Crossed by the Stars: A Second-chance, Slow-burn Romance

by LJ Evans

  Dax’s words drew me back from the memory of our first meeting.

  “Out of all the things your father said, that’s the thing you lead with?” There was a forced lightness to his tone.

  “I’ve known you over twelve years, and I’ve never met an aunt. So, I’m kind of thinking something hinky is going on,” I told him.

  He snorted. “Hinky?”

  I shrugged.

  Dax played with the clasp on his watch, and I wondered what there was about an aunt that could possibly make him nervous.

  “I never knew her either. She died before I was born,” he replied cautiously, as if he was thinking carefully about each word, guarding them as they came out. It only heightened my desire to know more.

  “Was she younger or older than your father?”

  “She was his twin.”

  I dropped the fork. “Your father had a twin sister. That died. That my father knew?”

  Dax nodded, words tearing from the depths of him as if it was a dark secret he was revealing. “They were all at Oxford together.”

  “How did I not know this?” I asked, a little stunned.

  “To be fair, how much do you know about your father at all?” he returned.

  It was painfully true. I knew nothing of Otōsan’s past. I barely knew anything of his present. I knew my paternal grandparents had died before I was born and that his marriage to my mother, eight years younger than him, had been arranged. I knew that I’d been shuffled off to the United States to be raised by my maternal grandmother because there was never time in my parents’ world for a child. At fifteen, I’d found out that my father was the head of an international crime syndicate that made the Yakuza look small. That was pretty much the extent of my factual knowledge of Tsuyoshi Mori.

  The tension that had followed me home from New York continued to grow and caused me to do something I hadn’t done in months. I poured myself a second glass of alcohol and all but swallowed it whole.

  The wine hit me hard, making me light-headed due to the little food I’d had all day and my diminished alcohol tolerance. I closed my eyes against the spin of the room, and yet I could still feel Dax’s gaze on me, assessing me. I was tired of being assessed by men, even if it was by one who I secretly wished would tear my clothes off and screw me into forgetfulness.

  That was the old Jada.

  That was the person I’d sworn I’d left behind when I’d emerged from the hospital in New London and moved in with Violet. I wouldn’t let that Jada back out to ruin everything Violet and I had built. The old Jada was the one who let people down, who risked her friends…and her family. I wouldn’t become her again.

  Dax

  JUST SAY YES

  “I won't be ok and I won't pretend I am,

  So just tell me today and take my hand.”

  Performed by Snow Patrol

  Written by Connolly / Lee / Lightbody / Quinn / Simpson

  We’d gone through the entire first bottle of wine before the appetizers had been removed and the salads had arrived. I knew it wasn’t how Jada lived anymore. She’d all but disappeared from the circle of wealth and privilege we’d spent our twenties partying with as we followed the drip of diamonds and dollars from Monte Carlo to Rio de Janeiro, from Vail to New York, and back to Europe. While Jada had removed herself from the crowd, I hadn’t. If anything, I’d joined the whirl of partying even more over the last two years, and Papa had noticed.

  Just last week, he’d called me into his office with a frown and questions about my future. In some ways, it reminded me of the meeting Jada just had with her father. Ultimatums tossed out. Except, my father’s had been done out of an abundance of love, while her father’s had been cold and threatening.

  Jada closed her eyes, and when she swayed slightly while still seated, I knew we needed more food and less alcohol. Ilan pursed his lips when I declined the next bottle of wine he brought and asked for seltzer water instead.

  When he disappeared, I moved closer to Jada along the bench seat and tilted my head so that my mouth was a mere breath away from hers, pink lips tempting me to devour her. In a booth. In a display I rarely did in public.

  As my knee skimmed hers, her eyes popped open, drifting to my lips and back up. My chest ached. My dick ached. This was every reason I avoided Jada. I couldn’t trust the control I prided myself on to remain in place. And I was painfully aware of what came of falling for a Mori.

  “Talk to me,” I said, trying to keep the demand from my voice that would only end in her defense mechanisms crashing down around me.

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked with a careless shrug. “You heard him.”

  “Do you believe it? That it isn’t him?”

  “Otōsan doesn’t lie. He doesn’t need to.”

  I considered her comment. It was actually scarier in many ways to think the threats weren’t coming from him. It was always better to know your enemy in order to counter their strategies with your own.

  After the incident in New London, Jada had told Dawson her father had washed his hands of her, kicked her from all of his residences, and commanded the entire Kyōdaina to leave her and Dawson alone. He’d dumped the entire debacle at Ken’Ichi Matsuda’s feet and walked away from it without a look back. I wasn’t sorry that Matsuda had been killed in the process. He’d been evil. Jada had feared and hated him long before she’d been forced into an engagement with him.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said as if she could hear my thoughts.

  I let her have her way as Ilan placed the next course in front of us, even when I wasn’t done with the topic. While we ate, we turned to safer conversations: her work, mine, the new products Force de la Violette was coming out with, the fact that they were going to have to move into larger facilities to keep up with demand, and my father’s newest line of clothes that was taking the world by storm.

  “He wants me to take a more active role in Éclair,” I told her.

  Jada’s lips quirked. “He finally got tired of paying you to gallivant around the globe with Benita and the vampires?”

  I scoffed, “I haven’t used Papa’s money in years. Dawson and I make more than enough for me to live any way I please.”

  But I didn’t deny the fact that I’d been spending time with Benita or the fact that her circle was vampire-like. The entire group of trust-fund babies floated from one major high-society event and one season to the next in rounds of endless partying. Sleeping during the day, carousing at night. I’d grown tired of it sooner than most. Bone weary. It was why I’d originally gone into boat racing and yacht building with Dawson years ago. I’d wanted to actually do something that proved I was more than Étienne Armaud’s son. But after the incident in New London, I’d let myself sink back into Benita’s world in order to forget what I couldn’t have. I’d let myself be drawn into Benita’s bed to escape my father’s secrets and the even larger wedge the words had driven between Jada and me without her even knowing it.

  “How is Benita?” Jada asked, lips curling.

  I shrugged. “She was fine when I left her in Rio last month.”

  “Trouble in paradise, Armaud? Who would have thought the French god couldn’t keep his girlfriend happy?”

  I put a hand to my chest and gave her my most charming smile. “She was more than satisfied when I left her, mon petit bijou.”

  We both paused as the nickname dangled in the air. I’d only used it once before, after our mouths had landed on intimate parts and taken us over the edge into a sea of emotions neither of us had expected.

  Without giving her a chance to comment on the slip I’d made, I said, “Benita and I agreed it was time we went our separate ways.”

  “Because she wanted you to propose?”

  She had wanted to marry me, but not because she loved me. She’d wanted it because our worlds fit and because her father’s kitty was dwindling in a manner that would require her to give up h
er lifestyle if she didn’t find someone to pay her credit card bills. While she’d been disappointed when I’d called it quits, she’d been far from miserable.

  “Benita wasn’t the one for me. I’m determined to marry for love, just like my father, and Benita loves no one more than herself,” I said. My pulse quickened, veins aching, as I took in Jada’s eyes flashing at me with emotions that neither of us could acknowledge.

  “Love doesn’t happen for people like us,” she said quietly.

  I shook my head, disagreeing. “It does. Look at Dawson and Violet.”

  She snickered. “As much as their bank accounts now prove otherwise, you know they aren’t really from our world.”

  I hated that she was right. Dawson had been accepted into our circle of trust-fund kids because he was there with us. He was a plus-one and wouldn’t be denied because of it, but he’d never received his own gilded invitations while he’d been living out of Mandy and Leena’s bed and breakfast in New London. The elite world we traveled in only included those whose families’ accounts had held the right number of zeroes for several decades.

  Before I could respond, Ilan and a female chef approached with a cart holding the dessert, a flambé that would dazzle the crowds with the fire En Feu was renowned for. Jada and I watched as the chef poured the liquor in a performance worthy of a juggler and then twisted the flame onto the sweet confection. The people in the restaurant applauded softly as the flame disappeared, Jada and I threw in our approval, and then Ilan and the chef left us with the treat.

  “My parents married for love,” I told her, coming back to the topic I knew I should leave. “They’re ridiculously happy to this day.”

  “Rare exceptions. It doesn’t happen for most of us.” She shrugged, barely fiddling with the dessert and refusing to meet my eyes.

  Once upon a time, as a teenager with blinders on, I’d thought Jada and I might have a chance to take the earth-shattering attraction we felt and turn it into something more—until my father had pulled me aside and told me the truth about Tsuyoshi Mori. That he was the Oyabun. The man leading the Kyōdaina. With my mother’s family knee-deep in oil from the United Arab Emirates and my father turning his family’s tiny custom design shop into a billion-dollar industry in less than a decade, we couldn’t risk people thinking our fortunes had been built illegally. We couldn’t afford even a whisper to link us to the Moris. They were off-limits. All of them.

  So instead of romancing Jada as I’d promised her, I’d gone off to university and ghosted her calls. Neither my father nor I had brought it up again, and when Jada and I met again several years later, we’d acted like our teenage romance had never existed.

  I wasn’t proud of it. But I’d done it for my family.

  “Rare, but possible,” I said softly, watching the way her pulse quickened in her neck at my words.

  “Not for me. I’m never getting married,” she told me, chin lifting, phone flipping over on the table. Daring me. Daring the man who’d stolen her first kiss and then abandoned her to challenge her belief that she was better off alone.

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I did just as she wished. “You might change your mind if you fall in love.”

  I wanted it to be true. My greatest wish was for her to find the happily-ever-after ending that I wanted for myself.

  “I won’t ever let a man have that much say in my life again,” she said with a clenched jaw, determination in every syllable she’d uttered. I barely held back my scoff. I didn’t dare remind her that her father was still directing her life. Tonight, he’d requested she meet with him, and she’d gone running.

  “Loving someone doesn’t mean losing control,” I said, knowing I should stop the entire line of conversation. It was too dangerous, too close to the whispered dreams of teenagers.

  She laughed sarcastically. “Says the man who is all about control.”

  I smirked. “That’s completely different.”

  I was structured in my own life, and I liked to be in charge in the bedroom. But I’d never directed the lives of the women I’d been involved with.

  Jada’s face heated, a soft pink coating the high cheekbones, and I wondered if she was remembering that morning―the single glorious morning where I’d exerted control over her. My body stiffened all the way down at the thought, flames licking inside me at the memories.

  She hit the button on her phone to check the time and said, “It’s late. I have to be up at five again tomorrow. Time to take this working woman home.”

  I rose from my seat, and Ilan came running. I paid an exorbitant amount over what was due, not only because of the little scene we’d made but because I could always count on En Feu to squeeze me in. Ilan gave me my favorite booth no matter if I called ten minutes before I showed up or days in advance.

  Cillian and Rana led us out of the restaurant the same way we’d come in, through the kitchen. After clearing the alley and the vehicles, they disappeared inside to give Jada and me another moment of privacy.

  My chest ached at the thought of her going back to her penthouse alone after it had been violated. I hated not knowing if Rana’s team could truly protect her. Jada Mori may never truly be mine, but I’d never recover from the break inside me if something terrible happened to her again—this time on my watch.

  As if reading my thoughts, Jada spoke first. “Don’t continue to worry your pretty little head about me, Armaud. I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

  “You were fine because people were afraid to come after you. That’s obviously not the case anymore.”

  “You can’t rescue me from my past. I knew the consequences of being Tsuyoshi Mori’s daughter long ago, just like I knew the consequences of agreeing to help Dawson.”

  But she didn’t…not really. She had no clue just how heartless her father could be.

  “I’m worried about Dawson, too,” I said gently. “If they’ve come for you, who’s to say they won’t go after him?”

  The way she fidgeted told me she’d been worrying about it as well.

  “It’s just another reason for Dawson and Violet to stay away,” she responded.

  “But they should know the truth, in case someone finds them. It’s not like my father’s yacht is inconspicuous.”

  She flipped her phone from hand to hand as she considered it. “I’ll tell them. I’d just like to give Rana and the team a day or so to see if they can figure it out before I ruin their honeymoon.”

  It was a concession that I knew was hard for her to make. More than I’d hoped for, but it didn’t do anything to ease the anxiety I felt at her going alone to her penthouse.

  “At least let me send extra security?” I pushed, trying not to beg even as I wanted to demand she come with me to the safety of my home.

  “I don’t need your help. Rana’s team has come out in full force. We’re good.” But there was doubt in her eyes. I could see it even in the darkness.

  My jaw clenched, and her hand came up, rubbing the scruff on my chin. Her entire being softened as she said, “Thank you for worrying about me.”

  In that brief moment, I saw the teenager I’d fallen for. It had been her dynamic attitude and energy that had first reeled me in, but it had been her surprise that someone could actually care that had snagged my heart.

  I covered her hand with mine, but the look on her face was already gone, shuttered away. She pulled back, spun around on her four-inch heels with grace and agility, and headed for the car where Rana was waiting behind the wheel.

  I watched her go, despising myself for letting it happen, loathing the conversation I’d have to have with Dawson, loathing the risk she was taking in going back to her penthouse, but hating most that it was her father who’d done this to her. Taken her faith in humanity and shown her, instead, the dark depths of it before leaving her to deal with it all on her own.

  But that was what Tsuyoshi Mori was known for. Cruelty. Treating people as if they were disposable. A
s her car disappeared, I got into the Escalade, closed my eyes, and rested my head on the seatback.

  My memories flashed back two years to the agony of finding her in the hospital and the feeling I’d had of being tossed to sea without a life preserver. With emotions as rocky and uneven as the waves, I’d flown across the Atlantic to see my father and beg him to understand the choice I had to make.

  I found him in his home office. He looked tired, probably as tired as I felt. I sat down across from him at his desk, a spot we’d taken up decades ago when I was a child coming in from school. He’d always ensured that either he or my mother was present when I came home, not just a nanny.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I played with my watch, clasping and unclasping the latch for so long I thought he’d given up on an answer, but he was just being my father. Patient. Waiting for me to tell him instead of pushing or demanding.

  I held back the truth, not quite ready to say the words. I told him the one fact I could. “Jada Mori was shot.”

  “My God, what happened? Is she all right?”

  That was the real question. With Jada, you were never really sure if she was truly okay. She kept her pain locked behind a vault of sarcasm and wit. She had no one standing in her corner. No one she could lean into. No one to hold her and let her sob her way to healing.

  “She lost a lot of blood and will be in the hospital for a while, but she’ll recover physically.”

  “Her father’s world…this is the consequence of it,” he said, and there was an anger to his voice I didn’t understand. He only knew Jada in passing, so his vehemence surprised me.

  “She was working with the FBI to try and put him out of business,” I told him.

  Surprise flew across his face. What I didn’t tell him was how Dawson had also been involved as an undercover agent or how Dawson had used the Armaud racing boats to move guns on behalf of the FBI. If Papa knew how close we’d been tied to it all, he’d be livid.