by Mia Knight
New York City was quickly left behind. No traffic meant the hour-long trip to Tuxedo Park would take even less time. She knew the route well as she had been chauffeured from the village to the city countless times. Tuxedo Park was forty miles from Midtown, but the two places couldn’t be more different if they tried. Tuxedo Park was a gated community with a twenty-four-hour guard who only allowed access to residents and their guests. There were no stores, gas stations, or banks within the walls of Tuxedo Park. The village was locked in a time warp where crime was non-existent, residents left their doors unlocked, and most people rode bikes everywhere. It was a haven in the midst of a chaotic world.
Maximus had banished his personal assistant, Elena Rogan, to Tuxedo Park when she became pregnant. Jasmine didn’t remember much about her mother since she was killed in a car accident when she was three. According to Maximus, the autopsy revealed she was pregnant with another man’s child. Maximus suspected it was one of the staff and had dismissed all of them immediately. Instead of bringing Jasmine to New York, he left her at Tuxedo Park where the household staff raised her, and she attended the local private school before she was shipped off to boarding school when she was ten years old.
Both of her sisters were the byproduct of Maximus’s marriages to high-profile women. Colette’s mother was the daughter of an oil tycoon while Ariana’s mother was a supermodel. Maximus insisted on being very hands-on with Colette and Ariana. They grew up in his offices so he could teach them to take over when their time came. Born eight years after Ariana, Jasmine had been an unwanted embarrassment from day one.
She grew up with her mother’s sins on her shoulders. She tried to be the best at everything and fell short every time. Maximus had always looked at her differently. It didn’t help that she was a replica of her mother—brunette and curvy with light brown eyes. She stood out like a sore thumb next to her tall, blond sisters. She was dubbed the black sheep before she spoke her first word and had never been able to shirk the title. The one time she had come close to making her father proud was her engagement to Ford Baldwin… and that had ended in the scandal of the decade.
The fact that Maximus had acknowledged her as one of his own in his will was nothing short of astounding. No one could have predicted that, least of all her. He had made her rich beyond her wildest dreams. She didn’t have to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to. Could she really blame her sisters for reacting the way they had? Maximus had known how they would react and written letters explaining his decision. Not only had her sisters respected his decision, but they had also apologized and opened up about their feelings. They respected her profession and wanted to be a real family. She missed Maximus terribly, but something beautiful and unexpected had come from it, and she would nurture the seeds he planted.
When the SUV stopped, she came out of her stupor. One of her guards opened her door, and she took his hand as she stepped down. Her housekeeper Thea stood in the open doorway of the house. Jasmine gave her a wan smile and a tight hug.
“Are you okay? Do you want to eat?” Thea asked.
“No, thank you. Just bed for me.”
Thea put her arm around her waist as if she were injured and walked her up the massive staircase to her bedroom.
“How long are you staying, miss?” Thea asked.
“I’m never leaving again,” she mumbled. She went into her en suite bathroom and washed her face before she kicked off her boots and shrugged off her coat. The covers were folded back, so she slid right in. “Leave it, Thea,” she mumbled as the housekeeper carried her boots and coat to the closet. “It’s late. You didn’t have to come here just for me.”
“Of course, I did. Do you know what you want for breakfast?”
“Coffee.”
“And?”
She eyed her balefully. “More coffee.”
Thea kissed her on the brow. “Will do. Welcome home.”
Chapter 8
Four Years Ago
It had been three years since she saw her father. She was so nervous that she hadn’t been able to eat for two days. She was surprised that out of all the real estate he owned, Maximus had taken up residence at Tuxedo Park. He had never been fond of the place, especially after her mother inhabited it.
Her shoes squeaked on the polished wood floor as she crossed the main hall and turned toward the library. One of the doors stood ajar. She stopped just shy of the entrance and tried to control her roiling stomach.
It had been a year since she left Roth. She wanted to move on, but he wouldn’t sign the divorce papers. She felt as if there was a noose around her neck. He demanded to see her, but she refused. She was desperate to break ties with him at any cost. Her father was the only man powerful enough to make that happen.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tapped lightly on the door.
“Come in.”
She kept her eyes downcast as she stepped into the doorway. She was half-convinced the guard at the gate had given her father the wrong name, and that was the only reason she had been granted access.
Maximus didn’t shout at the sight of her. There was only a buzzing silence, which was worse.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
She flinched. Just the sound of his voice made her feel ill. It took a few seconds for her legs to work. She stopped several feet from his desk and kept her eyes downcast. She was defeated, exhausted, humiliated, and desperate to get through this without hurling on his expensive rug.
“I filed for divorce,” she whispered.
She hunched her shoulders, waiting for the barrage of insults, but Maximus said nothing.
“H-he won’t sign,” she continued.
“What do you want from me?”
She swallowed hard. “I-I was hoping you could convince him to agree.”
“If you want something, look at me.”
She gathered what little courage she had and looked up. The change in his appearance was shocking. He’d had his first stroke shortly after he disowned her. When she tried to visit him at the hospital, she was turned away. Since then, she heard he had several more health issues that forced him to step down from Hennessy & Co, but nothing prepared her for his transformation. He had lost a significant amount of weight, his hair was a blinding white, and his face had age spots all over it. His hair was thinning, and the muscles in his face weren’t working right. He had aged a decade in less than three years. Nevertheless, his gaze was as piercing as ever.
“Now, Jasmine,” he said, “ask me.”
He might look old, but he still sounded like a drill sergeant.
“Can you help me with Roth?” she asked.
“Help you how?”
She shrugged and then grimaced, knowing how much he hated useless gestures like that. “Ask him?”
“You think he’ll sign if I ask him to?”
He was toying with her, making her feel stupid. Her lower lip trembled, and she broke his rules by looking down at her trembling fingers twined together in front of her. She hoped he didn’t notice the tear that slipped from her eye and disappeared into the thick carpet.
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then took a step back. She’d made a mistake. Another one. After all she had done, he wasn’t going to help her out of her mess. He wanted to watch her drown.
“Never mind. I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said and whirled away.
She rushed to the door as her face crumpled and tears began to stream down her face.
“Jasmine.”
She didn’t stop. She slipped through the library door and ran. She was tired of everyone’s manipulative games. Roth was right. She wasn’t built for this life, and she didn’t belong here. But where did that leave her?
She was trying to unlock her car door when the keys were snatched out of her hand. She opened her mouth to blast the guard but froze when she saw her father standing there. Instantly, she averted her face and began to swipe at her cheeks, mortified all over again.
“What did he do to you?” he asked.
The question caught her off guard. So much so that she looked at him. “What?”
“Did he abuse you?”
She shook her head.
His eyes narrowed. “And you’re done with him?”
“I wouldn’t file for divorce if I wasn’t.” It was the sassiest thing she had ever said to him.
He wasn’t fazed. “I’ll take care of it.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Y-you will?”
“But there are conditions.”
Of course, there were. Her stomach knotted. “What are they?”
“You don’t see him again. Ever.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You agree to visit me several times a month.”
“Pardon?” She was sure she hadn’t heard him correctly.
“We need time.”
“Excuse me?”
He shuffled his feet, the first sign of discomfort she had ever seen from him.
“I guess what they say is true. Getting old, sick, and weak forces you to look at things differently.” He cleared his throat and looked beyond her down the long gravel drive to the massive wrought iron gates. “I have a lot of regrets where you’re concerned. I should have known what I did would push you toward him.”
Out of all the scenarios she had gone over in her mind, one where her father showed some remorse about how he treated her in the past never crossed her mind.
“If you want, you can live here.”
She glanced at her childhood home, a castle made of stone with turrets and brick arches, and then back at him. “Live here?”
He clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin. “How long do you think you can stay in that dump in Boston?”
She went cold with shock. “How do you know?”
“I’ve always had someone watching you.”
“Why?”
“You’re my daughter.”
“Oh, I’m your daughter now?” she asked scathingly.
“You always will be.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“You destroyed my friendship with Parker and cost me millions. For what? A man who only wanted to trade off on your name. How could you not see that he was just using you?”
His words set off an avalanche of pain. She closed her eyes and brushed a hand over her face. “How many times are you going to throw that in my face?” she whispered.
“That’s the last time you’ll ever hear it.”
She opened her eyes and glanced around the historic estate. Everything was green and peaceful. She had forgotten how much she loved this place. “You’d let me live here?”
“You need a quiet place to work now that your career is taking off.”
She looked back at him. “Career?” No, he couldn’t know…
He gave her a steady look out of knowing eyes. “You think you can get anything past me?”
“You know?” she choked.
“Know and read, Thalia.”
She felt faint. He read in detail about her affair with Roth. He read the anal scene, her fucking in an alley …? She felt sick with embarrassment. “Y-you had no right!”
“You published it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but…” She couldn’t wrap her mind around this catastrophe.
“I’m having lunch in ten minutes. You’ll stay, and we’ll discuss the next step.”
“Next step?”
“Your latest book made you a bestseller. I know someone who works at a publishing company—”
“No!”
“No, what?” he snapped.
“I don’t want you involved in my career.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Her hands windmilled as she tried to find a reason why he should stay out of her business. “I need to do this on my own. I am doing it on my own. I need to know I’m good enough! I need something that’s just mine.”
“You’re being childish.”
“So be it.”
He shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go inside.”
She didn’t move. “I don’t know if…”
His expression hardened. “You don’t have a choice. If you want a divorce, I can make it happen, but you give me what I want.”
“For me to visit you?” She shook her head, unable to believe that was his condition. She and her father didn’t have a relationship, and she was wary of getting close to him. “Why?”
“I’m a sick and miserable old man… and a terrible father. You went easy on me in your book.”
She swallowed hard.
“I still have time,” he said quietly. “I can change our story, and it would be nice to have company.”
“You want me around?”
He scowled. “Didn’t I just say so?”
“Um, I guess…”
“You guess what?” he asked impatiently.
She gave him a tremulous smile. “I-I guess we can start with visits?”
He gave a curt nod and started back to the house. She walked behind him before she noticed his awkward gait. She paced at his side, watching him closely, ready to reach out if he needed help.
“A lot has changed,” she said.
“Karma caught up to me,” he said grumpily. “My doctor said I shouldn’t have survived my second stroke, so I was forced to retire. Now I have too much time on my hands, which has forced me to reflect on other aspects of my life I failed in. I hate it.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You… you actually read the book?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, she prompted, “And?”
One side of his lips curved into a smile. “You have more of me in you than I thought.”
Chapter 9
Jasmine stared out of the twenty-five-foot lead-glass windows at Tuxedo Lake. It was a beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky. The glass-like surface of the water reflected the orange leaves on the trees. Even though her surroundings were serene, she was anything but. She sat in the corner of the massive couch, chin on her knee, as she contemplated her dilemma.
The book wasn’t going well. Was it even a book if the damn thing consisted of a few scenes and no storyline? The highly anticipated fifth book in her bestselling series had a tentative release date several months from now. She had written the first chapters when Maximus had his stroke. After the funeral, she tried to pick up where she left off, but the idea she wanted to pursue no longer held any appeal. She tried sketching out new ideas, but nothing worked so she gave up and took Kaia up on her offer to visit.
Jasmine’s lip curled as she reached for her coffee and sipped. Going to Colorado had fucked with her head even more. Despite her best efforts, that fucker had crept into her mind. It didn’t help that his character was actually in the fucking story, and she had to give him some kind of resolution. The only sendoff she wanted to give him was a bloody one. She actually wrote a scene where he was “accidentally” killed off. It made her feel marginally better, but if she tried to nix him, her fan base would freak out. Maybe it would help if she wrote in a scene where he revealed his vasectomy? Then her fans would understand the heroine’s mindset when she shoved him off a cliff. She set the cup down, picked up her pencil, and tipped it back and forth on the empty pages of her notebook. Why hadn’t she written Roth out of the series after she and the character divorced him? Because the damn readers loved his ass, that’s why. They thought he was redeemable. He wasn’t, and she wouldn’t let them talk her into giving him a good ending. If she couldn’t kill him, he had to exit stage left as soon as possible… Maybe a crazed hooker would take him off her hands.
The fact that her real life heavily influenced the series had fucked her up royally. In book four she reconciled with her father and peppered that with some fictional sexcapades. And now what? The heroine reunites with her father who then dies? That was a downer. No one wanted to read that shit.
She had been back at T
uxedo Park for three weeks and hadn’t gotten past chapter one. Logic told her to give the heroine a happy conclusion that was complete and utter fiction, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t write happy shit when her soul was black, tattered, and dripping blood. Everyone expected the series to have a happily ever after. It was expected since it started as a romance but… not everyone got HEAs. She didn’t. Yes, she got her childhood home and was now rich enough to buy a country, but was she happy? Fuck no. But she also couldn’t ruin the whole series by writing a realistic ending either. She rubbed her temples. Reading was about escapism. It was why she had fallen in love with books as a child. She couldn’t do that to her readers. No one wanted to see a character they had been rooting for give up at the end. So what the fuck was she going to do? She had already sent out a newsletter explaining there would be a delay in the release due to some personal issues and a family death. There was an outpouring of support but also some snarky and irritated emails from fans who had been waiting forever. Everyone wanted closure. So did she. She just didn’t know what that meant.
She got to her feet. Another day with no journal entry or sketch. Oh, well. She turned to face her sanctuary and paused to savor the way the morning light lit up her favorite room in the house. The library was straight out of Beauty and the Beast with two fireplaces, its own stone terrace, and a second-level reading nook with ladders that went up the ceiling. Left to her own devices in a world where she had no one, it was no wonder she had become a book lover. She lost herself in stories to escape the real world, which was frequently unkind. She started writing at eight years old and secretly submitted her work to publications and magazines. Everyone turned her down and rightly so. She was a novice and still learning. She wrote throughout school and self-published her first book at twenty under the pen name, Minnie Hess. Back then, she had been proud of her accomplishment and told her family, who had been less than impressed. Despite lackluster sales, she continued to write and gathered a small fan base as she wrote romance and fantasy. It wasn’t until she blew up her life and married Roth that she really had something to write about… and write it she did. It was ironic that writing their story as Thalia Crane gave her the money she needed to leave him.
