"Half sister," the fifteen-year-old growled when Jack led me into the immense sitting area of a ridge-top mansion that I hadn't known existed before today, even though the residence was located a mere ten-minute drive from town. "Statistically speaking, we're supposed to share, like, twenty-five percent of our DNA," the girl continued. "But it could be as little as zero percent."
"Or as much as fifty percent," Jack said easily, the warmth of his current smile entirely different from the expression I'd seen on his face previously. I realized now that my companion had only been playing at hunting down a date with me, but that he was completely serious about his love for his sister. While the thought should have made me feel slighted, it actually forced me to like Jack a little bit more. (I could just hear the resident math whiz telling me that a little bit more than nothing was still very nearly nothing.)
"I'm Ginny," I said instead of commenting on Jack's show of affection, holding out my hand to the girl as if she were an adult. At least I'd learned something from my companion's aggressive behavior—how to trap the unwary into forced contact. Like me, his little sister took the bait, and my hand.
"Lena," she mumbled, her eyes on the floor.
"You must have Ms. Cooper for biology," I continued, the girl's lack of enthusiasm insufficient to prevent me from trying to build a connection between us. There was something about the teenager that drew my focus, giving me a much-needed break from the sexual tension zinging between myself and her half-brother. Even though Lena was clearly a rich kid with access to every doodad she desired, her heart still seemed as wounded as mine had been at that age, and I couldn't help wanting to know the girl's story. I itched to see if I could coax a smile out of her morose face; I yearned to help Lena plant her soul into an apple tree the way I had done so that expanding tree roots could help her human heart flourish. So I tried to build on what we had in common—a shared interest in biology. "She's a great teacher, isn't she?" I continued.
Or maybe we didn't have any interests in common after all. "Only losers go to public school," the girl retorted, looking up at me with pure disgust evident on her face. I backpedaled in my analysis of the situation. Perhaps I wasn't seeing a wounded heart, but was instead falling prey to incipient sociopathic tendencies. Given that Lena shared twenty-five percent of her DNA with Jack, the latter did seem more likely.
"My darling sister recently got kicked out of a Swiss boarding school," Jack said lightly, as if his sibling's obvious pain was a joking matter. I opened my mouth to take her brother to task for his tactlessness, but Mr. Fish Sticks' raised eyebrows made me pause just long enough to allow Lena to fill the conversational opening instead.
"I quit boarding school," she corrected.
"Quit?" I couldn't help asking. How does one quit boarding school, exactly? Drop out, maybe. Flunk out, certainly. But quit?
"Stole a jet and flew to Paris," the teenager elaborated with a shrug, and all I could do was blink. I wasn't sure which surprised me more—the kind of lifestyle where someone could steal a plane and not be stuck in prison in the aftermath, or that this scrawny little girl knew what to do with the controls in a cockpit.
"Well, that showed them," my mouth said without my brain's permission. Drat! Definitely not the way to respond to obviously bad behavior. But Lena smirked in reply and Jack's face lit up as if we'd won the lottery.
"Well, we'd love to stay and chat," he said, tousling his sister's hair to her evident disgust (but possible hidden enjoyment). "But Ginny here has a meeting to attend. See you later, alligator."
"Not if I see you first, asshole." Obviously, Lena's knowledge of childhood goodbyes was either absent or was squashed beneath those sociopathic tendencies.
Despite myself, I stared back at the confusing teenager as Jack took my hand once again, dragging me out the door and into the front yard, where my car seemed to have shed half a gallon of rust over the immaculate brick driveway during the five minutes we'd been inside. "Now you understand," he said, although I definitely didn't think I did understand. "Say you'll take the job."
The boyish charm that Mr. Fish Sticks had turned on so hard in the grocery store was once again in evidence, but I understood my companion well enough by now to see a hint of Jack's real personality hidden behind the charisma. The subsurface Jack was worried about his sister, although what he expected me to do about the problem was not so clear.
"So, you didn't drag me up here to ask me out to dinner, you dragged me up here to put me to work?" I asked, buying time to disentangle my protective feelings toward Lena from the pure stupidity that seemed to flood my body whenever Jack touched my bare skin. He still held my hand and I was having a hard time thinking of anything else.
"I want to ask you to dine with me," Jack replied, his eyes boring into mine. "But I won't, not yet. You'll just say no, and if you turn me down three times in a row, the gentleman's code of honor says I have to ease the hook out of your gills and let you loose." His thumb began to rub slow circles across my palm, making my heart rate pick up and my cheeks once again turn red. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was coming down with rosacea.
"I don't get it," I said at last, coughing out the words in an effort to take my mind away from the feelings flooding my body. "What's the job? Lena's too old for a baby sitter, or a nanny."
"Of course," Jack agreed. "And she doesn't need either of those things." Then, in an apparent non-sequitor: "This is the first time she's smiled since I tracked her down in Paris."
"That wasn't a smile. It was a smirk," I corrected him. Talking about Lena seemed to have a calming effect on my libido, or perhaps it was the way, when Jack's attention turned to his sister, Mr. Fish Sticks stopped pouring his charismatic energy into me, providing a scant iota of breathing room. "And I don't think 'loser' and 'asshole' are terms of endearment."
"Four grand a month plus room and board," Jack replied, "to be my sister's companion for forty hours a week."
The amount of money being bandied about so liberally was breathtaking, but I had to keep my head straight. "I can't live here," I disagreed. "I have a trailer, a cockatiel, a garden."
"Move them," he demanded.
"I can't," I said, as firmly as I could. Yes, maybe I could move my trailer and Florabelle if Jack advanced me a couple of months' pay. But if I was crazy enough to even consider working for a rich guy who exuded sexuality and danger, I had to maintain some measure of independence. So I kept my argument simple. "You can't dig up an apple tree."
Mr. Fish Stick's nostrils flared as he searched his internal data banks for information on tree transportation. I had a feeling that Jack had never noticed a plant in his life, though, so it was no surprise to me when he came up empty. "Okay," he agreed, too readily for my peace of mind. "You can commute. I'll throw in an extra thousand bucks a month for mileage and meals. The job starts tomorrow at nine a.m. Don't be late."
Negotiations concluded, Jack turned away as if planning to head back into his overbearing mansion. And as much as I wanted to disagree with him further, I needed the money too badly to argue. Five thousand dollars a month! With that kind of income, I could buy my own parcel of land within a year and move my trailer so I never had to see Mr. Reed's slimy face again. In the pursuit of freedom, I'd even abandon my apple tree, despite the sliver of my soul contained therein.
Still.... "What about your car?" I called to Jack's retreating back just before the door slammed behind him. We'd ridden up here together, which meant that his spaceship of a car was still sitting unattended in the high-school parking lot. Good thing there wasn't much criminal activity in our little town.
"I'll catch a ride back down the mountain," Mr. Fish Sticks replied. Then looking back over his shoulder with the same smirk that Lena had treated me to earlier (so that's where the twenty-five percent of their DNA came together), he added: "Don't forget that important meeting. You're late."
Chapter 4
"Where have you been?" hissed Kimberly as I slid into the empty seat at
the end of the row of Cuadic attendees. The public hearing had already begun, but the city-council member in charge was still droning away up at the podium, priming the pump for the pro-coal camp by mentioning all of the jobs that plant construction promised to create. I'd heard it all before, so I felt no compunction against letting my closest almost-friend within Cuadic fill me in on missed drama.
"Look over there," she said, motioning with her chin rather than giving me a chance to answer her initial question. I craned around to gaze at the back of the room, where dozens of burly men in camouflage were leaning against the wall. "All the local coal companies included a flier with their employees' paychecks this week, insinuating that people would lose their jobs if the power plant doesn't go through," Kimberly explained grimly. "So the miners came out in force."
I could feel my blood pressure rising, hating the way the big industries played fast and loose with the truth and used scare tactics to get the common Joe on their side. The voices of Cuadic supporters were clearly going to be drowned out by this deluge of concerned citizens, all of whom blended in better with the mainstream community than we did. And how could we argue with a blue-collar worker who just wanted to keep his family fed?
It didn't help matters that my usual stage fright was starting to make the sounds within the auditorium recede as I imagined standing up in front of this massive (and largely unfriendly) audience. Two video cameras decked out with the call letters of local news stations upped the ante further—if I fell on my face, my stupidity would definitely remain on film forever and would likely be broadcast across three states. Heck, I wouldn't even have to physically trip to make a fool of myself since I was perfectly capable of stumbling over my words so badly that neighbors would be laughing at my blunders for twenty years to come.
"There goes the Señora," Kimberly whispered, pulling my attention onto the first of our compatriots to make the trek up to the podium. Speaking of words that would get us laughed out of town....
I glanced down the row of seats toward Brett, curious to see if he'd planned this initial sally. But our organizer grimaced at the group's least persuasive member, making it obvious that he wished he'd found a way to stop her from speaking in public, especially first thing before people began to lose interest and trickle away. Sitting next to our organization's heart throb, two older men in suits represented the national non-profits that I suspected Brett was hoping to step up into, and I noticed our leader lean over and whisper into the nearest man's ear, who quirked his mouth and shrugged in reply. Nope, the big dogs couldn't think of a way to silence the Señora before she made a fool out of us either.
"We love the waters and the sky," the pearl-encircled lady started, and even I cringed and mentally blocked out her words. Yep, this wishy-washy speech would be the one quoted in the papers tomorrow morning.
***
My turn to brave the spotlight came hours later, when the room had steamed up from the heat of so many human bodies exuding combative energy. Although he had no control over the Señora, Brett did his best to space the rest of us out so the mood of the crowd wouldn't be so obviously weighted toward the pro-power-plant camp. My slot was near the end of the allotted time period, ostensibly to leave the audience with a positive image of our non-profit from my down-to-earth manner. But I couldn't help hoping that the late hour actually meant that the most discriminating listeners had fallen asleep before I was forced to open my mouth.
Ms. Cooper had spoken ten minutes before me, her fact-laden soliloquy the one I wished the reporters would pay attention to. The educator reminded the community about our river's endangered shellfish, cited studies that showed elevated risks of health problems in areas close to coal-fired power plants, and mentioned the already operational power plant just a few miles down the road that provided plenty of electricity for our scattered population. ("Coal keeps the lights on," rebutted the subsequent speaker simply.) But my wish to spread Ms. Cooper's level-headed message to the masses was clearly bound for failure—the guys behind the television cameras had taken a donut break while the teacher was speaking, content in their knowledge that footage of the Señora's travesty would provide sufficient coverage of the tree-huggers' point of view.
To my chagrin, the reporters were back on the job as I brushed past a row of coal miners on my own way up to the stage. The burly men beside me were definitely intimidating, even though a sheriff's deputy was standing not far away to keep the peace, and my stage fright made way for more tangible concerns. As I sidled past, I tried to smile and bridge the gap between our opposing sides, but the miners' frowns instead made me wish that I hadn't arrived so late that I'd had to park my rust bucket at the furthest, darkest corner of the parking lot. Would I even be safe walking out of the building alone once the hearing was over? The scowl on the face of the man beside my right shoulder seemed to suggest otherwise.
For now, though, the miners did nothing but glare, so I forced my legs to carry me up the steps and further into the public eye. Unfolding my sheet of notes, I tried to focus on my speech rather than on wondering why I was even there in the first place. Yes, I was passionate about keeping the power plant out of our neighborhood, but was this public hearing really relevant to the overall battle? No one was collecting votes pro and con; the participants were just speaking their minds for the sake of hearing their own voices.
Earlier, Brett had warned our group that the city council had already been won over by Clean Power's hefty donations to the municipal coffers, adding that we'd almost certainly have to take the fight to the state corporation commission if we wanted to remain a thorn in power company's side. Communities like ours had battled coal-fired power plants all across the U.S. in recent years, Brett noted, and in the end, nearly all of those struggles had been lost. Polluting plants kept being built and the communities around them suffered.
But nobody had succeeded in rejecting a proposed power plant if they didn't even try. So I pulled up yet another fake smile and started to speak. "Our community needs good jobs," I began. "But is Clean Power the solution?"
***
I survived. Not just my moment in the limelight, but also the gauntlet of coal miners standing in my way as I wended back through the crowd to my seat. I wasn't sure that my legs could hold my body erect much longer, so that piece of furniture was very welcome, and the rest of me definitely felt a bit better to see my compatriots' smiling faces getting nearer as well. Surely I couldn't have flubbed my speech too badly if Kimberly and Ms. Cooper were grinning my way?
But that relief was short-lived. When the city councilman stepped back up to the microphone, I thought for sure he was going to let us all go home at long last. Instead, the elected representative welcomed a face that was all too familiar...to me at least.
"To close out the evening, we're lucky to have Jack Reynolds here with us on behalf of Clean Power to answer any questions you might have about the proposed plant," the brown-nosing politician said, segueing into a list of Jack's accomplishments. But I wasn't really listening; I was too bowled over by the reality that Mr. Fish Sticks was the devil incarnate—a lackey for the very industry that Cuadic was fighting to keep out of our community.
My head whirled as I wondered how I could have been stupid enough to let myself become attracted to this stranger without even wondering what he was doing in town. After all, Jack's food choices alone should have tipped me off to the fact that the guy was trouble. And how could he have been so underhanded as to trick me into considering his job offer when the bastard knew that I'd forcefully decline if I was aware of his true identity? My gut reaction in the parking lot had been right on the money—Jack did always get his way, even if he had to sneak around every obstacle to get there.
Beauty is only skin deep, I reminded myself belatedly, and I resolved that the next time I saw Jack, I wouldn't stumble over my words like a lovesick girl. I'd tell him to shove his dinner date. (And Lena? That question was too complicated for my current state of mind to disentangle, so I s
et it aside for now.)
Too bad the rest of our community was going to be taken in by Jack's handsome face just as I had been. Below the stage, television cameras were already zooming in to capture the golden boy's clean-cut features, and, as he'd done in the parking lot earlier that afternoon, the player angled his body to give the audience a clearer view.
"Thanks for asking," Jack was saying to the earnest-looking coal miner in the front row when I finally squashed my ire long enough to pay attention to his words. "Clean Power estimates we'll be bringing over a million dollars worth of income into your community during the construction phase alone. We've also pledged to upgrade your water-treatment plant so it will have the capacity to handle our plant's effluent, while making your own drinking water cleaner in the process. As our name suggests, Clean Power is committed to building communities that are cleaner and better for everyone."
Jack smiled widely, his grin as fake as his words, but a quick look through the audience showed that nearly everyone was lapping up his malarkey. And although I told myself to be calm and collected, my anger boiled over anyway. "But isn't it true that you'll be outsourcing construction to another company, which will bring in their workers from outside the region?" I retorted, shooting to my feet without waiting to be called on. "So we won't really be seeing any new jobs." Stage fright forgotten, I glared up at Mr. Fish Sticks, daring him to refute those basic facts.
"Many local construction workers will be hired," Jack replied, scanning the audience to see who was speaking. When his eyes lit on me, the bastard's grin grew wider, as if he was glad to be butting heads with a worthy opponent. Or maybe Mr. Fish Sticks smiled because he realized I was an easy con based on my past actions. Whatever. "Plus, there will be plenty of dollars flowing into support services," Jack continued. "For example, I understand that McDonalds is considering opening a branch here in town if your community agrees to our offer of locating the newest clean-power center nearby."
Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) Page 3