“I’m in IT, Dan. How about you?”
His slick grin makes my gut twist. I can’t identify why until I see face after face with the same knowing grin flash through my mind. A grin like my mom’s clients would give me when they took Mom “out.”
I didn’t like Danielson before. I hate him now.
“What a coincidence. Also IT. I designed the information system used by Lockstead.”
Impressive. IT for a global security company, who, if I recall correctly, is currently putting feelers out to upgrade out of their current system. It says a lot that they’re changing systems, and also why Danielson doesn’t need to be tied to where the company’s stationed. Regardless of his loss of a lucrative contract, his skills push him to the top of my list.
What business would he have in Natural Glow, other than wanting in London’s pants?
I rummage through a couple of drawers for a spoon, grateful I’m in the right spot and don’t have to roam all over the kitchen like I’ve never been here before. Looking like I’m comfortable in Diana’s place with London, might be behind the flush creeping up Danielson’s collar.
How much information can I get out of him before Roland and Diana lure him away? “I think I’ve heard of them. East Coast, you said?”
His mouth tightens over my dismissal of the magnitude of his work history, but his congenial expression remains in place. “Yes. Outside of Boston. And you? What company do you work for?”
I lift a shoulder and take the top off a light-green wrapped sushi roll. Hoping it’s London’s macadamia nut roll, I dish it out on two plates. “I doubt you’ve heard of it.” He probably has. “Where are you guys taking Diana tonight?”
His gaze flickers and I fight my own grin. He’s annoyed. “There’s a dinner club Father wants to try. They have live jazz music.”
London nudges me with her elbow. “Ooh, we should go dancing there sometime.”
Is this part of the show for Danielson’s sake? It’s not like we’ve made up, or decided our future. I’m not letting her out of my sight until this mess is sorted out. Then we’ll have to have a serious talk about how she’s better off without me. I’d rather preemptively lose her than think everything’s fine, only to have her find out that her small amount of baggage is nothing like mine.
But that doesn’t change that I’d love to go dancing there with her.
Danielson pins her with his pale blue gaze. “You dance? What’s your favorite?”
She flashes him a wicked grin. “Whatever one will get Jacobi out on the floor with me.”
I try not to laugh. She couldn’t be putting out stronger not available vibes. The only problem is that if he doesn’t catch on after this, I don’t know if it’s because he’s the type of guy who can’t let a bum-looking dude like me prevail. Or, if he’s trying to get to London since he can’t get through her firewalls otherwise.
* * *
London
“So, that was awkward,” I say after we practically pushed Danielson and Roland out the door, Diana following behind, shooting me apologetic smiles.
Jacobi and I take our food to the office, and he shuts the door. We’re the only ones home, but I have the same feeling he does. Like Roland and Danielson are going to arise like apparitions. We settle on the floor for our little picnic.
“Awkward, yes.” He doesn’t say more but I know that sharp brain of his is spinning.
I finish my sushi before I continue. “And what else?”
“Hmm?” He’s staring at the wood grains in the floor as he munches on his egg roll. He’s eating something deep-fried. He’s definitely distracted.
“What are you thinking?”
“Danielson wants you.”
“I got that feeling.” I’m not used to being pursued. Not for long, anyway. It’s LA. There’s always someone prettier, in better shape, more mysterious.
“But I don’t know why.”
“Yeah, right. Why?” I shake my head and lift an egg roll, but put it back down. My appetite is gone. Seriously? He doesn’t know why?
He sets his food down and prowls toward me. Lifting the plate out of my hand, he captures my gaze. “He’d be a fool not to want you, but Danielson is like the rest of your exes. Only in it for himself. He can buy pussy if he wants it. He doesn’t think he should work for it. I bet you made him work for it more tonight than he ever has.”
Still not a resounding compliment to why someone would date me. I let out a scornful laugh. “All you have to do is swipe right. All you wanted was revenge and I didn’t make you work for it.”
“Yes, you did,” he growls. “You still do. Every damn day.”
I don’t know what he means. I don’t even know why I’m suddenly so insecure. My business might be getting attacked, Danielson might have ulterior motives, and I know Jacobi’s already done both of those things. My emotions are getting away from me.
It’s not every day I admit to myself that I’m in love with my ex-husband who’s only around because he wants to help me, not because he wants to build a future.
But I don’t have long to think about it. I’m getting pushed backward as his mouth claims mine. He tastes like the meal I haven’t finished eating. I like it better with undertones of Jacobi.
“You make me work to be a better person, to be worthy of you. You’re so damn good, I fail every single time.” He drags my shorts down and I lift a knee high enough to pull one leg free. He’s between my thighs, where he belongs.
Sex won’t solve anything, but I need him to show me how he feels even if he won’t admit it. “I’m not too good for you.”
“You are.” He scrapes his teeth over my chin, down my neck, as his hand works his shorts down. “I want to fuck you so hard you can’t possibly leave me.” When he springs free of his clothing, he thrusts forward, impaling me.
He claims me on the office floor, mindless with need. It’s exactly the feeling that I crave after he made the comment about Danielson. Jacobi doesn’t want Natural Glow. He’s given up on revenge. He doesn’t have to be here, fucking me on a hardwood floor, and he couldn’t wait to finish dinner to do it.
And I didn’t have to beg for him to do it. “I won’t leave you, Jacobi.”
“You should.” He grunts as he jacks his hips out and slams in, making me gasp, the pleasure robbing my breath. “I’m only going to disappoint you.”
Disappointed is the last thing I feel. He plunges in and out, the hard length of him hitting all the right spots. Our climaxes are as hard and fast as the ride up.
His hands claw at the floor as he comes, and I nearly rip his shirt. We shudder together and then he pulls out, giving me one last full-body tremble, and helps me put my shorts back on.
I sit up and he pulls me onto his lap. His fading erection prods my side, but he ignores it and hands me my plate.
He stuffs the egg roll I abandoned into my mouth. “Any man who doesn’t pursue you to the ends of the earth is a fucking tool.”
Is he including himself in that statement? I finish chewing. “I only want the guy who’ll pursue me to Cabo.” His eyes heat and I bite my lip. I might end up on my back again. “That’s the first time I’ve had sex in this house.”
“We can try to christen as many rooms as possible before Diana gets back.”
My body tingles. I could go for that. This was only an appetizer. A satisfying, powerful appetizer. “I know you’re up for the challenge, but we have work to do and I need to be able to look Diana in the eye.”
We finish eating. He takes our plates, but before he walks out of the office, he stops. “You haven’t told Diana about your birth mother.”
“No.” I don’t know why and my attempt to explain is clumsy. “I’m scared she’ll be hurt, or worse, resigned about it, like I’m replacing her. I mean, she’s the one who started the whole first name thing. What if she wants me to see my birth mother? What if she doesn’t? What if she feels betrayed?”
My thoughts are all over the place, but Jaco
bi sums it up. “You’re worried that she’ll take it well or take it badly and what it would mean either way.”
I nod. “Can you come with me?”
His brow lifts. “You’re going?”
“I think so. Not knowing will drive me more insane than if my birth mother loses her shit and runs me off.”
“When?”
I circle my hand around the office. “After we’re done with this mess.”
“I’m starting a stack to take home. I’d also like to look in Diana’s personal computer.”
I get off the floor. “You put the plates away and I’ll get her computer. It’s probably on her nightstand.”
Diana’s room is dark. She has her blackout shades drawn. Her bed is made with the corner turned back, ready for her to crawl in. The clothes she was wearing when we arrived are strewn across the top.
I lift the computer and my gaze is drawn to the other side of the bed. That was my dad’s side. The bed is the same. That side is empty.
The glint of reading glasses catches my eyes. Those aren’t the cat-eyed ones Diana usually wears.
Roland’s.
The urge to vomit up all my food hits, but I keep it down. Diana’s moved on and she has the right to move on in her own home and her own bed, even if it used to be my dad’s.
I was happy for her.
Am I still?
I don’t know. I never gave Roland much thought other than I was glad that he seemed like a nice enough guy for Diana. A tame option. Someone like Dad, but not.
And isn’t that what bothers me now?
He’s like Dad.
The dad I knew loved Diana. But the man I’m learning he was isn’t the right guy for Diana. She loved him and overlooked a lot, but the Diana she is today might not fall for a guy like Dad. So what does she see in Roland?
If he wasn’t loaded in his own right, I’d worry that he scoped out wealthy widows on the rebound. What does he do for work again? A financial planner?
Then there’s Danielson. Is Jacobi right? Does Danielson only see a payday in me? He’s wealthy too. What can I offer him?
I don’t want to offer him anything, but again, Jacobi’s right. A guy like Danielson doesn’t chase. Is it pressure from his dad? Is it Natural Glow?
There’s movement by the door. Jacobi’s found me.
I lift the laptop like it explains my delay, but he stays at the door. My back is to him.
“I…” I chew my lower lip, mulling over the words. “I saw Roland’s reading glasses on Dad’s side of the bed.”
He approaches. I can feel him more than I can hear him. He puts his hands on my shoulders.
“I don’t know if he’s good for her.” There. I don’t want to meddle in Diana’s private life. “I wanted to be so supportive of her. But Roland doesn’t feel right.”
“Go with your gut, London. Always listen to it.”
Chapter 20
Jacobi
I’m in my office, balls deep in everything Roland and Danielson Blanchard when London walks in. She stayed with me again last night. In my bed.
I’m a bastard who can’t stay away from her, not even for her own good. It’ll take an act of God… or a command from London herself to keep me away.
I still haven’t changed my home screen picture, but my main monitor is off. All she’d have to do is turn it on and see the picture of her when she took over Natural Glow flash across the screen. The file’s there too. As if I’m taunting myself with the possibility she might find out how depraved I was.
“Find anything?”
The stack of papers I pilfered from her dad’s office is on the edge of my desk. I haven’t touched them yet. With Danielson sniffing around London, he and his dad are my priority. Then London’s gut reaction to Roland made my search more critical.
I’ve ruled out Diana. I have to listen to my own gut, and Diana is almost as much a victim as London. Definitely a victim of her own upbringing to be placating and accommodating to the men in her life. It’s one reason why she went down the path she did.
It also made her a target. Maybe not of Dennis. But perhaps of Roland? Danielson? I’m not sure yet.
“I’ve been going through the low-hanging fruit first.” I use a different monitor to bring up a link for Roland’s company, a financial planning firm. Roland’s face fills the screen. It’s a flattering image from no less than fifteen years ago.
“Diana said he’s a financial planner.” She has to lean on the desk because I don’t have an extra chair in the room.
I scoot back and pull her down on my knee. “He seems to have done well for himself, but websites are superficial.”
“You aren’t going to hack into his records?” She twists to look at me, her eyes narrowed. “Are you?”
That would be easiest and most informative. “No.”
“And you don’t plan to?”
I rub her back. “I’ll do my best.” It’s unavoidable. The real motivations aren’t usually so easy to find.
“I don’t want your best to land you in jail.”
“Don’t worry, London. It hasn’t come to that.” It will, and I’ll deal with it when the time comes. I bring up Roland’s bio. “Interesting things. He’s fifty-eight, right? On the brink of retirement. He started Blanchard Financial Group twenty-two years ago.”
“Okay?” She takes over, clicking through the information on all of his employees. It’s an independent firm, financial plans tailored toward high-end clients.
“Well, he would’ve been around thirty-six. There’s not much on Roland before then.”
“Is that a red flag?”
“Maybe.” I don’t tell her that it’s the same way with Diana and her dad. Before they cleaned up their life, there’s not much. No announcements in the newspapers. In Diana’s case, her real name pops up in her hometown newspaper announcing her on the high school honor roll, then it’s silence until the launch of Natural Glow. The in-between years either didn’t get publicly recorded or have been hidden.
Dennis paid a lot of money to buy out her rights to the adult movies she filmed. If any of them leaked, she’d be owed millions. I doubt that footage is getting out.
As for Dennis, he was older, so there’re a few more local newspaper articles, but after he turned twenty-one, he’s off the radar until Natural Glow.
So, no. It’s not unusual, but it’s a reason to wonder what those years held and how they’re affecting Roland now.
London pulls up Roland’s bio again. “I doubt Danielson is thirty yet, and I think Roland is divorced.”
“I haven’t searched public records yet, but I’m sure I can find the divorce.” I doubt it’ll tell us anything. Still, I have to cover my bases searching the piddly stuff in order to find what really matters.
“Nothing dies on the internet. I’m sure you unearth everything there is.” She throws me a side-eye, a smile playing over her lips. “You’re the expert at creeping on people.”
“It’s how I found you.” I will her not to look too deep into that statement.
She grins at me over her shoulder and wiggles her ass on my knee. I won’t be able to concentrate the rest of the afternoon if she wakes my dick up. “And I’m grateful for those talented fingers.”
She stands, the only move that saves her from being plopped on my desktop and fucked hard like last night in her dad’s office. When she turns to face me, the blood evacuates my cock. Her hesitant expression and haunted eyes put me on alert.
She stuffs her hands in the back of her shorts pockets. “Can we go meet my mom today? Cecelia?”
“Today?”
“I want to get that off my mind so I can concentrate on protecting Natural Glow.”
I’m going to make sure she doesn’t need protecting. Whatever it takes. “Are you sure? It might sap more of your concentration depending on how she reacts.”
“Who knows how long this computer thing will last? I need to get the confrontation with bio-mom over.”
; I see her point. It’s in her eyes. She needs this as much as she fears it. “Let’s go.”
She holds her hands out. “I have to change first.” She waves her hands up and down her body. “I can’t have her see me looking like…”
She looks great. Fresh. Healthy. Gorgeous. Everyone else is wearing shorts and a tank top like her in this city. Sometimes less. But it’s not about her appearance. She leaves my office to put on armor. To trade her shorts with the pocket lining hanging lower than the hem for a nice dress no one can find fault in.
I give her a few minutes before I check on her. She only packed a few clothes to stay with me and I don’t know if any will fit her idea of what she should look like for Cecelia Wagner Vanderbeek Gomez.
In my bedroom, clothes are strewn everywhere. She’s in my closet, wearing one of the few plain white business shirts I own and swimming in it.
She flops her arms when she sees me, her eyes shimmering. “I can’t find anything. Mind if we run to my place?”
She’s about to cry. If I hold her, she’s going to break down and back out. “I think if you put a belt on that, it’ll be on-trend.”
A tear rolls free and she shifts her feet. “I don’t know what—”
“London. Put on what you were wearing and let’s go.”
Her insecure expression is a new one and I don’t like it. It’s too close to the one she had last night when I unintentionally made it sound like she’s not a woman a guy would cross the earth for.
But like she said, I’d go to Cabo for her. I’d go to Cabo and back for her a thousand times.
She doesn’t need to go anywhere to get what she needs now.
She flops her arms, the long sleeves of the shirt fluttering over her fingertips. “I can’t—”
“You can. Get dressed. You’re twenty-five and wear short shorts and own a successful business. I’m thirty-one and wear board shorts and plain T-shirts. I also own my own successful business. If you need to dress a different way to impress her, then you don’t need her in your life.”
She chews on the inside of her lip for a minute, considering my words. Then she rips the shirt off and lets it flutter to the floor. “Okay. But can we have sex first? Otherwise, my nerves are going to kill me.”
Redeemed: Ruined and Redeemed Duet - Book 2 Page 17