Harlequin Dare May 2021 Box Set

by Jackie Ashenden

  Her laptop was open and he glanced at it while taking his first sip. His mother’s name caught his attention and in that second he realized this must be Grace’s story. He turned away slowly, setting his glass on the table. Don’t read it. The words floated into his mind and he kept his gaze averted. There was no reason to read it; he and Grace had talked about all her interviews, he knew what everyone was going to say. Still, he was going to read it eventually. He used to always read Grace’s work and he’d enjoyed that. So all he had to do was turn his attention back to the laptop and read. And when he did, fury deep and red-hot boiled in the pit of his gut.

  The Golds and the Kings have come full circle. From a feud that started with a love triangle featuring the major players, Ron Gold Jr., Tobias King and Marva Gold, to these powerhouse men taking the fashion industry by storm.

  RJ had to set his cup on the table. His fingers immediately clenched into a fist as he continued to read.

  Marva Gold recalls meeting Tobias first and marveling at how focused and talented he was. It was a totally different feeling when Tobias introduced Marva to Ron at an RGF holiday party. “I knew Ron was the man I would marry from the first moment I saw him,” Marva said.

  That night Marva had no idea that meeting the man who would turn out to be the love of her life would destroy a friendship and create a second fashion house. That’s precisely what happened when Tobias saw Ron and Marva kissing weeks after the party.

  “Hey,” Grace said from behind him.

  RJ stood, whirling around until he faced her. “What the hell is this?”

  “What—”

  “I thought we discussed this. You said you weren’t going to write anything but the truth. That you weren’t interested in slandering my family.” His temples throbbed and his heart raced. She was standing there with a towel wrapped around her looking as if she’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Wait a minute, just calm down and let me explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain, Grace! I told you what I expected and you lied to me. I specifically said what would be allowed and what wouldn’t, and you went against our agreement and wrote this crap! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  He was yelling, his hands were clenched into fists, and for the life of him he couldn’t find the strength to calm down. How could she do this? How could she lie to him every day of this trip, every night that they’d lain together, when he’d held her in his arms and told her he loved her, how had she been able to do all that knowing she’d planned to betray him with this story all along?

  “I think you should calm down,” she said, and took a step toward him.

  “I’m not gonna calm down while you destroy my family. How dare you create this lie about my mother! She had nothing to do with this feud. You promised me you wouldn’t do this and I trusted you, Grace.” He huffed and ran a hand down the back of his head. “After everything we’ve been through I trusted you to write a story that focused more on the companies, not the personal trials of my family. And you did it all just to get a promotion!”

  She jerked back as if he’d made a move toward her, and RJ felt like crap. He’d never put his hands on a woman, had never even yelled at one the way he was yelling at Grace now.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said before clearing her throat. “If you would just sit down and let me explain.”

  He didn’t sit, nor did his anger abate, but he did lower his voice. “Explain what? That you’re not telling lies to glorify a feud that I told you was quashed months ago? I read it right there on your computer, Grace. That’s the story you’re planning to send to your editor. It’ll end up on the fashion page of some newspaper.”

  “Lies? RJ, everything I write is factual. I’m meticulous about fact-checking everything. I’ve conducted lengthy interviews and transcribed my notes myself.”

  “You never shared this with me during any of our meetings!” He pointed to the laptop. “I never heard about any of this, and I never would’ve approved of it if I had. So you have to delete it. You shut this whole story down, Grace, or I swear you’ll never work on another article for any paper again.”

  * * *

  Grace walked away. She went back into the bathroom and shut the door. Leaning against it, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened her eyes again, she dared a single tear to fall. She could feel that they’d welled up in her eyes but she wouldn’t let any fall. She couldn’t. Instead she picked up her robe from the duffel bag she kept in the bathroom and pushed her arms through it. She removed the towel wrapped around her, belted the robe and took a deep breath before reaching for the doorknob.

  RJ was upset. Given what he thought the circumstances were, he had a right to be upset. He didn’t, however, have a right to read her unpublished story without her permission, and, in turn, threaten her job. And that’s exactly what she would’ve said if he were anyone else.

  She opened the door and went back into the room where he was still standing near the table. He had both arms up, hands on the back of his head, and when he saw her return the look on his face said he was still angry. But he was still there, which meant he either wanted her to explain or he wanted her to tell him she was pulling the story. He wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

  “Everything you read on that screen is the absolute truth. Your mother told me how the feud started. She dated Tobias first, then she met your father and fell in love with him. Tobias was pissed and that’s why he left RGF and refused to speak to your father or mother again.” RJ took a couple steps back, until the back of his legs bumped against a chair. “The design that it was said Tobias stole back then, that sketch belonged to Tobias. He’d worked on it while he was at RGF, but it was all his work. So there was some question as to whether the sketch was RGF’s work product or if Tobias as the creator owned the IP rights. But the real issue was that love triangle.” She paused, took a breath and folded her arms over her chest. “Your father and Tobias corroborated the story.”

  RJ sat down with a thump and dropped his head. “All this time,” he said softly.

  “Yes,” she replied. “All this time your parents and Tobias let the world believe the reason for the feud was the stolen dress. That’s how they protected their privacy. Despite her breaking his heart, Tobias loved your mother and he didn’t want her name dragged through the mud for dating best friends.”

  “And that’s why my father never spoke of the details of the feud. But he harbored it. He told us that King Designs was the enemy.” RJ was visibly shaken, his voice rough as he tried to come to terms with what she was saying.

  “Because Tobias left. He broke the pact that he and your father made to run RGF together. Tobias couldn’t work with the man who he felt had stolen his girl. And your mother, she swore she never had romantic feelings for Tobias and they’d only gone out on three dates. She admits she should’ve handled the situation better, especially since Tobias and Ron were friends, but she never meant to hurt Tobias.” Grace recalled feeling the overwhelming sorrow and regret in every one of Marva’s words as she’d shared that story with her.

  “You can’t put this story out there, Grace. I’m begging you,” RJ said.

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. “That’s not the story that’s going to my editor. I always start with an outline and from there I work in a draft mode. That’s what you just read. I was checking it earlier to make sure I didn’t leave out anything important in the final copy.”

  There was no turning back now. So many rules had already been broken. She went to the laptop and pulled up another document before turning the screen to face RJ. “Here’s the real story.”

  After staring at her a few seconds more, he reluctantly shifted his attention to the screen. Grace took the seat across from him at the table. Moments later, when he looked up at her again, it was with a look of sadness and regret.
/>   “I didn’t know there were two stories,” he said quietly.

  She shook her head. “And you didn’t trust me. I told you I wouldn’t write anything to hurt you or your family and I meant it. But you didn’t believe me. You didn’t trust that I’d protect you and the ones you love.”

  “Grace—”

  “No, let me finish. I’m not angry that you didn’t trust me. A long time ago I didn’t trust you.” She sighed. “I guess that’s our shortcoming, RJ. We have this amazing sexual connection and all these emotions for each other that we can’t seem to turn off. But we don’t have that one basic thing—trust.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about my outburst. I thought you were betraying my family. But you can’t compare this to what happened to us before. They’re two entirely different scenarios,” he argued.

  “I know what you thought, RJ. But I’d already promised you I wouldn’t write anything detrimental. I shouldn’t even have been writing this story because of our previous connection, I could’ve lost this job and possibly any future hope of being a respected journalist. I even changed the scope of the story and shared some of my interview notes with you. Yet you still stood here and jumped to the worst conclusion possible, which tells me you never trusted me to do what I said I would.” She used both hands to cover her face and breathe in and out deeply. “That night you proposed, I said no. Then I got up from that table and walked away. I never trusted you to understand my reasons for not wanting to marry you at that time.”

  When he didn’t speak right away, she shrugged and lifted her hands as if in surrender. “The lack of trust between us is obvious.”

  He sat back in the chair, shaking his head. “It was right there on the screen, Grace. What’d you expect me to think?”

  She didn’t break eye contact. “I would’ve expected you to ask me for an explanation and then wait until I provided it to decide how you were going to react.”

  He dragged a hand down the back of his head. “Well, it’s done. I apologized and we can move on.”

  “Yes, we can,” she said. “We can move on.” Grace stood from the chair and went to the door. “I’m really tired now and I told Nina that I’d meet the girls in Riley’s room by seven tomorrow.”

  RJ didn’t stand immediately, but he did look at her. For an instant she thought it was the same shocked and confused look he’d given her that night at the restaurant, but no, this look was different. It was disappointment and despondence. She wasn’t sure how much of that was attributed to her or what he’d just found out about his parents, but the fact still remained that everything between them was different now.

  “You’re angry,” he said when he finally came to stand in front of her.

  “No,” she said, and to prove her point she smiled. “I just don’t want to make the same mistakes I made before, so I’m telling you how I feel this time.” Against the incessant pounding of her heart, and the panic of losing what just hours ago she’d been ecstatic to find with him again, her brain insisted she keep going. “We should take some time to figure out if this is what we really want. This forever love the people around us seem to have. Because I don’t know, RJ. I don’t feel like I know anything about this anymore.”

  He stepped closer to her. “You’re afraid.”

  Irritated that he continued to blame everything she did or said on fear, she snapped, “And so are you! Which is why you could so quickly jump to the wrong conclusions about me. You’re afraid that what we’ve been doing these last two weeks and all that it’s made you feel might’ve been a mistake. You want what your brothers and sister have, but you’re afraid it won’t work out that way for you again. So yelling at me and threatening me came as your natural defense.”

  And it had cut through her like a hot blade, leaving her to deal with the hurt she supposed she’d inflicted on him all those years ago.

  His eyes glittered with intensity, his lips forming a tight line. “I wasn’t lying about how I feel about you and that has nothing to do with two weeks or ten damn years. I loved you then and I love you now.”

  He was standing close, so close she could reach up and touch his face, put her finger on that muscle in his jaw that jumped as he clenched his teeth.

  “I didn’t lie about my feelings, either. But you know what, RJ? We were in love before. And that wasn’t enough.”

  “Grace—”

  “This time, before we go any further, we should make sure we have what it takes to make it work. Because if not, we shouldn’t put each other through another ten years of heartbreak.”

  He looked like he didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t really know what else to say, either. There was a dull ache in her chest and she was still feeling like a breakdown was imminent. She needed to get him out of here because the last thing she wanted was for RJ to see how badly he’d hurt her.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Grace. Not again.” His words were so sincere, and Grace wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and say that all was well, but it wasn’t.

  When he was gone, she locked the door and sat on the couch, dropping her head into her hands. She hadn’t trusted him with her feelings about her career in the past, and tonight he hadn’t trusted her to keep her word. Did that mean they shouldn’t be together? She didn’t know. Was she overreacting? She wasn’t sure. Was everything she was feeling in this place, amid all the wedding excitement, wreaking havoc with her emotions and the commitment she’d made to her career? Possibly.

  It was all so confusing and exhausting. All Grace knew for certain was that the man she loved had just walked out that door and she was sitting here feeling like he probably had years ago—that love was a cruel joke and she no longer wanted any part of it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Four months later

  Manhattan, New York

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re still acting like this,” Maurice said. He was standing near the door of the suite RJ had reserved at the Park Lane Hotel, where Ron and Marva’s anniversary party was being held.

  RJ looked in the mirror one last time, adjusting his bow tie and then smoothing his hand over his beard. “I got this,” he told his brother.

  Major, who was lounging in the chair across the room, laughed. “You always say that.”

  RJ turned to face both of them. “And I always mean it.”

  “Yeah, but we haven’t seen Grace since Saint Lucia and we know the two of you are in love, so what gives? Are you getting her back or are you just gonna sit on your ass like you did before and let her get away again?” Maurice wasn’t known to mince words.

  “My love life is none of your business,” RJ said, enjoying the perplexed look on Maurice’s face.

  “I mean, you can’t still be upset with her,” Major interjected. “The story that appeared in the paper was touching and painted Dad and Tobias as trailblazers and role models. It even spotlighted how much influence Mom had on the business in the early years. We’ve received nothing but good press behind it.”

  That was true. The week after Riley’s wedding, the story had been printed in the Daily Gazette and posted on all digital media outlets. The Golds and the Kings were making headlines once more, but this time it was in a way that would ensure their story would go down in history. To RJ and the rest of the family’s surprise, a few photos from their outings in Saint Lucia and one photo of both families together at the wedding were also released with the story. Riley had called from her honeymoon in Venice to tell them she and Chaz had approved the pictures and worked out an agreement with Grace to have them released with her story.

  “The good press made up for that mind-blowing admission Mom gave just before the wedding,” Maurice added with a rare frown on his face.

  Major sat up in the chair then, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Mom dated Tobias f
irst.”

  RJ agreed with his brothers; that part of the story had been a shock to his system and had also taught him one of the most important lessons of his life—to fight for love, no matter the circumstances. “I’m glad she told us,” he said, even though a part of him wished Marva and Ron had told them the full story a long time ago. Preferably before he blew up at Grace about it.

  “And I don’t blame Tobias for being pissed,” RJ continued. “If I were in his position I would’ve been angry enough to quit as well.”

  “Yeah,” Maurice agreed. “Me, too. If Major had dated Desta after me and then ended up marrying her, I’d be ready to strangle him.”

  Major smirked. “I beat your fiancée at poker last week and you were ready to bite my head off, so believe me, man, I know.”

  The brothers shared a laugh at the memory of their monthly poker game. Desta was still the only woman who attended and she routinely beat the brakes off each of them, so Major had really celebrated his win last week. Until Maurice had threatened to stuff him in the closet if he didn’t pipe down. RJ had enjoyed seeing his family happy.

  Riley and Chaz had bought another house, this one in the country as a getaway for when they wanted to leave all the hustle and bustle of the city. Maurice and Desta were now planning their upcoming winter wedding at the ski resort where they’d learned they’d been email pen pals. Major and Nina were over the moon with excitement in anticipation of their son, who was expected in December. And RJ, well, he was doing just fine, too, despite what his brothers thought.

  “We should get downstairs. The party’s about to start and you know how Mom is about being late.” RJ walked toward the door and Major stood from his chair to follow him.

  “You really aren’t going to go after her, man? You two are meant to be together,” Major said when the three Gold brothers walked out of the suite.