“You better let her know that. She’s hot, sexy. I’m sure some guy is trying to fuck her as we’re speaking.” She slapped herself on the chest. “Hell, I want to fuck her.”
I felt for my keys in my pocket as I stood. “We’re not fucking, Gina.” There was no need to mention that sex was never good between us.
She flopped a hand dismissively. “Whatever. I’m going to bed. I’m flying back to Colorado in the morning.” She walked seductively to the wall that separated the living room from the hallway. Gina grabbed on to the plaster and arched her back while sticking out her chest. “Maybe I’ll see you later tonight.”
Then she was out of sight.
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to sleep in the same house with her. I was accustomed to her tricks. She would slip into the bed with me in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t be asleep, but she would do whatever she could to get me to stick it into her. It was odd because she’d informed me on several occasions that she never felt a thing when a man stuck his dick in. Spencer was the only exception to that, not me.
The knowledge that she preferred him over me used to make me insane and send me on a downward spiral of doing whatever it took to steal her attention from him. Shit, that felt as if it all had occurred a lifetime ago. She and Spencer could race off into the sunset and live happily ever after in hell if they wanted. The decision was theirs. I loved and craved Penina Ross. The night’s interaction with Gina only confirmed it further.
I walked to the hospital, needing the warm night air and exercise to help me get to sleep. I was going on thirty-six hours without it. My hands were jittery, and my mind was filled with thoughts that would interfere with me effectively using a scalpel. I needed to sleep for at least four hours.
When I made it to the front of the medical complex, I stopped to behold my brand-new purchase. Fuck, I couldn’t believe I had done it. What was more surprising was that Jasper hadn’t traced the purchase to me. I’d used the alias Pete Sykes to buy it. Jasper had set up the account when our father was alive. Spencer, Bryn, and I were able to draw uncapped funds from it at will without our father finding out what we were doing with the money. Jasper was the one who hid our purchases. Up until his last breath, it never sank into Randolph’s head that his oldest son was his greatest invention and fiercest adversary. It was as if defying our father gave Jasper a hard-on.
I stuffed my hands deeper into my pants pockets and leaned my head back to get a look at the top of the structure. Maybe I wanted Jasper to find me. I missed him like a son did his father.
Five and a half years ago, after his wife’s tell-all on our family was released, I started playing with the idea of changing everything about myself—new name, identity, personality. Everything about me would be different. First, I dyed my hair darker. Then I shredded my driver’s license and passport. Next, I drained all the cash out of Asher Christmas’s bank account and converted it to cryptocurrency. Then one morning, after a short sleep, I woke up and said my name was Jake Sparrow. I knew a guy named Grey Lansing, who had been a rich drifter, but nowadays he spent most his time in San Francisco. Grey was able to get me full-on identification as Jake Sparrow, which included a driver’s license, a birth certificate, social security cards, and school records. Grey warned me that I had to know my limitations, though. If I was going to put Asher Christmas to rest, then I would have to make sure I didn’t end up in a situation where I was being taken downtown by the cops and fingerprinted. That was the only scenario in which he couldn’t make Asher and Jake match. Staying out of legal trouble was easy. I was too smart to get arrested for anything—not that I would get away with murder, but crime was never my thing, which was why I was insulted that Gina would question whether I would murder Randolph. I hadn’t, but someone had. And I knew who it was.
“Good night, Dr. Sparrow,” someone said.
I brought my gaze down. It was a nurse. “Good night Lane,” I replied.
The cordialities between us put a smile on my face. It was the hospital that had ultimately saved me—getting to know nurses and doctors. You had to have a fucking heart of gold to do what we did, period. I’d bought the business because I knew the power of what it did for people. It was an easy decision for Jake Sparrow. As far as Asher Christmas, I had put him in a box and stored him away. He would never have considered buying a hospital, and he wouldn’t have said good night to Lane. I’d learned to cut Asher a break, though. He came off as an entitled prick, but he wasn’t. He had no fucking self-love. But one look at Gina, and Asher sprang back to life. Like Rip Van Winkle waking up after a long sleep, finding out the world was different—that was happening to the part of me that was Asher Christmas. I was still thinking about that when I headed inside.
I walked into my office, keeping the lights off, then dropped onto the sofa, kicked off my shoes, and lay back to stare at the ceiling. I would’ve called Penina, but I’d gotten her message loud and clear—she didn’t want to talk to me. I chose to listen to Zara’s advice and leave her be. When Penina was ready to say something to me, I would know.
“Damn it.” I sat up straight. She and I could be closely related. I couldn’t wait until she called the number to get the results. I needed to know sooner rather than later. Is she a Valentine or a Christmas?
I needed a biological sample from Penina to be tested. The mask she’d worn the previous night hadn’t covered her mouth, so it was likely her saliva wouldn’t be on it. Plus, Kirk had taken the mask back to the mansion and locked it in the case with the others. The concierge had picked up the box that contained her attire. The maids had also cleaned, and they had done a thorough job.
I turned to think and caught sight of my desk. We’d fucked earlier and made out like crazy. I hadn’t washed my face, so I had Penina’s saliva all over me. I took my phone out of my pocket, called Si, and asked if he could do me a favor.
“Dr. Sparrow,” said a woman.
I sat up quickly and caught a glimpse of Melanie the OR assistant before I rubbed my eyes. “Shit, what time is it?”
We both turned to the clock on my table. It was eight a.m. The previous night had been crazy. I’d swiped my face for DNA samples from Penina, then I swabbed the inside of my mouth. Si came in and turned the samples in to the lab, advising them to put a rush on it. I thanked him.
“I’m not even going to ask what that was about,” he said before going home and back to bed.
Knowing that the samples were being processed relaxed me. The next time I lay down on the sofa in my office, I’d closed my eyes and thought of nothing, hoping that would help me sleep. It had.
“You’re due in surgery. We’ve been waiting for you for the past hour. Deb just suggested we check your office.”
I shook the cobwebs out of my head. An hour ago? The surgery was supposed to start at seven a.m.
“We’re just not used to you being in here. No one thought to check in here until now,” she added.
I held up a hand to let her know I wasn’t upset. “It’s okay, Melanie.” I sighed deeply as I stood. “Okay. Here I come. Tell everyone I apologize for keeping them waiting.”
“It’s okay, Dr. Sparrow.” She cracked a small smile. “We all knew you needed the sleep. You’re the hardest-working man in the hospital.”
I snorted a chuckle as I pointed at her. “And don’t you forget it.”
Melanie laughed on her way out.
Damn, I liked my surgical teams at the hospital. I wondered if they would return the same sentiment if they ever found out I’d been lying to them about who I was.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Penina Ross
“Who’s that?” Aunt Christine asked.
We were in the rental car on our way to the coroner’s office. I had scrolled through all of Jake’s text messages. I was on my third read of each one, forgetting that I should probably focus on who I was in the car with.
“A guy,” I said. “A surgeon—an attending, actually.”
“Then you’re not involved rom
antically with him?”
I looked at her with my mouth agape. I truly didn’t know the answer to that question. He had said in several of his text messages that Gina was not his girlfriend. He also said that Gina was threatened by me and had admitted to overstating the nature of her relationship with him. It almost sounded as if he was making excuses for her.
“I don’t know anymore,” I replied.
“Why don’t you know?”
I stiffened. I was surprised she had asked me that question. Christine had never seemed that interested in my love life.
“I don’t know why I don’t know,” I finally said.
She stole a glance at me. “You know I’m a therapist, right?”
I smiled faintly. “Are you offering me a free session?”
She turned on the blinker and checked her driver’s side mirror. “Sure, let’s give it a go. So, tell me anything you want about this guy who’s made you confused.”
I wondered how honest I should be. It felt odd engaging in the sort of conversation she was inviting me to have with her. I’d really never let Christine see behind my curtain. However, the other night, we’d made some leeway, a breakthrough. We were closer. And with my mother’s death, she and I were all that was left of the Rosses.
“There’s a doctor,” I said then sighed as I massaged my temples.
“Okay, we’ve established that. What do you want to tell me about this doctor?” she asked.
“I think I love him,” I said.
“You think you love him?”
I recounted the first time Jake and I had made real eye contact and how later I discovered he was not only a surgeon at the hospital but also my attending.
“I mean, is fate a real thing?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” Her voice rang with real optimism.
I was glad to hear it. Then I told her about the night of the fire and his fancy, full-service penthouse. I mentioned how he’d left me flowers every morning along with a continental breakfast spread fit for the Ritz.
“So he’s wealthy beyond what the job pays?” she asked.
“Exactly,” I said and continued recounting my short but impactful relationship with a man whose real name I’d just recently learned.
Christine turned into the parking lot just as I was revisiting what had happened at the masquerade party when the masked woman approached us and asked if he was someone she knew.
“And was he?” she asked.
“I think he was.”
“Then you believe he wasn’t being honest with you in regard to the woman at the party?”
I thought hard about all the circumstances that started and ended the degradation of what was shaping up to be the greatest night of my life.
“Well …” I pressed my lips together harder, wondering if I should reveal Jake’s—or Asher’s—secret. “Am I on the clock?”
“On the clock?”
“Yes, do I have doctor-patient privileges here?”
She nodded graciously. “Do you have a dollar on you?”
I opened my purse then my wallet. I only had six twenties and a ten. I took out the ten. “I have ten dollars.”
Christine smiled as she rubbed her hands together. “I’ll use it to buy us expensive handcrafted coffees with loads of sugar, fat, and caffeine. So, let’s hear it.”
I laughed. Up until then, I’d never known my aunt had the slightest hint of a sense of humor. It was almost tragic that it had taken such a sad occasion for me to learn that.
I focused on the red brick building. Going against every instinct in my body that knew secrets were supposed to be stored deep inside the brain and padlocked, I said, “I know the woman at the party recognized him because yesterday I was told by a woman claiming to be his girlfriend that his name is Asher Christmas.”
Christine jolted herself out of her relaxed position and looked at me with bulging eyes. “His name is what?”
Time seemed to slow down as I said, “Asher Christmas.”
A bitter laugh escaped her then started to build into a more hearty but strange one. “This fucking world never ceases to amaze me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice barely audible. My face was warm, and my heart was beating a mile a minute.
Christine put a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Pen. I just …” She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she looked at me again, she appeared more focused. “We have to get through this next part of our day. After that, we must talk about Asher Christmas. Are you okay with that?”
I didn’t know if I could wait. I swallowed repeatedly, thinking about the right way to handle all the anxiety I was feeling. Then my gaze fell on the building again. Mary Ross was inside, lying on a slab. Asher or Jake was a man I just met. The least I could do was focus solely on her before her body was committed to the ground.
Decision made, I swallowed again to relieve the tightness in my throat. “I’m fine with it.” It came out clear but jittery from the intense pain in my heart.
Christine and I didn’t need to sit and wait. The clerk who greeted us was a slight woman who appeared to be in her mid-to-late forties. She shifted a thick brown folder she was carrying from her right to her left hand to shake. The woman referred to my aunt as Dr. Ross, then she said her name was Scheana. Then she shook my hand. I told her my name was Penina.
“She’s a neurosurgeon in New Orleans,” my aunt added.
Scheana lifted her eyebrows. “Then I’m in the company of two Dr. Rosses.”
I felt my face flush as Christine smiled proudly. It was the first time my professional stature had been confirmed in front of my aunt, and it made me feel bashful but delighted. Scheana announced there had been new developments in the case and that we should follow her somewhere so we could speak in private.
Christine and I looked at each other with furrowed brows then followed Scheana through a doorway. My head felt as if it were detached from my body as we walked down a carpeted hallway with no windows or doors. Scheana asked Christine if it had been difficult to find the medical examiner’s office, and my aunt answered that it hadn’t been since she had been there before. Christine shared that she had been there in February of that year to identify the body of one of her clients. I kept my arms folded, nostrils flared, wondering why I couldn’t smell the slightest scent of dead bodies. It was as if corpses weren’t in the building, or we were being escorted far away from the morgue.
“Oh yeah,” Scheana said as she led us around another corner.
“Yes, Detective Knight called and asked if I could identify the body in person.”
“And you came all the way from Boston?”
“Absolutely,” Christine said as Scheana opened the door for us. “So, I know we’re nowhere near following normal protocols for identifying a body.”
“That’s correct,” Scheana said once we were all in the small room, which had a table with two chairs on each side of it and a whiteboard that had nothing written on it. She pointed at two of the chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
Since the small talk was over, my anxiety was back in spades. Christine must’ve noticed, because she held my hand under the table.
Scheana took the seat across from us, setting the folder she was carrying on top of the table. Her smile was tight but genial—it was the sort that said she was about to apologize for something. “We received a corrected report on the deceased’s fingerprints this morning. We’re very sorry for alarming you, but …”
Christine slapped one hand on her chest and squeezed my shoulder with the other. “The deceased is not Mary.”
“No,” Scheana said in a humble tone. “We’ve identified her as Laurel Hempstead from Portland, Maine.”
“But this woman had my sister’s identification and my grandmother’s locket?”
Scheana nodded softly and said, “Yes. She also had a criminal record a mile long. Mostly identity fraud, but the personal item that belonged to your sister, which the deceased
had possession of, says that at some point, the two may have come in contact.” Then she took a large brown envelope out of the thick folder and emptied the contents, which included the locket and my mother’s social security card and driver’s license, onto the table.
I fixed my gaze on the picture of the woman on the license. I couldn’t clearly remember my mother’s face, but I knew one thing for sure. “The woman in that photograph is not my mother.”
Scheana folded her hands on the table. “We are now aware of that.” Once again, she sounded remorseful.
I hadn’t noticed until then that Christine had opened the locket and was handling it like it was precious.
My aunt’s chin quivered as she looked at me. “It belongs to your grandmother.” Her voice was strained.
I leaned back, blinking rapidly, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. “You mean ‘belonged.’”
Her eyes were watery. “Belongs.”
“They’re alive?”
“Remember what I explained to you about them last night? Your mother and I are dead to them, but as far as living and breathing, yes, they’re alive.”
Silence loomed, settling in the air with the density and murkiness of a swamp creature. Christine and I were back in the car. Obviously, we had a lot to talk about.
Finally, she fell back against the driver’s seat and heaved a sigh. “Where do you want to start?”
Since I learned my grandparents were alive, I’d actually been doing a lot of thinking about that question. Although I was curious about them and oddly ashamed of how they’d treated their daughters, I’d never had an emotional tie to them.
“We have to find my mother,” I said.
“I know,” she replied then rotated her body to face me. “But I think it’s time I tell you what I know about the Christmases.”
I felt my chest cave in as I nodded.
“I’m sure you’ve figured out that the money I send you each month doesn’t come from my parents’ trust.”
Seduction (The Secret Billionaire Asher Christmas Duet Book 1) Page 19