by M. S. Parker
“How silly of me,” Paisley murmured, leaning closer. “I’m rambling on and on. I must be boring you terribly.”
I doubted she’d appreciate it if I told her yes. Not that I’d ever do that, but it was an entertaining thought.
“Boring isn’t the word for you, Paisley.” Nuzzling her palm, I looked into her eyes. “We’ve been leading up to this point for a long while, don’t you think?”
The scent of her filled my head, and it was enough to keep my mind on the task at hand.
“More than.” She leaned closer, but rather than sound excited, she came off as…predatory.
Thinking about my soon-to-be fiancée as a predator twice in the same night didn't exactly bode well for the relationship, but I wasn't going to back down now.
I reached into my pocket with my free hand and pulled out the ring. As I slid it onto her finger, I asked, “Paisley, will you marry me?”
“Oh…” She batted her lashes, the look on her face that of a stunned, dewy eyed girl startled by the proposal. She was a great actress. Slowly, she tugged her hand away and stared at the ring as she held her hand up high enough for any interested parties in the restaurant to see. “Jal, I don’t know what to say.”
That was my cue to beg her to say yes, but I waited instead. I already knew her answer.
I knew she wanted things to play out like a script to one of her favorite movies, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the coldness of it. Then again, this was Paisley. She was staring at the ring, and I knew the lowered lashes and speechlessness were part of her character. She was examining the ring far more clinically than emotionally. I had no doubt that if the ring didn't pass muster, she'd take it off, and claim she needed time to think. But I wasn’t the sort of man who’d buy a less than flawless ring, so I knew I didn't have to worry about that.
Seconds passed – seconds of silence that were weighted, ticking away.
I waited.
She waited.
I'd be damned if she was going to get a plea out of me. We both knew this was going to happen, and while I was prepared to be her husband, no way in hell would I play the fool for her. People in love did that, and I didn't believe in love.
“Jal, I’d love to marry you.” She came to me then, wrapping her arms around my neck as she sat on my lap.
From the corner of my eye, I saw somebody moving, kneeling in front of us. I supposed it was possible the photographer's presence was a coincidence, but I knew it was more likely that one of our parents had set it up. Hell, I wouldn't have put it past Paisley herself. I didn't care though. That's what this was all about anyway. Appearances. How it all looked.
Paisley snuggled closer and kissed my neck. A moment later, she whispered something that would have made me instantly hard just a few days ago. Now, it just made me tired.
Something had changed.
Chapter Twelve
Allie
The park down by the river was a different place this early in the morning. Like TJ, I loved it down here, but for different reasons…and at different times.
It was quieter, calmer. Save for the people who were crazy enough to be out here running, it was empty. I should know. I was one of the ones crazy enough to be out here running. I didn't really like running – any woman with a build like mine understood why – but on days when swimming wasn't an option, this was what I did to keep in shape.
The sound of my feet slapping against the pavement was rhythmic, lulling my brain into that easy state where I just let thoughts come and go as they pleased. Except this morning, my mind drifted to places probably better left alone.
I kept thinking about Jal.
Once we’d gotten out of the hotel and had started to walk, he’d loosened up and was actually…well, almost easy to talk to. Easy, for a guy who pretty much topped the social echelon. Who had more money in his bank account than I’d ever see in my lifetime.
For a guy who was about to get engaged.
If he wasn’t already. He said he needed the ring for this weekend, which meant that was probably when he planned on popping the question.
Why in the hell had he come into my salon anyway?
Why had he left that damn coat, and made me start brooding about things like…like…him. Him and that damn ring. Him and me. Not that there was a him and me, but just spending a few hours with him made me think about why things like him and me couldn’t happen. And it had absolutely nothing to do with that ring.
That damn ring.
Had he proposed yet?
Probably.
I imagined it had gone perfectly, and I imagined she’d said yes. He wasn’t the kind of man women said no to.
They’d get married, and after the appropriate amount of time, they’d have two point three kids and vacation up in the Hamptons. Eventually, Jal might even end up taking himself a mistress…like my father had.
That was, after all, how I’d come to be.
Oh, it was entirely possible my dad had loved my mother. I know my mom had loved him, and she'd told me that she loved him. It hadn’t mattered to her at that time that he was married, rich, white…from a whole other world.
She’d just known that she loved him, and she'd stayed even after he made it clear that she would never be more to him that what she already was.
A woman to warm his bed.
The cliché maid and nanny rolled into one.
I knew all about men like Jal Lindstrom. Flirtatious, manipulative, so convinced that I’d fall prey to his easy charm.
I could have too, if I hadn’t been looking out for that sort of thing my whole life.
Maybe it made me paranoid and cynical, but I’d seen how easily love could destroy a person. My mother had lost her sense of self for the longest time. Finding Tyson had been the first step to rediscovering herself, but sometimes, I still wasn’t sure she’d picked up all the pieces.
I sometimes wondered if it'd ever affected my father. If he'd simply moved on to someone else as soon as Mom made it clear she was done.
Coming to a stop at the railing where I’d been with Tao and TJ just yesterday, I swiped my gloved hand over the back of my brow and slowed to a walk. From the nearby bridge, I heard horns and engines, their sounds carrying easily in the cold, quiet air.
It made me feel that much more isolated.
It had been years since I’d seen him or my sisters. I had two of them, although it had taken me a while to really understand that those two pretty little white girls were my sisters. Not that they knew, of course. They always looked so perfect, like elegant little dolls, dressed in their clothes so much nicer than anything I had. Not that I hadn’t had nice clothes or nice toys, but there’s nice and there’s nice….
The kind of nice that only the very wealthy can afford.
I remembered seeing their presents one Christmas morning when they’d called the whole household in to the sitting room. It was an annual tradition – the household staff was given gifts, along with the family because they were part of the family. A nice idea…such bullshit.
While the girls sat there surrounded by their dolls and electronics and jewelry with authentic jewels, each member of the staff was given an envelope with some cash in it. I was given a sweater.
My father never looked at me that day.
Oh, he spent time with me when they weren’t around. But I was the pariah. If his real family was there, then I was just…nothing. He didn’t talk to me, rarely looked at me. It was likely I was something…other.
Not his daughter, just another one of his dirty little secrets. Like my mother.
That had been the way of it through my childhood. He’d spend some time with me, love on me and hug me, play with me and laugh with me – teach me things too, once he realized I loved to learn. Math and numbers had fascinated me. But if his real family was around, he didn’t even acknowledge me.
Mom met Tyson when I was seven, then they got married. He was my step-dad and sometimes I called him Dad, sometimes Tyson. I n
ever said he wasn't my real dad because I hated that word, like it meant some people were only figments of the imagination. But I never called my biological father “Dad.” He'd never allowed it. After Mom and Tyson married, things had gotten even more tense, but Mom had stuck it out as long as she could. I hadn't seen my biological father since the day Mom and I walked out of the house and never looked back.
It was a rub against my nerves even now. Old wounds. They never healed well, but I usually didn’t brood over them quite like this. And I knew what had brought it on.
I'd always known that I didn't belong in that world, no matter how many times I had math lessons or got to listen to my father explain how his business worked. I was separate, different. I didn't fit.
I’d never cared about it really, though.
And it pissed me off that I was caring now.
All because some blue-eyed, sexy piece of work had smiled at me and made me wonder.
He was engaged. It didn’t even matter if I might have fit and, why would I want to anyway?
“I don’t,” I said under my breath.
I’d kissed that part of my life goodbye when I was sixteen, when Mom had finally quit the job that had bound me to them, and I was glad for it.
“So stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him.”
Shoving back away from the railing, I turned to face the running path once more. The burn in my lungs was gone. About time to make it come back.
I snagged the paper off the front porch as I went inside. I was tired, my legs half-numb from the cold, my nose all the way numb. I wanted some coffee and a hot bath, but the hot bath would have to wait until I could actually feel my legs.
Caffeine first.
Inside the kitchen, coffee in hand, I dropped down at the kitchen table and flipped open the paper just as Mom came in. She smiled at me and asked if I was hungry.
Starving, I replied.
The coffee brought welcome warmth to my belly as I sipped it, and I wondered if this unending winter was ever going to end. March should start to show some sign of spring, shouldn’t it?
A shiver racked me, and I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, chafing them to warm up. Over by the refrigerator, Mom was moving around. It wouldn’t be long before I heard the sound of bacon sizzling.
Bacon. Eggs. Coffee. For a Sunday morning, it wouldn’t suck.
Then I flipped open the paper, and my eyes landed on a picture.
My heart stopped for a few seconds before ratcheting back into something that resembled a normal rhythm.
It was Jal, and he wasn’t alone.
Sitting on his lap was a woman with a sassy little flip of a haircut, a smile on her face that was decidedly smug.
The caption mentioned their names, along with an announcement about their recent engagement. Philadelphia’s golden son…engaged…
Yeah. He was golden, alright.
Really, though, I didn’t need the caption. I'd known he was getting engaged.
I just hadn’t realized to whom.
Paisley Hedges.
My older half-sister.
Book 2
The Billionaire’s Mistress
Chapter One
Allie
“So which stock should we dump?”
Bent over the screen, I studied it, the numbers, arrows, and jargon that might have come off as a foreign language to some people made perfect sense to me. But then again, Daddy – no, I reminded myself, Mr. Hedges; never call him Daddy – had been helping me with this sort of thing for years. One of these days, I’d have as much money as they did and maybe then–
The door swung open before I’d made up my mind.
Immediately, he pushed away from me, and a cold, hard lump settled in my gut as his wife, Diamond, appeared there, along with one of my half-sisters. Paisley was the older one, and the one I liked the least. She saw me as she stepped into the room, although it was more of an acknowledgement that somebody was there. She didn’t really see me at all. I was nothing more than background to her.
Diamond saw me though.
That made me shrink into the seat while my father got up and went to greet her.
“Hello, darlings. How are you? You’re back early from your shopping trip.”
“Mallory took ill.” Diamond’s mouth was tight around the edges. “It looks as though you’ve entertained yourself well enough.”
“Oh…well, I’m just going over some things that she might do to help her mother, love. That’s all. She’s old enough to start earning some of her own money, don’t you think?” He brushed his lips against her cheek.
My face stung with embarrassment. I had money in my pocket from him. Fifty whole dollars. He gave me money all the time. Like it made up for not calling him Daddy like Mallory and Paisley did.
I said nothing though. I knew better.
Diamond stared at me, her eyes as hard as her namesake.
“Quite. If she’s really interested in earning her keep, perhaps she could start working in the garden.”
“She can clean my room,” Paisley said, smiling sweetly. “Mine and Mallory’s. As long as she doesn’t steal from us.”
Steal from her? Clean her room?
I wanted to shout something at her. I didn’t even know what, but all the anger and embarrassment and misery were boiling inside me as I stared at my sister's smug little face. Did she know who we were to each other? No. I decided. No…she couldn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t be so mean, would she? I saw how she was with Mallory. They fought sometimes, but she wasn't mean to Mallory like she was to me.
“Should we show her where the bedrooms are, Daddy?” Paisley asked, looking over at him. “She could get started today.”
Like I didn’t already know where their bedrooms were. Like I hadn't spent my entire life wandering around this huge place, wondering what it would be like to live here, to be a real part of this family. If he said…
“Nonsense.” He hustled them out the door. “I’ve got ideas on what she can do. Leave it to me. Now, let’s go check on your little sister, shall we?”
He shut the door behind him, leaving me in the room with the computer still on and his trade account active.
For a minute, I was tempted to buy something that I knew would tank horribly. There was a hot, miserable ball of hurt in me, brought on by how he’d pulled away from me, by how Diamond had stared at me, by how Paisley had stared down her pretty little nose at me.
My sister. And she talked about me like all I was good for was cleaning rooms.
Moving closer to the computer, I studied all those numbers and signs, that intricate language. I could hurt him now.
But I didn’t.
Sighing, I studied the shares and then chose the one that had caught my eye. Normally, he didn’t like me doing anything without his approval, but he’d told me to make a purchase. I was just doing what he asked.
I left a note telling him and slid out of the room. I’d planned on going shopping with the fifty dollars, but I didn’t want to now. I’d just put it in the bank for when I needed something.
Present day
I’d retreated out to the front porch, claiming that I was still overheated from my run, and I’d taken the paper with me.
Mom knew I read it all the time, so she hadn’t thought much of it.
But so far, I hadn’t been able to do anything but stare at the picture.
Out of all the people in the world…
Suited.
I’d tossed the word back at Jal when he’d used it.
They suited.
Who the hell married somebody because they suited?
But even as I thought it, I knew the answer. My father had married Diamond because she suited him, the life he needed. His wife had to fit the life he’d laid out for himself. She suited him.
“That’s how it’s done in their world,” I said, my voice thicker than I liked, for reasons I didn’t want to think about.
My mother...she'd suited my fa
ther for other reasons. Maybe that's all it was, really, no matter how we wanted to spin it. Just some version or another of being suitable.
For some reason, I wished I hadn’t asked Jal how he felt about his fiancée. It would have been easier to sit there, staring at their picture, Paisley looking so smug and happy if I could believe they loved each other. I hadn't seen her in five years. She could've become a whole different person than the one I'd always thought her to be. And it wasn't like I really knew Jal either. For all I knew, the two of them were perfect for each other. Maybe their love made them better people.
My mind spun back to the conversation I’d had with Jal just a couple days ago. How would things have gone if I’d realized who he was marrying? I wouldn’t have gone to New York City, I knew that much. I would have told Alistair something. I would have lied through my teeth and told him that no one could pick up TJ. I would've stayed as far away from Jal as possible, even if it cost me.
But I’d gone, and damn it all, I liked the guy.
I'd been nervous at first, and I always ran my mouth when I was nervous. I'd told him a story that was highly inappropriate to be telling a customer, but he'd laughed, and that'd made me relax. Then we'd gone for a walk and ended up talking about his engagement and marriage. Both of us had been vague.
The idea of getting married any time soon was almost laughable. The last time I’d brought a guy home to my family, it had been so awkward I’d ended up never talking to him again. Hearing people weren’t often comfortable around the deaf, and if somebody couldn’t take my family, they weren’t going to get me. On the flip-side, being somebody who could hear made a lot of the deaf men I knew not that interested in me.
It was no wonder I found my friends-with-benefits arrangement with Tao to be so much more appealing than actual dating. All of the pleasure of sex without any of the shit that came with pretending to believe in love.
Or risking having someone describe me as suitable.