Jasper’s nearness made her senses spin and her heart ache. But Courtney couldn’t ignore the reality of the situation: she’d been a fool. She’d allowed herself to be used by Andrew’s son, but somehow she had to save face and go back in that room for her family. They meant everything to her.
“What I know is that I’ve never lied to you,” she said when she turned to face him. “I’ve been completely honest with you from the start about who I am. But you...you are a duplicitous liar and I never want to see you again.”
Courtney swung open the glass doors and rushed off the balcony. Jasper stared woodenly as the doors closed behind her. His mother was right. He’d played with fire and he’d got burned.
* * *
“Are you okay?” Gabrielle asked when Courtney returned to the Adams Cosmetics booth nearly an hour after she’d gone to get dressed. “I thought I was going to have to send a search party out for you.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Courtney gave a fake smile. “How’s everything going?”
“Fine, now that you’re here,” Ethan said from behind Gabby. “Where have you been?”
Courtney rolled her eyes. Of course, Kayla and Ethan would arrive when she wasn’t here. “I’m sorry. I got waylaid by a member of the press,” she lied. “You know I’m all about Adams Cosmetics today.”
“That’s what we need,” Kayla said, coming beside her. “You look gorgeous as always.” She kissed both of Courtney’s cheeks.
“Thanks, love. I’m going to go out and work my magic.” Courtney gave them a wave before walking through the crowd. Somehow she managed to put one foot in front of the other and go through the motions of promoting Ecstasy. Several members of the press came over to photograph or interview her. Thanks to the large crowd surrounding her, Courtney was able to lead them back to the Adams Cosmetics booth.
Soon distributors and retailers were swarming their booth. Courtney glanced down the aisle to the Jax Cosmetics booth, which was surprisingly sparse. Monica was standing down the aisle glaring at her, and Courtney gave her a wink. She might be just another pretty face to some, but she knew how to work magic.
* * *
“He’s Andrew’s son?” Tea asked when Courtney begged to come over to her apartment after the trade show. Tea hadn’t wanted to because she had a date in a few hours, but at the pleading tone in Courtney’s voice she’d relented. She was glad she did. This news was epic. “You’re certain?”
“I heard it out of the horse’s mouth,” Courtney replied. “Andrew called him son.”
“Did Jasper deny it?”
“I... We never got around to that,” Courtney said testily, jumping up off Tea’s couch. “All he wanted to talk about was how I wronged him by leaving without a word.”
Tea nodded. “Well, you know I told you he would be sore about that.”
“As if that matters now! Not only did he lie about what he did for a living...he lied about who he is at his very core. My God! My father hates Andrew Jackson. If he knew I’d slept with his son, much less had feelings for him...” Courtney’s voice trailed off.
“Which you do.”
Courtney ignored the comment. “This is bad. Real bad. My family can’t know about this.”
“Do you honestly think you can just sweep this under the rug? You have honest-to-goodness feelings for this man,” Tea said. “And if he was willing to come to the trade show to confront you, it means he has feelings for you too. He isn’t going to let this go.”
Courtney pondered her friend’s musings and reluctantly came to sit back on the couch. “Do you really think he cares for me?”
“Why else would he have come?”
“No, no.” Courtney shook her head violently. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that scenario. “He came here because he’d done his father’s bidding and the game was over. He came to rub my face in it and show me how much of a fool I’ve been.”
“Let me ask you something, Courtney,” Tea said. “If that’s not the case and Jasper came back for you because he wanted to be with you, what then?”
Silence loomed between them. Courtney’s stomach churned with anxiety and frustration and, dared she say...hope? The prospect of a relationship with Jasper and her family’s reaction was frightening. She couldn’t see or predict what the outcome would be and that scared her.
“I don’t know, Tea.”
* * *
“How did it go?” his mother asked Jasper when he came back to the farm later that evening. She was sitting up in the living room having her usual Earl Grey tea. “Did you get the closure that you needed?”
“Far from it!” Jasper responded testily. “In fact, I think I’m more bewildered than ever.” Seeing Courtney’s reaction to the truth and how devastated she’d been over his deception caused Jasper to realize that perhaps she did have feelings for him. Had he imagined that? At this point, it didn’t matter because he was still Andrew Jackson’s son. Jasper was certain that if he could have told her the truth in his own way, they’d be holed up in a hotel room somewhere with Courtney underneath him screaming out his name after he’d given her a shattering orgasm. And if he was honest with himself, he doubted he would have been able to push her away as he’d intended.
“Everything has been turned on its axis,” Jasper explained. “Courtney knows who I am now.”
“How?”
“I ran into Andrew at the trade show. I thought I’d be able to avoid him, but he saw me and then Courtney overheard us talking.”
“She must be horribly upset with you.”
Jasper nodded. “She refuses to speak to me and told me she never wants to see me again.”
“But you don’t believe her, I take it?” Abigail asked.
“No, I don’t. I don’t believe she’s being as honest with herself as I haven’t been. Because truth be told, I’ve fallen for her, Mama,” Jasper replied. “It happened so fast. I wasn’t even looking for it.”
“Oh, son, that’s wonderful,” his mother gushed.
“Not so wonderful, Mama. Her family hates everything Jackson, and that will include me. How will I be able to convince her to give me a second chance?”
Chapter 10
Last night, Jasper had determined that he would have to pull out all the stops to win Courtney back. The problem was she wasn’t returning any of his calls. He knew she was angry with him for lying to her about who he was and what he did for a living, but it went deeper.
Courtney had been raised to believe that everything Jackson was wrong, that Andrew Jackson was the devil incarnate. Jasper had heard of Andrew’s copying Adams Cosmetics ideas and putting out knockoffs, but the real kicker was that he’d hired Noelle Warner to steal the formula to their new fragrance, Ecstasy.
Jasper could see why Courtney wouldn’t want anything to do with the man who was sired by such a criminal. He might be Andrew’s offspring, but he prided himself on being nothing like his father. He intended to tell Courtney all of that. But since the mountain wouldn’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad would have to come to the mountain.
As he walked into the lobby, a security guard greeted him. “Good morning.” He nodded at the burly man. Jasper went to the electronic directory and searched for Courtney’s name. He found her on the executive floor and set about righting a wrong.
Courtney was perusing her schedule on her iPad when she noticed a shadow in her peripheral vision and looked up. She stood up, surprised and even more uncertain than she’d been the night before. Why was Jasper here?
“Courtney.” Jasper walked inside her office and closed the door behind him. He didn’t notice the modern furniture and funky decor of her office. His eyes were only focused on her. She looked smart in a short-sleeve tie-front jacket and wide-legged pants. A large cluster necklace was around her swanlike neck, and several bangl
es were on her arm. Courtney was the picture of sophistication and looked nothing like the sexy free spirit in a tank and shorts he’d met in Punta Cana.
“What are you doing here?” Courtney asked.
“I’m here to have my say,” Jasper replied. “Yesterday, you had your turn and today is mine.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed—” Courtney swept her arms around “—this is a place of business, not a place to air our dirty laundry.”
“If you’d returned my calls yesterday, we could have done this elsewhere, but since you didn’t...” He shrugged. “I’m here.”
“Nothing you can say will change anything.”
Jasper’s eyes traveled over her face and searched her jade eyes. She was lying. “I beg to differ. Hear me out first, and if you still don’t believe me, I will leave you alone.”
Courtney raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. She doubted it. She went to sit down at her desk, but Jasper asked, “Can we sit on the couch?”
She opened her mouth to protest, but figured the sooner they got this over with, the better. Reluctantly, she walked toward the couch, but sat as far as possible on the opposite end. Of course, she hadn’t counted on the intoxicating smell of his cologne or the pull she felt whenever she was around him. It was undeniable. Whenever he was around, there was a tingling in the pit of her stomach. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to calm her nerves. She had no intention of permitting herself to fall under his spell again, not after all his lies.
“My name is Jasper Jackson,” he began, “and yes, I am Andrew Jackson’s son, but I have no relationship with the man.”
He looked at Courtney to see if she was still with him, but her face was emotionless, so he continued. “My father was a cold, heartless man who married my mother only after he’d learned your mother had married another man.”
That generated a reaction. “Oh...” Courtney’s hand flew to her mouth, and Jasper knew he had her attention.
“Andrew met my mother, Abigail, the night he found out Elizabeth had married your father, Byron Adams. He used Abigail, and only when he discovered she was pregnant did he agree to marry her with the hopes she would have a son. Lucky for him, she did. Otherwise he would have thrown her out sooner. He didn’t love my mother and shut her out. She was just a poor farm girl who had no place in society. My mother tried to be a good wife to the bastard, but he was a miserable man. When I was seven, she ran away and tried to take me with her to my grandfather’s farm, but Andrew used his lawyers to intimidate her and get me back.”
“That’s awful.” Courtney couldn’t imagine being separated from her mother at such a young age.
“After that, she was only allowed to see me when Andrew saw fit, which wasn’t often. I hated him and vowed to return to my mother one day. When I was fifteen, I became legally emancipated and went to live with my mother.”
“I’m sure Andrew didn’t like that very much.”
“No, he didn’t, but he didn’t have much choice. I blackmailed him with the knowledge I had about his shady business dealings. You see, I was smart and listened in on his conversations. Knowing I could out him, Andrew let me go.”
“You blackmailed your own father?” She regarded him with somber curiosity. Who did such a thing? Did she even know this man?
Jasper nodded. “I had to and I don’t regret it. Going to live with my mother was the best thing that could have happened to me. I learned how to till the land from my grandfather and become a craftsman like my uncle by working for his construction company. He showed me how to work with my hands and build things. I went on to college and became an architect. I always had a vision of being an entrepreneur, so I convinced the bank and some investors to back me on my first hotel. One hotel led to another and so on.”
“So you do know about construction?” Courtney asked aloud. She was trying to put all the pieces together. “So that much wasn’t a lie.”
“It wasn’t all a lie, Courtney. I was concerned about the company constructing my second hotel in Punta Cana and went undercover as a construction worker to find out what was going on, and when I did, I fired the company. The lie was that I owned the hotel being constructed and Sea Breeze Resorts as well.”
Her thoughts filtered back to the hotel manager and several other people around the town and how they’d catered to Jasper’s every need. “So Miguel and your entire staff were in on your lie?”
“I asked them for their discretion,” Jasper answered honestly.
“I see.” Courtney’s fingers tensed in her lap and her voice broke slightly when she asked, “And what do you want from me now?”
“I want you to forgive me,” Jasper responded.
“Why?”
“Because I want you in my life. I need you in my life.”
Courtney’s breath caught in her lungs and she stared at him speechless.
“I know I deceived you about who I was,” Jasper said, scooting closer to her on the couch until they were inches apart. “I was wrong. I offered you a no-strings-attached affair because that’s all I thought I had to give, but when I met you that changed. We connected like I never had with anyone before. I was upset that you left me because in a short span of time I’ve come to care for you deeply.”
Courtney’s eyes became clouded with tears and she bit her lip, trying to hold herself in check. “This can’t work, Jasper.” She swiftly rose from the couch. “I think you should go.” She turned her back to him and faced the window.
Courtney’s resolve weakened when he walked toward her and stood behind her. “It would be a bitter price to pay if we allowed our parents to come between us.”
Jasper’s strong, muscular arms encircled her slim waist, and a tear trickled down her cheek as her body tingled from the contact. How could she give him up? But if she didn’t, it would be insanity. But her heart... She turned around to face him, and Jasper’s large hands cupped her face.
“Baby, I know you have your doubts, but I believe we can work this out—” His lips came down on hers, and warmth rushed through her. She tilted her head and it fit perfectly in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. The kiss sent spirals of ecstasy shooting through her. She gave herself freely to the passion of his kiss and fused her mouth and tongue with his.
She didn’t hear her office door open, until she heard “What the hell?”
Courtney jumped back when she heard her sister’s voice and turned to face her.
“So it’s true,” Kayla said.
Courtney looked up, disoriented. “What’s true?”
“This!” Kayla held up the gossip section of a local tabloid that had a large color picture of Courtney and Jasper kissing outside on the balcony at the trade show.
Courtney was thrown. “Who took that?”
“Who do you think?” Fury raged inside Kayla. “Probably him or his scum of a father.” Kayla pointed to Jasper.
Jasper held up his hands. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Kayla replied shortly. “What the hell is going on, Courtney? You were supposed to be getting us positive press about Ecstasy and instead you’re caught in a lip lock with Andrew Jackson’s son of all people? For Christ’s sake, what is going on with you?”
“Kayla, this isn’t what you think.”
“You don’t have to explain our relationship to her,” Jasper said, from her side. “This is between me and you. Not your family.”
Courtney turned to glare at Jasper before addressing her sister. “There is a lot you don’t understand, and I would be happy to explain it to you once you’ve calmed down.”
“Just as well, because I’ve called a family meeting,” Kayla said, throwing down the tabloid as she left. “I will see you after work, and don’t be late. Otherwise, Dad might have to go looking for you with a shotgun lik
e he did when you were eighteen and ran off with Chaise.”
Seconds later, Kayla had departed, leaving Jasper and Courtney alone.
“Wow!” Jasper stepped back. “Is she always that intense?”
“Not usually,” Courtney replied, anxiously rubbing her hands together. “But her reaction will be nothing compared to my father’s when he finds out about us.”
“What could really happen?” Jasper asked, trying to be lighthearted.
“You remember that shotgun Kayla mentioned?” Courtney said, looking up at him intently. “She wasn’t joking.”
Jasper swallowed hard.
* * *
“What did you just say?” Byron Adams asked his eldest when she and Ethan came over to the estate for a family meeting. Kayla had been cryptic over the phone, and that had put Byron instantly on edge. Whenever she sounded that way, he knew the news wasn’t good, like when she’d told them Adams Cosmetics was merging with Graham International. So he was prepared to hear something unpleasant, but this was unthinkable.
“I said that Courtney is involved with Andrew Jackson’s son, Jasper.”
“Like hell!” Byron roared. “Where is he?” He moved toward the door. “I will put a bullet in that young man before the night’s out for touching my daughter.”
Elizabeth Adams rose from her chair to stop her irrational husband. “Byron, please. Don’t get yourself this upset, you’ll have a heart attack.”
“I’m having one, Lizzie,” he said, calling her by the nickname he only used when it was just the two of them. “Our daughter is involved with Andrew’s son. Of all people, she had to get herself messed up with him. What the hell is she thinking?”
“I don’t think she was thinking,” Shane joked.
“Shane!” his mother admonished.
“What?” Shane shrugged. “We all know Courtney is a free spirit and lives life on her own terms. Why should this be any different?”
Kayla was surprised by Shane’s response given what Andrew Jackson had done to his fiancée, Gabrielle, by attempting to blackmail her and steal his fragrance. “How can you joke about this, Shane? You of all people know that Andrew can’t be trusted. He’s a liar and a thief, and no doubt Jasper Jackson is cut from the same cloth.”
Formula for Passion Page 10