Table of Contents
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
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THE WALKER SECURITY: ADRIAN TRILOGY
THE BRILLIANCE TRILOGY
ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES
ABOUT LISA RENEE JONES
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All characters in this book are fictional and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com.
WHEN I SAY YES
Lisa Renee Jones
Book THREE in the Necklace Trilogy
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PART ONE:
NEW YORK
CHAPTER ONE
The driver pulls us to a stop next to a sidewalk, and Dash opens the door and gets out. I follow him, but he catches my arm and halts me at the door.
“We don’t work. I was selfish to think we worked, Allie. Go home. It’s better that way. Neil will watch over you until this Allison thing is figured out. He’ll call you. Answer when he does.”
My eyes burn and my chest pinches. “Don’t do this,” I plead. “Don’t let him blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault divide us.”
“How do you know it wasn’t my fault, Allie? How do you know anything about me when you don’t know that?”
“Don’t go and fight, Dash. Brandon and your father, they’re watching. This was all planned. They want to take you down. Don’t fight. Please. I’m begging you.”
“Go home,” he says again, and with that bitter command, he releases me, turns, and starts walking. I round the door and intend to follow, and I try, but I make it half a block and he’s just gone. I can’t see him anymore.
I’m trembling when I climb back into the SUV and shut the door. “Where to, ma’am?”
Where to?
Home, Dash said. I don’t even know where that is right now, but it seems fairly obvious that Dash just broke up with me. I give the driver my apartment address.
I’m sitting on the bed of my tiny New York apartment, my “home” where I’ve been sent, tears streaming down my face, as I desperately try to pull myself together. I don’t live with Dash anymore. I never really lived with him. I was just staying with him. That much is clear. But as to why this happened, well it’s all about my ex, Brandon, and Dash’s father, plotting against Dash, trying to hurt him. Trying to set him up.
“Oh God,” I whisper as I pull this all together. Brandon taunted Dash about fighting. He has to know about Dash’s habit. And what did Dash do? Push me away and clear a path for them to come after him.
“Because he’s going to fight,” I whisper, standing up and pressing my hands to my face. His fighting started after his brother died. During the confrontation with his father, his father made it clear that he blames Dash for his brother’s death. Dash is going to fight. I search anxiously for my phone and find it in my jacket pocket, punching in Dash’s number. It goes straight to voicemail and a sound of utter frustration rips from my lips. There’s a beep to leave a message and I spill out a plea. “Don’t fight, Dash. Brandon and your father are together, two people who want to hurt you. They’re watching. They’re coming for you. I beg of you, fight the need. Please. I’m here and—”
The machine cuts off. I call back again and it goes to voicemail. I quickly type a message that matches my voicemail and then start to pace. He’s going to fight. I know this in my gut as sure as I know my own name. He’s going to fight. I halt abruptly and stare at my phone. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I have no choice. I dial Tyler.
“Ms. Wright. What can I do for you?”
“Allie,” I say. “I need to be Allie right now, Tyler, because I need you to act like a friend. To me and to Dash. Because I’m probably about to ruin my relationship with him by coming to you. I know I am.”
“Oh fuck,” he murmurs. “What the hell is going on?”
“This has to be between you and me, Tyler. Promise me. I need advice. I don’t need you to go off the deep end.”
“He’s fighting,” he assumes far too easily for my comfort.
“That’s not a promise,” I chide.
“I’ll protect you, Allie. And him. Is he fighting?”
“He’s going to,” I dare to confess. “I know he’s going to. Do you know about the signing?”
“What about it?”
Obviously, he does not know and at the risk of putting Bella on the spot with him I say, “My ex is an agent who is now agenting his father.”
“Holy hell. This is clearly going no place good.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Were talking a cesspool of hate. Dash’s father hates him. My ex hates me and so he went after Dash. I should have seen it coming. I should have warned—”
“What did he do?” he demands roughly.
“He turned the signing into a fathe
r-son event.”
“What? That makes no sense. Dash would never allow that to happen and neither would Bella.”
“Brandon got it out to the press, so if either man backed out, they looked bad. They were both cornered to go through with it for the betterment of the charity.”
“I assume they both showed up.”
It’s more a statement of fact but I answer anyway. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“His father cornered us and all but called Dash a killer. He even said something to the effect of Dash eventually killing me, too.”
Tyler grunts. “That son of a bitch. Yeah, Dash is going to fight tonight. No question about it.”
“Where?” I ask. “I need to know where so I can stop him.”
“I don’t know where and even if I did, you can’t go to an underground fight club alone. But I might be able to payoff the right people to freeze him out. Let me make some phone calls.”
“Don’t tell Bella. Not yet. Not if we don’t have to tell her.”
“I didn’t plan on telling Bella. She’ll lose her shit, but Bella should have told me what was going down with this signing. We should have had them sign separately at different times or in different rooms.”
He’s not wrong, but it all happened so fast, I don’t think anyone could even get their head around the best next move. For now, I focus on avoiding another time bomb. “Don’t call Dash,” I say. “Please. I beg of you. If he knows I went to you—”
“Maybe that would wake his ass up and bring him back to your side.”
My heart jackhammers. “Don’t. No.”
“I got it, I won’t call Dash. I’ll get back to you soon.” He disconnects.
I try Dash again and another call comes through. I quickly switch over. “Hello.”
“Allie, this is Neil Ledger.”
Neil isn’t just some guy. He worked with Dash while they were both in the FBI, and now does private hire work. I’m not sure if he’s Dash’s friend, but he’s sure not his enemy. He wants me to leave New York which means he could be mine.
“Where are you?” Neil asks.
“Home,” I say. “Why?”
“I’m sending a car for you. There’s a private plane waiting.”
Hope fills me as I ask, “Will Dash be there?”
“No,” he says solemnly. “No, he’s not going to be there.”
“Where will he be?”
“He’s leaving town.”
“Back to Nashville?” I ask, even when I already know that’s not going to be Neil’s answer.
“No, Allie,” Neil says. “Not to Nashville.”
Of course not, I think. He wants me in Nashville, and far, far away from him. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar,” I accuse, and I don’t give him time to lie again with his denial. “I’m not leaving,” I say. “I have a job and a home here.”
“Dash wants—”
“For me to go home? I am home. And I’m staying here.”
“He wants you to go back to Nashville.”
And when I’m gone, Dash is going to find the nearest fight club and bury his face in someone’s fist and that’s essentially what he does. He taunts his opponent into punching him, hurting him, punishing him. And he wants me far away when he does it. Because he needs to fight more than he needs me. Dash threw me away with the ease of a boy throwing a ball, and that hurts, it downright guts me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love him. Nor does it wash away my determination to save him from himself. I can’t do that by alerting Dash that I’m coming for him. Neil is still on the phone, determined to get me back to Nashville.
“No,” I say firmly. “I’m not getting on that plane. I’m not going back. Not now. Maybe never.”
I disconnect and I dial Tyler. He answers on the first ring. “I need thirty seconds, Allie. I’ll call you back.”
Well, at least he called me Allie. If he’d have called me Ms. Wright, I might have screamed at him. “His buddy Neil says he’s headed out of town. I think that means he’s really staying here. Where will he go if he wants to fight?”
“I told you. I have no idea. I’m working on it now.” His phone must beep with another call. “I’ve got a PI I use on occasion digging around. I need to take this.” He disconnects.
I pace again, trying to think what to do. Dash is hungry to fight. He’s going to fight. I need help and it has to be from someone that won’t burn Dash. One name comes to my mind. God, I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I am. I punch the number into my cellphone and listen to the line ring. One time. Two times. Then, “I trust this is important, Ms. Wright.”
“Mr. Compton,” I say, and then just as I did with Tyler, I add his first name, “Mark. This is a personal call. I need help. I really need help.”
“What kind of help?”
His voice is hard, but then it’s always hard. “The kind that could destroy a very high-profile, good man, if I trust the wrong person.”
“And you came to me?” I can almost hear his eyebrows lift.
“Yes. You’re the most private, well-connected person I know.”
“Talk,” he orders.
“Do you know who Dash Black is?”
“The author. I do. What about him?”
“I’m dating him. I moved in with him in Nashville, but that doesn’t mean I’m not coming back to work. I just—”
“Get to the problem.”
“He has a bit of a habit, or addiction, to something that could ruin him. And he—can I just meet you in person? Now?”
He’s silent a moment. “The coffee shop next to Riptide. Fifteen minutes. Do you need me to send you a car?”
“I’m close. I’ll walk. Thank you.”
We disconnect and I press my hand to my head. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s this or nothing and nothing is not an option.
CHAPTER TWO
I manage to turn off the faucet on my face and slip out of my coat long enough to fix my makeup. Once that’s done, I do what I would never do under normal circumstances before meeting with my boss. I down a glass of wine as if it’s a shot of whiskey. I slip back into my coat, grab my purse, and head for the door. But not without turning and looking at my apartment. This is my home. Or maybe my home is another place in Nashville, but it’s not with Dash.
My place.
No one can take it from me.
Dash’s place was never mine. I know that now.
With the ease that he sent me away, we were never what I thought we were. But to his credit, he warned me. He’s not a forever kind of guy. With a twist of my heart, I exit the apartment and lock up. I can’t think about what could have been that really never existed as a possibility in the first place. I just have to save Dash from himself, even if it changes my boss’s view of me going forward.
The walk is brisk, chilly, the late afternoon cloaked in shadows as the sun begins to hug buildings and fade into the horizon. I can only assume that the fight clubs operate in the dark of night and that night is not far from welcoming him with its false promise of shelter that it doesn’t have to offer.
I arrive at the coffee shop and promise myself I will not lose my shit with Mark Compton. I will be calm and confident. I will represent myself and the auction house with dignity. With these vows, I open the door and step inside, a cozy fire in a stone fireplace warming the room. Mark stands and waves at me. He’s at a back corner table that allows him a view of the entire coffee shop. It’s a position of control and I would expect no less from this man, which is exactly why I believe he can help me.
Hurrying toward him, I sit down, surprised to find a cup of coffee waiting on me. “Vanilla latte,” he says as we sit. “Isn’t that what you always order when one of the staff picks up coffee for the office?”
“Yes,” I say. “How would you know that?”
“I know everything about the people who work for me, Ms. Wright.”
“Allie
,” I say. “Or not. Whatever you want.”
He studies me with piercing gray eyes that seem to see right to my soul. He’s wearing an olive-green sweater and jeans today, but he’s no less intimidating in casual attire than he is in a custom suit. A lot like Tyler, I think, only Tyler crossed a line with Dash that somehow took him to another level of personal with me, and that I will never be with Mark Compton. I wonder if anyone is ever that personal with this man.
“Vanilla is a very safe choice, Ms. Wright,” he observes, and just when I think that’s exactly what he’s doing, being personal with me, he adds, “Asking me for help with a personal issue is not. I do believe you’re showing a little growth.”
I blink. “You think me asking you for help shows growth?”
“You’re taking a risk. We both know this is a risk. Talk to me. And to some degree, your role with Riptide will remain stagnant until you learn how to take a risk and do so with confidence. You got the risk right today. You need to work on the confidence.”
“Easier said than done when I’m taking that risk with someone else’s life. If I tell you this, you could ruin him.”
“I have no desire to ruin Dash Black or another man who hasn’t done anything to hurt me or those I love. You can trust me, Ms. Wright.”
“I believed that before I called you or I wouldn’t be here. Your mother knows my story, which means you may or may not, so forgive me for repeating what might not be necessary. My ex is a high-powered entertainment agent. He represented my father as he transitioned from playing football to being a talking head on camera. Leaving out the gory details, I broke up with him and my father did the same.”
“I didn’t think you spoke to your father?” he asks, confirming he does, in fact, know the story I told his mother before she hired me. Or at least, part of it.
“I don’t,” I say. “Gossip spills though. An agent told me about it. But as I mentioned, or I think I did—I’m not exactly myself right now—Brandon, my ex, wants revenge. He sees Dash as the way to get it.”
“How very predictable,” he says dryly. “What did he do to Dash?”
“Dash and his father are not on good terms.”
“Didn’t I just read about some big signing they did together today?”
When I Say Yes Page 1
