by Jayne Blue
The answer was Jack. When he looked at me, he seemed to see right through me. When he touched me, it was the first time I’d felt anything real in months. It was intoxicating and dangerous and worth it, maybe, just this once.
“Baby?” I jumped. Seth came up behind me and snaked his hands around my waist, pulling me back until I leaned against his chest. “Where were you? I woke up and I couldn’t find you.”
I turned in his arms and planted a kiss on his lips. “Just across the hall. You were tossing so much in your sleep, I wanted to give you some room. I didn’t go far.”
He squeezed me against him. He wore drawstring pajama pants and nothing else. The wiry blond hair of his chest bristled against my cheek as he held me close. Then he let me go, turned and padded toward the kitchen in bare feet. “Let’s eat. I want to talk to you about something.”
I followed. Miranda’s kitchen wasn’t really designed to be eaten in. It was set up like a commercial kitchen with four deep stainless steel sinks, two ovens and a large island with a griddle on top. Her refrigerator took up almost half a wall, the doors were made of glass. It was stocked with great amounts of organic fruits, vegetables, yogurt and other concoctions that went into the mysterious juices she drank like a fanatic. It kept her fit and trim, but I smirked, thinking a fat lot of good it did her in the end. She still dropped dead at just fifty-eight years old.
Seth drew me to the island and pulled up two bar stools. Mrs. Walters, Miranda’s cook, gave him a sidelong glance when he waved her off. “I can manage a fucking bowl of oatmeal,” he snapped. “Why don’t you go jogging or something?” It was unnecessarily mean and I flinched. Mrs. Walters was a short, heavyset woman with cheeks so round they squeezed her eyes into a perpetual squint.
She somehow narrowed those eyes even more at me. Seth could be a dick to her all day long, yet she saved the hairy eyeball for me. But she left us alone. Seth took my hands in his and drew my arms across the counter toward him.
“I’ve been thinking ever since we came here yesterday and I want to ask you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want you to move in with me.”
My heart tripped in my chest. This wasn’t the first time Seth had asked me. My reasons for saying no before mostly centered on Miranda. She already didn’t approve of me. Why don’t we wait until we’re married to make her happy, I’d said. What’s a few more months? I hadn’t expected him to ask again so close to our actual wedding date.
“I don’t ...”
“Don’t give me an excuse this time,” Seth said. “I want you with me, Tora. All the time. I need you.”
“Seth,” I said, my mind in a whirl. “I get that. I want to be with you, too. But what sense does it make for me to pack up my things twice? We can’t live in your apartment after we get married. Even you said that. It will be too small.”
Seth’s smile broadened. “I know. I’m not talking about my apartment. I’m talking about here. Why don’t we both move in here? There’s no reason not to now.”
The air went out of my legs. Here. Live in Miranda’s house. With Miranda’s things and all of the secrets they might ... that they had to contain. I was afraid to breathe. Afraid that if I did, the last ten seconds would go away. Poof!
“But I ... are you ... really?” My hands were trembling in Seth’s and he took it as excitement. It was, but not for the reason he thought.
“Yes, baby,” he said. “I mean it’s not a definite for sure. It’s a ninety-five percent for sure. I meet with the trust lawyer tomorrow to go over the final details of everything. But my mother told me she was leaving the house to me. There won’t be a problem. I mean ... maybe someday we’ll think it’s too big for us. But not for now. For now let’s just do it. And it’ll be easier. We’re having the wedding here.”
How long would it take for me to find what I was looking for? Days ... a week? It couldn’t be much longer than that if I had access to Miranda’s entire house. Her files were here somewhere. They had to be. I could find them. I would have to be careful, but I could do it.
“Yes,” I said, though my hands nearly slipped out of his, they shook so badly. Seth dropped them and gathered me into his lap. He showered my neck with kisses as a thin sheen of sweat formed between my breasts. He gave voice to the other part of the equation. The one that had me shuddering beneath his smothering embrace.
“I want to be with you, Tora,” he said. “Every day. Every night. From now on. I realized that last night. You were great at the party. Everyone there was watching you. Everyone there wanted you but you belong to me. And they know it. I want everyone to know it.” Seth shifted his weight and hooked his hands under me, drawing my legs around either side of his waist so I straddled him.
Every day. Every night. You will belong to him.
Could I do it? Could I sacrifice my own freedom – just for a little while – so I could finally uncover Miranda’s lie once and for all? Could I keep up my own lie under Seth’s smothering attention? I could. I knew I could. It would be worth it.
“I want that too, Seth,” I said, taking a deep breath and stilling my heart. I leaned down and kissed him as his hands found my breasts. He kneaded them with rough fingers. I could do this. I could.
I had no choice.
***
Jack
Reed picked me up at the hotel the next morning and drove me the eight blocks to the Crane Law Firm.
“This should be quick,” Reed said. “I hope. You wanna say anything about your mother’s jewelry?”
“Tell me what kind of legal standing I have on that again?” I still had my mother’s engagement ring in my pocket. I knew Tora stumbled upon the rest of her jewelry the other night. It was there, no matter what Seth had to say about it. The question was how much I wanted to push.
“Pretty much none,” Reed said. “Unless your father had put something specific about it in the terms of his trust. He left his personal property to Miranda. I told him a long time ago if there was anything ... anything of a sentimental nature he wanted to leave to you, the best thing would have been for him to just hand it over to you when he was alive.”
“I know,” I said. “He didn’t want to give it up. He didn’t believe Miranda was spiteful no matter how many times I told him. It got so any time I brought it up we’d end up arguing so I finally just quit. Then his mind started to go and he didn’t remember. I honestly thought all that stuff was long gone or I would have pressed more.”
When we walked into the lobby, Seth leaned against the reception desk with a sly smile on his face that I instantly didn’t like. What shocked me though was who was sitting in the chair next to him. Tora sat against the wall with her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap. She looked immaculate in a stunning green suit that matched her eyes. She had her hair pulled back in a tight bun. I don’t notice clothes much. But she was put together so differently than the last two events I’d seen her. Covered. Professional. She was killer gorgeous.
Her eyes met mine and flashed in that way I now knew she meant for me. The skin under my collar went hot but I managed to control myself. I gave her a half smile and a wink. Color came into her cheeks and it almost undid me. She blushed like that the other night ... alone ... with me ... under me.
Focus.
“They’re ready for us,” Seth said. He gestured with his chin and pulled himself away from the reception desk.
“Wait here, baby,” he said to Tora in a tone more brusque then I thought was necessary but she just smiled and nodded.
I wanted to look back at her, give her another sly smile, but I knew that would start crossing the line into Dicksville. She knew what happened and I knew what happened. No reason to stop acting like a grown-up.
We filed into a conference room down the hallway. I noted it looked nothing like your typical lawyer’s. This one was all glass walls and tables. No pretentious law books that no one ever uses anymore lining the walls.
Miranda’s probate
lawyer was probably a few years older than me. Early forties. His name was Kyle Earnest which I thought was maybe an oxymoron for someone in his profession. He had thinning brown hair and a tailored brown suit. He slapped a leather portfolio on the desk and pointed to two identical brown cardboard accordion files laid out on the table in front of us.
“In the interest of transparency, I’ve made copies of the important trust documents for your convenience.”
My hackles went up immediately. Nobody ever tells you they want to be transparent unless they are getting ready to fuck you over good and hard.
“Mr. Manning,” he said. When we both looked up he started again. “Jack. You understood the terms of your father’s trust when he passed away, correct?”
“More or less,” I said. “We talked about it quite a bit when he was setting it up. He wanted to make sure Miranda was taken care of during her lifetime.”
“He did,” Earnest said. “And she was. But he also named her the successor trustee. He gave her very broad powers of appointment. Which means that he trusted her judgment when it came to major decisions concerning the corpus of the trust. Its assets.”
“Okkayyy.” I felt my left eyebrow go up.
“Kyle,” Reed spoke up. He’d opened the brown folder and had been leafing through it while Kyle talked. “Explain this last accounting. There’s an item here that I think is in error. It was my understanding that Jackson had left a reversionary interest in his intellectual property to Jack. The software licensing should go to him. Why am I seeing a transfer to Seth alone?”
“I own the company now, that’s why,” Seth said.
“Right,” Reed said. “But your stepfather intended for Jack to own the software licenses after your mother passed away.”
“Well,” Kyle interjected as I started to see black spots of rage fill in the space where Seth’s head should be. “If he intended that at some time, that was never written into the trust document he executed. We can only assume he changed his mind. Miranda was free to transfer trust assets as she saw fit. Like I said, he gave her that power.”
“My father never intended for Seth to get anything from that company, never mind the software patents.” I said it in as calm a voice as I could but I know Seth heard red menace.
“Fuck you, Jack,” Seth said. “You’ve been slinging that shit since he married my mother. In the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our father ... I was just as much his son as you were.”
“He’s right, Jack,” Kyle said. “Your father adopted Seth before he became a legal adult.”
I turned to Reed. “How. The. Fuck. Didn’t you know about this or fix the language?”
“Jack.” Reed’s face was sheet white. “I told you I didn’t prepare the final trust document. I worked on a draft with Jackson. But he never executed it. I tried to get him in to do it. I hounded him about it. In the end, he went with another lawyer. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend. I didn’t want to risk Miranda not letting me see him. I’m sorry, Seth, but your mother was vindictive like that.”
Seth just shrugged. The fucker was smiling. This whole thing had been a set up. He knew damn well I expected at least the software rights. This was a conversation we could have had without the theater.
“Look,” he said. “You guys can rant and wail all you want. The fact is my mother was married to Jackson for fifteen years. She took care of him when he couldn’t take care of himself. She knew him better than either of you did in the end. I’m sorry if you don’t like how they decided things. Jack ... I really am sorry. And you don’t need this shit anyway. You’ve made your own fortune. Dad knew that.”
“It’s never once been about the money, Seth.” I decided to take a breath. Seth wasn’t Miranda. Maybe he could still see the truth beyond her insecurities. “I asked you to look for my mom’s jewelry because I don’t have anything left from her. I don’t care about what the software licenses are worth even though I know it’s a lot. I’ll give you a fair price for them. I will buy them back from you, okay? Again ... it’s not about the money. My father built that program for me. Specifically me, okay? It’s something we did together when I was a kid because he wanted to help me read. I would like to be able to decide how it’s used from now on.”
Seth threw up his hands. “What do you want from me, Jack?”
I took another deep breath. “I just want you to do the right thing.”
“No,” Seth said. “What you want is to take something from me that belongs to me. You’ve always wanted that. Everything has always been a competition with you. Well, I’m going to honor what our father wanted. If he’d wanted that stuff to go to you, he would have given it to you. He didn’t. He wanted my mother to decide. So you do the right thing and drop it.”
For that brief instant I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze him until he turned purple. Instead, I rose slowly and towered over him. Seth flinched and the color drained from his face as I realized he was afraid I was about to put him down. He was shaking from it.
“We’re done here,” I said. “For now.”
“I, uh ... I’ll talk to you later, okay, Jack? I think Kyle needs me to hang back and sign a few things.”
Kyle looked perplexed but nodded. I almost laughed at him. Seth was hiding behind the lawyer like he used to do his mommy’s skirts. He was afraid I really was about to kick his ass.
In the hallway, I spoke quietly under my breath to Reed. “I’ll ask again. Do I have any legal footing here?”
Reed sighed. “Maybe a little. Not much. We’d have to challenge the language of the trust in court. Find outside evidence about what your father intended. Then we’d have to show he was mistaken or coerced when he signed that trust. It would have to be a smoking gun and I’ll tell you, I don’t have it. The fact that they did it here, at a firm where Seth is employed, is shady as hell, even if it’s not an outright conflict of interest. Plus Kyle’s right. That document gave Miranda pretty much carte blanche in how she could administer the assets of the trust. I’ll fight it with you until my last breath if you want. This isn’t right, Jack.”
We had reached the lobby and Tora was still there, looking striking and sexy in her green suit. She waited patiently for Seth to come out. And she would leave with him. I made a choice in that instant that I wasn’t proud of later ... but just then I didn’t care.
“I’ll meet you downstairs, okay, Reed?” I said. “I need to talk to Tora for just a second.”
Tora’s eyes widened and color came into her cheeks as I got close to her. I put a hand on the small of her back, maybe just an inch lower than was appropriate. She didn’t stop me. If Seth was going to take something I cared about, I could return the favor.
And it would be so easy.
Chapter Ten
Jack
“How did it go in there?” Tora’s eyes were wide. I saw a tiny pulse beat furiously in her temple.
“Lousy,” I said, drawing her away from the nosy eyes of Earnest’s receptionist. I led her around the corner. “But I’m glad you’re here.” She squirmed a little under the hand I held at her back. I had the urge to run my hand under her green blazer, find the waist band of her skirt and slide my fingers down until I found her bare ass. There was something sultry in her gaze, a small twitching of her mouth. I wondered if she’d stop me if I tried.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you going to be all right?”
For a minute, I thought she meant financially. I would have laughed but she was serious. She arched one thick black brow and I knew she wasn’t talking about money. She was actually expressing concern for my emotional state. I didn’t know what to make of this girl.
“I want to see you again,” I said. I was quick and bold and I leaned forward, taking in the smell of her perfume. The soft hairs on the nape of her neck moved when I breathed. She wore a silk button-down blouse and goose bumps rose across her flesh just below her clavicle and ran down between the swell of her breasts. I wanted to taste her ther
e.
“That’s probably a terrible idea,” she said, her voice husky, barely above a whisper.
“Probably.”
I let her go. She put a hand to her neck, her fingers trembling. I reached into the breast pocket of my suit coat and drew out one of the two key cards to my hotel room.
“Tonight,” I said. “The Drake. After nine. Room 814.”
“Wow,” Tora said, taking a step back. She narrowed her eyes at me. Her posture stiffened and the muscles of her neck tensed. I knew an oncoming rant when one was about to be hurled at me.
“Your choice,” I said shrugging. “You can save the outrage. You can express it by not showing up. I’m hoping you show up.”
She would have said something else. A smirk lifted the corner of her mouth and I regretted not getting to hear her come back. But Seth came up behind her. It was such a slight movement that only someone watching closely would have caught. But I was watching closely and had been since the second I met her. When Seth touched her, Tora stiffened as his hand went around her waist. But just as quickly, she broke into a smile and reached back, touching his cheek.
“Ready to go?” she said, her tone a 180 from what she’d used with me. For the first time, I saw her as the chameleon she was. I hadn’t picked up on it before. Tora Blake was hiding something much deeper from Seth beyond her booty call with me.
And I was determined to find out what it was.
***
Tora
Seth was pensive in the car. He kept pounding his fist against the door and wouldn’t talk to me when I asked him what happened. I stopped asking. More and more, I became tuned to Seth’s moods. If I pushed him too much, he could snap. I turned away from him and stared out the window as we inched our way in the bumper-to-bumper crawl of Michigan Avenue.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked. When Seth told me he wanted me at the meeting this morning, he hadn’t said what he planned to do afterward.
“You know,” he turned to me, “it serves him fucking right. So the Golden Boy isn’t as golden as he thought. He’s going to have to get used to the fact that my father – my father –cared just as much about me.”
