The air left Jade’s lungs in a rush.
The backyard was like a place from a fairy tale. Wide and long, with a garden on one side separated from the rest of the yard by a smooth iron fence, nothing sharp to accidentally hurt the little ones, and filled with every kind of blooming flower imaginable. The scent was intoxicating, even in the relatively crisp October air. Far back and at the end of the cobblestoned walkway was a tall gazebo, white and lacey, that looked like it had come from a storybook. Bright pink bougainvillea wound around its railings and up to its peaked top.
A couple danced in the gazebo, swaying to the old-fashioned Jamaican music coming from the speakers. They danced closely together, a sensual movement in the faintly cool breeze. Their laughter poured down the winding path and settled into Jade’s ears.
Off to the side but closer to the house was a pool. It was fenced off and covered in a way that the pools of most Florida homes with children were. It looked more like a greenhouse, brilliant as it was with more flowers, than an everyday structure that happened to have a swimming pool inside.
Even though there had been a lot of people in the house, this was apparently where most of the Diallos were. They were so beautiful that they fit in perfectly with the fairy-tale backyard.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Elia said with a pleased grin. “Kingsley’s best friend, Victor, designed it. That man is a genius!”
“Who’s a genius?”
A gorgeous woman in bright yellow swam through the ocean of beautiful people to kiss Carter on the cheek and hug him as much as Elia’s clench would allow. The pixie surprised Jade by releasing her and Carter when the woman hugged and kissed her too.
“Your husband,” Elia said. “I was just telling Jade that Victor designed the backyard.”
“Ah, yes.” The woman grinned, showing off pretty white teeth and a smile that must have melted hearts and boxer briefs all across Miami. “He is amazing.”
The look on her face said she was absolutely sincere in her statement. She cast a look over her shoulder as if searching for said amazing husband. She must have seen him because she blew a kiss somewhere across the yard. Jade didn’t see any answering kisses being blown or even one of those cheesy catch-kiss motions —did people even do that outside middle school?—so she didn’t get the chance to see this singular specimen for herself.
Then the woman moved to Carter’s other side where it just so happened that Jade stood. “I’m Mella.” She warmly grasped Jade’s hands in hers, her expressive eyes actually twinkling. “Welcome to the family.”
What? “Oh! I’m not—”
But Mella was already moving away, sailing toward where she’d blown her kiss.
Then Kingsley came out of nowhere with a familiar woman who would’ve stopped traffic in any crowd. His fiancée who’d visited him the other day at his office.
After greeting his pixie sister with a warm kiss on each cheek, which made her giggle, he gave Carter’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Good to see you before the crowd got too intense,” Kingsley said.
Damn, what would it be like once it got really intense? This army of gorgeous people was enough to make anyone nervous. And by anyone, she just meant her.
Kingsley gave Carter one last squeeze before turning his charm and a warm hand clasp onto Jade. “And it’s good to see you again, Ms. Tremaine.”
“I told you to call me Jade.” She didn’t see the harm in the friendly lie.
“Jade, then.” He pulled his fiancée closer. “Obviously, you guys remember my fiancée, Adah.”
They hadn’t formally met but Jade would never forget such a face, figure and smile. Adah was beautiful, but her beauty came as much from the fact that she didn’t seem to know just how gorgeous she was. Enviable body, warm smile, a dimple in the center of her stubborn-looking chin and a face straight from the pages of a magazine.
The corners of Adah’s pretty eyes crinkled. “Hi there. I know we weren’t introduced. Don’t let Kingsley turn you into a head case. He’ll have you thinking his suggestions are yours if you’re not too careful.” She reached in for a full-body hug and, after a moment’s surprise, Jade relaxed in her welcoming embrace. “It’s good to officially meet you.”
They were a very touchy-feely group. Married into the Diallos or not.
“Congratulations on your engagement,” she said to Adah.
“Hey, what about me?” Kingsley asked with a laugh. “Shouldn’t I be congratulated on snagging the best woman in the world?”
“The best woman in the world for you.” A rumbling voice, deep enough to rival Carter’s, broke out of the crowd. It was Wolfe, one of the brothers from the club. The pretty one who was married to the love of his life. At least according to what Carter said.
Jade wasn’t sure she believed in that kind of love.
“Obviously,” Kingsley said. “Otherwise, Adah would have a thousand men all lined up to marry her, plus a few of those studs already in the harem someplace.”
“And you already keep me busy,” she said with a crooked smile. “I wouldn’t know what to do with any more boy toys.” Adah patted Kingsley on his impressive chest and grinned. “Unless they can cook. If yes, then sign me up for two.”
“Come on, babe. It’s the one thing I don’t do well.”
“True,” Adah agreed with another pat that morphed into a caress as Jade watched them.
Wolfe made a show of covering his eyes. “Jesus... You must be in love with this fool to think that, Adah.”
Jade could see why Adah and her Diallo man were a perfect fit. Anyone looking at them could see the love between the couple from outer space.
Envy throbbed dully in her chest, but she did her best to ignore it.
Eyes suddenly stinging, she made some excuse and turned away from the group, walking quickly in the direction of the house. On the way there, she grabbed a glass of punch from the tray of a passing waiter. Inside the house, she slipped neatly into a nearly hidden alcove and simply watched.
Everyone looked happy.
Was everyone as happy as they seemed?
And it wasn’t even that they all had smiles all over their faces, but it was in the way they held themselves with a kind of contentment Jade hadn’t seen in a long time, if ever. The closest thing she could remember like this was in college when many of the girls were unfurling like new buds in the sun after being away from home, away from parents who had sheltered them too long in the dark.
Like Jade’s parents.
Those girls had seemed so happy to be alive and away from the shadows of another’s influence. Back then it was all illusion because what did eighteen-year-olds know about real repression? Not having your parents allow you to stay out late on a Saturday night wasn’t the same thing as being kept away from everything related to sex and growing up and being your own person.
Jade’s parents had kept these things from her and she had been too much of a coward, much too afraid to go and seek these things out on her own while away during the school hours of the day.
No, these people, these Diallos looked free in a way she envied.
Jade bit her lip and and turned away.
Across the room, a group of four or five people broke out in applause.
“You should name the baby after me,” someone in the group shouted.
More celebration.
Jade turned away from that too, fighting the ache of tears in her throat.
Dammit, she had a reason for being here at this party. And it wasn’t to hide behind a potted plant like some pariah in middle school. Carter. She needed to find him.
Most likely, though, he wasn’t even where she’d left him. Despite his size, the man moved fast and was in high demand.
For now, the big glass of rum punch she’d downed was catching up with her. She stepped out of her hiding place, ventured outside and
tapped a passing waiter.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where the bathroom is?”
The man, handsome in the black-and-white tuxedo uniform that marked the servers as very different from the informally dressed guests, gave her form a brief look and smile before he directed her where to go. Inside the house, of course.
After at least a dozen excuse mes and pardons she found herself inside the massive house again and wending her way through the wide hallways and to the restroom behind a beautiful, winding staircase. But the door was locked.
Damn.
Getting desperate now that a bathroom was so close but at the same time far away, she looked up the pretty staircase. Maybe there was one at the top of the stairs. Jade quickly slipped up there and found the door a few feet from the landing, unoccupied, thank God, and slipped inside.
Behind the locked door, she relieved her nearly bursting bladder with a heartfelt sigh.
How much punch did I drink anyway? Damn...
After making sure she wasn’t about to track any toilet paper out of the bathroom on her heels, she retouched her makeup.
Sounds of the lively get-together reached her. Laughter. Familiar conversation. She thought she even heard a pair of lovers kissing and murmuring lowly to each other. It all made her feel very apart.
Lonely even, to be honest.
Everyone looked happy, like they were celebrating, and she was there for work. And to feel, once again, apart from everyone else.
God, how pathetic am I? She rolled her eyes at herself then rechecked her face in the mirror.
The same dark eyes and firm mouth. Her expression one of protective coolness, one she was long familiar with. Then, if everything was the same, why did she feel so different?
Something inside her had melted the instant she saw Carter a few days ago. To the very depths of her, she felt more tender, more vulnerable.
Screw that.
Abruptly, she turned away from her reflection.
No, she was not that. Not a soft-boiled egg waiting for Carter to come and scoop out her insides and make mush of them again.
Her phone chimed. Nearly sighing with relief, she plucked it out of her purse and looked at the email.
Jade—We have a bit of an emergency there in Miami. Your man, Owen Van Tyle, is on the loose again. Word is he’s someplace down there and his wife’s not trying to make the news again. Can you handle it?
Jade nearly rolled her eyes. Owen Van Tyle was the trophy husband of a very rich and very beautiful dot-com titan. Despite his less than sexy name, he was handsome and dressed well and knew just the right things to say when a camera was in his face. The problem was that, despite having a millionaire wife who could pass for a supermodel, he had the consistent inability to keep it in his pants.
His wife, Monica Van Tyle, had been a client of Jade’s on and off for years. Monica wasn’t just a brilliant millionaire, she was also a society darling in San Diego and the daughter of a famous actress. Monica didn’t care about her own reputation, but her mother did. Her mother also cared if Monica got hurt by her older but immature husband. Thus Jade’s job was Owen’s babysitter and PR shield when he did something with the potential for blowback on his wife and mother-in-law, which was disturbingly often.
Jade sent back a quick reply to her partner.
Owen shouldn’t be too hard to find in this town. I’ll take care of it alone and do damage control. I’ll update you when I find something.
Relieved to have a task that had nothing to do with Carter’s family, she sent off the message, checked her face one last time and left the bathroom.
She was carefully closing the bathroom door behind her, mind focused on the Van Tyle problem when she stumbled into a warm body and almost fell. A couple, older than her by at least twenty years, closed in on her to stop her from falling. Their hands fell away from each other and held her steady.
“Oh, excuse me!”
“It’s fine, hon. Be careful, though, huh?” The woman of the couple flashed her a kind smile while the man steadied Jade on her feet.
Jade blushed. “Thank you.”
Bright, attractive eyes, teak-brown skin and a familiar shape of jaw and chin told her the man was Carter’s father. Which meant there was a high probability the woman was his mother. The man patted her shoulder and looped his arm around the woman’s waist, his head dipping low to speak into her ear. A soft tittering laugh floated from the woman’s lips and they disappeared down the hallway together, their hips bumping affectionately.
They looked to be in their midfifties, maybe in their sixties, but the affection between them made them seem like teenagers about to hook up. Jade blushed and, walking away from them, grabbed her phone and opened up a blank text message with Carter’s name.
Jade: I’m lost in your house. How do I find my way out of the maze?
His reply came almost at once. Damn, he typed fast.
Carter: No need to go full CSI on me. I’m upstairs. Should I come down and get you?
Jade: No. Just tell me where you are. I’m upstairs too.
She followed his directions down the hallway, up another set of narrow stairs and into a small alcove. All the doors in the small wing were open. No Carter.
What the hell was this man up to? Jade crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her gaze. The space was beautiful but sparsely occupied with most of the party happening downstairs on the first floor and outside. Up here, she heard the vague murmuring of conversation, but she felt like she was intruding. This space said home. It was no place she needed to be. She was an outsider. She didn’t belong here.
At the end of the short hallway, a waist-high balcony shut off any possible progress forward. She leaned her hip against the balcony and pulled out her phone again.
“We need to go back and help Kingsley celebrate his fiancée,” a low, feminine voice murmured from below her. It was the same voice that had warned her to be careful just moments before. Carter’s mother.
“They won’t miss us, at least not at this moment. Can you give me a few of these moments, hmm?” The man’s voice was impossibly deep, and it reminded her of Carter’s.
The woman laughed, a low and flirtatious trill of sound. Light footsteps sounded below Jade and she stepped back just as the pair came into view, still walking as closely together as when she saw them by the bathroom door. If anything, they were actually a little closer. The woman leaned her head onto the man’s chest as they seemed to float together toward a long sofa tucked away in a picture window. The window overlooked a quiet garden blooming with flowers.
The man sat down first, and although there was plenty of room for two to sit side by side, the woman tucked herself into the man’s lap and practically purred. He rumbled something to her Jade didn’t hear and kissed her very intentionally on the lips. It was a kiss she returned with interest, in a show of passion that had Jade very nearly clutching her pearls. He tucked his chin close to her temple and pulled her even more into his lap.
“So what can I do for you, sir? What urgent matter do you have that is more important than wishing my son happy today?”
“Just the usual.” He did something that made her squeal, probably a tickling Jade was too far away to see, and she laughed breathlessly but didn’t try to get away. She only moved closer to him, wound her arms around his neck while her legs sprawled warmly over his lap.
They were beautiful together, and Jade wanted desperately to look away from them. But she couldn’t. Her eyes would not move away from the older couple canoodling in the small alcove to temporarily escape the adoration of their children.
“You are a terrible man.” The woman laughed breathlessly.
“What does that say about you? You’re the one who married me.”
Another soft giggle. “Very true...”
There was silence then, occasional sighs
and the sound of kissing, bodies shifting in the cloth sofa. It was all too unspeakably intimate but Jade couldn’t bring herself to move away and give them their privacy.
Never had she seen something like this before. They cared for each other. They wanted to be together and had sneaked away like teenagers to make out in a private—well, it would’ve been private if Jade hadn’t been there—part of the house.
Her parents had never been like that with each other.
She’d only seen affection like that on television and, growing up with hypocrites who always said they were the perfect example of a family, Jade had wondered if that was the kind of marriage she’d end up with too.
Cold.
Bound by lies.
Loveless.
But in front of her was proof that it didn’t have to be like that. Not even after thirteen children.
The thought jerked her upright and out of her morbid fascination with the older couple sharing a moment that should have been private.
God, she was so pathetic. Her unresolved feelings about her parents, about their deaths, were beginning to break down her defenses harder than she thought. Now they had her spying on people in their own house.
She cursed softly, turned and walked quietly away.
“I was wondering where you were.” Carter appeared out of nowhere, quiet on his size-eleven feet as if he were a much lighter man.
The stirred-up feelings in the pit of Jade’s stomach roiled. Poisonous words bubbled up on the tip of her tongue.
“I was where you sent me,” she muttered. “Which made me see things I wasn’t ready for.” She tipped her head toward the intimate alcove.
Carter lifted his gaze to where she pointed, and frowned. “Don’t blame your stalking on me,” he said. “I told you to meet me back there. Sure I got held up, but I didn’t tell you to follow the oldies to whatever they’re up to back there.”
Whatever they’re up to? Did this kind of thing happen often?
Her Perfect Pleasure Page 10
