Just One Night

by Carly Phillips

  Tapping on the number, Jordan waited and Suzanne picked up.

  “Hello, Jordan?” Suzanne said.

  “Yes, hi. Did you remember something?”

  Suzanne was silent for a moment, then said, “I never forgot but I couldn’t talk in the office. I didn’t want anyone overhearing and reporting back.”

  “To who? What’s going on?” Jordan asked, sitting back down on the bed.

  “You know Kenneth and Wallace Franklin were close, right?” Suzanne asked of Linc’s father and the company CFO.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Wallace was aware of Kenneth’s quieter deals. He helped move money and allowed him to do things Linc didn’t know about. And this current contractual situation you were asking about? The man Kenneth went into partnership with was Beckett Daniels,” Suzanne said. “I didn’t want Wallace to know I was revealing information they expected me to keep secret.”

  “Thank you, Suzanne. The revelation won’t be tracked back to you. I promise. And I’m really grateful you called me.”

  “Of course! Mr. Kingston, Linc, I mean, was good to me. He kept me on and made sure I didn’t lose my job after his father died.” Suzanne sniffed. “If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to call after office hours.”

  “I will. And thank you again.” Jordan hung up and glanced at the ceiling, trying to put pieces together.

  Beckett Daniels. Beck. She knew the name. He was a definite competitor of Linc’s in many real estate deals, and they’d gone to college together and had once been close. She’d assumed they had drifted apart. But that’s all she knew.

  Grabbing her purse, she headed to find Linc and fill him in on what she’d learned.

  * * *

  Linc sat in the study behind the desk in the corner. Since his father had had an office on the other side of the house, his mother used this room as her sanctuary, and for some reason, he’d retreated here now when he needed to think clearly.

  He could wrap his head around his father doing sneaky deals behind his back. But even with Kenneth’s illness, Linc couldn’t comprehend him risking the company, and if he had tried to do such a thing, why would Wallace have let him?

  No matter who he asked so far, he’d hit a dead end. No one he’d called knew where Wallace had disappeared to, and clearly the person pulling the strings, Kenneth’s so-called partner, was keeping Linc dangling. And he wanted to know why.

  A knock sounded on the door and he glanced up. “Come on in!”

  Jordan opened the door and stepped inside. She was wearing a pair of black leggings and a white boxy cropped top that revealed a strip of skin above the waistband, and one look made him drool. Black Chucks completed the cute, sleek outfit.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Come sit.” He rose from behind the desk and walked around to join her, lowering himself on the couch.

  Her floral scent surrounded him, and he wanted her in his lap now, his fingers in her hair, her lips on his. Instead he took a look at her face and knew immediately something was wrong.

  “What happened? Is there a problem with my mother and Aurora?” he asked, knowing how panicked Aurora had been about meeting Melly.

  Jordan shook her head. “God, no. They’re like this.” She crossed two of her fingers in the air. “But Suzanne Ashton called me.”

  He stiffened in surprise. “Now? On your cell over the weekend?”

  She nodded. “I know who your father’s partner is, and you’re right about Wallace helping him hide it. And apparently it’s not the only secret deal.”

  Jaw clenched, Linc nodded, glad to know his instincts were right. “Wallace,” he muttered. “Okay, and the partner?”

  “Beckett Daniels.”

  Linc jerked in his seat, shock running through him. “Beck,” he said, a roaring sound in his ears, and he forced himself to focus.

  Beck. Linc’s rival in business, but their past worried him more. Beck was clearly still harboring anger and resentment against him, and the bitch of it was, Linc didn’t blame him. But a man with an emotional grudge was an unpinned grenade waiting to explode.

  Linc had never told anyone what had happened between him and Beck. His father hadn’t known, which meant to Kenneth, Beck had been a convenient person with whom to do business, but to Beck? His father and his illness had made him easy prey to get to Linc.

  Nobody but family and trusted people inside the office knew about Kenneth’s dementia. Clearly Linc had made wrong choices there. But with his father’s more fragile mental state, it would have been easy for Beck to swoop in. But Wallace was supposed to protect them all. Shit. Linc scrubbed his face with his hand. What had Wallace gotten out of the deal?

  Jordan’s soft hand rested on his arm. “Linc? What is it?”

  He didn’t know how to tell her. She was his best friend and the person he trusted most, yet he’d kept this from her. Not even his brothers knew. He blew out a long breath, reminding himself if he could trust anyone, it was Jordan.

  He just hoped she looked at him the same way after he told her his deepest secret. “It’s about Beck. We have history.”

  She met his gaze. “I know. You went to college together.” Bending one leg, she rested her knee on the sofa, settling in.

  He let out a groan and decided to get the truth out there and over with. “Okay, here goes. Beck and I were best friends, and late sophomore year, his room was next door to mine.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were once close.”

  Linc nodded. “He was one of the first guys I met. And when you finally get away from your parents and their rules, you go a little crazy. Drinking, parties. Fun. Anyway, by sophomore year I had a girlfriend.”

  “Lacey,” she said. “I remember.”

  “And Beck had one, too. Her name was Jenna. The four of us hung out together when we could, but Beck was on scholarship and he had to work. A lot.”

  “I know what that’s like,” she murmured.

  His gut churned but he continued. “Jenna resented the time Beck spent working, but there wasn’t anything he could do.”

  He hesitated and Jordan gave him an encouraging nod. “Go on.”

  “One weekend, Lacey went home to see her parents. Beck had to work Saturday night and I went to a frat party. I got drunk. I mean completely shit-faced, typical college, lucky-to-remember-anything wasted. When I made it back to my bed, the room was spinning, and I really thought I was going to hurl.”

  She let out a light laugh. “I can relate more to Beck’s working than your partying, but I saw it all the time around me and I understand. What happened?”

  He shrugged. “To this day I’m not one-hundred-percent sure. I remember a woman crawling into my bed, telling me she was back and she’d missed me, and then she kissed me. I swear to God I thought it was Lacey and she was home early, that is, if I was thinking at all. What I didn’t know or even sense was Jenna had crawled into my bed.”

  “Oh, no.” A horrified expression crossed Jordan’s face, and he wanted to die. “You have to know that, sober, I would never cheat. I grew up with my father fucking around. I wouldn’t do it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t sleep with my friend’s girl. But I was so far gone I was still half drunk the next morning. When Beck walked in and Jenna popped up in bed, crying, telling Beck she was sorry, it just happened, I could barely lift my head.”

  “But he didn’t want to hear it,” Jordan guessed.

  Linc shook his head. “She wanted his attention, and oh, boy, did she get it. Meanwhile, I got a punch in the jaw and would have had a black eye if one of the other guys didn’t come in and pull Beck off me. Then, I finally threw up.” Linc drew a deep breath and leaned back against the couch. “Needless to say, I lost my best friend and my girlfriend. Beck ditched both me and Jenna, who tried to play the martyr for him, and when that didn’t work, she had the gall to attempt to convince me to go out with her.” The woman was a psycho.

/>   “Linc, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” Jordan asked.

  “Nobody knows and I mean nobody. Would you admit you screwed over your best friend?” He could barely look at her now.

  She sighed. “Let me ask you a question to put this into perspective. If a man climbed into bed with a completely drunk woman, pretended to be someone he wasn’t, and slept with her, would there be any actual consent? If someone did that to Chloe, would you blame her for sleeping with someone she thought was her boyfriend?”

  He lifted his head. “Hell no.”

  “Right.” She pinned him with a determined stare, the one she used when she wanted him to think the same way she did.

  And when he thought about his sister in his position, he could look at things differently. “I would consider it rape and I’d beat the shit out of the guy.” His hands were already clenched into fists.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders, getting his attention again with her touch. “Linc, Jenna set you up. You didn’t want to sleep with her. You didn’t agree to sleep with her.”

  He appreciated her not calling it rape. He didn’t think that was something he could discuss or consider. “None of that matters since I did the deed. I slept with Beck’s girl, and now he clearly somehow managed to partner with my father, and if I can’t come up with the money to cover this down payment, Beck will become my partner in my business.”

  And the more Linc thought about it, the more pissed off he became.

  Jordan squeezed his shoulders before dropping her hands. “Listen. He’s been holding a grudge for over a decade. It’s time for him to get over it. And if it just so happens it was a good business deal? There’s no doubt he saw the upside of sticking it to you.”

  Linc nodded, relieved and grateful Jordan was looking at this from a rational point of view and not thinking he was the scum of the earth he’d thought himself at the time. And had for years after. He’d kicked himself so often, he forgot to think about how he missed Beck as a friend and regretted that things had gone south between them and he’d lost a man he’d once thought of as a brother.

  “Since you know who it is, can you go see him and discuss possibilities to fix this without losing a piece of the company?” Jordan asked.

  Linc winced. “I can try. But we’ve been bidding against each other for years without actually having face-to-face contact. But I plan to see what I can do because Dad owes much more than our liquid assets.”

  A few quiet seconds passed and Jordan finally spoke. “Are you okay?”

  He rolled his stiff shoulders. Now that she knew everything, much of the emotional burden had been lifted. But the future of his company was at stake, and he’d be damned if he’d let an old grudge stand in the way of keeping it in the family.

  “Linc?” She ran her tongue over her lips, moistening them. Tempting him.

  “Yeah.” He glanced at Jordan.

  She tipped her head to one side, her ponytail brushing her shoulder. “Maybe you can use your father’s dementia to declare the contract null and void.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “We agreed to keep the news to the family. If it gets out, any deals he did in the last year, even legitimate ones I knew about, could be undone by someone with regrets taking us to court.”

  She visibly cringed. “Okay, I understand. So what do you suggest?”

  “Either I get Beck to be reasonable … or I find a way to pay.”

  Jordan nodded. “So you have a plan.”

  He shot her a grateful look, once again struck by how vital she was to him. How understanding even when he didn’t expect it or think he deserved it. How he couldn’t live without her in his life. “Jordan?”

  She looked at him, concern in her gaze. “What is it?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Thanks for not judging me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t thank me. I know you, Linc. And there is no way you’d deliberately hurt a friend. Or cheat. Discussion closed, okay?”

  He was dying to pull her into him and kiss those soft lips, in much more than gratitude. He leaned forward, unsure what he planned, and Jordan jumped up from her seat.

  “I vote we go back to the city. I have a ton of laundry and cleaning to do.” Cheeks burning, she turned away.

  God dammit. What did he need to do to ease her into being comfortable with testing the waters of a relationship? He couldn’t stop thinking about their night, their compatibility in all ways, and he wanted to see if they could make a go of things.

  Had he done a one-eighty? Yes. But he couldn’t imagine another woman who understood him as well or who he desired more.

  Chapter Six

  Jordan arrived at work early on Monday with a Starbucks grande chai tea latte for herself and a tall dark roast with milk for Linc. She wasn’t surprised when he strode in a few minutes after her. He, too, always showed up before nine.

  “Good morning,” he said, pausing by her desk outside his office.

  She smiled. “Good morning to you. Coffee’s on your desk.”

  “Thanks. How was the rest of your weekend?”

  She shrugged. “Fine. Busy with the usual. Errands, straightening up, laundry. Claire came over Saturday night,” she said of her sister. “We ordered pizza and watched a movie.”

  “How is your sister?”

  Claire hadn’t spent as much time at Linc’s house when their mom was working. Being older, she’d had a job after school.

  “She’s good.” She looked back at her computer screen.

  “So I take it you were too busy to return my calls or texts?” He propped a hip on the corner of her desk.

  His arousing masculine scent, woodsy cologne mixed with a hint of spice, reminded her of why she’d avoided him all weekend. “I answered you. I asked if you needed to talk about work and you said no.” So she’d dodged getting back in touch.

  He braced a hand on the papers strewn across her desk and leaned close. “What’s going on, Jordan?”

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and released it. Big mistake. His gaze tracked the movement, his eyes darkening.

  “I’m just making sure we have our boundaries set,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re my best friend. My person. We have no boundaries.”

  Before she could answer, he rose and adjusted his suit jacket. “Any messages?” he asked, back in boss mode after shaking her to her core.

  “Not yet but it’s early.”

  He nodded. “Well, you know where to find me.” He started for his office and turned back around. “Want to get lunch?”

  “I’m going to ask Suzanne to go out to eat. See what else she could tell me.” Jordan pointedly didn’t discuss specifics in the office.

  Approval lit his eyes. “Good. And if she isn’t free, we’re going to Ocean Prime. Make a reservation and use my name. And if not today, make one for tomorrow.”

  Her eyes opened wide. Ocean Prime was not a typical business-lunch restaurant. It was a make-an-impression one.

  At some point in the last couple of days, Linc had changed their MO, and he hadn’t filled her in on why. He was attempting to push beyond the friend zone they’d been in for years, after he’d said sex between them couldn’t happen again.

  As much as she wished things were different, nothing had changed, at least in her mind. She still didn’t want sex screwing up their relationship … pun intended. And she definitely knew she didn’t belong in his world.

  Aurora’s reaction to the Kingston Estate solidified Jordan’s feelings, because like Linc’s new sister, Jordan could relate to not fitting in. Besides, she still carried the pain caused by Collin hiding his relationship with her from his family, his horrified reaction when he’d gotten her pregnant, and the money he’d offered her to take care of the problem.

  She covered her stomach with her hand at the memories, certain she was doing the right thing by putting up a wall. She couldn’t handle it if she lost Linc. For any reason.
r />   She settled in to work and had no idea how much time had passed when a familiar voice interrupted her.

  “Hi. Got a minute?”

  Jordan glanced up at Chloe Kingston and smiled. “For you? Of course.” She pushed aside the keyboard on the desk as Chloe settled into a chair across from her.

  Blonde hair and pale skin, in stark contrast to Jordan’s darker coloring, Chloe was a beautiful woman with features similar to her mother’s, and blue eyes with a darker rim, the same color as Linc’s.

  “I like your dress,” Jordan said, admiring the printed dress with a ruffle above the knee.

  Chloe smiled. “Thanks!”

  “How’s the wedding planning going?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Good! I’ve been so busy with everything. Who sits at what table, packing up my apartment because we’re moving in together right after the wedding. I sublet my place, so I’ll need to be out and put things somewhere before the big day.”

  “Is Owen excited, too?” Jordan asked of Chloe’s fiancé, Owen Pritchard.

  Chloe’s eyes dimmed a bit. “It’s been hard finding time to see each other lately. He’s been working late, so going away for the honeymoon won’t hurt him.”

  Jordan knew the man was a tax attorney and her brothers disliked a lot about him, from his bland personality to the lack of interest in things that were important to Chloe. Her comment merely cemented her siblings’ feelings, but Jordan remained silent, as it was none of her business.

  “I’m sure it’ll all settle down once you’re married and live together,” she said instead.

  Chloe nodded. “I know it will. So I actually came to talk to you for a reason. I was thinking of throwing Aurora a baby shower. Do you think she’d like that?”

  “I think she’d love it! And anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  “I will. Let me see if I can book the country club and find a good date that works for everyone,” Chloe said, and Jordan did her best not to cringe at the thought of going to their club. Her times there as an adult hadn’t been comfortable.