Inside he fumed, but outside he insisted, “I am keeping you here for your safety.”
He sliced a hand toward the open door of the second bedroom. “You will be sleeping in there. My room is on the other side of the condo.”
She glanced toward the room he’d indicated, and panic flashed in her eyes, letting Han know that she was beginning to take him seriously. “I can’t stay here. I have to help my mom with my father….”
“A nurse can be arranged for your father,” he answered before she could trot out that excuse.
“I don’t want a nurse to help him. That’s my job, the whole reason I came back here. Plus, I have to work. I can’t pay you back and get out of this messed-up situation if I can’t work.”
Han stilled. She’d genuinely meant what she’d said about paying him back? He’d thought that had been her pride speaking. Women had said much worst to him after he told him they had to go—only to happily agree to see him again on the rare occasion that he texted them twice.
Jasmine, it appeared, was not one of those women.
“You can work,” he decided out loud. “I’ll arrange for one of my men to stay with you. He’ll also return to your home with you and help you pack.”
Jasmine started protesting before the words were barely out of his mouth. “Are you kidding me? I can’t show up to teach a class with a bodyguard! My students will freak out.”
Han shrugged. “He can pretend to be one of your students if that makes you feel better.”
Jasmine shook her head at him. “What about my private one-on-ones? And the kid classes!”
With an aggrieved sigh, he closed the space between them, not stopping until he loomed over her petite frame. “Do you have the money you still owe me, Jasmine?”
Her face tightened. “You know I don’t.”
“Then stop complaining and start obeying,” he said between clenched teeth.
For many of the women Han had slept with, the chance to live in a penthouse overlooking the ocean with him would be nothing less than a fantasy come true. Some might have even whined about not getting to share a bed with him.
But Jasmine glared at him now as if he’d ruined her life by showing up again at her door.
“Hate is a strong word, but I’m getting there with you.” she all but hissed.
Han refused to flinch at her words, inside or out.
Instead, he took another step toward her, getting as close as he could without touching her. “Yet, you still have to do what I say. Into the foreseeable future.”
Jasmine released a low animal sound, and he wondered if she’d attempt to hit him as she had Kuang Jr.
But no, she simply walked into her room and slammed the door.
It would not be the last time Han felt as if he’d invited a petulant child into his domain.
The next day he was woken from a dead sleep by a loud grinding sound. He had no idea the penthouse came with a blender until he walked out to find Jasmine making a smoothie in the kitchen.
“Good morning!” she said when the noisy grind finally concluded. Her voice was full of aggressive cheer. “You finally woke up. Want a smoothie? It’s the post Dawn Patrol breakfast of champions.”
He knew just enough about surfing to get that Dawn Patrol referred to a sunrise surf, which meant Jasmine had gotten up even earlier than this. He’d be impressed if his schedule wasn’t the exact opposite of hers.
“I don’t go to bed until around five in the morning.” He glanced at the single-digit number in front of the dots on the microwave’s clock. “And I usually don’t wake up until after noon. Do not do this again.”
“So, no smoothies before noon,” she translated as she poured the colorful liquid into a large stainless steel travel tumbler with a lid straw. “Is that an order?”
Usually, Han would have tried to inject some charm into the situation. Perhaps answered, “No, it is a request,” with a flirty tone and grin. However, he had a bad feeling about taking that tack with Jasmine. She struck him as the kind of person who would say no to such a request.
“Yes, that is an order,” he answered, somehow feeling petty even though she was the one who’d woken him up.
He expected her to argue with him as she had about staying. But she raised her takeaway smoothie and said, “Copy that. Anyway, have another surf class, gotta jam. See you whenever.”
“Take…” he started to say as she headed for the door.
“Chen’s meeting me downstairs,” she called back, without breaking her stride.
That morning’s battle was resolved easier than he’d expected.
But it wasn’t the end of the war.
Over the next couple of weeks, he had to issue many more orders—and almost always between the hours of seven and ten a.m. No, she wasn’t allowed to blast Dick Dale over the apartment’s state-of-the-art sound system while she made herself breakfast. No, she couldn’t play ukulele on the lanai right outside his closed sliding glass door. And where the hell had she found a yappy dog to “babysit for a friend” the following morning—he didn’t even want to know, but he had to order her not to do that again too.
After that, he had a conversation with Chen about checking in with him before letting her bring anything into the house that made noise.
Yet, she still found ways to disturb his sleep. Cheerleading routines she’d learned on YouTube, Action movies played at maximum volume before he asked her to turn it down, Karaoke songs she just had to sing at the top of her lungs—who actually claimed to have adopted a morning karaoke practice with a straight face?
Jasmine, that was who.
“I read it was great for stabilizing your mood at the beginning of a day,” she explained when he came out to confront her for the thirteenth day in a row—this time because she was singing Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” loud enough for everyone in the building to hear.
“I figured it would be a great way for me to process all this danger I’m supposedly in from K Diamond, who I still haven’t seen or heard from. But whatever, I guess I’m just waiting around for you to take the L.”
Take the L…American slang for admitting to a loss.
Han ground his teeth. This wasn’t the first insinuation she’d made about the K Diamond threat not being real since she’d walked back through the door after getting all of her things as commanded. And she wasn’t wrong.
As concerned as Victor and Phantom had been for him, Han had gone about the business of completing the Golden Circle deal—now sans his useless partner without hearing a peep from the 24K Dragon’s son.
But he disliked that she honestly thought he was keeping her for reasons that had more to do with sex and pride than her safety and his secret plan to take over K Diamond’s undeserved territories. And he really despised that he once again had to explain to her something that was basic common sense for most house guests. “No morning karaoke.”
“Oh,” she said. Her shoulders deflated with almost comical disappointment as if they hadn’t had some version of this same conversation the last twelve mornings in a row. Then she had the temerity to put on an innocent tone as she asked, “Is that an order?”
Han had managed to hold on to his temper until now. But thirteen days of being woken up from a sound sleep….
“Yes, that’s an order!” he answered, his voice hard and commanding. “No more making noise of any kind before I wake up. That’s an order. No more acting as if you’re not doing this on purpose when I am only trying to protect you. That’s an order!”
She stood there quietly as he ranted, but a slight flaring of her eyes let Han know his words were hitting home.
“Copy that,” she said quietly before leaving for her surf class.
And even though she’d gone out of her way to rile him to that point, guilt stirred uneasy in Han’s stomach as he watched her go. But then he thought of his brother Victor back home, embittered and driven nearly crazy by one woman.
If he’d hurt Jasmine’s feelings
, annoyed her…good. She finally understood she could not continue to cross him. He’d taught her a lesson, and there was no reason to feel guilty about that.
And the lesson worked.
Han discovered that the following afternoon when he woke up—naturally and in a quiet apartment.
He smiled triumphantly before getting out of bed and padding out to the kitchen, where he made his own breakfast as opposed to texting one of his men. Over the past couple of weeks, he might have fallen into the habit of pilfering one of the homemade mixed bags of fruit Jasmine kept in the freezer to make smoothies.
He had to admit they weren’t half bad. She used tropical fruits he wouldn’t have thought of in her mixes, like papaya, mango, and pineapple—drop in some protein powder and pour some of the fresh coconut water she kept in the fridge on top, and it made for a delicious breakfast replacement.
Anyway, after drinking down his smoothie, he was delighted to go down to the gym—at his usual time, not early because that pretty lunatic had woken him up, and he couldn’t get back to sleep. He even whistled a little ditty as he rode down to the gym in the elevator. And so what if it was “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus, the same song Jasmine had woken him up to the day before?
The point of the matter was he had won the war with his house guest. Her scourge of noise had ended, and now he could exercise when he wanted to without a headache pounding in the back of his head because he hadn’t gotten enough sleep—
He stopped inside the gym door when he saw both Chen and Yaron working out, even though Chen was supposed to be with Jasmine at all times.
“Hey, Boss,” Chen called out with his usual good cheer. Yaron simply nodded.
“Where’s Jasmine?” Han demanded without returning the greeting.
Chen paused at the top of his bicep curl. “She said she didn’t need me to drive her anywhere today, so I figured she was still upstairs with you.”
Yes, perhaps she was upstairs in her room. That made sense and explained why he hadn’t heard her moving around this morning. Maybe she’d finally decided to sleep in too.
But a bad feeling came over Han, one that wouldn’t allow him to simply get on with his workout.
A few minutes after his conversation with Chen, he burst through the door of his penthouse and went straight to her room. There he found a note on her pillow:
Job interview. Guard bad look. Back around 2!”
Han read and re-read the note, growing angrier each time. She hadn’t learned her lesson. She had chosen instead to defy him openly. He seethed, then…
He looked toward her closet.
16
JAZZ
As worried as I’d been before sneaking out of Han’s building, the interview for the summer camp position turned out to be a breeze—even though I’d backed out of buying the Pacific Oahu Surf School at the last minute.
I walked into the camp’s main office, full of apologies. But Bill, my old surfing teacher, was all like, no worries when I sat down across from him on the other side of the little building’s only desk.
“I’ve got a corporate buyer all lined up, and they agreed to pay my top price—so really you did me a favor by backing out,” he let me know with a shaka. “Of course, I would have preferred having you take the school off my hands. But the extra money makes up for it.”
I would have preferred that too, but I was happy for him if a little sad for me. Other than that, Bill’s good-natured shaka set the tone for the rest of the “interview”—which was mostly me, catching him up on Dad, who was one of his best friends from back when they served together in the first Iraq War, and him, complaining about Brad.
“He’s dating some actress now—at least she calls herself an actress. Her biggest credit was half a season on Hawaii Narcotics before they kicked her off—probably for being so irritating. The first ex and me could barely get through Christmas dinner with the girl. We don’t agree on much, but not liking her—that’s a match. Seriously, I’m never going to forgive Brad for dumping you. Do you know he’s got a corvette convertible now? A corvette! I mean, where can you even put a surfboard on that thing, man?”
“You don’t,” I answered with a laugh. “You wouldn’t want to scratch it. Plus, he’s got other people to bring him his surfboards with all those sponsorships.”
“That’s exactly what he told me!” Bill yelled, slapping his desk. “I swear that’s all this latest crop of pros care about.”
He shook his head but then shot me a fond look. “You still got that old Jeep I sold you? I saw you get off the bus before you came in.”
I cringed. And since there was no way to explain that it was currently parked at my mother’s house because I had a driver who carried my boards on top of his Infiniti QX80, I found myself having to lie about it being in the shop.
All these lies…I didn’t know whether to cheer or feel guilty when Bill announced that, of course, I got the job, and the interview was just a formality.
“This is my second to last year of running the camp before I officially retire, and I’m not my son,” Bill said as he walked me back out to the bus stop. “I know we’re lucky to have you.”
I laughed along with Bill. And for the first time in two weeks, I felt like my regular self, not some secret prisoner, living in an outrageously expensive penthouse on the Gold Coast.
“Listen, I was wondering if you could talk to your dad for me. He keeps dodging all my calls and texts, but I’d really like to come by and say hello. Just because we can’t surf together anymore doesn’t mean we can’t keep in contact.”
I nodded in complete agreement. “He needs to get out more, see his old friends. Mom and me keep telling him the same thing, but you know how he can be.”
Bill shook his head. “Stubborn as a mule, even back when we were recruits. Could never accept help, even in the desert. Let me tell you, none of us were surprised when he went on to become a drill sergeant. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s not going to let me in now that I’m retiring early too.”
“You’re retiring early because you want to,” I pointed out. “He retired early because he had no choice. He’s still upset. Still adjusting.”
“Three years is a long time to adjust and not return any of your friend’s calls. I mean, what did being there for each other when we were young even mean if we can’t be there for each other now?”
Bill’s words tore at my heart.
“I’ll talk to him,” I promised, just as my bus pulled up.
I’d keep that promise and throw in some guilt on the side, considering that Bill trained me to pro-surfer level without ever asking Dad for a dime.
But I think we both knew my stubborn father wouldn’t budge. There was a good chance he wouldn’t see any of his old Army buddies again. Not until…
My brain shut down as it always did before I thought about what came next for Dad.
So the good news was that I got the job. The bad news was that Han was wicked pissed about me sneaking out. I knew this because I found Chen waiting for me outside the gates of the complex when I walked up. And he let me know, “I’m fine. But the Boss is wicked pissed off at you for sneaking out,” in response to my “Hey, Chen.”
“Well, I’m just grateful you met me downstairs,” I admitted with a wry laugh a little while later as we walked into the penthouse together. “I have no idea how to get onto the property without an escort.”
Chen laughed too, but we both stopped short when we saw Han standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that led out to the lanai.
All the beaches in Hawaii were public by law, and we no longer had an official royal family. But from behind, dressed in his usual summer suit with the ocean and beach laid out in front of him, Han looked like a monarch surveying his kingdom. And even before he turned around to face us, I could tell he was particularly displeased with one of his subjects.
Chen could too. He wrapped his fingers around my arm like he was afraid I’d run
away again just as Han turned around and beckoned us forward with one hand. And when Chen brought me further into the room, it felt a whole lot like I was the mortal getting dragged in front of the Fae King to answer for my crimes.
I set my face and my tone to unbothered before saying, “Hey, Han. How’s it hanging?”
Han didn’t answer. He just flicked his eyes to Chen and said something in Cantonese. I had no idea what he said, but I swear Chen disappeared into the ether—like another magical being, just winnowing away. After he was gone, Han’s eyes flicked back to me. And it took me a few tense moments to realize he was waiting for an explanation.
So I dragged out the pitiful speech I’d prepared. “I had a job interview for this summer camp gig—it’s run by my old surfing coach, one of my dad’s best friends. And I’m barely keeping all of this a secret from my parents, so there would have been a ton of questions if I’d just pulled up in a car with a driver. But you know, I’m back and safe, just like you wanted. And the good news is, I got the job. Yay!”
I’d hoped my yay would get a little smile. It didn’t. I couldn’t find so much as a glimmer of amusement in the Fae King’s upturned eyes.
Several beats passed by. I waited for him to get mad. But he said nothing. Just stood there, staring at me.
“So, I have a sunset class later on,” I said carefully. “I’m just going to go to my room to catch a nap before it starts.”
I waited for him to protest. To say something like, “What part of ‘You belong to me’ don’t you get?” But he continued to stand there, frozen like a statue. So unsettling, but better than getting yelled at or ordered around, I guess. So I threw him a shaka and awkwardly side-stepped away to hide out in my temporary room.
I had to admit it wasn’t a bad retreat. The place looked like a hotel room, with high-end everything. Plus, it had its own sliding window door entrance to the lanai. I’d grown up completely inland, but the view made me understand why apartments like this commanded millions of dollars.
HAN: Her Ruthless Mistake: 50 Loving States, Delaware (Ruthless Triad Book 4) Page 11
