by Kim Law
He glared at her, fully aware he was damn close to groveling, and strong men didn’t grovel. And then it came to him. “At the end of dinner tomorrow night, there’s an auction. Every year I end up being the final sale, silly as it may seem. A day with Jackson Parker Davenport Jr., treated to every indulgence a woman could want.” He finger-quoted the last sentence as that’s how it was advertised, then dropped his arms to his sides, completely out of ideas. “Buy me.”
Dark eyes faded to black. “I’ve seen the results of prior years. Even if I wanted to buy a date with you, I can’t spend money like that.”
“I’ll pay,” he gritted out. “Whatever it costs.” Damn. His father would roll over in his grave if he could hear the way his son was begging a woman to go out with him.
“JP.” Vega took his hands in hers and peered up at him, as sincere as he’d seen her. “I can’t. Buying you would cause the exact opposite of what I want. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”
The cabbie laid on his horn and they both stepped away from the door. JP opened it a couple inches so the driver would know she was on her way, then his chest deflated. He wasn’t ready for her to leave.
With a finality he didn’t accept, Vega pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“I like you, JP,” she whispered. “I think you’re a better guy than you give yourself credit for, but it ends here.” After slipping into her shoes, she smoothed her hands over her hair and gave him a tight smile. “Thanks for a lovely dinner.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HERE WE GO again,” JP uttered as he held the door to his childhood home open for his sister to enter before him.
Reaching up, she patted his cheek as she passed. “Poor baby. Another night of the most rich and eligible—and some not eligible—women of Atlanta, all vying for your undivided attention. How will you ever survive?”
He pushed the heavy door closed behind them and scowled, only half-serious. “You know the auction is not my idea of fun. I don’t know why I let you two talk me into this every year.”
Cat turned to him, her long green gown flowing with the movement, and pointed a finger at him the way only older sisters knew how to do. “You know exactly why. It’s the item that brings in the most money every year. And don’t even think of backing out after you let yourself be dragged into politics either.”
Her mention of what he’d soon be doing took all the fun out of teasing her about the auction. He wasn’t lying; it wasn’t his idea of fun. In fact, it was darn near embarrassing. Yet she was right. How could he not like all those women hooting and hollering over the idea of spending the evening with him? Not to mention running the bid up to such numbers some years he was awed by the action. So he went along with it for the good of the charity—and for his ego. He could think of worse things to be doing.
But the thought of going up for bid after he became senator? That sent a fizzle of terror down his spine. He’d soon have to watch his behavior much more carefully then he already did. Being caught in the tabloids as the most eligible Davenport was one thing, but being there as a Georgia senator? He shook his head with disgust. Attention from the paparazzi was only going to get worse.
“I don’t know why you’re going along with it, you know,” Cat said. He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the auction or the political position, but since the former was her doing, he could only imagine she was referring to the latter. He ignored her.
They asked the housekeeper to inform their mother that they were there to escort her to the gala, and were ushered into the formal sitting room. Since the final event of the weekend was highly covered by the media, it was an important time to ensure they arrived giving the correct appearance. One family, standing strong. JP knew his mother wished every year that his brother would come home to attend as well, but Bennett was career military, and no one could fault him for that.
In his mother’s mind, no one could fault her for being so driven and pushing JP so hard to be in politics either. He didn’t always agree, but he also didn’t let it be known. He had a position in this family, and his father had instilled in him a long time ago what it was. He was to be strong, never show weakness, and above all else, carry forward the Davenport name.
He might be forced into bearing the political Davenport name, but no one was going to coerce him into another kind of heritage if he wasn’t ready. That was one of the reasons he dated so many women. He wanted it clear to his mother that she may drive one part of his life, but she couldn’t have the other. He’d do only what he wanted in his personal life.
Vega Zaragoza’s face as he’d been about to kiss her the night before popped quickly to his mind, and he almost groaned aloud at the thought of what he wanted to do with her. But that was purely lust. He was almost certain of it. Though something about her definitely pulled to him in a way he wasn’t used to. He only wished he could figure out how to convince her to explore it with him. Surely being seen in public with him wasn’t so bad that she could walk away from the heat that literally spiked between them. Yet it appeared that’s exactly what she planned to do.
“We both know politics isn’t anything you honestly aspire to,” Cat continued when her first comment didn’t get a rise out of him. She settled herself gently onto the seat of a Queen Anne–style chair, one of a set passed several generations down through their family, and sent him a knowing look.
“Be quiet.” He leaned back out of the doorway, making sure neither their mother nor Cynthia, her twentysomething housekeeper, was within hearing range. Once he confirmed that all was clear, he shot his sister a dark look. “Don’t say that in here.”
She laughed. “Why should you care? You don’t owe her this.”
“Cat, stop.” He had no idea why she was badgering him on the matter tonight. She knew as well as he did that he had a duty to uphold. “It’s not worth even thinking about.”
Cat was referring to the many times when they were kids that their mother’s ambitions had led her to being somewhere else when he’d thought she should be there with him. He’d gotten used to it, though, and mother and son had gotten beyond the strain it had put on their relationship. At least he had. Mostly. He wasn’t sure his mom was even aware how many times he’d wanted her there to begin with. As a child with dyslexia, he’d always wanted a mother who was proud of him even though he wasn’t perfect.
“I’m just saying, she’s upset you enough times over the years, JP. You know I love her to death, but you shouldn’t let her opinions matter in this. It’s too big.” Cat had lowered her voice, but discussing this in his mother’s house still made him nervous.
“Let it go, Cat. I’m doing what I’ve always known I someday would.”
“You’re not Dad, you know. I think she forgets that too,” Cat urged. “You may look like him, and you may have had this role instilled in you over your whole life, but you don’t have to do it. It’s your life.”
No, it wasn’t. It had never been. Not when he’d wanted to be like all the other kids in school, and not when he’d wanted to attend hockey and baseball games instead of political dinners. Though he had managed to drop out of law school and chase some of his own dreams. At least for a while.
“Drop it, Cat. It’s what I want.”
A sound on the grand staircase caught the attention of both of them, and Cat rose to stand at his side as they watched their mother make her entrance. She wore a gown of floor-length navy, an air of superiority surrounding her that no one would dare argue with, and a sparkle in her eyes that had JP worried. She really was a good woman, but sometimes she was just a little hard to take.
“Mother,” Cat gushed, rushing forward. “You look stunning tonight.”
Emma kissed Cat on the cheek then arrowed her gaze in JP’s direction, where he remained by the sitting room door. “No compliment for your old mom tonight?”
In answer, he offered her his elbow and frowned down at her after she slipped her arm through his. “You look like you’r
e up to no good, Mother. I’m not sure why I’d want to compliment that. Usually your antics do nothing but cause me trouble.”
She shushed away his worries, which only made him frown harder. “I’m merely thrilled to have the excuse to dress up, is all.”
“Oh, please.” He called out a goodbye to Cynthia, who he knew enjoyed the attention from him, and waited for a returned comment and a slight giggle before he turned back to his mother and Cat. “What are you talking about? You dress up all the time. I have it on good authority you were both dressed to the nines for the women’s luncheon yesterday.”
He escorted them both to his waiting SUV and ushered his mother inside the front seat. Once they were all seated, she continued where they’d left off.
“You really are like your father, Jackson. He also never knew the difference between an elegant luncheon and a formal dinner. Especially one where everyone attending will know that my son is about to become the next senator of the United States.”
Ah, so that’s what had her so worked up tonight. Fantastic. Another opportunity for her to live vicariously through him.
Cat snorted from the backseat. “He doesn’t need any ego building, Mother. He already has half the women of this town tweeting about who’s going to win him in the auction, and then whether she’ll go home with him tonight, or if he’ll choose someone else for that particular honor.”
His mother peered over the back of her seat before shooting her son a look. “You really need to start thinking about settling down, Jackson. This continual frolicking will have to stop soon anyway. It’s unbecoming for a Georgia senator.”
“Yet you sign me up for the auction every year,” he said drolly.
“Well, yes, it’s a tradition. At least until you’re married. But that doesn’t mean you have to continue to date a different woman every night. No one wants a roving senator, no matter what his last name.”
Instead of being pulled into the argument, he thumbed a button on his steering wheel and turned the radio on.
His mother lowered the volume and shifted in her seat to face Cat. “Who do you have your money on?”
“Come on,” JP mumbled, not taking his eyes off the road. “It’s bad enough you both talk me into this, but do you have to act like it’s my fault you get the women all worked up?”
Another snort from the backseat. “It’s not us who gets them going. Your reputation speaks for itself. Whatever it is you do on your dates, I’ve never heard a single woman sing anything but your praises.” Cat scooted over to the middle of the seat and leaned forward, putting her face between the seats in a way he remembered seeing her do as a child. “Except to complain that you can’t be talked into more than the occasional night. Really, JP. You’re getting older. How do you maintain the stamina?”
“Seriously?” he gritted out. “Can we talk about something else for once? Every single year it’s the same thing. I pick you two up because you insist you can’t arrive at the gala alone, yet I get berated the whole way there. Geez,” he grumbled. “Pick a new topic for once.”
His mother craned her neck to get a good look at his face, and he caught a pinched look momentarily etched around her mouth. “Is everything okay, Jackson?”
He shook his head. Everything was just fine. Why wouldn’t it be? He didn’t have the life he wanted, he couldn’t get the woman he wanted, and his mother continued to have visions of his world turning out just like hers and his father’s, the supposed perfect marriage. Only…he knew better. He knew about Daniel.
Cat piped up from the back. “He’s upset because the woman he wants to bid on him tonight can’t. She’ll be there working instead.”
He threw a hard stare into the rearview mirror, accomplishing nothing but making Cat giggle.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
He liked that she definitely seemed to be coming out of her mourning period for her husband, but why she had to continually taunt him was a mystery.
His answer was another shift of his thumb, pumping music into the cab of the vehicle, this time louder. His mother sat back and looked back and forth between the two of them.
“Is she right?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the music, and he didn’t even feel bad about it. “Do you have your eye on someone, Jackson?”
“For crying out loud.” He jabbed at the wheel, and the music silenced, then he took a hard right and shot up the interstate on-ramp. “Cat’s just pecking for information on my date last night.”
“I’m not pecking,” Cat said smugly. “I know exactly how it went. You had dinner at my house, and when I returned, she was gone and you were there doing the dishes. Alone. I doubt you ran over to her hotel after tucking Becca and Tyler into bed, either.”
“Interesting,” Emma murmured. “Who is this woman and why don’t I know about her?”
“I don’t make a habit of introducing my dates to you, Mother.”
“Yet I’m typically fully aware of who you do and do not go out with. I don’t recall hearing a thing about this one.”
“It was just last night.” He couldn’t get to the gala fast enough.
“Uh-huh. And the evidence is usually posted somewhere on the Internet before you climb out of her bed the next morning. Which has to stop, by the way. You have a new kind of reputation to build now. We need to focus on that.” She eyed her daughter. “They had dinner at your house?”
Cat smiled, the look of a sibling having something over on the other. “She refused to be seen in public with him.”
A horn honked as the car jerked into another lane.
“Be careful, Jackson.” His mother patted his forearm, and he couldn’t help but tense beneath her hand. “Don’t get us killed just because last night didn’t end the way you wanted.” She turned back to Cat. “Who is she? And what do you mean she’ll be there working tonight?”
“That camera lady from Savannah. The one who was at both the golf tournament and the luncheon yesterday. You remember? Long dark hair in a ponytail? Gorgeous mouth, and legs that could make any man beg?”
“Can you give it a rest?” he snarled.
“But let me tell you,” Cat said, ignoring him.
If it wasn’t for the fact he was pathetic enough that he wanted to hear whatever she had to say about Vega, he would make it clear that she needed to stop.
“The woman has style,” Cat continued. “Gorgeous pair of Alexander McQueens. And her clothes were straight out of a fashion magazine.”
“Alexander McQueens?” his mother asked. “How does she afford them? I wouldn’t think videographers made that much.”
Cat shrugged. “She said they were several years old, so who knows. Maybe she had her a sugar daddy at some point.”
The idea was not a pleasant one, though he also couldn’t bring himself to believe it could be true either. Vega seemed much too self-sufficient to let some man pay her way.
“You don’t think that’s what she’s doing with Jackson?” his mother began, and red flags waved madly inside his head.
“No, Mother,” JP said. “Stay out of it. She’s not after me or my money. Trust me on this.”
“Cat?” his mother asked.
He caught Cat’s shrug in the mirror. “She could have us both fooled, but that wasn’t the impression I got at all. I actually really liked her. Much more real than his normal dates.”
“It wasn’t actually a date,” he grumbled, hoping to put an end to the entire conversation. “She wanted to talk about doing a behind-the-scenes interview, digging her nose into my personal life and sharing it with the world at large. And anyway, I already Googled her. The only thing out there mentions some of the awards she’s won for her work in Savannah.”
“An interview?” his mother asked.
“I told her no,” he snapped. “Absolutely not.”
“Let’s think about this first,” she mused.
“No, Mother. I don’t want an interview. I’m not doing an interview.”
“Bu
t with it only days from you taking office, this could be the right time, Jackson. The world wants to know more about you. It’s all part of the process, son.”
His jaw hardened. He might be playing her game, but he didn’t have to act out every scene. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” she stated, as if that was all it would to take to get him to agree.
With a quick flick, music once again filled the space. He was finished with this conversation whether anyone else was or not.
He’d be a senator, and he’d continue to pretend he was as perfect as his mother and father had always wanted everyone to believe. But he wouldn’t open the only part of himself he held private for the world to pick over. He had the right to keep at least that much to himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LIKE HIM OR not, she needed to stay away from JP Davenport.
Vega panned the camera around the ballroom at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre as the attendees took a break from dinner and waited for the auction to start. She tried very hard to avoid focusing on the man whose words had kept her lying awake most of the night, but found her zoom returning time and again to study him.
He wanted her to buy him.
And she wanted to.
Right. She closed her eyes and mentally flung her head from side to side as a cartoon character might do to clear the cobwebs. What she needed more than anything else was attention from the media, so why not just waltz right up and make an exorbitant bid for the main attraction? She snorted.
“What’s with you?” Darrin asked.
“What’s what with me?” She glanced down at him. She stood on a riser, the camera attached to a tripod, to get the best view of the crowd. Her position put her a good eight inches above him. He stepped one foot beside her and brought himself up next to her.
“You’re all weird tonight.” He motioned to her hair. She’d secured the majority with combs, while flat-ironing what was left to within an inch of its life. The part that wasn’t twisted up on the sides reached the middle of her back, and Darrin had been staring at it all night. “Your hair is different, not in that ponytail thing you always wear, your clothes aren’t as baggy, and you keep mumbling to yourself. Now you’re snorting. What’s going on?”
