He chuckled in unspoken agreement as he followed her into the kitchen. “True, but that doesn’t mean I’ll admit that the place is cute and you’ve done a great job of fixing it up. Nor will I tell Mom and Dad how bright and cheerful it looks.” He peered into the kitchen. “Flowers?” he demanded with mock disdain. “Seriously? You had to cover the windows with flowered curtains.” Sighing, he shook his head. “You’re such a girl!”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she rolled her eyes. Then she turned serious, looking up at her brother. “I’m so glad that you’re here. I want you to meet someone.”
“Someone special?” he asked, stealing a carrot from the tray she’d been setting for dinner with Jackson. “Someone that has kept you from chatting with your one and only younger brother who hasn’t seen you in almost a year or spoken to you in a week?”
She stopped cutting and set down the knife, looking at her brother. Truly looking at him as she contemplated his words and tried to figure out how to reply. In the end, she went with complete honesty. Roy would see through any half-truths anyway. “Yes. He’s very special.”
Roy stopped chewing the carrot, frozen as he looked down at her. “How special?” he asked, the teasing glint gone from his hazel eyes that were so similar to her own.
“Very.” She took a deep breath. “I love him,” she admitted, then slowly released that breath. “Wow! I hadn’t said it out loud before! Not even to myself, actually.”
Jackson pulled up outside of Melanie’s house, determined to tell her how he felt about her and about where he’d like their relationship to go in the future. He wasn’t exactly sure how she would take it but…he wanted her to know. They’d been together for six weeks now. He’d never been with someone for that long before but he knew that there was something different about Melanie. Something he wanted for the rest of his life.
But as soon as he parked his car on the street, he noticed that the front door was ajar. “What the hell?!” Panic seized him by the throat, his heart slamming in his chest, he hurried up the porch steps.
“Love is a pretty big step. Are you sure that it’s love?”
Jackson froze in the middle of her tiny family room, staring at the tall, handsome man who was holding Melanie’s hands. His Melanie! What the hell was going on?!
That’s when she beamed up at him and the look…it was soft and…hell, that was not a friendly smile! “Yes. I’m sure. It’s love. A crazy love that makes me laugh and cry and feel good all the time.”
What the…?! Melanie was in love…with that guy? Jackson felt his body go icy cold, then hot. Fury unlike anything he’d ever experienced before hit him. And that was before the other guy took her into his arms.
“If you’re sure, then that’s great, Mel.”
Jackson wanted to rip the man’s arms off and beat him to death with them. Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the house, slamming his car door. Tires squealed in the distance and he wondered vaguely who would be driving like a lunatic in a neighborhood with such narrow streets, but he was too intent on getting away. Melanie, his Melanie, was in love? With someone else? Impossible! Just last night, she’d looked at him as if she were in love with him! Only moments ago, he’d been about to propose!
Back at his place, he poured himself a large scotch, downing it in one swallow. But even the burn of the scotch couldn’t douse the fury inside of him. Nor could it stop the picture of Melanie declaring her love to another man from playing behind his eyes.
He poured another scotch and took the glass over to the windows, staring out at the summer skyline. Melanie was in love with another man? He didn’t understand! How could she have given herself so completely to him, while being in love with someone else? That just didn’t make any sense!
His cell phone rang and he looked over at his discarded jacket. Jackson didn’t even remember taking it off, much less tossing it over the back of the sofa. His cell phone had fallen onto the tile floor, causing the sound to echo in the big, empty room. Looking around, he noticed all of the tan in his house. Tan was just a muted color of brown, he realized. Everything in his damn house was brown, tan, or…tan. There was no color. There were no flowers. Hell, he didn’t even have a plant!
Six weeks ago, he’d never thought twice about his house. It was a place where he slept at night and changed clothes. Other than that, it was just…a house. It provided shelter and had a place for him to grab something to eat if he wasn’t going out somewhere. But it was just a house. There wasn’t anything special about the place, although the architecture was pretty damn impressive.
It wasn’t colorful though. And it didn’t have that cozy feel that invited one to sit back and relax. It was just…brown. Tan. Boring!
Which was probably why he’d been spending so much time at Melanie’s house lately. She had flowered curtains and colorful pillows, a quilt on her bed that her grandmother had made for her. It was frayed at the edges, but he liked it. Hell, the shower was pink! A damn throwback to the seventies, which hadn’t been in good taste even then. But Melanie had made that stupid, pink bathroom look…quaint, charming.
“Damn it!” he grumbled and lifted the crystal decanter of scotch only to find it empty. “Jake!” he cursed his twin brother, glancing at the empty decanter. “Fill up the damn bottle when you drink my stuff!”
Walking over to the liquor cabinet, he grabbed another bottle of scotch, but this time, he didn’t bother to pour it into the elegant, crystal decanter. He simply poured it straight from the bottle and headed out onto his patio. It was a nice area, he thought. “Why don’t I come out here more often?” In the heat of the summer, this area was high enough that it benefited from a cool breeze, providing a break from the heat. “Because I’ve been over at Melanie’s house too much lately!” He took a long sip of the scotch. Funny, he thought as he lifted the glass up to the sky, his gaze contemplating the liquid, the scotch didn’t burn any longer. In fact, he wasn’t feeling a whole lot of anything at this particular moment.
Unfortunately, his ears were still working! That wasn’t good, he thought and ignored his phone when it started ringing again. Unfortunately, the damn phone didn’t stop, it just kept buzzing, the sound alternating between phone calls and texts. He knew that the calls and messages were probably from Melanie. Or his brother. Chloe might be trying to reach him, but Jackson doubted it. She had no reason to try and besides, she was half a world away with her husband and kids.
Still, he walked over to the phone, irritated that he wasn’t drunk yet. He might not be able to feel his fingers, but he could still feel the…
“No!”
“No what?”
Jackson glared as his brother strolled casually into the room as if nothing were wrong. As if the world were still right and wonderful and, damn it, he hated Jake right now! “I’m changing the locks,” he muttered, taking his scotch and heading back out to the patio in an effort to avoid him.
“Why would you do that?” Jake asked, bringing his own glass of scotch out and sitting next to Jackson on the expensive patio furniture that had barely ever been used. Jackson noted vaguely that his patio furniture was dark brown and light brown, and muttered a curse.
Jackson turned a glassy glare at his twin. “So irritating brothers aren’t able to come in and annoy me?” he offered, lifting his glass up again.
“Ah, so we’re getting drunk, are we?” he asked and lifted his own glass, sipping the expensive scotch rather than gulping it down. “Care to share the reason?”
“No.”
“Melanie…?”
Jackson jerked up off of the chair, walking furiously away. “Don’t ever mention that woman’s name again,” he growled, turning to glare at his brother.
Thankfully, Jake only lifted his hands in the air in surrender. “Never again,” he promised, sitting down in the chair next to his brother. “So…bad night, huh?”
Jackson ignored him, preferring to stare into the skyline of the city. He didn’t want to talk about Melanie and
the other man. Because talking about it, explaining why he was so angry, meant that Jackson would have to replay the images in his mind. Not a good idea at the moment.
Maybe tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow he’d explain to his brother what had happened. Tomorrow, he would be over Melanie. Not that he was overly upset about her tonight. Betrayal was expected of women. He hadn’t thought it of Melanie, but that just meant he was more of a fool than he’d thought. Because he’d trusted her.
Standing up, he moved over to the bannister, leaning a hip against it while one hand slipped into his pocket, his fingers encountered the diamond ring. More evidence of what a fool he’d become. Over a woman! What the hell had he been thinking?! Women weren’t to be trusted! Women were nice distractions from the tedium of one’s day, but he’d made the mistake of thinking Melanie was different.
Not that he’d ever come close to proposing to any of the women in his past.
“Why do you think you’re a fool?” Jake asked.
Jackson’s head swiveled around, glaring at his brother. “I’m not a fool.”
His brother’s face remained impassive as he asked, “So, why did you just tell me that you were a fool?”
Jackson looked down at the amber liquid in his glass. He’d said that out loud?
“Yes. You said it out loud.”
Jackson sighed, putting the glass down. Perhaps he was drunker than he’d thought.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too, but didn’t want to mention it.”
Jackson glared at his brother, furious at…everything! “Would you stop that?”
Jake held up his hands again. “Hey, brother, I’m just responding to your comments.”
Jackson pulled back, wondering what else he’d said.
“That you’re in love with Melanie and something went wrong tonight.” Jake chuckled at Jackson’s scowl as he slapped his brother on the shoulder. “No, you didn’t say that out loud. I just read your mind. There are some advantages to being a twin, you know.”
Jackson leaned his forearms against the bannister, bowing his head as he considered his next move. “I’m over her.”
Jake leaned against the railing as well. “You’re not. Why don’t you talk to her? I’m sure whatever you fought about wasn’t worth this kind of heartache.”
“I don’t have any heartache,” Jackson argued. “And I’m not speaking to…that woman…ever again.”
“Right,” Jake replied, nodding his head. “But…could you fill me in on what she did to upset you?”
“No.” He walked into his bedroom, stripping off his clothes and stepped into the shower. Standing in the shower, he tried to wash away the stink of tonight, to get rid of the stench of Melanie’s betrayal. But instead, he was overwhelmed by memories of Melanie, her soft touches, the way she’d kiss him lower and lower until she was on her knees, pleasuring him. Or when he would find the spots on her body that made her shiver until he was on his knees in front of her, one of her legs tossed over his shoulder as he pleasured her. And the way she clung to him as her body throbbed with release.
Muttering a string of curses, he shut off the water and grabbed a towel off of the stack right beside the shower area. Glancing at the clock, he realized that it was close to midnight. Where the hell had the evening gone? And had he really been drinking ten thousand dollar scotch for the past six hours?
“Hell!” he grumbled and whipped the sheets back on his bed. But try as he might, he couldn’t sleep. Because the bed was all wrong. It didn’t have lumps. It didn’t have a handmade quilt.
And it didn’t have Melanie curled up against his side.
“Damn it!”
Jackson sprang out of bed and pulled on clothes. It was two in the morning and he wasn’t getting any sleep. “Might as well be productive,” he muttered to himself. He headed for his home office. Logging on, he worked through the backlog of e-mails, sending instructions on several ongoing projects.
By the time Jake walked into the room with a cup of coffee the following morning, he was way ahead of schedule.
Jake walked into Jackson’s home office, looking rumpled and exhausted, but not nearly as rough as Jackson felt. “You realize that you’ve just sent out fifty e-mails to the staff with instructions to do all sorts of things that are already in the works, right?” Jake asked, leaning a shoulder against the doorway.
“You need to shave,” Jackson muttered, snatching the mug and taking a long sip of steaming hot coffee.
“You’re judging my appearance?” Jake asked, chuckling. “At least I got a few hours of sleep. You were the one pacing around in your bedroom, showering, and muttering curses all night.”
That might be a fair jab. Jackson hadn’t looked in the mirror this morning. When his hand touched his cheek, he was shocked to discover that he hadn’t shaved this morning. Ignoring that, he looked over at his computer monitor. “Why are you here?”
“Because you’re upset and someone had to babysit you,” he explained, turning on his heel and walking out of Jackson’s office. “And to stop you from taking over the world, apparently.”
“I heard that!” Jackson called out as he headed for his bedroom to get dressed for the day.
Jake chuckled as he pulled his ringing cell phone from his pocket. “Hi honey,” he greeted his wife, Megan. “No, he’s not okay. Something happened with the woman he’s been seeing and he’s pretty upset about it. Are you doing okay?” He paused for a moment, smiling at whatever she said. “Well, I’ll be home tonight.”
Jackson didn’t want to listen to his brother talk to his wife with that affectionate tone of voice. It irritated the hell out of him! “Go home. I don’t need you here,” Jackson snapped, pulling a dress shirt on. “Megan is pregnant. She needs you a whole lot more than I do.”
Jake ignored him. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you in a while,” he said softly to his wife, then slipped the phone into his pocket. “You’re a mess.”
“I’m fine,” Jackson argued back. The doorbell rang and he looked over his shoulder at Jake. “Tell me you didn’t call Mom.”
“I didn’t call Mom,” Jake assured him, then watched as Jackson opened his door to reveal Chloe, their sister. Technically, she was only their half-sister. But since Deni Hughes, their mother and Chloe’s stepmother, had raised Chloe since she was five years old, the brothers had claimed Chloe as their full sister. And she never argued with them. At least, she never argued about the little stuff. When they’d stuffed chewing gum into the pockets of her jeans or put mud in her favorite shoes, the ones she was going to wear to a fancy dance with the boy she was ‘in love with’, she’d gone ballistic about that. Sisters!
Melanie pushed the sheets off her legs and forced her feet over the side of the bed.
Then sat there. She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to cook breakfast. She didn’t want to do anything.
She’d called Jake last night, out of desperation, needing to know that Jackson wasn’t hurt or killed. Jackson hadn’t arrived at her place for dinner as planned so, when he still wasn’t there hours later and he hadn’t answered his phone, she’d finally convinced the security guard to contact Jake Hughes to make sure that Jackson was okay.
Jake had texted an hour later, letting her know that Jackson was fine, just getting drunk. Although, Jake didn’t know why.
And Melanie hadn’t heard anything from either of them since. She hadn’t slept at all, wondering why Jackson was getting drunk and she couldn’t believe he would simply ignore her phone calls and texts all night. That was so unlike him. They texted several times a day when he didn’t have back to back meetings. Sometimes the messages were fun and flirty. Other times, he told her exactly what he was going to do to her as soon as he saw her, causing her to tremble with need and anticipation until he walked through her door.
Roy turned when she walked into the kitchen, sympathy in his eyes as he handed her a cup of coffee. “No word?” he asked, pulling her into his arms.
“I’m sure he�
�s okay,” she told her brother, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“Why don’t you go talk to him face to face, find out what happened last night?”
Melanie bit her lower lip, not sure what to do. Jackson’s silence last night seemed to tell her exactly what was going on. “I don’t know,” she replied, thinking that she should have anticipated this. Jackson was a player. He’d warned her from the beginning that he wasn’t a long-term kind of guy. She should have been prepared for this.
But something told her that there was more to this story than just Jackson being finished with their relationship. Something was wrong.
Roy sighed and patted her back as only a brother could. It was an awkward gesture, but filled with love and concern. “Talk to him, Mel. From what you’ve told me about this guy, last night was completely out of character.”
Melanie wiped the tears from her eyes. “Fine. But you have to come with me. I can’t face him alone.”
“Scary man?” he teased, tweaking her nose slightly.
“He can be very scary at times.”
An hour later, wearing in her favorite dress, which made her feel powerful, she stepped into the executive area of JJH Technologies.
“Good morning, Ms. Larsden,” Doris greeted Melanie as soon as she walked in.
“Is Jackson avail–”
“No. I’m busy,” Jackson interrupted, coming up from behind her and simply walking into his office and slamming the door.
Melanie stared at the empty doorway, her heart feeling as if it might explode from the pain lodged there.
Melanie turned, looking into the shocked eyes of Jackson’s assistant. Melanie didn’t know what to say, how to react.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Larsden,” Doris whispered, leaning forward. “He’s been in a foul mood all morning. I have no idea what’s gotten into him.” She patted Melanie’s shoulder. “I’ll call you when he’s in a better mood.”
Melanie looked at Jackson’s assistant as her heart ached even more painfully and forced a smile. “That’s okay. I don’t think I’ll need to discuss anything with him.” She lifted her chin and added, “Ever.”
Her Secret, His Heir (The Diamond Club Book 11) Page 7
