moved to New Zealand when she was nineteen, and she never looked back.
His fourth, Jameson Morgan, Judge’s dad, had been entirely dismissed by the whole family, except his mother, whose maiden name he was granted as his first, her mother’s maiden name his second.
She reportedly adored him.
This earned him the erroneous reputation of being a momma’s boy. Or at least the erroneous part of that was that it was bad to be as such, because apparently, he was. And in so being, he’d made sure she lived like a queen after his father disposed of her. And at her end, he was photographed with a tear running under his sunglasses while attending her funeral five years ago.
Considering Jameson was the only one with a brain and any grit (outside Patricia), he essentially told them all to go fuck themselves, moved to New York upon graduating from UT at twenty, became a stockbroker and eventually made enough money he could buy and sell his father and all his family’s vast holdings ten times over.
In that mix, there were various wastrel grandchildren of AJ’s who he publicly despised and had no problem sharing that with anyone who asked.
And there were a number who did.
Including the copious reporters who dogged his every step because he was so good for a quote that would rile up feminists and/or the liberal left, or, frankly, anyone with any amount of civility or modicum of good breeding. His shenanigans didn’t only drive clickbait to articles, retweets of AJs exploits were off the hook.
He was so famous for all of this, I was surprised I’d never heard of him.
Then again, I viewed Twitter only for videos of pandas and baby huskies running through huge piles of snow (and the like).
Indeed, AJ despised all his offspring, except Jameson, who had nothing to do with him, Patricia, who also had nothing to do with him, and the “chip off the old block,” his beloved grandson.
Chasing Serenity Page 21