His fingers flying, he poured his heart into the post. His past. His drawer of straws. His mother’s death. And how Georgie had made him a better man, and how he’d epically let her down. Nothing was off-limits. The world was about to learn that Jordan Marks wasn’t always a ten.
He stared at the wall of text. His confession for all to read.
“That’s really good, Jordan,” Becca sniffed, still reading over his shoulder.
“Do you think so?”
She nodded, brushing a tear from her cheek. “You should post a link to this on all your social media sites.”
“That’s a great idea,” he said, then checked his watch. “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?”
“The race starts in seventeen minutes. Can you do it for me?”
Becca blew her nose. “Yeah, but I’ll need your passwords.”
“There’s only one. It’s Marks Ten as one word.”
Becca’s jaw dropped. “That’s your password?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a terrible password,” she scoffed.
Dammit! She was right.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I should really change it.”
“You think? Seriously, it’s the worst. Like, on a scale of one to ten, your password is a two at best. Maybe a one. I’m surprised your ass hasn’t been hacked yet.”
“Message received. I will change the password, but first, I need your help getting this out there,” he said, watching the second hand on his watch tick away time.
“Okay! Go! I’ve got it,” Becca answered, shooing him away when his stomach emitted a piercing, mega-growl.
Shit! It had been hours since he’d eaten.
He looked around for a muffin or a doughnut. “I’m going to have to sprint to the race. Do you have anything here I can eat? I’ll need some energy.”
“All we have is this. Georgie’s been living off the stuff since the gala,” Becca said, opening the door to a mini-fridge below the register and taking out a tube of vegan cookie dough.
He smiled, remembering Georgie in that god-awful cardigan, tearing open the tube with her teeth and power eating the dough after their first challenge.
“Hey, Romeo! Snap out of it,” Becca said and tossed him the tube. “You better be able to eat and run, buddy. The race starts in eight minutes.”
Eight minutes.
If anyone ever needed to own the eights, it was him.
14
Georgie
Georgie glanced around, raised her arms and stretched, mimicking the real runners packed in around her. This was it. The Denver Trot 10K, sponsored by CityBeat. With the CityBeat logo splashed on T-shirts and event banners and with a team of CityBeat producers walking through the crowd, snapping pics and taking videos, there was no doubt that today was a big day. Spectators lined the Denver streets, closed off to traffic for the race, and carried signs with pictures of her and Jordan and the Dannies.
Today, a winner would be chosen.
She’d wanted this, right? She’d dreamed of gaining new followers and increasing her visibility online. She’d wanted to take her Own the Eights blog and make it big, make it a force for good and help people find their true soul mate.
And now?
Now, all she wanted was for it to be over.
After eight days of ignoring her blog, she was sure she’d be in last place. She’d written off the prize money. She could tighten up her budget, sell her car, or try for another bank loan to make ends meet. Her trifecta got it. With their girl-power guidance, sent to her from her beloved father, she’d figure it out.
Hurdle number one was simply getting through today.
She glanced around, looking for Jordan, unable to help herself, when the Dannies, all perfect bone structure and matching running gear, made their way toward her.
“Well, look at you! Aren’t you the little runner,” Danielle said with a swish to her blond ponytail.
But Daniel looked far less enthusiastic.
“This is a stupid idea. We shouldn’t be here,” the Ken doll lookalike said, shifty-eyed and watching the crowd.
Danielle amped up her smile. “If we want to win the money, we have to be here.”
Georgie glanced between the siblings. “Yeah, you guys have missed a couple of challenges.”
Danielle huffed an exaggerated sigh. “It’s so hard when everyone wants a piece of you. We have so many balls up in the air. So many people and companies wanting to work with us thanks to our skyrocketing blog numbers, right Daniel?” she added with a slight edge to her voice.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he replied, pulling up his hoodie and continuing to scan the crowd like a paranoid mannequin.
Georgie raised an eyebrow. “Is he okay?”
A slight blush colored Danielle’s porcelain cheeks. “He’s just scoping out our competition. By the way, where’s your teammate? There’s not any trouble in paradise, is there?” she asked with a little smirk.
This bitch! Hermione raised her wand to knock this Danny into next week, while Jane and Lizzy readied their teacups to hurl the hot liquid at the woman’s smug face.
Daniel leaned in toward his sister. “I want to get this over with. Let’s get to the front of the pack.”
“May the best team win,” Danielle said over her shoulder but with a lot less bite to her words as the Barbie-bot scanned the crowd.
Oh, screw them! And what did they have to be nervous about with their skyrocketing numbers and numerous entrepreneurial opportunities? Still, Daniel’s level of unease was weird.
Georgie went back to her stretching when another voice called out to her, and she inwardly cringed. Maybe Daniel had the right idea by hiding under a hoodie.
“Hey, Georgie!” Barry said, weaving through the crowd. “Hector and Bobby wanted me to stick close to you during the race to get some footage.”
Georgie held back a groan. As much as she wanted to tell Barry to get lost, he was only doing his job.
She tried to muster a smile. “No problem.”
The man started to reply but stopped when his phone began buzzing and pinging like crazy. He stared at the screen, his eyes going wide. “You’ve gotta see this, Georgie.”
Oh, hell no! If there was a day to stay off the internet, it was today.
She took a step back. “Nope, I don’t want to see anything.”
“Georgie, it’s amazing. It’s—”
“GO!” a voice bellowed over the massive speakers stacked around the starting line.
Music blared as the race participants scrambled to separate themselves from the pack. Georgie popped in her earbuds and settled into her running pace. Poor Barry wasn’t going to get much of a performance out of her today. No baby farm animals and no wet T-shirt shenanigans. She’d zone out, finish the race, then stop by the shop and gorge on her last tube of vegan cookie dough.
The 10K was six point two miles, and Georgie gave a little sigh of relief when she passed the five-mile marker. So far, so good. She wouldn’t have called her encounter with the Dannies fun, but it was painless, and she hadn’t laid eyes on Jordan once. While she’d started the race in the back of the pack, he’d probably gotten there hours early with the tips of his toes grazing the starting line, ready to take off like a shot.
“Always win. Always finish what you start. Always be the best. I’m Jordan Marks, the perfect ten, and I always crush it,” she murmured under her breath, doing her best Emperor of Asshattery impression.
“Is that what I sound like?”
Even with her earbuds in and Michael Bolton belting away—yes, she added the lyrical genius’s music to her playlist—the delicious, treacherous shiver spreading through her body could only be in response to one person.
Willing herself not to trip or fall ass over elbow, she glanced at Jordan, walking alongside her and holding…
“That better not be my vegan cookie dough!” she exclaimed.
His eyes widened, and he looked like a kid who’d just
gotten caught with his hand in the vegan cookie jar.
“You went to my shop and took my cookie dough?” she tried to yell, but it was damn hard to do while running.
“I was looking for you, and it’s more complicated than that,” he answered.
She had to look away because she couldn’t take the depth of emotion in his eyes, and she sure as hell couldn’t allow herself to feel an ounce of compassion. Not after how he’d treated her.
She doubled her resolve. “What do you mean, it’s not that complicated? Is that my cookie dough?”
“Yes.”
“You are so the reigning Emperor of Asshattery,” she grumbled.
“And I thought you were going to run this race,” he replied, gesturing with the opened tube of dough.
“I am running!” she barked.
“That’s a power walk, Georgie.”
“Gah!” she cried, then turned to the CityBeat producer on her other side. “This is running. I’m running, right, Barry?”
“Well…” the man answered with a nervous expression.
These stupid men!
“Georgie, I’m not here to critique your power walking,” Jordan said, then shook his head as she threw daggers at him with her eyes.
“Running! I meant running. I’m not here to critique your running. I’m here because I love you.”
Love?
Her trifecta swooned and clutched each other, but Georgie wasn’t about to fall for this.
“You’ve got a really funny way of showing it. And stealing my last tube of cookie dough isn’t doing you any favors.”
“Georgie, please, let me explain,” he said just as a voice rang out from the spectators lined up along the side of the road.
“Sixty-nine isn’t just a sex position, Georgie!”
“Jordan loves you, Georgie!” another voice cried.
She stopped. The finish line was in sight, but she needed to know what the hell these people were yelling about.
“What’s going on, Jordan? And why are people calling out sexual positions?”
“Because of sixty-nine, Georgiana,” he answered, his voice cutting through the air and quieting the boisterous crowd.
Holy crazy man! Maybe Jordan had lost his mind. Maybe he’d done one too many of those teakettle lifty thingies and blew a gasket.
An eerie quiet set in as Barry continued recording and Jordan pulled out his phone.
“I wrote something for you. Will you just listen to me for a minute?”
She crossed her arms. “Make it fast. I have to finish this damn race and then stop at the grocery store for another tube of cookie dough.”
Jordan released a shaky breath. “Okay, are you ready?”
She glanced around. No one moved a muscle. The other race participants were either staring at them or looking at their phones. Even the damn breeze stilled as if nature herself wanted to listen.
“Yes, I’m ready,” she said, completely not ready.
Jordan swallowed hard. “Dear Georgiana, sixty-nine isn’t just a sexual position. It’s our overlap. It’s the statistical proof that we were never polar opposites. I may have started out in this competition as a ten. I may have preached the benefits of the Marks Perfect Ten Mindset to anyone who’d listen. But what’s the point of being a ten when the woman I love wants an eight?”
Emotion flooded her chest. “Why are you saying this?”
He held her gaze. “Because I mean it. I was a colossal idiot. I lost track of what was really important. I screwed up my priorities.”
She willed her bottom lip not to tremble. “I know. I heard you agree with Deacon when he said I was a distraction.”
Jordan shook his head. “No, you were never a distraction. I was off track. But it wasn’t because of you. You, Georgiana, you are my priority. And you were right. Deacon didn’t have my best interests at heart. But you know who did?”
She broke their connection and stared at the ground. If she looked at him, she might just fall apart. In her heart of hearts, she wanted it to be true. But how could she trust him? How could she know he wouldn’t hurt her again? She was about to tell him they could never make it work when her mother’s words, of all people, popped into her head.
Sometimes, we make the wrong choice. That doesn’t always mean we care any less.
She met his earnest expression with a skeptical eye. “How can I trust you? How can I know that you mean what you’re saying?”
He handed Barry the tube of vegan cookie dough, then reached out and held her hands.
She couldn’t help lacing her fingers with his. But these weren’t the strong, steady hands that had held her close.
“You’re shaking, Jordan.”
“It’s because I’m terrified,” he replied, his eyes shining.
“Of losing the contest?” She had to ask.
“No, of losing you.”
She wanted to take that step forward, close the distance between them, and let him wrap his arms around her, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
“Those are just words.”
Jordan nodded, then glanced toward the finish line. “One of the Marks Perfect Ten Mindset tenets is to always finish, right?”
She knew this song and dance.
She sighed. “Yes, along with a bunch of other hyper-masculine motivational bullshit.”
He chuckled as his gaze grew glassy. “How about this? How about we don’t finish this race together. Let’s turn around, start walking, and never look back.”
“What about the contest? Don’t you want to win?” she asked, hardly able to believe what he was offering.
Tears streamed down his perfect cheeks. “Nothing is worth winning if it means losing you.”
The breath caught in her throat. The man, terrified of being viewed as a failure, was ready to accept a life-changing loss all for her.
She blinked, coming back from the shock of his offer. “You’d do that? You’d give it all up? Your blog? The money?”
He smiled and cupped her face in his hands. “Do you need to hear this in the form of a royal decree from the esteemed Emperor of Asshattery?”
Now she was crying. “Yeah, I think I do.”
He brushed a tear from her cheek. “With you by my side, Georgiana Jensen, messy bun girl, I’m not giving up anything. Don’t you see, if you leave here with me, I’ve won.”
Her trifecta broke out into fist bumps.
Tell him you love him!
She did love him. Somewhere between the Birkenstock teasing and the goat breakthrough and her brief stint back in the world of pub pageantry, she’d fallen in love.
She parted her lips. “I—”
“Stop! There’s nowhere to run!” a man belted out.
Georgie gasped as the Dannies barreled toward them, limbs flailing. She pitched forward and fell into Jordan’s arms as the siblings tore past them with a cadre of police officers and men and women in FBI vests in hot pursuit.
She gripped Jordan’s arms. “What’s going on with them?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“We can shed a little light on that,” Hector said, emerging from the murmuring crowd with Bobby by his side.
“Are the Dannies in some kind of trouble?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s not every day that you see the police and the FBI chasing people through a charity 10K,” Jordan added.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on the Dannies and the DannyLyfe blog for some time,” Hector began.
Bobby nodded excitedly and pushed up his glasses. “Their numbers were jumping at an insane rate.”
“And Bobby and I were quietly looking into this when the FBI contacted us. They’d been watching the Dannies, too,” Hector added.
Georgie shared a surprised look with Jordan.
“It turns out, the Dannies were using click farms and bots to boost their followers. And they were stealing posts from smaller blogs and photoshopping themselves into pictures,” Bobby continued.
&nbs
p; Georgie turned to Jordan. “Do you remember when we saw them at the park? They said they’d been working with handicapped children.”
“And there was barely a kid in sight,” Jordan finished.
Georgie shook her head. “This is all crazy, but why would the FBI care about the Dannies?”
Hector shared a knowing look with his partner. “A couple of little things called fraud and tax evasion.”
“The supplements,” Jordan supplied.
“Bingo! They weren’t reporting their income,” Bobby answered.
Hector nodded. “And that’s because they’d struck up a deal with Russian mobsters. They’d taken a bunch of their money to pay for all those click farms and bots that were supposed to boost the profile of the DannyLyfe brand. And that’s not all. From what we know, it looks like they also spent some of it on lavish trips and lots of plastic surgery. They were selling the supplements, but they’d spent the money to do it right on themselves and ended up going with a sketchy supplement maker with a terrible track record. Those DannyLyfe energy supplements were nothing but baking powder and sawdust.”
“That’s awful!” Georgie exclaimed.
“But why did you invite them to participate in the Battle of the Blogs contest if you were already suspicious of them?” Jordan asked.
“This is where we got to go undercover,” Hector said.
Bobby raised an eyebrow at his partner’s words.
“Okay, not undercover, but we did get to help with the sting operation,” Hector added, amending his statement.
“Here’s how it went down,” Bobby began. “We agreed to help the FBI and buy them some time to collect more evidence against the Dannies, while we did our own in-house investigation on the Dannies’ online dealings. The plan was to lure the siblings into participating in the contest in hopes of winning the prize money. The FBI said the Dannies didn’t have much liquid cash and needed to make a payment to the gangsters supporting their lifestyle. They knew their time was running out and hoped to win this contest and collect the prize money today to hand over to the mobsters tonight to try and get an extension on paying back all that they owed.”
“Wow!” Georgie replied, stunned by the news, then gasped. “So, this contest was some elaborate scheme to catch a couple of crooks?”
Own the Eights: Own the Eights: Book One Page 19