Stay…I want you to stay. I need you to stay.
The words wound through my head as Jal caught my hands and dragged them over my head. When he stared down at me, our gazes met and locked. I nodded without a moment's hesitation.
He pushed himself up on his knees. His eyes never left mine as he reached for the buttons of my shirt, freeing them one at a time. Once it lay open, he moved lower, going to work on the snap of my jeans and working them down.
I'd had Eli take me to the salon so I could grab the bag of extra clothes I kept there. I hadn't wanted to go home and risk having to try to explain to my mother why I was running back out again. After the third hour sitting at the station, I'd been glad I'd gone through the extra trouble. Now, however, I was more than ready to get out of my clothes.
My jeans were still wrapped around one ankle when I started tearing at his clothes with hungry, desperate hands. I managed to get the shirt off, but I was still working on trying to shove down his jeans when his self-control snapped.
Catching my hips in his hands, he urged me flat on my back even as he frantically rolled on the condom. “Allie?”
“Please.”
He drove into me hard and fast, and it was everything I needed at that moment. His teeth scraped a line down my neck, and I shuddered. I dug my fingers into his hair and pulled him toward me for a kiss. His tongue delved between my lips even as he thrust into me and I moaned.
He swiveled his hips, lifting up just enough so that each stroke had the base of his cock dragging back and forth over my clitoris. The oxygen in my lungs seemed to dwindle down to nothing, and I couldn’t breathe. Every weak breath I did manage to draw in smelled of him. He flooded my senses. When I licked my lips, I tasted him.
He lifted up, light blue eyes searing into mine and I bit his collarbone. He swore, slamming into me hard enough to drive a scream from my mouth. The next thrust knocked me breathless.
The one after that made my vision spark and my body shake as I came. His eyes darkened, and he whispered my name as he came too.
A moment later, he pulled out, all sticky and wet against my thigh for the briefest second before he was disposing of the condom. Then he stood, stripped off his clothes, yanked off my jeans, and swept me into his arms. He carried me up the stairs and into his bedroom.
“I can't think straight when it comes to you,” he confessed as he stretched me out on the bed. “I never think to slow down and do things right.” He cupped my breasts in his hands, plumped them together, and eased lower until he could kiss one nipple, then the other. “More. I want more…”
“Take it,” I breathed. “Take everything.”
He wrapped his lips around my nipple, tugging and biting on the sensitive flesh until it was swollen and throbbing. Then he moved to the other side, sucking and licking until I was writhing beneath him. His hand slid down my stomach, and I opened my legs for him, desperate for his touch.
I whimpered as his fingers grazed my overly sensitive flesh, but when two fingers hooked inside me, I arched up against him, crying out. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of him.
I'd always enjoyed sex, but it had been like any other appetite. Feed it and the hunger stopped.
Except when it came to him.
“Roll over,” he ordered.
Then, without waiting for me to do it, he rolled me over and pulled me up, wedging one knee between mine and forcing me to open, to yield. And I wanted to. I wanted to submit to him, to let him take control.
His hands held me steady as he slid inside me again. I moaned as he filled me as my body conformed to fit his like a glove. He moved in and out a couple times and then pressed his thumb against my ass. I whimpered at the brief flare of pain and he stopped. His hand went down to where we were joined and one of his fingers slipped inside. Then it was back, slick with our combined arousal, our natural lubricant. When he pushed his thumb against me the second time, it slipped in more easily, with little burn. I shuddered as he began to ride me, twisting his thumb in and out of my ass in time with his strokes.
“So perfect,” he murmured. “You're so fucking perfect, Allie. So beautiful.”
He began to move faster as my muscles shivered and strained. Hot little pinwheels of color blazed behind my eyes as I came, forcing me to close my eyes as waves of pleasure washed over me. Sagging forward, I lost the ability to think clearly, to form any sort of coherent thought. Nothing else mattered, except that pleasure, except that bite of pain that made everything more intense.
He was still rocking against me, the twitching fading from his semi-erect cock when I finally relaxed against him.
* * *
“When you play the game, you play to win. Now, that might not always make you the most popular person in the world, but when you win, it doesn't matter.”
I nodded, not looking at my father as I finished going over the papers he’d put in front of me. I didn’t know what they were, not exactly, but I had a pretty good idea.
The name of a company caught my eye, and I frowned.
He must have been waiting for me to notice something, because when I looked up, he was right there.
“What did you see?”
“I…I’m not sure. This company.” I tapped the name. “They sound familiar, but you’ve never dealt with them before.”
“Yes, I have.” Now he smiled, looking pleased with himself.
Not with me. With himself.
“You’ve only been given so much data, Allie. You’re young – brilliant, but young – and I can’t exactly trust you with highly confidential data, now can I? It’s unethical. These people expect me to be the one looking at their confidential financial information. Not my sixteen-year-old daughter.”
But it’s fine for me to offer stock advice, I thought sourly. He was right though. Even if it had been the pretty, perfect Paisley offering the advice, he wouldn’t let her do it for long before the novelty wore off.
He had to be the smart one, the winner. Even if he was only playing against his daughter.
He might teach me how to play the game, and how to win, but he would never let me beat him. Nor did I expect to. He'd hold back enough information to make sure that never happened.
There was a knock at the door, and Diamond came strolling in.
When she saw me, she stiffened, her shoulders going back, her mouth tightening in a line like she’d just scented something foul. Kendrick subtly stepped between us, although whether it was as a shield or merely a buffer, I didn’t know.
Or, rather I didn't want to know.
“There’s a gentleman downstairs looking for you. Heath has attempted multiple times to send him away, but he refuses to leave.” Diamond looked pissed, but I was pretty sure that was because she was playing messenger. “He says to tell you that he’s ready to play ball. I assume you know what that means.”
From where I was sitting, I could only see my father in profile, but I had a clear enough view of his eyes that I could make out the avid glint there. Yeah, he knew what it meant.
He started to turn toward the door, but then stopped and gestured at me. “Come on, Allie. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Diamond stepped between us before I could decide what I wanted to do. “You can’t be serious, Kendrick.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Diamond.”
“It damn well does.” She sniffed, clearly pissed. “I’m your wife, and you want to take your bastard to a business meeting. Keeping her around is bad enough. I will not let you humiliate me in this way.”
I flinched, blood rushing to my cheeks at her harsh words, but neither Kendrick nor Diamond noticed. I should be used to it. Should expect it.
Tears burned my eyes, and I fought them back.
It wasn't like they were wrong, anyway. I was Kendrick Hedge’s bastard.
Twisting the pencil I’d been using around and around, I waited to see if he was going give in and change his mind. He usually did when Diamond confronted him about anything
to do with me.
Except, this time, he looked at me and gestured for me to follow. “Come along, Allie. You should follow up on this and see if you understand.”
As I followed, I could feel Diamond's gaze digging holes into my back with the intensity of that glare. I was still trying to figure out why Kendrick had stood up to his wife, so it took me a little while to figure out what was going on with my father’s visitor.
I'd been introduced as an intern, which was his usual cover for me whenever he'd asked me to come by the office. “It’s an inner city project,” he’d say. “Low income students who show promise, and I try to help out…”
And they’d praise him for being such an upstanding citizen.
I might not have lived in the best part of the city, but my family wasn't low income or inner city.
But he had to make sure there was no possible connection to me, so the truth didn't matter.
This was no different, and after a few moments of the usual niceties that preceded a meeting like this, I watched as my father got down to brass tacks.
“Bill, I’m going to level with you. You’ve got nothing to offer in this deal but the company. Rushing Limited is about to fail–”
My brain clicked on, and the figures I’d been looking at earlier started to run through my mind. Figures, names, facts.
Rushing, LTD.
Slowly, I looked up at my father, then over at the man. My mind started to spin, then whirl. Various phone calls I’d heard, notes I’d seen. I started putting the pieces together even as I took in new information from the conversation my father was having.
The meeting ended without me saying a word, and I dutifully followed my father back up into his office.
“And that’s how you play the game,” he said, closing the door, and turning to me with a satisfied smile.
“You cheated.”
He blinked, looking caught off-guard by the disapproval in my voice. While I'd always understood the truth of the relationship between my parents, I'd tried very hard to give him at least some measure of leniency.
“I heard you talking to somebody on the phone a few days ago. I saw some of the notes. You’ve been lying to that guy – you just lied to his face. You’re not going to restructure his company. You’re going in, liquidating everything, and firing everybody. That’s not winning.”
His face hardened, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “The game is about making money, Allie. And in the end, if you’ve made it, then you’ve won.”
* * *
It wasn’t a dream. Not really. It was a memory.
What happened with Rushing, LTD fell in that gray shade of legal, and it still haunted me in ways I can’t explain.
In the end, it had been the echoes of that afternoon that had finally pushed me and my father so completely apart.
My father was still one of the top execs at the investment firm, but before he’d slowed down, he’d helped out friends on the side. Rushing, LTD had been about helping out a friend. And Bill Rush, the man I'd met that afternoon, had gotten in the way. My father's friend had wanted a particular technology that Rushing, LTD was developing, and Bill Rush hadn’t wanted to sell it.
Rush hadn't been prepared for the cut-throat business world he’d waded into, and a hostile takeover had happened before he realized it. My father had been behind it.
A couple weeks after that meeting, I'd sat on the steps in the grand foyer and read about Rush’s suicide. While I'd been reading, the family had come parading in. Kendrick and Diamond, followed by the two perfect princesses, Mallory and Paisley. They were all dressed in elegant black and laughing, chatting about things that didn’t matter, fresh from the funeral. Well, Mallory hadn't been laughing, but it was clear that she hadn't known the truth behind what happened.
I’d been wearing jeans and a faded hoodie from my public high school on the other side of Philadelphia.
My mind slid back there, playing that scene out again.
Diamond took one look at me and sniffed, then glared at Kendrick. “It’s bad enough she feels she has the right to walk around this house like she belongs here, but must she dress like such a waif?”
“I’m sorry if I don’t meet your standards,” I said, interrupting before my father could say anything. “What should I wear? A maid's uniform, maybe?” Shifting my attention to my father, I swallowed hard around the knot in my throat. “If I’d known you were going to his funeral, I would have met you there. After all, I helped you figure out some of the approach, didn’t I?”
Kendrick looked at Diamond, then his other daughters. He spoke to them, but while the girls left, Diamond didn’t. Finally, he looked at me. “Allie, this isn’t the time.”
“He committed suicide.” I pressed the subject. “You told him you’d keep his company together. You lied, and he killed himself. Was that part of the game?”
He flinched. I saw it. So he did feel some guilt at least.
“Young lady, you will not speak to him–”
Kendrick touched Diamond’s arm, and she fell silent. “Allie, this is an ugly world.”
“His world was just fine until you tore it apart!” My voice cracked. “Did you have to use me to do it?”
He’d been teaching me about the stock market for years, and for the past few months, he’d actually been asking my advice, praising me when I got things right. You’re a natural, he’d told me.
“You made me part of this.”
He scowled. “You’re blowing this out of proportion, Allie. You’re not seeing things in the right light.”
“He’s dead. He blew his damn head off. I don’t think you’re seeing it in any light.”
I wasn’t supposed to leave until eight, but I couldn’t stay there anymore.
He reached out to touch my arm, and I took a step away. “Don’t touch me. You make me sick. All of you.” I looked at him and then at Diamond. “Did you all stand around chatting at his visitation, sipping wine, and talking about how sad it was…then making a date with friends to get together and have coffee? It’s your fucking fault!”
Diamond slapped me.
She would have done it again, but Kendrick caught her wrist. “That’s enough!”
“She will not speak about us like that. She has no right. She's not a part of this family.”
“You’re right.” Shaking my head, so furious inside, I thought I might puke. I touched my heated cheek and then looked at my father. “I'm not. And I'm fucking glad that I'm not. You’re all just a bunch of shallow hypocrites.”
I turned and walked out the door. He called my name, but I ignored him.
* * *
When you play the game, you play to win.
Jal lay on his belly, face in the pillow, all but dead to the world. His corn-silk blond hair was mussed, the muscles in his face relaxed. I let my gaze run over the smooth skin and muscles of his back even as my mind ran over what the dream-memory had brought up.
What happened to Bill Rush had gotten to my father more than he’d shown that day. There’d been an announcement in the business section a month after I walked out. Kendrick Hedges had decided on a partial retirement.
Three months after that, the “restructuring” of Rushing, LTD was formalized, and to my surprise, it was actually closer to what I'd heard my father promise Bill Rush. I only knew about that because the news clipping was sent to me along with a letter from my father containing a few specifics not mentioned in the article, and a check for a thousand dollars.
He’d written a lot that first year. Sometimes I wrote back just to acknowledge that I'd received his letters. But I never forgot what he'd said on the day of that meeting.
When you play the game, you play to win.
I walked over to the closet and pulled out one of Jal's shirts. I smiled as the soft cotton slid over my skin, and I took a deep breath, giving myself a moment to appreciate the scent of him.
Out in the living room, I sought out the answering machine and played his m
essage.
In this game, I don't care what I have to do to get the win. I will always come out on top. When I play the game, I play to win.
Apparently, my father hadn't actually learned his lesson with Bill Rush, because he still treated all of this – treated people's lives – like they were part of a game.
I’d probably played it five times over by the time Jal made his way down and found me. Clad in a pair of jeans and nothing else, he looked good enough to distract me for a moment. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back against him.
“You can’t let this eat you up. It’s not your fault,” he said softly.
“No, it’s not.” Resting my head against his shoulder, I closed my eyes and let myself have a minute to bask in the heat of his body, the strength of his arms. Then, I turned so I could look him in the face. “But I'm sure as hell not going to let you suffer for the shit my father and his family have pulled.”
4
Jal
Allie was hunched over my computer, a determined look on her face as she worked.
And I was seriously considering hiring her. But not because I had some sort of fantasy about bending her over my desk at work...well, not only because of that.
She was fucking brilliant.
“I told you, I don’t keep anything on my laptop that could compromise any of my accounts. Too much of a security risk.”
Not that it'd stopped her from trying. All morning. Not just searching my accounts. She'd been searching the stock market, looking for something, anything, that could give her a hint about what her father was doing.
Hours of almost non-stop work, and now, she was getting a headache, I could see it.
“I know.” She groaned and rubbed at the back of her neck. Shaking her head, she leaned back and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes for a minute. “I need to access the system from the firm. That's the only way I'll be able to find what I need.”
“We can go in tomorrow.”
“Today,” she insisted.
“Tomorrow,” I said firmly. “I’ll have one of my top accountants meet you, and you all can start looking for…” I shook my head. “Whatever it is you want to find. Maybe you should give up on styling hair and try your hand at forensic accounting.”
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