by L. Steele
13
Sienna
"Quite a demonstration," Jace’s father’s voice slides over my skin. "You must be Sienna." The man holds out his hand. "I’m Darren."
His palm is rough, as if he spent the early years of his life in hard physical labor and now is trying to make up for it.
Dry warmth oozes into my blood. I shudder, tugging my hand. He lets go, then turns to Jace.
"So, the prodigal returns?" Sharp and cutting, the clipped English accent is underpinned by a rougher one I cannot place. Does he wear his mixed accent as a badge of his self-made status?
"It will take more than a kiss to show me that you're settling down." His voice is toneless.
No warmth between these two. Father and son are their worst rivals too.
Settling down?
"I'm here because Natalie asked me to come," Jace replies, his voice mild.
The woman Darren was speaking to comes up next to him.
"You made it." She hugs Jace, before pinching his cheek.
"You wanted me here." Jace smiles down at her. He bends down to kiss Natalie on her cheek, and then pinches her arm.
She giggles.
"Why don't you get Sienna a drink, gorgeous?" Darren asks the other woman. "Jace and I need to catch up. After all, it isn't every day a man sees his son after a five-year gap."
My gaze shoots to Jace.
Why hasn't he seen his father in so long?
Jace meets my eyes. His fingers caress my upper arm, before he lets me go with obvious reluctance.
Natalie chuckles. "Don't worry, cousin," She tells Jace, "I'll take care of Sienna."
I allow Natalie to pull me away. When I dart a last look over my shoulder, I find Jace and Darren walking out of the bungalow.
Natalie picks up two glasses of champagne off the tray of a waiter passing by, hands me one.
"To you," I toast her, raising the glass.
Natalie chuckles. "Aren't you a handful?"
I raise my eyebrows. She has no idea how unpredictable I can be.
Three glasses later, I'm collapsed on a couch. My head buzzing pleasantly.
The last time I got this smashed … was with Tom, when he'd raided his father's stash of gin. He'd come over and we had proceeded to get drunk and sick.
Which is how my mother had found us. She'd grounded me for a week. Warned me against meeting Tom again. She'd never trusted Tom, never liked him even then.
The smoke from the incense in the space surrounds me, almost drugging me with the fragrance.
I look around, suddenly conscious that I don't know anyone else here.
Jace seems to have abandoned me, and Natalie … well, she's standing only a few feet away from me, talking to her fiancé.
He whispers in her ear and she giggles. Then, she walks over to me. "Craig and I are gonna slip away. You'll be fine on your own?"
"Ah." I wiggle my finger in front of her. "Of course—" I hiccough,"—I am."
With a smile, she beckons one of the waiters to bring me water. Handing it over, she waits till I glug it down. Takes the empty water glass back and then says, "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" I blink.
"We're going shopping tomorrow, remember?" she says.
"Sure."
I'm thankful that she's been herself, a normal person to hang out with. A relief after those strained, chemistry-charged moments that always seem to hang between me and Jace.
Leaning over, I kiss her smack on her lips.
Oops.
"You'll make Craig jealous." She giggles. "You sure you'll be okay?"
"Of course." My voice is vehement, but she doesn't seem convinced.
I reach for another glass of champagne from a passing waiter only to have her rap me on my knuckles.
"Hey."
I pull back, fingers curled.
When she raises her eyebrows in warning, I shut up.
"I'll find Jace and send him to you. You stay right here, and remember we are meeting at the hotel lobby tomorrow." With a last warning look, she leaves.
I hiccough, but stay on the couch.
The crowd has grown considerably over the past hour. The heat is suffocating, pressing in on my skin. Sweat breaks out on my brow, and I wipe it off. A shout from the swimming pool draws my attention there, in time to see a man and woman fall into it, their lips still locked.
Even as a warning goes off in my head, I'm up and moving toward the pool.
14
Sienna
By the time I reach the edge of the pool, the world is whirling around me. I grab the thing closest to me to steady myself, which turns out to be a man. One I recognize.
He's tall and lean, with broad shoulders. He grins as he steadies me, his hands lingering on my forearms.
Violet eyes look down at me.
He's built like a model.
Seeing him in these brief swimming trunks stretched across his front pings a message to my head.
Hell, he is a model. An underwear model. One well-known, too, given I now recall seeing his face in many magazines. And he's holding my arms, looking at me as if he wants to take me to bed.
Except I've seen him with Jace. Know he feels something for him. He'd looked at Jace as if he was still in love with him.
And I'm perilously close developing an attraction for Jace, too.
He wipes the drop of sweat that trickles down my temple.
"Fancy a dip to cool off?" he says in a pronounced American drawl.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. I know a bad pick up line when I see one, even when I am tipsy.
He grins down at me. The skin crinkles at the corner of his eyes. He's perfect. Too perfect―enough to make me want to reach out and touch his cheek to check that he is real.
He slides his finger down my arm.
"Well, what do you say, gorgeous? You ready to take a dip and show these people exactly what a party is all about?"
What's he talking about?
Before I can ask, he turns. Dives into the pool, with barely a ripple. Surfacing a few feet away he calls out, "Come on in."
What? He's crazy. My eyes dart around the pool, at the interested crowd watching us. They know I'm Jace's girlfriend.
One wrong move will cause Jace to lose face in front of his family. Worse it means I break our arrangement and I'll lose the money needed to secure my future.
I hesitate.
"Lost your nerve?" The beautiful man from the pool calls out, treading water.
His features are serious, assessing. All lightheartedness gone from the moment.
He's daring me.
That's the second person tonight to accuse me of that.
A fine spark of rage shivers up my spine. The one thing I can never resist is a challenge. I've always followed my heart. It's what had made me move to Silicon Valley pursuing of a crazy dream.
It had made me determined to put Bella through school disregarding the odds.
Bella.
Thinking about my sister gives me pause for thought. She's the reason I'd thrown caution to the wind and accepted Jace's insane proposal.
Now, that same recklessness pushes me toward the edge of the pool. Beneath it all, I'm still smarting from his taking control of my life since we met.
This is my chance to show Jace he cannot influence my every move. We've come this far, people know of me as his girlfriend, it's too late for him to turn back too. He too has no choice but to see this through with me.
And hadn't that other woman taken off her bikini top and jumped in too?
My heart beats faster, the blood thunders in my ears.
Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I reach down for the hem of the dress and pull it up. All the way up and over my head, dropping it. The expensive materials falls in the water.
Braless, and clad only in a thong, I dive in. Surface, gasping. My head already clearing. Everything seems brighter, sharper.
Shaking the hair out of my face, I laugh. Adrenaline
pulses as a feeling of being free shoots through my blood.
I feel naughty. Very naughty.
I laugh again, then splutter as I swallow water and go under.
An arm reaches out, and the man who'd dared me to jump in surfaces with me clutched in front of him.
"You okay?"
I nod, eyes watering, before sputtering, "Now look what you've done. I'm going to be in so much trouble for this."
I grin, giddy with the adrenaline coursing through me. I am going to pay for this, and yet, I can't stop myself from laughing aloud at the wickedness of the moment.
"Seems I've misjudged you," he chuckles.
"Seems many have misjudged me,” I shoot back.
"Oh?" He raises his eyebrows.
Just like that, he reaches down and brushes his lips across mine. The same lips that had kissed Jace, not many hours ago.
The thought is enough to make me lose my balance again. He grips me tighter, steadying me.
When I think things can't get any worse, I hear my name being called. Turn to see Jace striding toward us.
An infuriated Jace.
Those silver-green eyes blazing fire.
Fuck.
Asher's grip on me tightens, and he glances from me to Jace and then back at me. He's not surprised. He'd been counting on Jace finding us like this.
A mix of emotions I can't quite interpret twists the guy's features and then his eyes widen. He swims toward the far end of the pool away from Jace, then turns, waiting for me to follow.
A prickle of unease runs down my spine. Something's going on here and I can't quite put my finger on it.
A part of me wants to get out of the pool, go up to Jace and apologize.
But that other crazy part of me, the one that never stops to think, the one that always dares me to try new things is in heaven.
I swim away from where Jace is standing and toward where the model is holding up a towel for me. I'm going to pay for this.
15
Sienna
Jace's friend helps me out of the pool, and then slips his shirt over my shoulders.
"You want a drink to warm up?" He asks.
I look up from buttoning my shirt. "Now?"
My eyes are drawn to where Jace is watching us from the other side of the pool. He turns to circumnavigate the pool. He's headed toward us. But I don't trust myself with him. Not the way I am feeling right now.
Rebellious, slightly drunk. And with the adrenaline of the dip in the pool still thrumming through my veins.
If Jace touches me now, I'll want to make love with him.
Wild, passionate, love.
Suddenly a drink with anyone else sounds like a good idea.
If I do this, if I go with Asher now, I know it will push Jace over the edge. I want to find out how far I can push him, before his control snaps.
I turn toward the model waiting for me.
"Wait." I hesitate, "What's your name?"
"Asher."
"Sienna."
"I know." He tilts his head.
Of course he knows who I am. Knows too that I'm using him to bait Jace. Perhaps Asher, too, wants this confrontation.
I dart one last look over my shoulder, to see Jace pick up my now soaking-wet dress.
Past him, at the far end of the room, Eric looks at me, his features frozen in near comical surprise.
16
Jace
Jace had entered the pool house looking for Sienna, knowing he'd been away for too long. The meeting with his father had, as usual, left him feeling inadequate and angry.
People mellowed with age, but not his dad.
The man was hell-bent on cheating the aging process. His father worked out every day. Took anti-oxidants and supplements to keep his energy levels up.
Each of his wives was younger than the last, as if he was trying to absorb the vigor of the younger women who still flocked to him.
His current wife—number five to be precise—was only five years older than Jace. Thirty-five to his father's sixty.
And when Jace had originally asked for his inheritance, Darren had been very clear. He was willing to bail him out one last time, provided … he came back and joined the family business. And while at it, he had to get married and produce an heir, to carry on the Walker name.
And seeing Asher in the pool with Sienna had pushed him over the edge.
Rage had whipped through Jace, surprising him in its intensity. Reaching the edge of the pool, his foot had brushed the dress that was half in water.
Now, as he stands there, he knows she is baiting him. Forcing him to look her in the eye and tell her off, tell her to leave, to remove herself from his life.
He isn’t having any of it.
She isn’t getting away that easily.
Sienna hauls herself out of the pool, sliding into the shirt Asher drapes around her almost immediately.
But not before he and every other man in the room gets an eyeful of her bare ass. Her curved, smooth, round ass. Barely covered by a flimsy thong, it flared up to meet the hollow of her back.
A noise from the side and he turns to see his father right behind him, his eyes riveted to the scene. Darren's chest rises and falls erratically. He is turned on. Jace hopes to God he has a heart attack.
A giggle draws his attention back to where Asher is leading Sienna to the opposite exit. Jace hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her. The sway of her butt under the shirt. And her hair, now wet, hints of copper glinting among the thick strands.
Now Sienna turns and throws one last look at him over her shoulder.
A dare.
She's daring him to follow her.
To find her.
His fist entangled in the wet, green dress, he turns to come up against his father.
Darren's eyes snap at him with anger, and below that, the never far away boredom. The one that Jace has faced all his life.
"After that stunt your girlfriend pulled, I am tempted to disinherit you right now, but I won't. Not yet."
"To what do I owe that honor?" Jace snaps, not in any mood to tangle with Darren just then.
"I know you think I'm being unfair in the conditions I've imposed on you. But one day, perhaps when you are a father yourself, you'll know why I did it."
It's the first time in all the time Jace's known him that Darren's hinted at his awareness of his own role as a father. Yet, Darren's always taken position as the patriarch to the extended family seriously. After his brother's death, he's ensured the future of his niece, Natalie.
But with his son—his only child—he's always been uncompromising. A part of Jace even recognizes the wisdom in that. That his father is trying to teach him discipline that will hold him in good stead in the future. And yet, that boy inside him who'd hungered for his father's love still resents the heavy hand with which his father had controlled his life.
Exactly how Jace is trying to control Sienna's.
Jace couldn't stop his parents from destroying each other. So, he'd instead turned to controlling his own life and the people in it. He'd succeeded so far.
Until Sienna came along and challenged all his notions. He thought he could use her need for money to his advantage. Been confident she'd do exactly what he wanted.
But she'd shocked him out of his complicity.
She'd jumped in that pool, almost naked. Then walked away with Asher.
The same Asher he'd turned down in the past. He can't get his head around that.
And then Jace realizes then why he's so angry. It's not at Darren, or even at Asher for what he'd done.
It's because Sienna makes him feel emotions he's long buried inside. Jace has spent years living fast and loose, shallow. Trying to control the people around him. He's spent his life trying to prove that like Darren, he too can be a self-made man. All of this to win Darren's approval.
Now, on the verge of his own ventures failing, he's back at Darren's doorstep, back for the same millions he's spent his life runn
ing from. For that's the only thing that can save him from bankruptcy. From losing face in front of the world.
Yeah, he's his father's son all right. He'll do anything to maintain the veneer of success to the external world. Even manipulate the only person who's held up a mirror to him, shown him who he has become.
Jace's anger fades away, replaced with jealousy. Sheer, gut-wrenching jealousy. He's going to find her and get her away from Asher.
As he turns to leave, Darren's voice stops him.
"You have one more chance to bring your...girlfriend to heel. To show you are serious about settling down." Darren says. "That there is something more than merely lust between the two of you. I want you to have what I never found."
"Have what? True love?" Jace asks, his voice sharp with disbelief.
"Peace," his father replies. "I want you to find yourself, Jacob."
Jace's head snaps up at that. No one called him by his given name. Except his father.
Darren had done so only when he was furious with his son, or when...he was overcome by emotion. The last time was at his mother's funeral. When his father had hugged him.
Now Jace is grown. And yet inside, a part of him is still that confused boy. Perhaps that part will always be a boy thirsting for his mother's love, his father's approval. Yet, for the first time, Jace looks past his father's faults. To the iron will inside. His father cares for him in his own way, wants him to become his own man.
Unorthodox as his methods may be.
Jace tilts his head, nods.
Then without another word, he turns, and stalks toward the exit.
Now, though, he must find Sienna. Get her away from Asher.
As Jace heads for the door, Eric walks up to him to lay a hand on his sleeve. Jace shakes him off.
To his surprise, Eric grabs his hand and turns him around, letting go almost immediately when Jace trains his eyes on him.
Eric holds his ground. "Go easy on her."
"You keep your hands off her." Jace snarls back before he can stop himself.
Holding up both his hands to show he means no harm, Eric says, "Don't see a ring on her finger that indicates she is yours. Besides, after what she did today, every man in the room wants her, will probably pay to have her for his mistress."
