by RJ Scott
“Edward Grey, Intern,” John said, but Riley could read it all for himself.
And the most damning part of it all. Edward Grey was sleeping with JJ Harrold, Josiah’s son.
“You want me to leave?” John asked, but he didn’t move. Clearly, he could stay there and play the part of the intimidating muscle, and right now that was what Riley needed.
“No, I’ll get…deal…” Riley stood and, shoulders back, he left the office, winding his way through the desks and arriving at Edward’s desk, but there was no sign of him.
“He called in sick, sir,” Precious Lenwin, Edward’s fellow intern piped up, “Think he might have the flu that’s going around. Can I help you with something?”
“No, thank you.” Riley backed away and stepped right into John. They exchanged glances and Riley was suddenly determined to get this done. He stalked back across the office and to Kathy’s desk. “I’m out,” he said, and with John behind him, he left the building. “I guess you have an address,” he said, aware he was being an ass, but also understanding his temper was justified. Edward was a good kid, in his final year in business school at UT, recommended by a friend. He’d gone through the normal vetting, and Riley trusted him as he trusted every employee. He didn’t argue when John guided him to a large black SUV and gestured for Riley to get in.
Within thirty minutes they were across the city, and outside a block that looked way beyond an intern’s means.
“Wait, isn’t this JJ’s place?” Riley asked as he stared up at the glass and stone building.
John nodded, followed just behind Riley as he walked inside and headed straight for security in the lobby.
“JJ Harrold,” Riley said, very simple and to the point. “No, he’s not expecting me, and yes, he will see me. My name is Riley Campbell-Hayes.”
The man on duty glanced from Riley to John, who stood there all big and scary. He was no doubt contemplating calling the cops, and Riley sighed.
“JJ will see me,” he said again.
The man picked up the handset and rang a number. “Sir, there is a Riley Campbell-Hayes for you… Yes…absolutely I can do that… Yes, sir.” He replaced the handset and moved to the elevator, using a key card to open it, and gesturing them in. “Six,” he said, and then backed away. The elevator ride was smooth and quick, and when the door opened at six, which Riley assumed was the entire floor, the lobby was marble tile and quiet.
Then a door opened, and JJ walked out, stopping at the door and waiting.
“Before you say anything,” he began and held up a hand. “Listen to me.”
Riley wasn’t in the mood to listen. “Is Edward here?”
A second man appeared behind JJ, shorter, and he looked as if he’d been crying, and Riley saw red. Had JJ used his position of authority to use Edward, just as he’d tried to do with Tom?
Where the punch came from, Riley didn’t know for sure, his anger at the fact he’d been betrayed, the fact that it was JJ, the fact that Josiah-fucking-Harrold was getting right up in CH’s business, and Riley was done.
JJ sprawled back, catching himself on the door jamb, so as not to end up on the floor.
“Riley, stop!” JJ shouted and held out a hand. Riley felt every ounce of anger flood to his clenched fist, but Edward moved to stand between Riley and JJ and, shoulders back, he defied the man who signed his paycheck.
“Leave him alone!” he yelled. He was still crying, but this was in anger and a hint of desperation.
Riley backed away, surprised, shocked, seeing JJ’s hand on Edward’s shoulder, and the naked fear and love on his face. He’d seen that before, in the looks Jack gave him, and abruptly all the anger dissipated. He felt a hand on his own shoulder.
“I think you have this now.” John headed back for the elevator.
“Come in,” JJ said, and he and Edward went inside leaving the door open.
Riley followed them, casting a quick look at his surroundings, at the view of the city, the high ceilings, the obscenely expensive feel of the whole place, and then the boxes. Three of them. Open, with items sticking out; clothes, and books and at the top of the nearest one was a photo frame and in there a picture of Edward and JJ.
“What the fuck is going on. Edward, if he’s hurting you, we can work this out—”
“He’s not hurting me.” Edward moved into JJ’s arms.
Riley couldn’t understand this. He knew JJ, and the bastard was a chip off the old block, hell, he’d tried it with Tom, and Tom had punched him and then lost his job. JJ was Santone Oil, the heir, the one who would take their blustering, bloated company into the future. He’d never liked him, even if they’d been drinking buddies way back, it was proximity, never friendship, and when Riley met Jack he wasn’t that man anymore that was anything like JJ.
“I wouldn’t hurt him; I love him. You’d better sit down, Riley.”
Riley took the nearest seat, and Edward and JJ sat opposite, holding hands. Riley wasn’t going to believe a word of this and looked at Edward, willing him to meet his eyes so he could see exactly what was going on. Was Edward being blackmailed?
“I don’t know where to start,” JJ said.
Riley didn’t even offer the usual response to that, the beginning, because talking right now, when he was still angry and confused, wasn’t a good idea. Part of him, the needy part, wished Jack was here, because he’d be a steadying influence. Riley noticed the redness of JJ’s face, and the fact that it would bruise up around his eye.
“So the Hayes and the Harrolds, hell, you know as well as I do that our dads hated each other, for reasons I never understood, or cared to understand. Rivalry, money, who had the biggest house, the prettiest wife, the best children, it was like some fucking kids’ playground with the two of them.” He looked to Edward for something, reassurance that he was doing things right, probably. Edward shoulder-bumped him, offering a smile and finally meeting Riley’s gaze.
“And?” Riley prompted.
“I was born into that, same as you were, but I never found my Jack, do you get that? So the poison festered, and it made me a man who…hell, I don’t even know what it made me, a waste of space. I expected I could have everything, and I took what I wanted, and I drank. A lot. Same as you, only you found Jack.”
“You keep saying that,” Riley began.
JJ held up a hand. “Please, let me get this out,” he said. “But then, we were failing, missing out on bids, losing to your ethical solutions, and dad wanted blood. He said we needed intel, that I should get you in bed, shit he was insane, as if that would ever happen. You have Jack.”
He paused, and gripped Edward’s hand. “Our plan, his plan, get inside, approach Tom maybe, but there was no way… so I focused in on an intern, Edward, used him, hurt him.” He looked at Riley, and his eyes were bright with emotion. “But, I fell in love, and Edward made me see what I could be…and I’m leaving Santone; I won’t work there anymore.”
“We’ll start over somewhere else,” Edward said, with confidence.
Riley processed what he could, and sat back in his seat. “Explain everything, from the beginning, slowly.”
Riley skipped going back to the office, wanted to go home, needed to see Jack, thankful he owned the company and could disappear for the last few hours of the day. He had an idea of where Jack would be, over at the school, knowing that Thursday at four in the afternoon was Max’s riding lesson and that they had a half an hour before that to talk.
“Is Jack around?” he asked Liam, who didn’t look away from some intricate work on a saddle, and waved in the general direction of the office. Riley hurried over, knocked on the closed door and went in before Jack even said a word. Jack glanced up surprised, but the polite smile gave way to a broad grin, and he was up on his feet in an instant and pulling Riley in for a hug.
“What are you doing here?” he asked with a smile, “Not that it isn’t good to see you in the middle of the day.”
“We found out who was passing informatio
n to Santone.”
Jack’s expression changed to one of sympathy, and he squeezed Riley quickly. “Who?”
“An intern, Edward, remember you met him at the Fourth of July picnic?”
“Short, skinny, blond, I remember him. What the hell, Riley?”
“He’s sleeping with JJ, and—”
“I’ll kill him,” Jack muttered, “Fucking JJ and his shit.”
“No, listen. He’s changed, and he’s in love with Edward, and they’re running off to get married, and his dad will kill him when he finds out, and I said I’d cover for him if I needed to, if it helped, and Jack?”
Jack looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “What?” he finally asked.
“You know how he convinced me he was in love with Edward?”
“How?” The words dripped with suspicion.
“He told me he’d met his Jack.”
“Oh.” Jack cradled Riley’s face. “Oh,” he repeated again.
“He’s been passing the wrong information to Josiah for a while now, and that’s why what Josiah is doing lately is always slightly off. We should be thanking him.”
Jack snorted a laugh. “Thank the man who slept with one of your interns to gather intel on how to win bids that you have spent months planning? Yeah right.”
Riley kissed him then, kissing away the laughter, and pressing him back against the desk. They wouldn’t be thanking him, of course, but there was one thing that had made Riley stop and think.
Finding his Jack had made him a better man, and JJ had found his Jack in Edward.
And for that, Riley seemed to be able to forgive JJ and Edward both.
Because finding love in weird situations? Well, Riley understood that, completely.
Chapter 18
Hayley came home for Jack’s forty-fifth birthday, arriving a couple of days before and planning to stay a week. She was nearly done with her third year at college now, and she’d come home loaded down with books and notepads and holed herself up in her room for the entire first day of her visit. She’d worked at CH in the summer the previous year, and was likely to join the company again in a couple of weeks, after her exams which loomed over her. Her workload was incredible, and Jack couldn’t help her with any of it. Riley went up several times with drinks and snacks and then didn’t come down for an hour at a time. He could help her with geophysics, which was a module that both Riley and Hayley found fascinating.
If she seemed quiet and pale, Jack didn’t like to comment on it, but he did worry that maybe she was doing too much. Also, he noticed she’d ignored five calls from Logan, turning her phone over.
What the hell was going on there?
The next morning she was having breakfast, still tired and pale, and on the verge of a hypo. He didn’t say anything as she ate cereal and counted the carbs, making a note on her phone and tutting.
“Everything okay?” he asked when she tutted again and slammed her phone down onto the table. She didn’t do that; her phone was her life, and possibly smashing it wasn’t something she would do.
She shot him a look that spoke volumes. “I hate having this stupid disease,” she snapped, “I wake up, my sugars are low, and I feel as if I haven’t slept, I’m muddled and irritable, I’m running out of time for the exams, and I don’t understand what I’m reading when I’m on the verge of a freaking hypo, and…” the steam in her escaped in a frustrated sigh and then she buried her face in her hands. A hypo, short for hypoglycemia, was one of the worst parts of having diabetes.
Jack considered where Riley was, because Riley knew about college and exams and all that side of Hayley. But God, diabetes or not, she was so much like Riley in the way she let stress build and build until there was nowhere for it to go. With Riley he went quiet and hid away, and right on cue Hayley stood, rinsed her bowl and put it in the dishwasher.
“I’m going to study,” she announced.
Nope, this wasn’t a Riley situation; this was something that Jack was going to handle.
“No, you’re not,” Jack said, and moved so he was blocking the door out of the kitchen.
“Pappa, I need to study.”
“Not this morning.”
She pushed at him; she still had that slightly uncoordinated look that came with her sugars still climbing to whatever was normal for her. Her push was nothing.
“Let’s go riding,” he said. “I’ll pack some snacks, and we’ll visit Legacy, go up on the bluff, Red’s been missing you.”
At the use of her horse’s name, she faltered a little and then that steely Riley-Hayes look sparked in her eyes.
“No, Pappa, I came back for your birthday, and I already lost four days just for that, you have to let me study.”
Jack wasn’t going to let himself be hurt by her words. They meant nothing, but he was scared for the bags under her eyes and her pale skin. Did she ever see the outside of a study room? Wasn’t geology all about going out and observing rocks, surely she should be out in the sun.
“Turn around, and I’ll meet you at the barn.
Frustration had her balling her fists, and she tried to evade him, but her sluggish reflexes were no match for a determined father.
“Out. Barn. Saddle up Red.”
“No. You can’t make me; I’m twenty-one, not ten anymore.”
“As long as you’re under my roof you’ll do what I say.” Even as Jack said the words, he cringed at the sound of his momma’s voice telling him that when he tried to get away with shit when he was at home.
“I’ll talk to Dad,” Hayley warned.
Jack laughed. He couldn’t help it. Hayley and her siblings had ever had any success in playing their parents off against each other, and it wouldn’t start now. Of course, laughing was the very first thing on the list of what not to do in the parent's handbook, and he instantly regretted it, when her eyes filled with tears.
Tears he couldn’t handle.
“Just let me study today,” she wheedled, and one perfect tear slid down her face. Master manipulation; she’d done it at ten, and she was an expert now.
But Jack was determined.
“Barn, Hayley, Red.”
She stared up at him. He didn’t back down. She turned, muttering under her breath, and left the house. He saw her pass the window and was thankful that at least she was heading for the barn. Robbie was out there, and he’d help her if she needed it, not that she did, but he’d be there to listen just how awful her Pappa was. He needed to get used to that kind of thing with Louise and Jeremy getting older.
When he went to the barn, he saddled Kalli, a mare out of Solo’s line, and mounted, waiting just outside the stable for Hayley. She emerged on her horse, and wouldn’t look him in the eyes, but did at least follow him away from the ranch and to the bluff. Jack halted and dismounted, scruffing Kalli’s mane and waiting for something to happen.
Because just like with Riley, something always did.
She didn’t get off Red, she sat there, a stubborn set to her chin, staring out over the ranch, but subtly it changed. She was thinking, processing, going over everything, and then she dismounted and came to stand in front of Red, right next to Jack.
He pulled her into his side, and waited for her to talk, to get everything off her chest about college and whatever else it was that was stressing her out.
But she shocked him, she burst into tears, and he had to hold her up and, fuck, what the hell was happening? He held her close, her height put her head at the base of his chin, and he didn’t let go of her, not until the sobs became little more than harsh breathing and finally, peace.
“You don’t have to talk,” Jack began softly, “but you know your dad and I, we’re always here for you.”
She looked up at him, her hazel eyes bloodshot and swimming with tears.
“I had a scare,” she said, and gripped his shirt, “I thought I was pregnant, I mean, I was…” she dipped her head.
“Oh Hayley, baby.”
“Please don’t be disappo
inted.”
“Hayley?” Jack pressed a finger to her chin to tilt her face, so she looked at him. “Nothing you might do could ever disappoint me.” He stepped away and pulled the blanket from his horse and laid it on the ground under the nearest Texas Ash tree, along with the drinks and snacks. “Sit down, sweetheart.”
She did, and watched him as he sat cross-legged facing her.
“I missed a period, and used a pregnancy test, and then I had an early pregnancy loss, there was a lot of bleeding, and I was scared.”
“I’m so sorry, why didn’t you call?”
“Because I’m at college and these things don’t happen, not to me.”
“What did Logan say?” He assumed it was Logan, as last time they’d both visited he’d caught his daughter and Logan in a heated kiss and had backpedaled so fast out of the room he’d tripped over Toby and fallen onto the wall. Awkward.
She shook her head, and he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Had Logan been with her? He wouldn’t have let her go through this alone.
“Hayley?”
“Ididn’ttellhim,” she mumbled. Then she closed her eyes. “I didn’t tell him, okay. I avoided his calls, and now I’ve fucked everything up and I can’t talk to him at all, and he’s coming here tomorrow and I’ve managed to put him off, but it’s your birthday.”
Oh shit. She’s done a Riley, and hidden everything away.
Jack hoped to hell that Logan channeled some of his Uncle Jack, because Hayley needed to be pulled out of her own head sometimes, just like Riley.
“Don’t tell dad, please, Pappa.”
Jack shook his head. “We don’t keep secrets,” he said. “You know I will tell him, unless you tell him first, baby.”
“I can’t.” Fresh tears accompanied those words. “He’ll be so disappointed, and—”
“Stop projecting your own fears onto other people, Hayley.” He must have sounded super strict because she clamped her mouth shut and there was a hint of mutiny in her expression. He sighed again. “Your dad will hug you, and tell you he’ll do anything to make things better, okay? And as to Logan, he deserves to know what happened, and why you’re avoiding him. It takes two to make a baby you know.”