I turn at Asia’s soft voice.
“You did, Jason.”
Asia is standing in the doorway of my room, her face white and resolute.
My blood freezes, then roars through my veins. “What?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Asia
Jason stares at me. Shock and disbelief are on his face. It’s like I’ve stabbed him with a carving knife, pulled it out, then taken a meat cleaver to the same spot.
I hurry to him, trying and failing not to wince as pain radiates everywhere. “Not intentionally.” I take his hand. He looks like he wants to murder someone, then himself.
“What are you talking about?”
I lead him to the sofa and pull him down.
“Jamaica’s boyfriend, Van, talked about Harlan Franco Security finding him and the fact that he’d had to move two states to get rid of him. I have hired no one called Harlan Franco to find my sister,” I whisper.
He blinks, blinks again, then sags. “Fuck,” he says. His eyes are blazing pools of misery, his face deathly pale, his hands shaking. He pours himself a drink and downs it in one go. “Asia, I would never do anything to hurt you.” He’s staring at me, and I can’t bear the anguish and regret pouring out of him. I can taste its bitter scent.
“I know.” I look out at the ocean where wet-suited surfers like seals hunt waves. The giant Ferris wheel slowly turns. It seems a lifetime ago we were there, happy, eating churros and fairy floss. “But this is what you do,” I say in a quiet, determined voice.
“I was trying to find your sister.” He drags his hand through his hair. “So, you could get her the help she needs, I wanted to find your sister, so you wouldn’t go through the hell I went through when I lost James.” He pours another drink, and it sloshes over the side of the tumbler. “If I ever thought this would happen...” His eyes are blazing. “Wait.” He stops. “What do you mean, this is what I do?”
“You throw money at things to make a problem go away instead of sitting down with me and asking about Jamaica and the progress Bag-of-bones-Malone has made. We could have joined forces instead of you hiring a detective agency to find her.”
I go to stand, and wobble. In an instant, Jason is there. He’s gathered me up in his arms, and I’m too exhausted to protest. I’m lowered onto a bed with sheets that are clouds. I close my eyes as weights are added at each blink.
“Sleep, baby.” A soft, lingering kiss on my forehead. The room falls into darkness, and just as I surrender, it occurs to me that this isn’t a hotel but an apartment.
Jason’s apartment.
I wake the next morning, alone, feeling like I’ve gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, Mohammad Ali, and Joe Frazier. That’s the extent of my boxing knowledge. My left eye is swollen shut, my ribs feel like they’ve been barbecued, my scalp is still on fire, but human biology overtakes me, and I make it to the bathroom. After cleaning my teeth, I examine my face and wince. It looks like MMA fighters went a few rounds at the same time. And I’m bone tired. Jason woke me every hour asking the same questions. What was my name, where was I, when was my birthday and how many teeth does Bloss have? He looked so worried and tired I answered his questions then before I knew it he was asking me again. I debate coffee or shower, but the scent of caramel lures me to a massive kitchen and I find a cup of coffee in a gleaming white porcelain cup, and Jason dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt adding sprinkles to the cup.
“Before you say anything, I’ve apologized a thousand times to the coffee machine who wept when I made this. I’ve promised to bleach the machine later.” He pushes the cup toward me while scanning me.
“Thank you.” My voice still sounds like I’ve smoked two hundred Marlboros chased with a gallon of whiskey while eating a razor blade sandwich.
Jason winces. “I think it would be better if you don’t speak.”
“You’d love that,” I whisper and sip, then take another. “This is the best caramel latte with extra cream and sprinkles I’ve ever had.”
“Shhhh. The coffee machine can hear you.”
I wander around his apartment and smile when I see Blossom asleep on a chair which probably costs more than my rent for a year.
My heart pulls heavy in my chest when I spy a litter box with fresh litter, a water bowl, and a freshly licked food bowl in the laundry room.
I know I’m deflecting and haven’t dealt with the emotional fallout from last night. On cue, my fingers tremble, and I slide the cup onto a dining room table that seats about a hundred. In an instant, Jason is around the table, tipping my chin with his warm fingers, and staring into my eyes.
“How ya doing?”
“I’m okay, the bruises will heal.” I tilt my chin, fighting a wobble in my voice.
“I’m not talking about the bruises. I’m talking about how you’re doing emotionally?”
If I could laugh, I would. The word emotion and Jason Johnson do not go in the same sentence. I search his beautiful face and choke at the heartache, tenderness, and regret swimming in the dark depths and falter. Tears sting my eyes and burn the back of my throat.
Damn.
He pulls me into a tender hug. The impact of last night unravels the thin thread holding me together, and I break.
“I failed.” He soothes my hair and holds me to his chest. “I promised my grandmother I’d get Jamaica the help she needed, but I didn’t.”
He pulls back slightly. “Baby, you didn’t fail.” He smooths sticky hair from my temple. I think my nose is running all over his T-shirt, but he either doesn’t notice or care. “You tried to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” He kisses my forehead with such aching tenderness that I melt physically and mentally into him, drawing from his strength. “You are the most selfless, loyal, compassionate, infuriating person I know. You bring light into my world I never thought I’d see. I look forward every morning to you reading your stupid horoscope. Got to say, baby, nearly fired you over the Patriots comment and Brady. You know how I feel about your Buffalo Bills.”
Another whisper kiss to the forehead when I swallow a laugh that hurts. I wince, and Jason stills.
“I’d do anything to take away your pain, knowing I inadvertently caused it.”
“You didn’t know Jamaica and her boyfriend would come to the apartment.”
He looks down at me from his six-hundred-foot height, regret leaking from his pores. “I should have anticipated the move. I didn’t know they were desperate.”
Makes two of us.
I look up at him with leaky eyes, wishing I could attach all this emotion to hormones, but I can’t. My feelings for him are deep and tangled. One thing I do know is I’m falling for my fake husband, and it will only end badly. He could no more love me than he could love Bambi, frolicking puppies, or the Bills Mafia.
“One thing I can do is drive you to the police station so you can make a report.”
I blink and move back a step, missing his comfort and warmth immediately; instead, I am cloaked in icy dread. Immediately, I am back in his arms.
“You have to. I heard what that fucker said he was going to do to you.” Jason’s eyes are now flinty black and hard. “You’ve got good neighbors, and they’d do everything they can to protect you, but they have families and if that fucker—”
“Van.” I interrupt him. “His name is Van.”
“As I said, if that fucker comes back in six months, a year, do you think he’ll be a pastor selling the word of his Lord having found religion?”
I shake my head. “But it’s my sister.”
“I know, baby, but you’ve got friends you have to protect,” he says quietly.
I gather in his strength and compassion for what I know I have to do. Not just for me, but for Darlene and the rest of the women in our apartment block. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to any of them when I could have stopped it.
“Baby, have a shower, get dressed, and we’ll go to the station together after you’ve eaten.”
He disengages with me, and I feel the loss of him everywhere, heart, lungs, soul. He nuzzles me toward the bathroom where I take a lengthy shower and stock of my life. I’m technically married to a man who doesn’t do emotion, but after the scene just now, it looked crazily like he does. I’m feeling way more for him than I should, that’s a given.
I’m now officially going through life on my own without my sister by my side. I haven’t seen or heard from my mother in twenty-two years, and I don’t think a surprise reunion is going to happen where we run into each other’s arms and she begs forgiveness. I don’t have a place to live. Fairytales don’t have happy endings. Mine would be written by Stephen King, channeling Carrie, not Hans Christian Andersen channeling The Ugly Duckling.
When I return, there’s a gorgeous man standing in the living room next to Jason. He’s taller than Jason, with dark hair and sky-blue eyes, and a scowl that matches Jason’s lining his forehead. I stop mid-stride.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he says in a deep rumbling voice.
I blink and say nothing as he moves toward me with the stealth of a panther. When he’s a foot from me, he stops and stares down at me. A lightbulb goes on.
“You must be Harlan Franco,” I grate out.
Remorse swims in his baby blues. “Yeah.” He pulls his hand through his hair. I’m thinking he does that a lot or it’s permanently messy. Suits him.
Those startling eyes bore into mine. “I thought he was a harmless junkie, not a violent one. No rap sheet, just an addict with an addict girlfriend her sister wanted to get into rehab. I’ve had people looking out for him in LA and at your apartment. Fucker got in at dawn when the shifts were switching.”
His eyes are like truth serum.
“He’s always hated me as I hated him. Jamaica could never see the hardness in him, but I don’t blame him for my sister being a user. I think she was before he came into her life, always looking for a high, a laugh, a good time. I never knew he hated me enough to do the things he said he wanted to.”
Last night’s terror morphs into my head in vivid technicolor. My mouth fills with saliva. I make it to the bathroom where I upend the caramel latte. Jason is doing the girlfriend thing and holding back my hair, making soothing circles on my back.
“He will not get near you,” Jason grits out. The energy in the room has ramped up to nuclear levels. I nod, brush my teeth. Jason leads me back into the large, airy room, where Harlan is pacing on his phone. When he sees us, he ends his conversation.
He stalks to me and presses a card into my hand. “You ever need anything, call me.” Regret and rage are still swirling in his eyes, and I feel bad for him.
“Thanks.” I lean up and kiss his smooth cheek. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He looks down in surprise, then a smile that could melt the universe, and cloistered women’s undergarments, unleashes into the room. I suck back a breath at the raw beauty of the man, who gives my shoulder a soft squeeze.
“How’s Sophie?” Jason asks, a grin tugging his mouth.
“Don’t ask,” he says before heading out the door.
Jason chuckles beside me then sobers. “Are you ready?”
I nod. I’m not, but I have to do this. For myself, my neighbors, my sister, and my grandmother, if she were here. It would break her heart just like mine is breaking with every breath I take.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jason
My brave little angel breaks down when the police question her. She grips my hand like I’m a life preserver and she’s getting swamped. It’s going to be harder to press charges than I thought. My blood is a raging torrent. Technically, the apartment is in both Jamaica and Asia’s name, and Jamaica has a key so there was no break and enter. There are no witnesses, and it’s unlikely Jamaica will testify against the man now officially named by me as The Fucker. The officer looks at us.
“I’m not saying we won’t pursue this, but I think we’ll have a hard time convincing the district attorney. One of the best private investigators in the country in the form of Harlan Franco and his crew did not see them entering the building. It’s basically your word against theirs if we ever catch them.”
There are no security cameras at her apartment. That changes as of this morning.
“If we can’t get a conviction, what if he comes back and makes good on his threat to—”
Asia pales.
I’ve already told the officer what the threat is. Her face had hardened, her lips a tight line.
“No rap sheet on Van Dreckler or your sister. We’ve filed an assault report and loss of property and will be in touch.”
Officer DeLeo stands and holds out her hand, which Asia shakes.
While Asia is in the bathroom, I make calls to Brutus, who is working on her apartment when not at Costco and being a computer mastermind. Darlene has been researching metal doors and security gates for the complex. I tell her to get what she needs for everyone and that now include security cameras. I hear the smile in her voice when she says, “Thank you.”
Zeb Carmichael calls, asking what he can do to help. Same calls from Zan, Holden Kelly who has surfaced from a job in Alaska and says he can be here tomorrow morning, which I turn down. I appreciate they all have my back as I had theirs, but Harlan has it covered.
Asia and I are now sitting on the balcony overlooking the Pacific and the Santa Monica Pier when I broach a subject.
“Since we’re now a team, there is something I want to run by you.”
She shifts her head in my direction, her eyebrows raised. “We’re a team?”
“Of course, we are. Just like Batman and Robin. PB and J. Harry, Hermione, and Ron.”
A faint smile curls her beautiful mouth. “I’ll give you the last one, even though you didn’t include Hagrid.”
I grin. “Or Luna or Moaning Myrtle and don’t forget Dobby.”
She is full-on smiling now, and her smile is the eighth wonder of the world. “How did I not know my husband is a secret Harry Potter fan?”
I like the way the word husband sounds on her lips.
“Not a closet fan at all.” I stand and reach out my hand, which she takes. I lead us down a long hallway to my office. My housekeeper and cleaner know better than to go to my office and move stuff around.
“What did you want to run past me?” She’s moving around the room, and I know exactly where she is. Without turning, I can detect her across ten football fields.
Ah, yes, the point of the discussion. “Would you mind if I have Gabriel go to the pawn shops in the area and see if he can find your stuff, and if there’s any footage of the people making the trade?” I ask cautiously. The last thing I want to do is antagonize her. I hurt her by not consulting her, and that will always be in my heart like a hard clot.
“You’d do that?” Hope swims in her glossy eyes.
“Yeah, baby, I would.” My phone is at my ear, and Gabe is on it, along with a couple of guys from Franco I’ve paid to stick around to find Jamaica and the Fucker.
I am now staring proudly at the first edition copies of the Harry Potter series—each book with the English and American edition. My favorite still being the flying blue car, the English cover for The Chamber of Secrets.
I hear an intake of breath and turn to see Asia reaching out and touching the combustion engine kit she bought me.
“FYI, it was a bastard to put together.” I can’t help but smile. It took me hours where I’d never been happier. It sits proudly on its own shelf in a glass box. If anyone so much as touches it, I’ll take them apart limb by limb.
Tears swim in Asia’s eyes, then fall like crystal drops on her painfully pale face. “I can’t do this.” She turns and stumbles from the room.
Surprised and a bit shocked, I find her in the bedroom, packing her clothes.
I stand in the doorway, every muscle in my body tense and ready to tear itself from bone. “What’s going on?” I push
out of the doorway while my wife/assistant is flinging items into her bag, tears now a waterfall.
She searches my face. “Do you have any feelings for me, Jason?”
The air in the room crackles in anticipation. “I like you, Asia. I do, but this is all I’ve got to give.” I shrug and regret leaks into my bloodstream like cancer. “I wish I could be the one to give you more, I do, but I’m not that guy.”
She nods. Lines groove the side of her eyes and her forehead.
She’s getting ready to leave, and my chest empties into my gut.
“Stay, Asia, please. Until your apartment is ready. It won’t be long. The Fucker is still out there, and the security doors have yet to be installed.” She wavers, and I go in for the kill. “I promise as soon as your apartment is ready, I’ll drive you there myself.”
She nods, and I breathe in her scent, and oxygen works its way through my bloodstream.
Hours later, I’m in bed, restless, and too wired to sleep, but mostly I’m afraid of the nightmares that have roared back into my life. It doesn’t take a hospital panel of psychiatrists to know the reason they are plaguing every minute of sleep. But I don’t want to be away from Asia in case she needs me or is in pain, so I didn’t do my usual routine of slaying the boxing bag, lifting enough weights to exhaust all muscle groups, then running ten miles on the treadmill and rowing fifteen.
I wake in another drenching sweat to find a hand soothing my forehead. She slips into bed behind me.
“Thank you,” I grate out of a dry throat.
She snuggles, and I wake up feeling fifteen years younger and with a smile on my face.
A smile on my face.
This is the cycle of my life. I give her as much time off as she needs. I’m starting to not hate coming home to this apartment and finding a woman sprawled on my couch with a tabby cat curled up beside her, rereading Harry Potter. Last week, I found Asia unable to speak, she was crying so hard. Alarmed, I nearly tripped over the cat to get to her where she told me through a watery smile that The Happy Prince is the saddest story she’s ever read.
Bound to her Fake Fiancé Boss: A Fun Sexy Feel Good Billionaire Office Romance Page 24