by Marie Force
“I told him ten minutes ago.”
I hold back a smile and refrain from acknowledging that Nathan has played this as well as I could’ve hoped by not giving my father enough time to work up a head of steam ahead of my arrival. “I appreciate your assistance.”
“I serve at the pleasure of the Kingsley family, which includes you, my lord.”
Not for much longer. I don’t share that thought with the man who is only trying to do his job—a job I’ve made more difficult than it already is with my presence here today.
As much as I’d like to think I’m as courageous as Ellie believes me to be, my stomach is tight with anxiety and my hands are unusually moist. Because he’s too well-bred not to, my father will shake my hand, and he will view my sweaty palms as a sign of weakness. I rub them on my pants, wishing I were anywhere but standing at the door to Henry Kingsley’s domain.
Nathan gives me a look to ask if I’m ready.
As ready as I’ll ever be, I nod.
He knocks once, and when he opens the door, a thousand memories assail me all at once as I follow him. Years of Saturdays spent imprisoned in this room being force-fed the Kingsley family credo, though it was obvious to anyone who knew me that I couldn’t have possibly cared less about credos or finance or legacies. My father was the only one who couldn’t seem to see that, and he kept up my “lessons” even when it meant schlepping into the city from Berkshire while I boarded at Eton. Recalling those years of pure torture does nothing to elevate my mood.
Three walls of glass overlook the financial center of London, as well as some of the most recognizable landmarks, including the Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The fourth wall is covered with plaques, mementos and photos of Henry with everyone who is anyone. My sisters and I refer to the office as the center of the universe.
“Your Grace,” Nathan says, formal as always, “the Marquess of Andover to see you, sir.”
“Thank you, Nathan.”
With military precision, Nathan turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
My father’s voice is exactly as I remember—deep, authoritative and formidable—but his hair is now snow white and his face has aged considerably in the decade since I last saw him. Photos of him in the media haven’t properly conveyed the ravages of time that are readily apparent to me as I approach his desk and lean across it to shake his outstretched hand. My father is the atypical Brit, tanned year-round from his many outdoor pursuits.
“Hello, Father.”
“This is an unexpected surprise.”
“Surprises are often unexpected.” The moment I say the words, I regret them. My father has never appreciated what he calls my “cheeky” sense of humor.
Right on cue, his dark blue eyes narrow with predictable displeasure. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I’ve come because it’s time we talked about the future.”
“What about the future?”
Though he hasn’t invited me to, I take a seat in one of his visitor’s chairs, inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not coming back to London. Ever.”
“Of course you are. You have an obligation to this family—”
“Which I am officially relinquishing to whomever you choose to replace me. My life and my career are in Los Angeles, and that’s where I’ll be staying.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks with a nasty little smirk that sends a chill up my spine. I’ve seen that smirk many times before. Nothing good has ever come of it.
“That’s what I know.” I force myself to use a tone as authoritative and formidable as his.
“I was afraid it would come to this one day,” he says with what sounds like weary resignation.
“Come to what?” I ask as my heart begins to beat faster. What the hell does that mean?
He gets up from his desk and goes over to the credenza that sits low against a glass wall. God forbid anything as common as furniture block his view of the universe. Using a key that he produces from his pocket, he unlocks one of the drawers, opens it and withdraws a packet that he brings back to the desk with him. His every movement is deliberate and calculated, as if he’s rehearsed this performance for years in anticipation of this day.
A sick sense of dread begins to work its way through me as I try to anticipate what’s about to happen.
Chapter 17
Remaining standing, my father withdraws a file folder from an envelope and begins to place eight-by-ten photographs on the massive glass desk that had nothing more than a pen on it before he lays out one photo after another, each of them more damning than the last. Beginning with my college years, there are compromising photos of me in bed with women, lots of women, sometimes multiple women at the same time. He even has photos of me with the woman who taught me everything I know about BDSM.
Dear God, she’ll have me killed if those photos get out.
Before I can begin to figure out how he would’ve gained access to my most private spaces, he builds his case slowly, methodically. You know that feeling you get when you watch a bad accident unfurl before you and you know what’s coming, but you can’t do a thing to stop it?
The photos are devastating—and comprehensive.
I should have fucking known.
“You’ll never do anything with them,” I say with more bravado than I feel. “You’d never bring that sort of scandal down on yourself.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
I’m about to ask him to cut to the chase when he lays a photo of me with Ellie on the desk, and my heart skips a beat. My body goes cold with fear and regret and rage like I’ve never felt before. The photo is from the night we had pizza outside in Venice Beach. We’re holding hands and talking with our heads bent together. Anyone looking at that photo in the context of the others would see that this woman is different. There’s another of me kissing her on her front porch, my arms around her, hers around me, the two of us fully enthralled with each other. And then he produces a photo of us at Black Vice, with scenes happening on the stages behind us. There would be no question to anyone who saw the photo that we were in a sex club. The rage that overtakes me is so hot and so potent I can’t get air to my lungs.
“I wonder,” my son-of-a-bitch father says, “if you’ve told your business partner that you took his sister to a sex club? Does your Ellie know that her brother is also an active practitioner in your sick lifestyle?” He produces a photo of the first night Flynn brought Natalie to Club Quantum, and I fear for a terrifying second that I’m going to vomit on my father’s priceless Turkish rug.
“Does your Ellie know that she works for and with a bunch of deviant perverts?”
One by one, he produces pictures of Hayden, Kristian, Marlowe, Flynn, Emmett and Sebastian participating in various BDSM scenes at our clubs in New York and Los Angeles. Bile stings my throat, forcing me to swallow furiously to keep from vomiting. How in the fuck did he get someone in there when we vet the living shit out of everyone who walks through the door?
He produces a photo of me with Max and Stella that was taken at Flynn and Natalie’s wedding in their backyard. “What would your good friends Max Godfrey and Estelle Flynn think of you if your selfishness ruined their son’s career and their daughter’s reputation?”
All I can do is stare at the photos that would ruin everyone I love if they were to be made public. The fact they even exist is enough to make my chest constrict so tightly, I fear I might be having a heart attack.
“So you see, son, your choice is very clear—honor your obligations to your family, or I’ll make the photos of your friends public. It’s that simple.”
I stare at the photo of Flynn in a sensual embrace with his beautiful wife, remembering the guts it had taken for her to come to the club in the first place. Having that image made public would destroy her, and Flynn would never forgive me. None of them would ever forgive me.
It takes a full minute before I find the wherewithal to speak. “How is it pos
sible that a father could hate his son so much that he would do something like this to him?”
“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you.”
“If you don’t hate me, I can’t imagine how you’d treat someone you do hate.”
“What you fail to understand, what you have always failed to understand, is that I was once in your place, burdened by obligations I never signed on for, that I never wanted, and yet, I did the honorable thing and put my family and my heritage ahead of my own selfish desires. I did what was expected of me, and you will, too.”
Though I can’t take my eyes off the horror show laid out before me, I shake my head. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. No, no, no, no.” The thought of a life trapped in this glass prison is so revolting to me that even the possibility of ruination for me and my closest friends and loved ones isn’t enough to convince me to bow to his will. My brain is racing. The others would tell me to tell him to take his threats and shove them up his arse. Emmett will know of legal action we can take to stop him from releasing the photos. Surely there are things that can be done.
“You’re obviously not thinking clearly. What will Flynn Godfrey think of you when you launch another media firestorm aimed at him and his wife after the last one only just died down? What will Hayden Roth’s future father-in-law think of him when pictures of his precious Addison in a sex club go public? From what I heard, Simon York only recently accepted his daughter’s choice of a husband. How awful would it be for the happy couple if he took back his approval of their marriage?”
I have to give him credit for being thorough, but now I’m wondering if someone in our tight-knit group is actually on his payroll. If that turns out to be true, I pity the person when the wrath of Quantum comes down upon them.
I get up to leave, hoping my legs will support the weight of my body. “As always, Father, it’s been a joy to see you.”
“I’m sorry that it’s come to this, Jasper, but I expect you to do the right thing.”
“I fear, Father, that once again I will fail to meet your many expectations. In the meantime, I’d suggest you find someone who actually wants to be your heir before you succeed in actually killing yourself on one of your grand follies.”
His lips tighten in anger and his face turns an unhealthy shade of red, which pleases me greatly except for the fear that he might actually drop dead. “You have twenty-four hours to tell Nathan you’ve seen the error of your ways. Otherwise, these photos will be released to the media around the world.”
“How sad that you’re so desperate that you have to stoop to blackmailing your only son to get him to fall in line.” I gather the photos into a pile that I’ll take with me. “I’ll be certain to give your regards to Mother and the girls when I tell them about our meeting.”
I’m gratified to see a brief crack in his veneer when I let him know I’ll be telling the rest of the family about his blackmail. But the crack lasts only a second.
“I’m sure your mother will be very proud to learn how you’ve been spending your time since you left home.”
“She’s very proud of me, as are my sisters, all of whom called me after I won the biggest awards in my field earlier this year. I’m sure you meant to call, too, but now I know you were so busy with your blackmail schemes that it probably never crossed your mind.”
I’m not sure where my bravado is coming from, because I have no doubt in my mind that he will make good on his threats if I fail to comply. One thing I know for certain is that I will never see him again in person after today, so my parting shots matter more than they ever have before.
Parting shots aside, however, the thought of the scandal that will consume my partners, Ellie and me is truly terrifying. But I’m not the scared, meek little eighteen-year-old I was the last time I stood up to him. I’m a man with considerable resources of my own, resources I will fully employ to beat my father at his own game.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Father. Be careful on your upcoming jaunt. I’d hate to see anything happen to you when your estate is in such disarray.”
I’m gratified to have the last word and to know that his nasty smirk has been replaced by something that looks an awful lot like fear. Good. A little fear is the least of what he deserves. With the damning photos tucked under my arm, I walk out of the office, past Nathan’s desk. He stands as if to say something to me, but I leave without a word. I’m actually afraid that if I open my mouth, the only thing that will come out is a howl of rage.
The lift ride to the lobby seems to take forever, and when I finally burst through the main doors into the cold winter air, my lungs are about to explode from holding my breath. I take in greedy gulps of oxygen as I try to calm my rapidly beating heart. Oh my God. What am I going to do? Despite my audacity with my father, I’m terrified of the photos becoming public. That they even exist is horrifying.
I’m too wound up to go straight back to the hotel, where Ellie is waiting to hear that I’ve cleared the path to happily ever after for us. What she doesn’t know is I’ve opened the gates to hell for her, her brother, her family and her closest friends. If my father makes good on his threats, she’ll regret agreeing to let me father her child, not to mention every second we’ve spent together.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, drawing a glare from a woman walking hand in hand with a young boy. “Sorry.” I’m not sure if she hears my apology, and frankly, I don’t much care. I’ve got far bigger problems. Though the last thing I want to do is tell anyone about what just happened, I’ve got a looming deadline to consider. I pull my cell out of my pocket and place a call to Emmett, realizing after it rings the first time that it’s four thirty in the morning in Los Angeles.
“Yeah,” he says when he answers. Clearing the sleep from his throat, he adds, “This is Emmett.”
“Em, it’s Jasper. I’m sorry to wake you up.”
“Jasper? I thought you were in London.”
“I am. I just met with my father, Henry Kingsley.”
“Your father is…”
“Henry Kingsley. Yes.”
“Holy shit,” he says in a whisper. “I knew that was your legal name, but you never said you were part of that Kingsley family, so I never suspected. Are you kidding me right now?”
“You have no earthly idea how much I wish I were joking.”
“You’re Henry Kingsley’s son.”
“Yes.”
“How in the motherfucking hell have you managed to keep that a secret?”
“I use my mother’s maiden name professionally, and my father has gone along with the story that Jasper Kingsley is a reclusive inventor, toiling away in his workshop in Cornwall. Until now.” After a long pause, I continue, filled with dread and shame over the potential scandal. “I saw him today for the first time in years. I told him I have no plans to return to London to be his heir and that he needs to find someone else to carry on the family dynasty. Suffice to say, he didn’t take it well.”
“How so?”
“He’s been having me followed, since I left for USC at eighteen. He has pictures.”
After a brief but significant pause, Emmett asks, “What kind of pictures?”
“The worst kind imaginable. And not just of me. All of us. He’s had someone in our clubs, Devon’s club. It’s bad, Em. As bad as it gets.”
“How… I mean… Oh my God, Jasper.”
The rare note of panic in Emmett’s tone only fuels my own out-of-control anxiety. “He’s given me twenty-four hours to change my mind about being his heir, or he’s releasing the photos to the media.”
“We’ll get an injunction. We can stop him.”
“We can stop him with only twenty-four hours to work with and an international situation on our hands?”
“You bet we can.”
“Or I could sell out my partnership in Quantum and give him what he wants to protect us all.”
“No. You know Flynn and Hayden as well as I do. The
y don’t do blackmail, Jasper. They’d stand beside you and fight him every step of the way. You know they would.”
My throat closes, and my eyes sting with tears that make me feel worse than I already do, as if that’s possible. “I do know that, but I can’t and won’t ask them to risk their careers and reputations on my behalf.”
“You won’t be asking them. I will. Get your ass back to LA. I’m on it, and we’ll do everything we can to keep this from going public.”
“Flynn doesn’t even know about me and Ellie.”
“It might be time to tell him.”
“As long as those photos exist somewhere in this world, the people I care most about are in peril. I’ll give him what he wants before I’ll take you all down with me.”
“Listen to me, Jasper. I know you and your partners better than I know my own siblings, and I speak for the others when I tell you they’d want you to bring this to them. They’d want to try to help you. And Flynn and Hayden will be so pissed off about someone infiltrating our clubs that they’ll be out for blood and vengeance. Hell, so will Devon Black. Your father isn’t the only one with resources, and he has no idea who he’s tangling with. How about we give him the four-one-one on how Quantum rolls?”
“God, I’m so tempted, but the thought of those photos going public makes me sick. I couldn’t give a shit less about myself, but Flynn and Natalie and Hayden, Addie, Marlowe, everyone else… They’d be collateral damage in my war with my father.”
“What would you say if one of them was being blackmailed? Would you want them to roll over and take it, or would you want to fight with everything we’ve got to protect one of our own?”