by Suzanne Rock
“Sorry.” Sabrina tapped her finger. “Come into the back with me. We can all talk in my office.”
Ari started to protest—she didn’t want to be an inconvenience—but everyone was already moving. She had to admit, it would be safer back there. Already people were giving them strange looks. It would only be a matter of time before someone recognized her and tweeted their location.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have enough chairs,” Sabrina said as she entered the small office area. The walls were cream colored, accented with prints of abstract art. Her desk was simple pine, and a filled bookcase stood in one corner. Aprons, menus, and various knickknacks littered the room, giving it a homey, lived-in feel.
Sabrina scooped up a jacket from one chair and tossed it in a corner. “Someone can sit here.” She removed a large, orange-colored tabby from the chair. “And here.” The cat gave her an angry glare, flicked its tail, and went to lie on the coats in the corner.
“Nice cat,” Camille said, studying the tabby.
“Yeah. Jazz thinks he owns the place,” Sabrina said. “And I guess in a way he does. He and my gecko don’t get along, so I take him down here with me when I’m working.” She tore her gaze away from Jazz and glanced at Camille. “I live in the apartment above the restaurant,” she explained.
“Where’s my suitcase?” Ari asked, trying to steer everyone back on topic.
Camille dragged her gaze away from the bookcase and took the other empty seat. “Right here.” She rolled the small carry-on luggage up to one of the chairs and sat down.
“Can I have it?”
“Not until you tell me what happened. Why did you run out on your own wedding?”
Ari glanced around the room and found everyone’s attention was focused on her. “I decided that I didn’t want to get married anymore.” She glanced at Camille, willing her not to give away too much information. “I talked to Landon and it seems as if my running away was more of a relief to him than anything else.”
Camille slapped the arm of her chair. “I knew you never should have agreed to Leo’s crazy idea. The cards don’t lie—”
“Why did you not want to marry him?” Sabrina asked. “The papers were making it out as a fairy-tale wedding.”
“That’s what Leo wanted them to believe,” Ari said.
“She doesn’t love him. She loves Jason Stone,” Camille answered before Ari could speak.
“I do not,” Ari answered, narrowing her gaze at her friend. “We’re just having fun.” She glanced around at all of the curious expressions. “We are.”
“Sure.” Camille crossed her arms. “I’ve watched your expression when he texts you. If you don’t have feelings for him, then I’ll eat my own foot.”
“It’s not serious, Camille, honest.”
Sabrina leaned closer. “So you’re not—”
“No.” Ari shook her head emphatically. “Well, yes, we’re having sex, but that’s it.” She made a pointed look at Camille.
Wes rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Karin knows about this, I’m assuming?”
“Yes, she does. I tried talking to her earlier, but Leo found out and came rushing down to Stone Suites to bring me home.” She turned to Camille. “That’s why I can’t go back there right now. Leo’s far too mad to be reasonable, and if he sees me I’m afraid he’s just going to start controlling my life even more.”
“How long has your relationship with Jason been going on?” Sabrina asked.
“We started seeing each other soon after you and Dante broke up. No one knows about us, not the media, not friends, and certainly not my family. If Leo ever found out that I’m sleeping with Jason … he’d kill me.”
“I’ll say.” Sabrina huffed. “When Dante’s crazy fan set my restaurant on fire, Jason was right there, sticking his nose in the media and drumming up trouble.” Sabrina shook her head. “That man lives for the spotlight.” She crossed her arms. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already used your relationship to his advantage.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Ari insisted. “Jason would never use me.”
“I told her it was a bad idea, but would she listen?” Camille shook her head at Ari. “The cards predicted that he’d be nothing but trouble for you.”
Ari frowned. “You know I don’t listen to a deck of cards.”
“You should.”
Sabrina leaned her hip against the corner of the desk. “I’m still not quite following this story. If you were with Jason, why did you agree to marry Landon Blake?”
Ari sighed. “The marriage was a sham. It was arranged by Leo to calm the rumors surrounding Landon and his kinky lifestyle. In exchange for my hand, my family would get use of Landon’s aviation empire. Together, Leo and Landon were going to create some vacation deals to draw people away from Jason’s hotels and back to us. When I told Jason about it—”
“Wait, you told Jason about Leo’s plan?” Wes asked.
“Of course.” She shrugged. “Shouldn’t I have? We were having sex. The marriage would change that.”
Sabrina shook her head. “Honey, you told your family’s fiercest rival Leo’s plan to outwit him.”
“You gave away company secrets and compromised their plan,” Wes agreed.
“I did not.”
“Are you sure about that?” Camille asked.
Ari thought about it, then shook her head. “Jason wouldn’t use me like that.” When both of her friends frowned, she slapped the arm of her chair. “He wouldn’t.”
“Okay, okay,” Wes said. “So what happened next?”
Ari took in a long breath. “When I arrived at the Palazzo for the wedding and saw how much Leo and Karin were in love, I knew that I couldn’t enter a marriage that would be in name only, not if there was a chance that I could have that kind of love for myself.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’m so tired of being a pawn. I want to be loved and respected as an equal.”
“What about Jason?” Wes asked.
She shrugged. “He’s a diversion, that’s all. He isn’t really marriage material.”
“No, he isn’t.” Sabrina crossed her arms. “Stone is much too calculating and selfish to have a real relationship. Which brings me to your wedding.” She studied Ari’s face for a moment before continuing. “By breaking up your marriage, Stone keeps the upper hand over the Percontis.”
“He’s not using me.” Ari stiffened her jaw, not liking the direction this conversation was going.
“Think about it, honey,” Camille said. “Think about how much Jason stands to gain if Landon and your brother don’t combine their assets.”
“Our relationship isn’t like that. If anyone is using me, it’s my family.”
“Your family loves you,” Wes said.
“They have always used me to improve the family image.” She looked at each of them in turn. “That’s why Leo is so controlling. Everything I do impacts the family and the company.”
“That’s a lot of pressure,” Wes murmured.
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, what do you want to do now?” Sabrina asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Your marriage is off, your family is worried sick … and as far as I can tell, Leo still has control over your life. What are you going to do about it?”
Ari lifted her chin. “Well, I’m going to take back my charity, for starters.”
“The charity!” Camille shifted in her seat and faced Ari. “I totally forgot about the charity.”
“What do you mean?” Ari asked.
“That reporter called—Amanda Vaughn.”
Ari wrinkled her nose. “That’s the same reporter who did that exposé on our CFO.”
Camille nodded. “She wants to do a follow-up piece.”
“Why?”
Camille shrugged. “I guess to show how the charity recovered after the embezzlement.”
“More like she wants to get the inside scoop about the wedding,” Sabrina murmured. “I’ve had ru
n-ins with this reporter before, Ari. She’s the type to twist your words to make a story.”
“She gave Karin and Leo a lot of trouble, too,” Wes added.
Ari clapped her hands together. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?” Sabrina asked.
Ari turned toward Camille. “If I grant this reporter an interview, I can show Leo and the rest of the world that I’m not a silly, troubled party girl. Not only can I put the embezzlement story to rest, but fend off rumors about the wedding and show that I’m my own person.”
“I don’t know,” Sabrina said. “It’s risky.”
“But it can be done.” Ari moved to the edge of her seat. “This is perfect. With one brief interview, I can take back control of my life.”
“What about Jason?” Wes asked.
“What about him?”
“Well…” Wes glanced at Sabrina and Camille before continuing. “You said that you were seeing him as a form of rebellion against your family. You also said that you were staying with him to make some sort of a statement. It seems to me that once you work things out with Leo, you won’t need your relationship with Jason anymore.”
Ari scrunched her nose in thought. “I suppose you’re right.” Although the thought of breaking up with him didn’t sit very well.
“He probably won’t like being dumped,” Sabrina said.
“I never said I would dump him.” Ari shook her head. “Besides, I don’t need to worry about that right now.” She stood and turned toward Camille. “Give that reporter a call and tell her that I’ll meet her at the Children’s Hospital tomorrow morning.”
“Are you sure?” Camille asked.
Ari nodded. “If we show her firsthand how our charity is helping kids, she’s sure to paint us in a good light.”
Camille stood. “You’re the boss.” She nodded toward the door. “Come on, I’ll walk out with you.”
Ari started to leave, but Sabrina stopped her. “Just be careful,” she said.
“I can handle myself with that reporter.”
“No, not the reporter. I’m talking about Stone.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve seen how this guy operates, and it isn’t pretty. If there’s a chance he can exploit your family and make a few bucks, he’ll take it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I told you, Jason isn’t like that. He’s changed.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely.” Ari waved her off and said her good-byes, but as the large pillars of Stone Suites came into view once more, she remembered Jason’s odd behavior, and wondered if there wasn’t some truth to Sabrina’s warning.
* * *
Jason tried to read the e-mail on the computer screen, but the words were fuzzy and starting to blend together. He rubbed his eyes and blinked them several times, but it was no use. He had been at his large, oak desk for far too long and on little sleep, trying to figure out some way out of this mess.
The worst part of all of this was that Jason had no idea who could have stolen his identity, or why he was being targeted. He had made a long list of people with potential bad feelings toward him, but didn’t think any of them would do something so underhanded. The type of people he knew would confront him face-to-face, not blackmail him from the shadows.
Jason glanced around the high-rise corner office, suddenly sick of the plush red carpeting and leather furniture in the sitting area. Despite the floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the harbor, he felt as if he was in a prison and time was running out. He had no idea just how much the problems in the Perconti family would affect him. That tabloid reporter, Amanda Vaughn, had been calling, wanting to schedule an interview. She had caught wind that Stone Suites’ investors had been jittery and had done some digging into the company’s financials. She didn’t find much, thank goodness, but Jason had built a house of cards trying to hide how much money he had sunk into this new software. All it would take was for the reporter to discover that his personal savings had been keeping the company afloat for the past two years to ruin his credibility as a savvy businessman.
“You look like you could use this, little brotha.”
Jason jerked back in his office chair and stared up at Deacon, who held out a cup of coffee.
“How did you get in here?” Jason asked as he snatched the cup from his brother’s hands. “My office is private.”
“You left the door open.” Instead of leaving like Jason hoped, Deacon made himself comfortable in the chair opposite him and dropped a long, thin, envelope on the desk. “And a couri-ah brought this by for you this morning.”
Jason stared at the envelope, which looked eerily similar to the last envelope he had received by courier. Was it from the loan shark?
He forced himself to remain calm as he took the envelope from Deacon’s hands and tossed it on the stack of unanswered mail.
Deacon frowned. “You look like you’ve been running behind on ya correspondence.”
“That’s none of your business.”
He stared at the unopened envelope for a minute and then met Jason’s gaze. “Do you think it’s more pictures?”
Jason pushed his hair back from his face and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know.”
“Aren’t ya goin’ to open it?”
Jason frowned. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter what’s in there. That loan shark isn’t getting a dime from me.”
“Then they’ll force it from you.” Exasperated, Deacon ran his hand over his face. “I know how these people work.”
“You do?”
Deacon nodded. “From my underground fighting days. They get real mean when things don’t go their way.”
“I can handle it. I’ll just explain—”
“You can’t reason with these people.” Deacon moved to the end of his seat and pressed his finger on the desk between them. “Let’s suppose they believe you—which is a long shot considering how many other people have tried a similar excuse—but let’s just say that you’re able to prove that you aren’t the one who racked up the debt. They’d beat you up on principle.”
“I don’t follow.”
“By admitting that you aren’t the one who owes them money, they’ll have ta admit that they were conned.” Deacon pressed his lips together as some indescribable emotion crossed his features. “They need to save face, or everyone will try to scam them. They’ll want to make an example of us.”
“There’s no us. This is my problem, Deacon, not yours.”
“But we’re brothers. We used to be so good together. We could be that way again, you know?”
“I’m not conning these people.”
“Okay, no conning, but we can still work together.”
Jason flexed his fingers, eager to punch something. “Deacon, you don’t want to be a part of this, believe me. He’s telling me that if I don’t pay him, he’s going to hurt not only my staff, but my…” My girlfriend. Jason pressed his lips together, biting off the words that had almost tumbled from his lips. Ari was not his girlfriend. Girlfriend implied intimacy and trust. His relationship with Ari had none of that. It was just sex and fun, nothing more.
This mess was why he could never open his life up enough to let anyone get that close to him. His past would always catch up to him, always put those he loved in danger.
Deacon considered him for a moment. “You told her about the pictures, didn’t ya?”
“Told who?”
“Your little heiress.”
“Ari knows nothing about this.”
Deacon nodded and was silent for a long moment before responding. “What if they come after her?”
“I’m taking precautions.”
“By having her stay at the hotel?”
“No—my apartment.”
Deacon widened his eyes in surprise. “But you know the rules—never let—”
“Anyone into your personal space. It makes you vulnerable and weak. I know.” It was a creed they ha
d both come up with during their conning days.
Deacon nodded. “It will give them something to use against you.”
“Ari won’t do that. She’s not a manipulator like those other women.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Jason made sure his voice had a note of finality about it.
“Okay, okay.” Deacon held up his hands. “But why her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why go to such great lengths to protect her, and potentially have her find out all of your dirty little secrets?” He shook his head. “I say cut her loose and let the loan shark do whatever he wants with her. She’s just a girl. You need to focus on preserving the important things. Like your company and public image.”
“And Ari,” Jason said. “She’s innocent, Deacon. I can’t throw her to the wolves.”
Deacon stared at his brother for a long moment and then shook his head. “I’ve never seen you this…”
“This what?” Jason asked when he didn’t continue.
“This territorial before. I mean, who cares if she gets hurt?”
“I care,” Jason muttered.
Deacon tilted his head to the side and studied Jason’s face. “You don’t have feelings for her, do you?”
Jason’s phone rang, and he frowned as he put it on speakerphone. “Yes?”
“Leo Perconti on line one.” Michaela’s voice was clear and professional, without a hint of emotion. Jason didn’t particularly want to speak with the Perconti patriarch, but if it meant getting rid of his brother and his bothersome line of questioning …
“Okay, just give me a minute.” Jason placed the call on hold and glared at his brother. “I need to get back to work. This conversation is over.”
“Don’t be so hasty to rule out the con. I bet if we work together, we could pull one over on them and get that loan shark to leave us alone.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “It could be our biggest con yet.”
Jason wanted to tell him no, but doing so would open debate, and right now he needed his brother out of his office. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Deacon grinned. “Sure. Later.” He shoved one hand into his pocket and reached for the door with the other. “It will be amazing, bro. You’ll see.”