“I will, Tinker Bell. I will.”
His promise made, she pushed her hair back from her face. “Jas?”
“Yeah?”
“I know you’re busy—”
“I’m never too busy for you.”
“Can you talk to me for a while?”
“About anything in particular?”
She shook her head. “I don’t care.”
“Could I do it somewhere other than here, or is it important that I be on my knees?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes before taking up his hand and towing him over to the small couch in her sitting area. She pushed him back into the fluffy cushions and sat down beside him, worming her way under his arm and settling her head against his shoulder. His shirt was going to get wet, and he didn’t care.
Jasper told her about the deal he should have been negotiating, leaving that part out, and though he thought it would intrigue her about as much as watching paint dry, she asked him questions and seemed interested. After a while, her questions came farther apart and then stopped altogether. She’d fallen asleep, her deep even breaths misting hot on his chest, a spot of drool seeping through his shirt.
He maneuvered his phone out of his pocket without waking her, sent a few emails to the people he would’ve pissed off and then sat back, taking comfort in her ease until it got dark.
Chapter Ten
September
“No. Fuck you.”
He’d known she wouldn’t be thrilled about the idea, but he hadn’t quite imagined this. Probably he was a lunatic, as Keyne had called him a few minutes before. It’s possible he could’ve come up with a better way to introduce the idea that wouldn’t have resulted in her storming out of the library and to her room. Too late for that, it was time for damage control.
“Keyne—”
“Did I stutter? Go to hell, there’s no way.”
He fought to keep his hands by his sides instead of scrubbing them through his hair. This girl was maddening. Had he been this insensible as a teenager? He didn’t think so, but then again he’d probably been off making even more trouble while their parents had been dealing with toddlers Gavin and Keyne. She’d been as stubborn then, too.
“Look. I think this will help.”
“And I think you can shove it.”
Had she talked this way to Bill and Marcy? He couldn’t dig up any memories of it if she had, but then again, they’d been indulgent parents. He’d always enjoyed that about his own parents growing up, but now he questioned their wisdom. Also, how was it Gavin had been a happy-go-lucky puppy dog and Keyne had turned into a hellcat?
Again, he thudded his head against her bedroom door. “Can we talk about this, please? Like rational people?”
When the door flew open, he nearly fell into her room, but caught himself in time, and there she was, looking like an enraged fairy. Not the cute ones, either. The ones that were said to wreak havoc on human lives. Well, she’d certainly wreaked havoc on his.
“I will discuss this like a rational person when you treat me like one, instead of a small child.”
Right, because you’re definitely not acting like a child at this very goddamn second. Luckily, he was far back enough from the frame she didn’t hit him with the door when she slammed it in his face.
He sighed and levered himself onto the floor, trying to find a comfortable way to sit on the runner and the wood, because this was going to take a while. Once he’d made himself at home—knees spread with his elbows resting on top, back against the door—he tried again.
“Look. There’s this thing called decision fatigue. Making decisions is exhausting, and it uses up energy that could be used for more important tasks.”
He paused, turning his ear against the door to see if Keyne would have any measurable response, but there was nothing. It would be awesome if he wasn’t sitting in the hallway yammering on to himself while she was sitting at her desk, complaining about him on social media and listening to her headphones at top volume.
“That’s why I like having Ada. She plans the menu for the week, gives it to me, and all I have to do is say yes.” It hadn’t been that way the first year or so, but now Ada was a pro at knowing what he’d be likely to want; what his comfort foods were, what sort of food he liked to serve when there were guests. “It’s part of the reason schools have uniforms. If you don’t have to make all these tiny decisions, you’ll have more energy to spend on the bigger decisions.”
Like whether or not to cut yourself. Whether you should do your homework or not. Which colleges you should apply to. Whether or not you want to keep being alive.
Since the incident a few weeks ago, he didn’t think Keyne had cut herself again, and she’d been talking to him more, but he also knew she was burning out trying to keep up with everything on top of the work she was doing with her therapist. Because she’d started actually making use of the guy.
He’d tried to figure out a way to take even more off her plate, which is how he’d come up with the proposal that she have set homework hours, a bedtime, and when she wasn’t wearing her uniform for school, he’d pick her clothes. Ada already planned breakfast and dinner, but now she’d make a lunch for Keyne, too. All what he considered relatively minor decisions, but that could add up in a hurry to put a dent in the energy she had on any given day.
Jasper’s latest idea wasn’t winning him a fan, but Keyne might thank him later and that had to be good enough. He’d done some studying up on decision fatigue, and it was real. It was something he took advantage of in his business dealings, wearing down allies and enemies alike with minutiae and saving the things that mattered for the end when they’d wave wearied hands and say, “Whatever you think is best.”
If she asked, that’s where he’d tell Keyne he’d learned about it. Never mind it also happened to be a theory he’d connected to a lot of the women he’d been with. Played with. Many of them were take-no-prisoners, in-charge overachievers who pounded their fists on the glass ceiling every day or smashed it with their stilettos. He admired them and took notes on their business strategies because that’s what successful people did—took what worked for others and molded it to work for themselves.
It also meant at the end of the day or the week, all they wanted to do was let it all go, let someone else be in charge. That wasn’t the case for every successful woman, obviously, but for enough of them for him to notice. And he’d been more than happy to take those responsibilities on for discrete amounts of time. Let out his frustrations of a deal gone bad or a market tanking by being in a situation where he had all the control. That’s what he found so damn satisfying—being master of everything in his sight. And for that to include a woman who was powerful in her own right? Flat-out intoxicating.
He didn’t want to think about that aspect of it too much when he was putting it into practice with Keyne, because this was for her own good. Had nothing to do with him at all, never mind his pleasure. And under no circumstances whatsoever should he be lumping her in with former partners. None.
There was some shuffling behind the door and he hoped that was a sign she was listening to him. Maybe even coming to talk to him. It would be okay if she didn’t right now. She could have some time to think about it, and maybe if she did she’d see he was right. As much as he enjoyed that Keyne was a fighter—she wouldn’t be alive otherwise—he wished she’d give in on this one thing.
He’d been waiting for about fifteen minutes, dealing with emails and making notes on his phone, when the door whipped open, and he fell backward, his head landing with a muted thunk on the plush carpet of Keyne’s room. With his body half in her bedroom and half in the hallway, he must’ve looked ridiculous, but instead of being embarrassed, he merely looked up into Keyne’s dubious face. Her arms were crossed, her hip cocked, and she didn’t look above kicking him while he was down.
“So if you’r
e making all these decisions for me—what I wear, when I go to bed, when I do my homework, what I eat—won’t you get this decision fatigue?”
He threaded his fingers together across his abdomen and laid an ankle against a knee, trying to make it look as though he was in this ridiculous position on purpose. “I could. Although a lot of what I do is already settled. And if it gets to be too much, I can always ask Deja or Ada or someone else who works for me to take on more responsibility. It’s called delegating.”
She scowled at him, but didn’t argue. Instead, she lay down beside him, mirroring his position like this was the most natural thing in the world. Given how chaotic most of her life must seem, it probably was.
“I know what delegating is.”
“Good.”
They laid there, side by side, for another fifteen minutes. And while it was odd, it was nice. When’s the last time he’d lain down next to someone? Not for sex, not for kink, not for anything aside from companionship. He couldn’t remember. He was enjoying it; the soft sound of her breath, the way her ribcage rose and fell at the same rate as his, how a curl of her hair drifted far enough to touch his shoulder.
How long could they do this for and pretend the rest of everything didn’t exist?
Eventually she nudged him with her elbow. “It’s maybe not the dumbest idea you’ve had.”
He was curious as to what she thought the dumbest idea he’d had was, but he didn’t ask in part because if she said bringing her to live with him, he might shrivel up and die.
“So you’ll try it?” Maybe he shouldn’t have phrased it as a question, giving her such an easy way to say no, but he needed her buy-in on this. It wouldn’t work if she fought him tooth and nail. Then she’d be using most of her brain power to figure out ways to defy him, and they’d be back to square one.
“Fine. But the second you make me look ridiculous, this is over. Also, I don’t like lettuce.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” he muttered under his breath, which earned him a swift and, to be honest, well-deserved elbow to the ribs. “I mean great, I’ll take that under advisement.”
Then there were footfalls in the hallway and they pushed up on their elbows at the same moment to see Ada standing over them.
“What on earth . . . No, never mind. I don’t need to know. Just wanted to let you know dinner’s ready. Ratatouille, and I made chocolate cake for dessert.”
“No lettuce?”
Ada’s brows crunched together as she put her hands on her hips, and there was another elbow to his ribs along with a hissed “shut up.” “No. Should I—”
“No, Ada. Thank you. We’ll be right there.”
A frown, more curious than irritated, crossed her face before she shook her head and headed back to where she’d come from. And when he turned to face Keyne again, they both burst out laughing. What a sound.
Chapter Eleven
October
She stormed down the hall, walking on the hardwood floors instead of on the lux runners that lined all the hallways in Jasper’s house. She wanted to hear her feet slap on the floor, wanted the pain that shot through her heels when she brought her soles down too hard. Where was he?
Not in his bedroom, not in the library, he must be in his office. She didn’t bother knocking when she reached the door, but pushed the heavy mass of wood out of her way. There he was, elbows on his desk as he massaged his temples with his fingers. If he thought he had a headache now . . .
“No, Carson. We can’t do that. We’d have to sell at the current price and we’d lose millions. Find me some other way—”
She threw down the newspaper on his desk, the pages whipping so close to his face she might’ve grazed his nose. Jasper looked up at her, his eyebrows raised with something she couldn’t quite call annoyance. “You’ll have to excuse me. Could we pick this up in ten minutes?”
He was looking at her, but he was talking to the people on the phone. Jasper never made her wait. The warming of her heart got smothered when she looked down at the article again. How could he?
Jasper clicked the phone off and cocked his head. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, you can. You can tell me what the hell this is.”
She slapped her hand onto the surface of the paper, the words already smudged because she’d handled the pages so much. Jasper gingerly took hold of her wrist and moved her hand. Even though he was gentle, her breath caught with the touch. She didn’t have time to dwell on what exactly that feeling might be because when his eyes caught the headline, his jaw tightened.
“Where did you get this?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me. Where did you get this?”
“Someone at school put it on my desk in physics.”
“Look, Keyne, I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to see this. I didn’t think you would.”
She wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Curtis Bowen. It’s not like she read the goddamn Wall Street Journal. But apparently Curtis did, the slimy smug-faced rat. He’d put it on her desk knowing it would upset her. She’d had to ask Miss Donegal to excuse her so she could freak out in the girls’ room instead of in the middle of the lab.
And now she was losing it in Jasper’s office. Half a dozen children’s faces smiled up at her from the newsprint. Half a dozen kids who were dead because there’d been a fire at a garment factory in some province of China she’d never heard of. The whole article was about the unsafe labor practices, how many children had been injured or killed in these types of environments. It listed several American companies that were heavily invested in the industry, including Jasper’s.
“Would me not hearing about it make it okay? What the hell, Jasper? You have kids working in sweatshops?”
“No. I don’t. What I have is a significant stake in a few companies in the clothing manufactur—”
“You killed those kids.”
He flinched, his blocky features cracking, and she wished she could take it back. She knew he hadn’t held a gun to their heads or closed a door when they were trying to escape the flames, but this was almost as bad.
“No. I didn’t.”
How could he be so goddamn logical about these things? It drove her crazy that her mind got twisted up and paralyzed with guilt and sorrow and rage and all kinds of things she couldn’t even name, while he sat there cool as a cucumber. While she struggled with grief, lonesomeness, and god, the guilt of what had happened, especially to Gavin, he just plowed on through life. It made her half jealous and half furious.
It would be easier if she could think of him as a heartless monster, but she knew he wasn’t. And honestly, there was a smidge of gratitude that he could keep his shit together; it made her feel less bad about spewing her psychic ruin all over him. Still, this was not acceptable, and she would make that crystal clear.
“Well, whatever you have, you need to not anymore. You need to sell it, all of it. Is any of my money invested in this stuff? Get rid of it. I don’t want this blood on my hands.”
He closed his eyes and looked as if he were gathering up the scraps of the patience he had with her. When he opened them, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His blond hair was messed up, like he’d been raking fingers through it and she wondered what it would be like to touch. It was short. She wouldn’t be able to grab it between her fingers, but she could run her palms over it, the strands smoothing under her touch like a pelt. But she didn’t want to soothe him right now; she wanted to kick him in the shin or someplace even more painful.
“If you must know, I was trying to plan for that on the phone call you walked in on.”
“Oh.” Well, that took some of the wind out of her sails.
“It’s going to take some time, but I was going to divest myself of those holdings. I can make sure your trust doesn’t have any investments in tha
t sector, either, if it bothers you.”
“How much time?”
Jasper’s lips thinned into a reluctant line. “Few months at least if we wait for all this press to die down, otherwise—”
“Otherwise what?”
“Otherwise, we’ll lose a fortune.”
“So what? You’ve got more money than you know what to do with and so do I. Who fucking cares? Do the right thing.”
“Keyne. Be reasonable. You can’t go making rash decisions all the time because it feels good. I understand you’re upset, I’m also unhappy about this. It was an unfortunate accident—”
Her vision went spotty and red, like it had rage chicken pox. “An unfortunate accident? Is that what you call it when six kids die? Is that what happened when the boat exploded? An accident?”
He’d told her that the Coast Guard and the other law enforcement agencies that had gotten involved had finally determined that there had been no foul play. And while it was a relief in some ways, Jasper hadn’t seemed to relax much.
After all, if they had missed something and it had been intentional, then the people who’d done it were so good at their trade that it was untraceable, and yeah, that idea sent chills down her spine, too. But that wasn’t the issue here, and she wouldn’t allow herself to be derailed by the overwhelming fear that gripped her sometimes when she thought about it too much. He certainly hadn’t been distracted by her pointed dig, because the man was made of stone, body and soul.
“I have an obligation to my employees and to you to manage my money in a fiscally responsible way.”
Jasper could take his responsibility and shove it.
“Then get rid of mine. You can drag your feet if you don’t mind knowing what you’re making money off of, but I do. And that’s my money, not yours.”
“Now,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face. “All right. I’ll call Deja as soon as we’re done here and she’ll take care of it.”
She skimmed back over his words. Something didn’t feel right. It took her a few more mental passes to figure out what it was. “What did you mean, ‘now’?”
His Custody Page 11
