“I really don’t need a tutor.”
“Tell your parents, don’t tell me,” Oz said, and headed back toward Kari as Jordan headed to meet with his tutor. But Oz also made sure the bodyguards followed Jordan toward that office. They did.
“Kare!” he yelled. Then he saw two additional bodyguards move closer toward her, a prime example of the extra security Alex had in place for her and Jordan.
Kari turned when she heard his voice. “Yes?”
Oz walked up to her. “I’ve been hearing rumors,” he said.
“What kind of rumors?” Kari asked.
“That the maids at The Drakos are looking to officially organize and join the union.”
Kari exhaled. “Yeah, so?” she asked.
“Alex is not going for that,” Oz said. “You know that, right?”
“Of course I know it, Oz. Alex has made that perfectly clear.”
“He feels he pays them better than any union could impose on him.”
“And that’s true,” Kari said, “but they want that protection.”
“They aren’t getting it,” Oz said. “Not if Alex has anything to say about it, and you and I both know he has everything to say about it.”
“I don’t know why this is a sudden topic for you? What does this have to do with the casino? Your workers aren’t threatening to organize, are they?”
“No.”
“Then why are you so concerned?”
“Because a big time union organizer is suddenly hanging around The Drakos. That’s why. He doesn’t have a meeting with you, does he?” Oz knew how proactive and territorial Kari could be about her maids.
“Boy, please. I don’t go behind Alex’s back like that. I wouldn’t do that to him.”
Oz nodded. “I know. I was just---”
“You were just making sure I didn’t go behind his back,” Kari said with a smile.
Oz smiled. Kari was too sharp for him. “Right,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Oz,” she said. “Alex and I try to stay on the same page.”
But then Oz looked seriously at her. “But Alexio, on the other hand,” he said, “isn’t going to be at Jordan’s party? Did I understand you correctly?”
“He said he couldn’t get away again.”
“Oh, so he got away to pick you up to have sex with you, no doubt, and dinner with Reno Gabrini, but he can’t get away for his son’s sixteenth birthday bash? That is outrageous, Kari.”
Kari nodded. “I feel the same way. But it is what is it. I can’t make him be there. I asked, he said no. There’s nothing more I can do. But I’ll tell you this much: one monkey don’t stop no show,” she said, and Oz laughed.
“Kari?”
She barely heard the voice through Oz’s laughter.
“Kari?”
He said her name again. Then she heard him say “Maple,” and she quickly turned around. Nobody had called her that name in years. Nobody had called her that name, ever, but one man.
When she saw that face, she recognized him at once. And her heart began to palpitate. Because it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be! She frowned as she stared at him.
“Who are you?” she asked him in a voice that sounded breathless.
“It’s me,” he said, and began moving toward her. But her bodyguards surrounded her, and Oz had surrounded her, putting her in a cocoon of protection. But she still saw his smiling face.
“You remember me?” he asked. “Don’t you? I’m DayVon, Kari. I’m DayVon Clarke. Remember me?”
And as soon as Kari heard that name, and then heard him repeat it again, she felt her knees buckle and her body collapse. Because it was DayVon. She’d never forget that face! It was DayVon.
And she couldn’t sustain that reality. Because it couldn’t be real. And her ability to reason with what she was seeing failed her. And she fell.
She fell right into Oz’s arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alex stepped off of the elevator in the hotel in London and made his way across the lobby, out of the exit doors, and into his waiting limousine. Dillon Glickman and Soochi Kobayashi were already seated in the limo.
“Sorry it took so long,” Alex said as he sat down across from them. “I had to field some calls.”
“No problem, sir,” said Glickman as the limo pulled away. “We were just discussing who we think might be an ally on the other side. Which one we might be able to flip. We both concluded that Kenneth Reed might be a good candidate.”
“He’s not,” said Alex. He noticed that Soochi was opening her legs, revealing that she wore no underwear, and she was opening them wider and wider.
“You don’t think we can flip him, or you don’t think he’ll flip?” Glickman asked.
“He won’t flip. I already had my people try in a different context more favorable to him.” Then Alex looked at Soochi as she opened her legs even wider, revealing all beneath her miniskirt. It only made him miss Kari even more. “Save it for the other team,” he said to her.
Embarrassed, she promptly closed her legs.
Then Alex’s cell phone began ringing. “Try Harry Morse,” he said to Glickman as he pulled it out. “He might be a candidate.”
“Morse? Really?” Glickman was surprised. “I would have never thought he would be. Did your advance men find him bribable?”
“They did,” Alex said. When he saw on his Caller ID that Oz was phoning, he answered the call.
“Kari passed out,” Oz said as soon as Alex answered.
Alex’s heart dropped. “Passed out? What do you mean she passed out?”
Glickman and Soochi looked at him.
“She passed out,” said Oz. “We were walking together, and she passed out.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the penthouse. The medical team is with her now.”
“But is she awake?”
“She’s awake. She’s fine. But the doctor wants her to rest.”
“But what caused her to just pass out?” Alex asked, his face in a fixed frown of worry.
“She just passed out,” Oz lied. He wasn’t about to tell Alex the full story over the phone. “That shooting in New York. My accident with still no resolution. There’s a lot going on. You just need to get here.”
Alex couldn’t believe it. He was four-thousand-fucking-miles away, and his wife was in even more distress than his absence had her in. “I’m on my way,” he said to his brother, knowing full well what that would mean to negotiations.
Glickman and Soochi looked at each other. Without Alex to push the deal to finalization, there would be no promises made. The negotiations would, in all likelihood, collapse completely.
But Alex had Kari on his mind. “You stay by her side until I get there, you hear me, Oz?” he ordered. “I don’t want her alone, not for a second.”
“I got you, brother. You just get here. It’s you she needs.”
“I will,” Alex said. “You know I will. And where’s Jordan?” Alex asked.
“He’s with his tutor.”
“Under heavy security?”
“Even heavier after this,” Oz said without elaborating.
“Okay, keep it that way.” Then Alex exhaled. “I’ll be there,” he said, and then ended the call. He pressed the intercom button in his limo. “Change of plans,” he said to his English driver. “Get me to the airport now.”
“Yes, sir,” said the driver.
Then Alex looked at Glickman. But Glickman was shocked. “If you leave, sir, we can kiss this deal goodbye. They aren’t going to agree to any more delays.”
“Then they don’t agree,” Alex said. “Who the fuck do they think they are? I’ll take my business somewhere else. Contact my flight crew.”
“We won’t get a better deal anywhere else, sir,” said Soochi.
Alex knew it, too, but what the fuck did they expect him to do? His wife was no weak woman who fainted at the drop of a hat. Something caused her to go weak-kneed. Something powerfu
l. Fuck the deal, he thought. He was going to find out what that something was. “Contact my flight crew,” he said again to Glickman.
Glickman was upset, but Alex was still the boss. “Yes, sir,” he said, pulling out his cellphone, as the limo was speeding to the airport.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Oz was sitting at his sister-in-law’s bedside when she opened her big, beautiful, but still stunned-looking eyes. The doctor, unbeknownst to Alex because Oz wouldn’t give him that level of information over some phone, had sedated her. But she was very much aware as soon as she opened her eyes. “Was I dreaming, Oz?”
Oz wished to God she was. “No, Kari. You weren’t dreaming. He’s here, in the flesh, claiming to be Jordan’s biological father.”
“But he died,” she said, her voice of hysteria returning as she quickly sat up in bed. “He died!”
“That’s what you were mumbling as soon as you came to the first time. You kept saying he was supposed to be dead. Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true!” Kari said. “I was told he died. He had a bad heart, and he died.”
“You went to his funeral?” Oz asked. “You saw him in the casket?”
Kari was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “They cremated him on the island he comes from before I could, before I knew what had happened to him, and I couldn’t afford to get there anyway.”
“Settle down, Kare. It’s okay,” Oz said. She was on the verge of collapsing again.
She leaned back against the headboard. “And he’s alive?” It was as if she was still convincing herself.
Oz exhaled. He already had his own team interrogating the hell out of him. They’d get to the bottom of this fiasco.
Then Kari looked at Oz as if she could read his mind. “Where is he now?” she asked him.
“In one of the suites downstairs,” Oz said. “Under guard.”
“You’re holding him against his will?” Kari asked.
“He was willing,” said Oz. “He claimed to be worried about you.”
Kari shook her head. “This can’t be happening!” Then she realized she had to see him. She began throwing the covers off of her. “Which room is he in?” she asked, getting out of bed. “I’ve got to go see him.”
But Oz got up just as quickly. “You can’t, Kare!”
“What do you mean I can’t?” She was putting on her heels. “I’m going to talk to him. I need to talk to him!”
“You know Alexio won’t approve of that.”
“I don’t give a damn what he won’t approve of! My son’s biological father is supposed to be in this hotel, a father I thought was dead and I told Jordan he was dead, Oz! Do you hear what I’m saying? I told my son his father was dead. But he’s not dead? He’s been alive all these years? And you think I’m going to sit back and let you handle it, or Alex handle it? Which room, Oz?” she said firmly. “Which room!”
Dealing with Kari was like dealing with Alex, Oz thought. Like dealing with two stubborn mules that would kick the shit out of him if he bucked them. “108,” he said, and Kari took off.
But at least Oz wasn’t about to let her see that joker alone or Alex would do more than kick his ass. He’d kill it this time. He took off behind her.
“Where’s Jordan?” Kari asked as they hurried down the long, winding corridor.
“He’s still with the tutor. He doesn’t know anything about this.” Then Oz glanced at her. “I went on and told your staff to call everybody on the guest list and cancel the surprise party for tonight. I told them to reschedule it for next week. That should give us enough time to . . . digest this news.”
Kari wasn’t sure if a week would be enough time, or even another lifetime would be enough time, but at least it wasn’t going to be tonight. “Thanks, Oz,” she said.
“I know J’s birthday is tonight and that’s why you were having it on a Thursday night, but since it’ll be a week after the fact, anyway, I told your staff to change it to Saturday next week.”
Kari nodded, although Jordan’s birthday party, in truth, was the last thing on her mind at that moment. “Good,” she said.
“And,” Oz added, “I called Alex.”
Kari looked at him. “You told him about DayVon?”
Oz shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not until he gets here.”
“Until he gets here?” Kari was puzzled. “He’s coming home?”
Oz frowned. “Of course he’s coming home! The love of his life passed out. He knows you don’t do that shit. He’s on his way now.”
Kari appreciated Alex’s love for her. He’d move mountains for her and she knew it. She only wished that kind of love would also translate to Jordan. He loved Jordan, she knew he loved him, but Jordan often had to compete with Alex’s business interests more than he should have had to. And now his biological father was supposed to be right down that very hall? Kari leaned her head against the elevator wall. She could hardly believe it.
But it was true. She realized it once again as soon as she and Oz entered the well-guarded suite and saw DayVon Clarke sitting on the sofa. He’d aged, but looked exactly the same to her.
And as soon as DayVon saw Kari, he rose to his feet. “Kari,” he said in the sweetest voice he could muster. “Are you alright? I was quite worried!”
It felt like talking to a ghost to Kari. Only a ghost with the kind of history with her that catapulted him to the front of the line. “They said you were dead,” she said to him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I just found out what they had said to you. That is why I came.”
“What are you talking about? They told me that fifteen years ago. Jordan was one. How could you have just found out?”
“Something horrific did happen to me,” DayVon said, “but I survived it. Please sit down and I will explain.”
Kari still felt so strange that she felt as if she was dreaming. She remembered him so vividly. Down to his hands! She wanted to run away because the feelings were so strong. But she didn’t. She knew she had to know what happened to him.
She sat down in the chair in front of the sofa. Oz sat on the arm of the chair as if he and he alone was her protector. His men, who had been interrogating DayVon, stayed back, near the door.
“When I left the States to go back to my home country, I found myself the victim of what you might call in America a drive-by shooting.”
Kari frowned. “A shooting?” she asked.
DayVon nodded. “Yes. A very horrific shooting,” he added, “where I was shot several times and nearly died. And even after many surgeries and other complications, I was unable to remember anything that preceded the moment I woke up. I could not remember anything, Kari. I didn’t remember living in the United States. I didn’t remember you. I didn’t even remember that I had a son. I didn’t remember my own mother or family! I had no memory of those years, the first seventeen years of my life, for all of these fifteen years.”
“Until?” Oz asked.
DayVon’s jaw tightened. Oz he didn’t like. He should have died in that car accident, he thought. But DayVon didn’t break character. He worked like hell not to show his displeasure of the man in front of him. “I had no memory,” he said, “until a few days ago, when I saw this magazine. It was in my doctor’s office of all places. It talked about some rich white man named Alexander Drakos and how his brand new bride had been his maid.”
It wasn’t true. Kari had owned a maid service and was never Alex’s maid, but it didn’t matter. The press was always attempting to make her out to be less than what she was. She was used to it.
“It didn’t interest me, to be frank, but I flipped through the wedding pictures just the same,” DayVon continued. “And that is when I saw you, Kari. I saw your face on one of those pictures. And I recognized you! Immediately I recognized you. The doctors had always told my mother that one day I could regain my memory. They said something small or large could trigger it. But it was your picture in that magazine that triggered it for me
.”
He frowned. “And then I remembered everything,” he said. And then he looked at Kari. “Including our great love for one another.”
Kari’s heart sank, and tears appeared in her eyes. She remembered that great love too. She remembered how kind and sweet he was, and how much he loved his baby boy. She remembered that love. Her very first and, before Alex, only love.
“And I remembered Jordan,” he said with even more affection.
Kari didn’t know what to think. “Why didn’t your mother tell me you were alive?” she asked him. “It was your mother who told me you were dead. She said you had a weak heart and died. Why didn’t she tell me the truth?”
“She should have,” said DayVon.
Kari stared at him.
“I am highly upset with her for telling you such a tale. Her lies caused me to lose so many years of my son’s life. But that’s why I am here now, Kari. I need my son. I’ve got a lot of time to make up with Jordan.”
The thought of Jordan caught up in all of this made Kari feel the room spinning again.
And before she knew it, she stumbled.
Oz quickly grabbed her and held her up from falling, and some of his men hurried over to assist him too. “I knew it was too soon,” he said to her. “You’ve got to rest.”
But it was also instructive to Oz that of all the men in the room, DayVon, the man who supposedly loved Kari so, didn’t move a muscle to assist her, as if he had no feelings for her at all. Oz took note of it.
But when Oz began escorting Kari out, DayVon stood up. “When can I see my son?” he asked.
Oz looked at him. “When his father gets here,” he said.
“His fa,” DayVon began to ask. “Yes, of course. His adopted father.”
Oz gave him a hard look, but then continued to walk Kari out.
But Kari looked back at DayVon, and DayVon was staring at her, as they left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A limousine, flanked by an SUV in front of it and one behind it, sped under the entrance portico to The Drakos Hotel and Casino and Alex opened the back door before it came to a complete stop. When Mikey, his driver, did stop it, he got out of the limo before even Rocco, his bodyguard, could get out and open the door for him. Alex was already entering the hotel.
Alex Drakos: Branding Her Again Page 11
