by Violet Duke
Mike also left the room to give Jackson some time with Leila.
Jackson was starting to think the man was a freaking psychic.
Sitting back down in the chair beside Leila’s bed where he’d remained almost entirely for the past three days, he smoothed her hair away from her face, wishing he could see her eyes right in this moment.
One last time.
“Are you ready to talk about the Nate situation now?” came a grave voice from the door.
Jackson’s gaze never left Leila’s face. He wanted, needed to memorize every last detail. If he couldn’t keep her in his life, he was determined to preserve her in his memories.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Caleb,” he replied finally.
“Jackson, I understand why you’ve chosen to ignore things until now, but—”
“You understand nothing. The love of your life wasn’t the one shot because your brother had used her as a human shield for bullets intended for him. The one who’d been left for dead. The one who’d been practically drowning in her own blood by the time the medics eventually found her, alone and scared, while your brother was out of the building without a scratch.”
He looked up at a stricken Caleb, knowing he was now finally seeing the hell Jackson had dealt with the past three days, through new lenses.
“You never had to watch Kelly code in front of you twice in one night. You never had to beg her unconscious body not to leave you, beg the universe not to take her from you.”
Jackson heard the bitterness in his own voice crackle over the pain breaking his heart. “And you sure as hell didn’t have to undergo all of that while everyone who worked for you shoved mountains of evidence down your throat to try to get you to see how the woman you loved betrayed you.”
Jackson pointed at the stack of folders on the corner table. “I read it. All of it. Every word in there is now burned into my brain, don’t you worry about that. Every piece of proof showing how Leila’s hiring at the station was the result of strings Nate had pulled for her. Every memo and private investigator report detailing the upcoming plans Nate had created to try to pin his crimes on me.”
He pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, and gave her one last look before heading to his overnight bag. “And every part implicating Leila in those plans.”
“Jackson, if I could give you anything that contradicts the evidence, I would. Believe me. It kills me to see you like this, to know you’re going through this.”
A quiet knock on the door sounded shortly before Bennett and Donovan stepped into the room, saving him from having to say anything further. To put words to what he had to do now.
Jackson looked at his two friends, trusting them with the most important thing in his life. “Stay with her. I’ve read the research about patients emerging from these medically induced comas. Everything from hallucinations to violently terrifying nightmares are common. I don’t want her to wake up alone.”
He handed Bennett a piece of paper that had been burning a hole in his pocket for three days. “If she asks for me, give this to her. It explains everything she needs to know.”
—
Leila tried to open her eyelids, but they felt so heavy. Sounds started overloading her eardrums in deafening symphony. Machines beeping, announcements off in the distance, voices all around her. When she finally managed to crack her eyes open a sliver, shards of light and color flooded her field of vision, momentarily blinding her.
After a few chaotic moments, she could finally make out faces she recognized.
Bennett and Donovan.
But no Jackson.
It all came rushing back to her then.
The gunfire. The excruciating pain and terrifying panic.
The broken fragments of unconscious memories filled with doctors and instruments and sounds and smells she was having a hard time separating from her very worst nightmares.
None of them as heartbreaking as the sound of Jackson’s anguished voice whispering in her ear, the sound of him pleading with God to show mercy.
For her.
In spite of the fact that she’d been found in the home of the brother who’d been plotting against him all along, the brother she wasn’t even supposed to know, he’d begged for mercy for her.
Leila’s vision blurred with burning hot tears. Of course Jackson wasn’t there. She didn’t expect him to be. But in her heart, she’d prayed he would be. Suddenly, she felt so tired, like she’d run a marathon. And came in dead last. Alone.
She closed her eyes then, wondering if the world would still look as bleak when she opened them again.
—
“Stop trying to make her laugh, you dumbass.” Donovan whacked Bennett upside the head. “She just got her intubation tube removed. She’s supposed to be taking it easy. Groaning through your inappropriate-as-hell jokes is the exact opposite of the doctor’s orders.”
Bennett feigned a look of confused offense. “How is a joke about a guy and his pet iguana’s—”
“For crying out loud,” complained Donovan.
Leila giggled as the pair continued to bicker while fluffing her pillows and giving her sips of water for her raw throat. While Donovan was right on the laughing being a little more than she could handle right now, she was firmly on Bennett’s side on this one. It felt good to laugh for a change. It’d been so long since she heard any laughter at all.
It gave her hope.
When she was finally able to use her voice again, she said the only thing that had remained a constant in her mind throughout.
“Jackson.”
It came out as barely a broken whisper, but it managed to freeze both Donovan and Bennett in place. Bennett reached in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper folded in fourths, and placed it in her hands. “We’ll be right outside. Take your time.”
Leila stared down at the note, doing her best to brace her heart for what she’d find inside.
Nothing could have prepared her for Jackson’s final words to her.
Sunshine,
No one—not one mortal man in your heaven, or my hell—will ever love you as much as I do…but I want you to at least get the chance to find someone who will try.
Always yours,
Jackson
The tears she’d held back since the moment she opened her eyes to find he wasn’t there, finally fell in rivers down her cheeks.
She’d lost him.
Despite all her best efforts, and all the love she had bursting out of the seams for him, she was no better than every other person in his life who’d hurt and betrayed him.
She’d broken his trust.
And for that, she’d never forgive herself.
“Sweetheart, don’t cry.” Bennett reentered the room and slid his hand into hers. “It’ll be okay. When you’re well enough, we’ll all go talk to Jackson.”
Donovan slid his thumb over her cheeks to wipe her tears away. “Is there anything we can do? You name it, sweets, and it’s yours.”
After several long, silent minutes spent reliving the last few months, the last few days, she finally nodded and replied hoarsely, “Need my phone.”
She had some important calls to make…thirty-two, to be exact.
Well, thirty-one.
Donovan would be the best person to handle the other one.
Chapter 32
After nearly half a month in the hospital, and then another overly cautious week and a half in bed at her apartment under the watchdog eyes of Donovan and Bennett, Leila was going stir crazy with cabin fever.
It was a miracle she was still sane. She’d done the math. She’d been thirteen years old the last time she’d gone a whole month without working.
Funny what kinds of random and trivial facts the brain could recall when you’re held hostage in your own home by two former All-American football players, who only took a break from babysitting detail to go have sex with their female flavors of the week, on alternating rock-paper-scissors-determined schedules, of cour
se—an agreement they came to on day two of her house arrest, after they deemed her a flight risk when she’d attempted to go to the store for some orange juice the night they’d both happened to have a date.
The thing was, even on the nights one of them would go off to have their hard-earned—insulting though the idea was, their rock-paper-scissors battles were admittedly epic—night of sex, they’d be back in four or five hours, tops, usually with pizza or Chinese takeout. Or just dessert if their night went especially well.
If they weren’t just the sweetest freaking guys ever, Leila would’ve been sure they were grade-A asshats when it came to women, based on their post-coital habits alone.
Now as they were coming to the end of her doctor-ordered take-it-easy period, her boys no longer had a valid excuse to keep her in the house. They needed to let her go face the aftermath of the shooting.
It was an ugly new world she’d returned to, and while she’d appreciated Donovan and Bennett—meaning really, Jackson by proxy—trying to shield her from it all, she needed to deal with the reality of the situation.
Unfortunately for her, it didn’t take longer than forty-eight hours for her to discover that the damage was too severe.
In the month since she’d been shot, she’d become the most talked-about person on Internet search engines under the search term “NFL” and apparently, “billionaire ménage” as well.
It came as no surprise that the NFL was not pleased with this development, her network executives, even less so.
By the end of the day, she’d had her desk cleared out and a box with nothing more than a small plant, some notebooks, and the framed articles Jackson had once given her, tucked under her arm as she returned her security clearance badge and was escorted out of the building.
When she got back to her apartment, thankfully, there were no reporters waiting outside—not even the few and faithful who’d been basically stalking her every movement for weeks. Apparently a story had just broken about the NFL’s most notorious bad boys being involved in an actual ménage, with an actual high-class hooker…and a few dozen real-time porn video cameras hidden around the hotel room.
So it seemed Leila was given the reprieve to relinquish that crown for at least tonight.
She took it gratefully.
Sitting in her tub, she’d expected the waterworks to be going full force right about now. But strangely, she just found herself…tired. And sad. Not in a woe-is-me sort of way. Rather, in an I-miss-football capacity.
She imagined Jackson was feeling it even worse—junkie that he was.
Said the pot to the kettle.
She almost called him then, but hung up before she finished dialing the last three digits.
When she curled up in bed that night with some “Football’s Greatest Moments” videos, the knock on her door took her by surprise.
Mainly because she never thought she’d ever see the person standing on the other end of her peephole again.
“Caleb.”
“Ms. Hart.” The distinguished older gentleman bowed his head regally. “I’m so sorry to be visiting so late. Do you have a few spare minutes? I can come back tomorrow if you were going to turn in for the evening.”
For some reason, his ultra-proper speech made her smile. She couldn’t imagine Jackson ever talking like that when he became Caleb’s age.
Just the thought of that happening was enough to make her smile fade.
“Come in. Can I make you some coffee?”
Settled on opposite ends of her small dining table—which she’d just gotten a great price for on Craigslist, as a two-for-one deal with the matching floor lamps she was selling—they sat in silence for a long, pregnant minute, until Caleb finally broke the ice.
“I’m sorry.”
Leila blinked in astonishment.
“I’m sorry to hear you lost your position at the station.”
Oh. Well, that made more sense. She wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that. “Thank you?” was the best she could come up with.
It seemed to be the right answer, because he kept talking, and saying nice things. “I know you worked hard, and it truly is the network’s loss.”
That one earned a genuine, “Thank you.” Then: “What can I do for you, Caleb?” It occurred to her then that she didn’t know Caleb’s last name. He was Caleb the Billionaire.
In her heart she hoped that one day Jackson would no longer have to be the “other Grayhurst.” She’d been the “other” child of her father her entire life. She didn’t want that for Jackson. Jackson the Billionaire sounded much better.
“He gets the same look on his face, you know.”
Startled, she returned to the present to find Caleb smiling faintly at her. “Jackson. He gets the same look on his face when his thoughts drift to you.”
Suddenly, those tears she hadn’t felt like crying in the tub were making themselves known.
“Ms. Hart, I came to tell you that the board of directors at Grayhurst Industries is well aware that your assailant is fabricating every bit of the story he’s been leaking about you to the press.”
She told herself it didn’t matter what a bunch of stuffy old cronies thought of her.
Her watery eyes told a different story, however.
Rather than continuing to repeat what she suspected was going to be a night of thanks, she just nodded and kept listening. Obviously, the man had more to say.
“We’ve investigated and discovered that Nathaniel Junior—Nate—has given a large sum of money to your shooter’s family. We believe that is why the shooter has changed the reason behind the shooting from a crime of revenge against Nate, to a crime of passion against you for leading both the brothers and him along.”
Even though Leila had heard enough of all the rumors about her to have built a tolerance to the awful lies, her stomach still turned when she thought about that particular one.
“We also have enough evidence to prove that Nate is the one responsible for all the various tabloid lies regarding your sexual relationship with both the shooter and Nate. The doctored photo of you, Nate, and Jackson in an apparent threesome has also been linked back to Nate.”
Leila shrugged. “That sounds about right. That day in his house, he promised to destroy my career for not going along with his plans.”
“Did you explain all this to the network?”
“Honestly? It never came up.”
Caleb looked puzzled. “But isn’t this the basis of your termination? The negative smear campaign Nate has apparently launched against you?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
Caleb looked at her for a beat. “By order of the nondisclosure you signed.”
“Yes.”
“Which your lawyers drew up.”
“Yes.”
He paused, and then asked…carefully, “Are you, perhaps, afraid to defend yourself in a public character debate?”
What a clever way to circumvent the parameters of her nondisclosure. “I don’t think it would be a good fight, one way or another.”
“Not for you, or the network?”
“As I said…”
“Not for Jackson?” he pressed.
She flinched. Looking over at the man who clearly looked at Jackson as his own son. “No, it wouldn’t be a good fight for Jackson.”
Silence fell on the apartment for many measured minutes.
Leila sipped at her coffee.
“I’m sorry,” said Caleb quietly, though in a far different tone than he’d had earlier.
“You already mentioned that.”
“This time, I’m apologizing, not offering my condolences.”
She smiled. He was just so proper. In another life, she wondered if they’d be friends. “No apologies necessary. None of this was your fault.”
“My apology is for having misjudged you so egregiously. I was all wrong about you. I let the evidence determine your guilt.”
She gave him a small consolatory smile.
“Isn’t that the very definition of the justice system?”
“What’s just isn’t always what’s right, my dear. A very lucky man I know told me that recently. And he said he’d learned that lesson because a wise young woman helped him see that sometimes, the heart will reveal things that stats and facts won’t.”
Taking in a slow, deep breath, she simply nodded. “That’s good advice. The woman does sound very wise.”
Caleb chuckled. “I agree.” His chair scraped against the tiles as he stood up then. “I’ve taken up enough of your time tonight. I’m glad we had a chance to talk, Ms. Hart.”
“Me too. Thank you for stopping by.”
He gazed at her with what she could only describe as a fatherly look. Never having seen that aimed at her in her life, she couldn’t tell for sure, however. “I hope, Ms. Hart, that we can become friends one day.”
Oh for chrissakes, you’d think the man just granted her asylum in a far off galaxy for the way her tears were carrying on. “Call me Leila.” She wiped away her tears and walked him to the door. “All my friends call me Leila.”
He smiled and tilted his head in one of those jaunty farewells you had to be a billionaire, or British, to pull off. “Thank you, Miss Leila. I’d be honored.”
As she began to close the door, he said one last thing from the hallway. In his most serious, fatherly tone of the night. “As your new friend, I believe it’s my place to tell you…he misses you. Terribly. In case you were wondering.”
“I miss him, too, Caleb. Probably more than he’ll ever know.”
Chapter 33
Leila took the sharp turn next to the Cactus Creek dog park and traveled down the narrow dirt road she’d never actually driven on in her own car before.
She didn’t remember there being this many trees. Probably because her direction had always remained on the amazing view in the car when they drove here.
Rolling to a slow crawl midway down the lonely road, she frowned, definitely not remembering there being a small security hut in front of the entry gate.
A lot can change in a month.
For the first time since leaving her apartment, she second-guessed her rash decision to come out here without at least calling first.
