by Starla Night
Rose exited the house, slung Liam’s small orange backpack over her arm, and descended the stairs. She took one look at Briar fumbling the money and her brows drew into angry suspicion. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Briar muttered, clutching the money as she texted into her phone.
Rose whipped to Jasper. “Nothing?”
He saw no reason to be vague. “I invested in your sister’s business.”
Rose was furious. She whirled at the bottom of the stairs and glared at her grandmother, who tiredly held the door for Liam to bounce down the stairs. “He invested in Briar’s business!”
Her grandmother merely set her jaw and faded into the house.
“Don’t worry, Rose,” Briar smirked. “I’m building a good future for Liam and me to live on together.”
Her fury drained. She crossed her arms and yawned. “Yeah, fine. Good for me if you do.”
“Sure, act like you don’t care.” Briar’s smirk grew. “Jasper told me the truth. You act like you don’t care when you actually do.”
Rose froze.
Briar laughed with glee. “See? I knew it! I knew, all along, I knew.”
A scratched sedan drove into the lot and honked.
“So, I’ll be seeing you and picking up Liam soon.” Briar pranced to the sedan, did a little dance in front of the windshield where she fanned the money, then got in the passenger’s seat. The car reversed out of the lot, bouncing through the worst of the holes, and disappeared.
Liam peered in the windows of Jasper’s car. “It’s black.”
“We’re walking.” Rose grabbed Liam and stalked past Jasper. She shook with fury. “And our relationship, Jasper? Or whatever it was?”
His stomach dropped. “Engagement.”
“It’s over.”
No.
He turned to follow her. “Why?”
“Because you have no idea.” She tugged Liam’s hand, keeping him close and walking fast.
Liam quieted and trotted to keep up, reacting to Rose’s panicked state.
“You’re upset about Briar,” Jasper identified.
“Yes, but you don’t know why.”
“I don’t know.” He hopped, flying in the air, and landed in front of her, stopping her at the street. “Because you compartmentalize.”
“Oh, so this is my fault?” Her question lilted onto a shriek.
“I want to know about you. About your life. Your family. Everything.”
“So you can betray me!”
“How did I betray you? How?”
“You told her…” Her hands shook. She could barely swallow. “How dare you tell her those lies!”
He stood solid. “I don’t lie.”
“Yes!” She made a fist and released it. “I know, but this time you misunderstood, and you told her things that aren’t the truth. So you lied.”
“What part? That you pretend not to care when you really do? That is not a lie, Rose. You do this about many things.”
“For protection.”
“Her protection? No. You did the same to me, and now—”
“Not for her protection. For protection from her!”
He stopped. This made no sense. “You need protection from Briar?”
Her eyes almost fell out of her head. She looked like she wanted to pull her own hair out. Instead, she yelled at the sky, “Why is it not obvious? Briar only takes things that she knows I care about. See my car. Before that, see my friends, my clothes, my everything-I-owned-my-entire-life.”
“Then why do you not fight like siblings and take your things back?”
Rose stared at him and then shook her head and muttered. “I knew it was a bad thing to hook up with you. I knew from the very beginning. Mixing work and life was dangerous. Wrong. Liam?”
He jumped away from the street corner where he’d started playing in the dirt a little too close to passing traffic. Even while furious at Jasper, Rose had an eye on him and protected his care.
She finished with Jasper, sharply bitter. “I didn’t realize you were going to take every possible opportunity to ruin my life.”
His heart thudded. He heard a distant roaring like the sun in his ears. “I didn’t ruin your life.”
“You turned my coworkers against me. You made my new boss think it’s no big deal to fire me. You gave Briar money.”
He addressed her concerns in reverse order. “You wish for a closer relationship. I invested in her company so you can build a business together”
“I wanted a closer relationship with the sister I had! We’re not going to get closer now. Briar’s just going to blow that money impressing her friends. And with the friends she has now, I’m worried she might get herself hurt.”
“She promised to spend it on her business.”
Rose rested a hand on her hip and shook her head at him in a pitying manner. “She won’t. She never does. In a few days, she’s going to come to you for another handout. And when that doesn’t work, she’s going to come to me, come to Grandma, and if none of that pays off, she’s going to punish me and take Liam.”
“Why punish?”
“Because her life is a nightmare. She’s homeless, jobless, doesn’t keep a schedule, doesn’t feed or bathe or clothe him, screams if he makes noise, keeps him in places that have lice and scabies and bedbugs, and doesn’t let him see or me or Grandma, or go to school.”
He shook his head. “She loves Liam.”
“She probably does, but that doesn’t mean she’s capable of providing a safe home.”
“That makes no sense.”
“She hit her head, Jasper. There was swelling. I know it’s not who she was, I know she’s changed, and I still love her, but I’m not so dumb that I think I can treat her like a responsible adult and it will be fine because it will never be fine again.” Rose sighed and her shoulders sagged. “That’s it. I’m done. Briar will take Liam and I can’t fight.”
“But why can’t you—”
“Briar will lie about me if I try. If I report her, if I do anything, she’ll make up stories about how I’m a bad parent, so if she loses any chance at custody, I do, too. She’d rather send him into the system than lose her parental rights again.”
Her quieted agony hurt him more than her arguments. She was defeated, beaten down so far he couldn’t reach her. And he’d led her to this state. It tore him up inside.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.” She rubbed the space between her brows. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll figure something out.”
“Not alone. You have a team now.” He gripped her limp shoulder. “Rely on us.”
“Us?” She lifted a brow, the spark of fight returning to her face. “Us, who?”
“Me.” Obviously. “Your grandma is on your side, right? And your friends. Elle, Patty, and—”
“No.” She shook her head, barked a laugh, and hugged her arm. “No, no.”
“Yes, Rose. Rely on us. Me, and I’m sure your grandma, believe in—”
“You and my grandma, I love you both, but both you have this critical flaw of giving things away, expecting people will pay you back, or thinking people are more honorable than they are, and then when you’re on the bottom, nobody will help you. Neither of you gets it. Some people take and take and take. And if you give it all away to people like that, what you have is gone.”
Unease filled him. His thoughts had mirrored hers earlier today during the meeting with his brothers. He’d given in and compromised, peace-brokered and sacrificed for years, and today his siblings had repaid him by hammering at him to give up the most important person of his life. To sacrifice his chance with Rose. To broker a peace with Adviser Wrathmoda using his body.
But Rose couldn’t be right.
His brothers wouldn’t abandon him when he needed them. No, they would help. They always gathered back-to-back when they were surrounded. Just because it looked grim at this moment for Jasper didn’t mean it would stay grim at the end.<
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He focused on the one part of Rose’s speech that mattered. “You love us both?”
“You and Grandma, yeah.” She got out her phone and scrolled through her social media. “Look, here’s Briar.”
In a live video, Briar cheered and danced around a group. She fanned herself with money while her friends plucked bills out of her hands. Somebody lit a bill on fire. Briar laughed.
“Literally burning money.” Rose shook her head. “She’ll be out of money tonight, at this rate, and then she’ll storm my new apartment, ranting and screaming for me. For Liam.”
“Then, let’s get out of here.”
Rose looked up in confusion.
“If you’re worried about her coming to you, then don’t be there.”
“Where else would we go?”
He scooped her against his chest. “My lair.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Your lair?” Rose pressed against Jasper’s hard, gorgeous suit chest. His eyes, simmering with heady intensity, made her mouth go dry. She licked her lips. His male scent intoxicated her and his arousal imprinted on her thigh. “I don’t know. Maybe that would work. Where’s your lair?”
“In space.”
“Space!”
Jasper glanced at Liam. “Briar will never find you there. You can reason with her at your leisure.”
There were a million reasons to tell Jasper no, forget it, that they were breaking up and staying broken up.
Going into space would only solve the problem for today; there was still the problem of Briar returning tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, until Liam was grown and gone. Also, her coworkers hated them dating; and third, Jasper hadn’t mentioned anything about a fight. Oh, and fourth, she was still upset about how he’d just steamrolled into her family, weaponized his adorable puppy dog eyes, and destroyed her meticulously balanced life.
Or he could abduct her, and she could escape her problems for a few hours.
Her legs trembled. “Do you have a bed for Liam?”
“My lair has seven bedrooms; I have already assigned one to him.”
Okay. She settled against him. “And how do we get there?”
“Liam.” Jasper held out his hand.
He kept his head tilted to the sidewalk, oblivious, and poked a potato bug.
“Liam!” she called. “Come over here. We’re going on a trip.”
“Trip?” Liam left the potato bug and took Jasper’s outstretched hand. “Where?”
“Space,” Jasper said.
The ground fell away like they’d bounced off a trampoline and were flying into the sky.
Liam shrieked and wiggled, dancing on what was no longer the ground; his feet dangled in the air.
Rose tightened her grip on Jasper’s shoulder and manacled Liam’s other hand. She didn’t know how dragon flight worked; the basics had gone over her head when she’d first trained on the window-washing jet pack. Dragons had special minerals that reversed gravity…sort of. So long as they held on to Jasper, he secured them in his field. But they could not let go.
They rose up and up and up. Birds coasted past. Her ears popped and popped again. The city shrank and the air chilled. They pierced misty, near-invisible clouds. Below, the distant coast outlined their state against the Pacific Ocean, scenic and peaceful and windy. Her ears popped a third time. Wasn’t this what people saw from an airplane? A high airplane. And he kept flying.
She prodded Jasper. “You don’t literally mean space?”
“Upper atmosphere.”
“You know we’re not dragons. Liam and I can’t just fly into outer space.”
“Neither can dragons.”
The world curved beneath their feet, beautiful and cold and strange. The air thinned and her head lightened. Her ears popped again and nausea turned her stomach. “Jasper?”
“There.” He aimed for a cream-colored dot. “We’re at the edge of human endurance.”
The dot grew in size. Rounded and smooth, the spaceship was shaped like a conical seashell or a dollop of whipped cream. He floated up, through a hatch, and as soon as it opened, gravity changed direction again. Jasper helped them clamber into a small vestibule like a little entry with a coat closet, shoe shelf, and table. The door to the outside sealed shut.
Her ears popped in rapid succession like quiet firecrackers. Liam clapped his hands over his ears and squeaked.
Jasper dropped his wallet and keys in the bowl on the table and exchanged his shoes for slippers.
She hung Liam’s backpack on a brass hook. Her nausea dissipated and a new, wiry sensation made her stomach burn. “Shoes off.”
Liam whined. “But I want my shoes.”
“This is a nice house. Look at this floor!”
“Aw!”
“Shoes. Off. Now.”
“It’s okay,” Jasper told her as she wrestled for the shoes. “He can keep them on.”
“No, we’ve been to houses where we take our shoes off. Not many, but we’ve had them.” She stuffed the shoes on the shelf, undid her own and set them beside, and then pawed through the basket of slippers for any that would fit Liam. “It’s ironic because half the time I can’t get him into shoes, and now he won’t take them off… Do you have his size?”
Jasper blinked. “I…don’t. I have socks.”
“It’s fine.” She slipped on the set in her size. They were warm and fluffy and deep, rich lavender. She stood. “I’m ready.”
He frowned at the slippers.
“It’s fine, really,” she insisted. “We sprung this on you, and anyway, it’s not like you knew Liam would ever come here.”
“But I had hoped.” He focused on her in a way that made her shiver. “I had always hoped you would come, and so I acquired what you might need. I didn’t know as much about Liam—”
“I never talk about him. Compartmentalizing.”
“Yes, but once I knew of his importance, I thought I had acquired everything.”
She snorted. “In what? A day?”
“It was more than enough time.” He looked more disturbed than the day the old HVAC reactor core overheated, and they’d had to evacuate the building while he checked whether the sensor was faulty or the reactor core was about to make the western seaboard have a very bad day.
“I’ve been making errors lately. Not thinking things through…”
Her ears popped again. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.”
A chime dinged and the vestibule’s main door clicked. Jasper turned the handle and pushed the door open. Liam skipped after him, and she followed.
The spaceship changed from humble entryway to a grand, crystal-lined circular stairway large enough to stage an old fashioned Hollywood musical. The steps were yellow marble lined with gold accents.
At the base’s left, a lounge sprawled with ornate potted plants, gold and ivory plush chairs, and tables made from solid blocks of white and smoky quartz. To the right, he’d furnished a grand dining room with an eggshell-white table and chairs. Soft light gleamed from every surface, bathing the interior in warm sunlight. The floors glowed a soft cream with brighter lights highlighting the low runners, smooth tables, and alabaster cathedral ceiling.
Liam raced into the lounge and conquered a quartz coffee table. “It’s a rock!”
She gasped and hurried after him. “Get down from there before you chip something!”
Jasper caught her around the waist and swung her in a circle. “He can’t break anything in here.”
“You don’t know!”
“Hard furniture is nailed down in case gravity fails.”
“He could chip it,” she protested, but calmed.
“If he chips anything, I’ll send his photo to the manufacturer.” Jasper teased her braids between his fingers. “They’ll frame it. He’ll be a star.”
“Your manufacturer underestimates the destructive power of little kids.”
He smiled, and she melted. How could his grin turn her into a puddle? But it did, and fo
r the first time in a long time, she relaxed. “So, this is your home.”
“It’s like a huge Winnebago,” he said.
She snorted. “Or like a yacht.”
“Yes, that’s also true.”
Liam leaped onto the smoky quartz table, bounced to a couch, and kicked the fluffy pillows. They slid off, he slipped, and they all landed in a soft puddle on the ground.
“I knew it,” she muttered and, as Liam poised to jump up on the hard stone table again, she shouted. “Hey! Get down before you break yourself.”
“I won’t break myself.”
“Jasper’s got dinner.”
“Dinner?” Liam raced to Rose. “A Happy Meal?”
“Even better,” she promised, having no idea.
Jasper led them through the dining room and into the spacious kitchen. Luckily, the full stock included Liam’s absolute delights: chicken fingers in the shape of dinosaurs and fruit pre-cut into stars, circles, and hearts. Paired with a cup of instant cheesy mac and a can of mashed peas, the gourmet plate made his eyes bug as he carried it carefully into the dining room.
For the adults, Jasper prepared an elaborate cheeseboard. Rich, aged salamis, crisp crackers, and cups of toasted almonds, juicy peach slices, ripe red cherries, and sweet scoops of cantaloupe filled the gaps between the cheeses. He poured her a glass of sparkling dry wine and left the bottle, returning to the kitchen. She stuffed herself on sharp cheddar, creamy gouda, and holey swiss as well as more exotic goat milk chèvre, sweet toscanello, and savory feta. Liam single-mindedly downed his own version of a luxury meal.
She alternated between excitement and hugging her grubby elbows to keep from soiling the spotless table. The gemstone-inlay cut glass lit from beneath like the Northern Lights was too heavy for her to crack, probably, but she could still make a mistake and mess it up.
Liam began making his dinosaurs talk to each other.
She stuffed in the last mouthful of summer-flavor peach, eased back in her seat, and observed the luxury.
Jasper exited the kitchen with a massive tray. On it rested huge bowls of leafy green salad, sunny yellow ravioli dusted with Parmesan and little curls of lemon rind, grilled white fish slathered with fire-roasted salsa, and fluffy rosemary-scented dinner rolls. He pushed aside the ravaged cheese plate and centered the feast before her.
