by J. D. Mason
Her father’s life was on the line. That was enough of a threat for Robin to dismiss her own selfish desires for revenge against Jordan. Still, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d taken liberties with the details of the story he’d told her about gun traffickers the way she’d taken liberties with filling in the blanks surrounding Lonnie Adebayo’s murder. Robin smiled slightly at the thought.
When I See You
STARTING UP A BRAND-NEW division had occupied Jordan’s time from sunup until he closed his eyes to sleep at night, and even then, he dreamed about all the work that needed to be done. Jordan was being pulled in a hundred different directions, but he relished it. This endeavor was an uncharted chapter for Gatewood Industries, and no one was more excited about it than he was.
He was being touted now as America’s newest billionaire and the richest black man in the country. Jordan hadn’t had time to check his net worth lately, and honestly, he really didn’t give a damn. Money was never the drive behind his work ethic. It was a by-product, but he’d been driven to be the best his whole life. It was his nature. If Jordan had been fated to collect garbage as a career, he’d have worked his ass off to be the best garbage collector in the business.
“Jennifer,” he said to his executive assistant as he passed her on the way to his office after leaving another meeting. “Call down and get me a sandwich, will you?”
“Yes, sir. Turkey and cheese?”
“That’s fine.”
Jordan had half an hour to check e-mails and wolf down lunch before heading to his next meeting. He’d just powered up his laptop when his cell phone rang.
“Abby?” he asked, stunned.
Jordan hadn’t spoken to her in months, and after leaving several messages for her and not having any of them returned, and making a trip to the house in Blink, only to find that she’d moved, he had come to accept the fact that he would never speak to her or see her again.
“Hey,” she said sweetly. He released a quiet sigh at the sound of that one word. “Is this a bad time?”
“No. No.” There was no bad time for her. His heart raced.
After a brief pause, Abby finally asked him, “How’ve you been?”
There were about a million different answers to that question, but he opted for the simplest. “Busy. How’ve you been?”
Jennifer showed up in his office with his sandwich, but Jordan wasn’t hungry all of a sudden.
“Same. Um, I was wondering if you might have some time to meet soon?”
She wanted to see him? Jordan’s heart felt like it had jumped up into his throat. “Sure, Abby. I’m … is everything all right?” he asked, skeptical.
There was something in her tone that left him feeling slightly unsettled.
“It’s fine, Jordan. I just, um, came across something that I thought you might like to see. It’s about your father.”
It was hard for him not to give in to feeling a little disappointed. He’d hoped she’d wanted to see him about him, them.
“I think it’ll clear up some questions you might have had. Maybe even give you some closure,” she said sympathetically.
But would it give him closure from her?
“I know you’re busy,” she continued. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”
Jordan sighed. “I can make some time Saturday morning.”
“That’ll be fine. Say around ten? Or is that too early?”
“Ten’s fine, Abby.”
* * *
She’d cut her hair.
Abby nervously ran her hand across the short crop of hair she had left. It was practically cut down to the scalp.
“It’s kinda drastic,” she humbly explained. “But I sorta like it.”
Surprisingly, he liked it, too. Abby’s beautiful eyes, high cheekbones, and lovely lips seemed even more impactful without all that hair to hide behind. She wore a denim jacket over a simple knit dress that stopped midway on her thighs, and brown cowboy boots.
“You look beautiful,” he said sincerely.
She smiled.
The house was practically empty. All that was left was Abby’s small dining table and one chair. She left him standing in the living room while she disappeared into the room she’d used as her office and came out a few moments later carrying a rusted lockbox. Abby motioned for Jordan to sit down in the chair at the table. And then she reluctantly took the only seat left—his lap. Jordan felt as if he’d died and gone to heaven having her this close to him again. He relished the weight of her, the scent of her, and her touch.
“I found this buried in the backyard,” she softly began to explain. Abby slowly raised the lid. “Ida Green buried it before she died, Jordan.”
Jordan leaned forward to get a closer look at its contents. On top was a small, brown spiral notebook. Abby pulled it out first and then flipped it open.
“She didn’t really journal in the true sense of the word,” she explained. “But I think that sometimes her emotions got the best of her, and she had to write them down just to try to make sense of them.”
Abby flipped through a few pages, stopped at a particular one, and cleared her throat. “‘I don’t like doing this,’” she read. “‘And I told him, but he won’t listen.’” She glanced quickly at Jordan. “‘I told him to let me go. Reminded him that he had a wife. But then he said that she wouldn’t let him go.’”
Jordan sat motionless as Abby read, probably sounding a lot like Ida would’ve sounded if she were alive to say these words.
She flipped through several more pages, and started to read again. “‘I’m not moving closer to Dallas. Blink is my home, and I’m staying right here. He thinks it’s because I’m scared of big cities. I’m not scared. I just don’t like them. Besides, if he insists on us being together, then he has to accept the fact that when he comes here, he’s not rich and important like he is when he’s home. He’s just Julian. And that’s all.’” She turned the page. “‘And I’m just Ida. That’s all I’ve ever been or wanted to be. When he’s here, everything is simple and easy. That’s the way I like it. I told him that. He said he understood.’”
Just Julian. All this time, Jordan and probably a whole lot of other people thought Julian Gatewood had been keeping Ida Green on the side like some pet. But maybe she’d kept him, Jordan concluded. It was starting to make sense. Julian Gatewood was a warrior in Dallas. But he had to leave his armor at the door when he walked into her house. He loved her enough to make himself small enough to fit inside this place, to fit inside the confines of her life.
Abby continued to one more passage. “‘He came in mad today. Mad because she won’t let him do what he feels needs to be done with the boy.’” She glanced at Jordan. “‘She coddles him too much, according to Julian. She won’t let Julian raise him as his son, because she thinks he’s too hard on him. But he says that he has to be. The boy will run his business, and he has to be ready. I don’t know what that means. Julian’s firm. He thinks everybody else ought to be like him, steadfast. That’s what he calls it. Oh, and disciplined. I just look at him and smile when he says it, because he knows all that kind of talk don’t faze me. He usually changes the subject and pulls me onto his lap or something, and I run my fingers through his hair and he closes his eyes and moans. And then I kiss him. And he holds me so tight sometimes I can’t even breathe, but I don’t mind. I would marry him if I could. But I’d stay in this house. He comes here to rest. So, that’s why I stay.’”
Abby took a deep breath and then finally closed the notebook and set it on the table next to the open box. “Maybe he wanted to be there for you, Jordan,” she said softly. “He just didn’t know how.”
Jordan sat in silence, trying to put everything he’d just heard into context. Ida Green was filling in blanks about his father’s life here in Blink and their relationship. Hearing those words was so surreal, but they painted a clearer picture of the man his father was and of the love he obviously felt for
this woman.
Abby reached into the box again and pulled out a torn photograph. “Is that him?”
Jordan nodded. It was Julian Gatewood, thirty years ago. His eyes bright and shining, his smile broad. He wore his signature white button-down, monogrammed on his left cuff. Abby reached inside the box and pulled out the torn picture of Ida and held it up next to the one Jordan held. The two pieces fit perfectly, and a chill ran up his spine. She pulled two gold rings from that box, tied together with a thin, red ribbon, and then she pulled out a note card.
“It’s from him to her,” she said, unfolding it. Abby swallowed. “It says…” Her voice cracked, and for the first time, he realized that she had been crying. “‘Home is not a place, Ida.’” Abby paused. “‘Home is you.’ Signed, JG.” Her voice trailed off, and Abby turned and wrapped her arms around Jordan. “This is what he needed to remember, Jordan,” she whispered in his ear. “He had forgotten, and he’d lost his way in this house, and she stayed to try to lead him home.”
Jordan held Abby so tightly he feared he might break her. Jordan had been lost, too. His whole life he’d been looking for home. And in his death, his father had told him where to find it.
“I won’t live my life without you, Abby,” he said, raising her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “I can’t do it,” he declared with more conviction than he’d ever felt for anything in his life. “We were meant to be. I have no doubts about that. You belong with me.”
She smiled and nodded and whispered, “I know.”
Abby wrapped her arms around him, and Jordan closed his eyes and sighed. Yes. He understood the meaning behind the note his father had written to Ida. Home. Wherever Abby was, that’s where Jordan needed to be.
He slowly opened his eyes and stared down the corridor leading to the bedroom in time to see his father looking over his shoulder back at Jordan, as Ida held his hand and led him inside the room. They faded away like mist.
Still
HE COULD NEVER GET enough of the pillow-soft lips of Ida Green. Julian moaned as he savored the flavor of this beautiful woman, his woman, his life, his heart and soul.
“I think that I will spend forever with you, Ida Green.” Julian rolled onto the bed next to her and tenderly pulled her into his arms.
Ida rested her head on his chest. “That’s a long time, Julian Gatewood.”
He sighed. “Not long enough, sugah. Not even close.”
ALSO BY J. D. MASON
And on the Eighth Day She Rested
One Day I Saw a Black King
Don’t Want No Sugar
This Fire Down in My Soul
You Gotta Sin to Get Saved
That Devil’s No Friend of Mine
Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It
Somebody Pick Up My Pieces
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich
Drop Dead, Gorgeous
Crazy, Sexy, Revenge
The Real Mrs. Price
About the Author
J. D. Mason is the author of The Real Mrs. Price; Crazy, Sexy, Revenge; Drop Dead, Gorgeous; Beautiful, Dirty, Rich; Somebody Pick Up My Pieces; Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It; That Devil’s No Friend of Mine; You Gotta Sin to Get Saved; This Fire Down in My Soul; Don’t Want No Sugar; And on the Eighth Day She Rested; and One Day I Saw a Black King. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her two children. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Blink, Texas
Trouble Me
Some Kind of Madness
You Will See
Every Story Has Its Scars
Finally Seen the Light
Don’t Spare Me
What You Need
Ringing My House
The Moon in Her Eye
Where You Are
And She Was
You Want a Lover
How High She Flies
Just Look
The Calm I Feel
Witchy Woman
Echoed Voices
Trust in Your Dream
Too Headstrong
Don’t It Always Seem?
She Held Me Spellbound
Yes, I Have Known
Is It My Turn?
The Feeling That I Feel
Burned by the Fire
If I Have to Take a Part
Can’t You See My Desire?
Watch Us Play
Your Remedy
In the Devil’s Bed
With a Silver Spoon
Someone’s Underground
Come with Me
Keeping Us Afloat
Crazy Laughter
Dreams of You and Me
Have to Sacrifice
To Give Away
No River Too Wide
My Heart Came to Life
Gone Inside
Holding Myself Close
Got ’Til It’s Gone
Alone with My Fears
Ever After
Ordinary Pain
Water
Die Without You
Soul on Ice
The Troubles
Answer Me
A Woman of Means
I’ll Take You There
I’m Drowning
You Get What You Give
When I See You
Still
Also by J. D. Mason
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SEDUCING ABBY RHODES. Copyright © 2017 by J. D. Mason. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design: David Curtis Studio
Cover photographs: woman © AJR_Photo/Shutterstock.com; body © Boris Ryaposov/Shutterstock.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mason, J. D., author.
Title: Seducing Abby Rhodes / J. D. Mason.
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017010840 | ISBN 9781250052261 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781466853768 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. | African American women—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / African American / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A817 S43 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010840
eISBN 9781466853768
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: July 2017
