STAND CLOSE 1
SABRINA LACEY
Lacey Publications
CONTENTS
Copyright
1. Rue
2. Jack
3. Rue
4. Rue
5. Sean
6. Sean
7. Rue
8. Jack
9. Rue
10. Sean
11. Rue
12. Rue
13. Jack
14. Sean
15. Rue
16. Rue
17. Alec
18. Rue
19. Rue
20. Rue
Stand Close: Part 2
Hearts Series Bundle - Parts 1-6
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About the Author
Stand Close 1
Copyright © 2014 Sabrina Lacey
All Rights Reserved
Cover Image © AS Photo
Licensed through: Shutterstock.com
Published by Lacey Publications
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Chapter One
RUE
Green is the color of money, so of course his eyes are green. That’s the first thing I thought when I opened my door and saw Jack Stone standing on the torn up welcome mat of my unglamorous North Hollywood apartment, wearing a form-fitting suit and undone tie, his sandy-brown hair skewed and hanging over his frowning forehead.
That and, he’s got a heat on.
That’s what my mom used to call blind stinking drunk, but he’s also hot-as-hell sexy and hot-as-hell pissed, so that’s heat times three. What’s very weird is his fury seems to be directed at me, weird because we’ve never met. I only know who he is because everyone knows who he is. I know details about him I shouldn’t know. I read the gossip magazines to keep me occupied during my graveyard shift at the Supermarket. It’s something to do between ringing up booze for has-been rockstars from the ’80’s, and snacks for stoned teenagers who are unsuccessfully trying to buy booze. But I wouldn’t admit to reading such trash.
“How old are you?” The famous and incredibly impressive Jack Stone growls, his angry stare ripping down my body. I glance down out of instinct, horrified to remember I’m wearing my ugly pair of sweats and a shirt that is a couple sizes too large. It’s comfy to sleep in, but I vow as of this moment to throw it away as soon as I figure out what the hell is going on.
“What?” I sound as confused as I am, plus I’m kicking myself for not putting on makeup before I opened the door. At least some lipstick or something. And I haven’t brushed my teeth either. But it’s only 8:00 a.m. so can you blame me?
“You’re Rue Calliwell, right?” I nod. His gorgeous eyes narrow into sexy slits and he repeats in a low guttural growl, “How old are you?”
I look past him, scanning the sidewalk to see if we’re on camera. This is a joke right? I meet his eyes, and answer, quietly, “Yesterday was my twenty-first birthday.”
For some inconceivable reason this inspires a slew of swear words to pour from his beautiful mouth, ending with, “FUCK! I can’t fucking believe this fucking shit.” And with that, he flips around and sways his way to the street, only once almost falling.
What is happening?!! “Hey!” He doesn’t turn, so I try louder. “HEY!!!” Oops. That sounded a little harsh.
He turns around. No, that’s not correct. He turns just his head around, and those intense eyes of his peer at me like a vampire’s who was going to let you go but then decided that no, you were doomed to die at his hand. In a low rumble, he asks, “Did you just yell at me?”
Now I’m getting irritated. Why the attitude? “Excuse me, but you can’t wake me up and ask how old I am and then just walk off, swearing, without explanation. I don’t even know you! I mean, I know you, but you don’t know me. You know what I mean!”
Glowering, he takes a few crooked, long strides back and gets really close to my face. His eyelashes fall as he rakes his steady, judgmental gaze over me again, this time from the ground up. I cross my arms, and gulp, standing a little straighter with my chin cocked out in defiance. There’s something about him that inspires rebellious blood pumping in my veins. Something about the way he looks at me, like I’m beneath him or something. I may not be on the covers of magazines, but I’m no troll guarding a bridge, either!
Righteously, I hold his gaze, inhaling a small huff as his pale green eyes knife into mine to cut me down. He sneers, reaches up and touches my shoulder as if he has the right. I’m so shocked, I say nothing. He’s staring at his thumb as it swipes against the baggy cotton twice before retracting.
With him this close, I can see where his stubble has recently been shaved off. I can see his scar that slices into one eyebrow from the car accident he was in seven years ago when he was sixteen and almost drove of the cliff in Malibu. The whole world knows about how he almost died that day. When I totaled my car, the only people who knew about it were the guy I ran into, my mother, and my insurance company who danced in their swivel chairs as they hiked up my premium.
When Jack does something, it’s news.
I open my mouth to say something–ask why he’s here, how he knows my name, why he’s so perfect…but I seemed to have lost my ability to think straight. Unfortunately, I can still stick my foot in my mouth. “Are you about to kiss me?” I whisper, holding very still.
Like he’s won a battle I’d barely begun to know I was in, he smirks, eyes lighting up with victorious superiority. But the smirk is quickly replaced by a snarl as he says the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. “My lawyer will be calling you.”
My jaw drops. He flips around and exits in angry zigzags.
“Your lawyer?” He doesn’t answer. “Wait! What?!” I’m standing on my tiptoes like that will make the sound reach farther. But he doesn’t look back. One half of the Stone brothers disappears around the side of my apartment building. Did he walk here? And what the hell?
His lawyer will be calling me??!!
Chapter Two
JACK
C limbing in the passenger seat of Sean’s Lotus Evora, I slam the door. I’m more irritated than ever, now that I’ve met her. “Drive.”
Sean’s got one tensed hand on the wheel, the other in his lap. He glances over to me and puts the car in gear. “You were gone a long time. Did you meet her?” His voice is low as he looks to see if it’s safe to pull out into morning gotta-get-to-work traffic. Even on the residential streets, it’s insane.
“Oh, I met her alright,” I growl.
He barely waits for me to finish my sentence. “Well?”
“She’s exactly like I thought she would be,” I mutter, turning my head away from him.
“Shit.” We take off down the street and he hits the gas like we’re on the freeway, coming up on another car like they should get out of his way. And they should. For a while, we drive in silence. The radio isn’t on. We’re not talking. What is there to say? We’re fucked. The world has changed in a way we never thought possible. And all because of some girl named Rue Calliwell who, up until yesterday, we never knew existed.
The truth is, when we heard from our lawy
er what happened, I had all sorts of ideas in my mind about what she would be like. Trashy topped the list. Broke, of course was in there. I expected to see the kind of money-grabbing whore her mother must have been.
She is broke. I was right about that. What a shit hole place to live. But even standing there in the scuffed-up doorway, her eyes had a dignified intelligence that took me by surprise. She’s barely legal to down a beer, but she seemed older than other twenty-one year olds, stronger somehow. Able to handle my stare more than most twit-heads. Rue Calliwell appeared to be ‘a good girl’ –fresh faced and unjaded compared to the chicks who run in our circles. And she had some fire in her. I liked that.
I don’t want to like that.
“I should have come up with you.” Sean finally says.
“I told you that you should have,” I mutter out the window.
He doesn’t argue. We both know the deal. My brother and I are alike only in physical appearance. No one would deny we descend from the same lineage of Czechoslovakian ancestors–before it separated into Czech Republic and Slovakia. Now I guess we’d be just Czech. But our physical resemblance is where the similarities end.
I’m the one who immediately after Henderson told us about her, paid to have Rue checked out; everything that could be found on her, we found. It wasn’t much. She lives a fucking boring life by anyone’s standards. Works at Ralphs. Didn’t go to college, but she’s studying to be a dancer. Trains at Millennium with all the other dancers who are worth a damn. Has been in a few music videos. Has a best friend, a Mexican girl name Jenna. Last boyfriend was Leon and he was a deadbeat surfer who had only his looks to reel girls in with. Didn’t last past a year.
Not much else.
Boring with a capital BORING.
So I needed to see her for myself. I had to force Sean to drive to her place this morning after we left Alec’s all-nighter. I’m the one who jumped out of the car when he wanted to call her when we arrived like we were making a fucking appointment or something.
We don’t play by polite society’s rules.
We’re rich.
What the fuck is polite anyway?
We have our own rulebook.
A fact my brother still doesn’t seem to understand. Sean often feels too guilty to actually enjoy this life we live. Well, not me.
At the Mulholland stoplight on the peak of the hill between Beverly Hills and The Valley, he can’t contain his curiosity anymore. “What was she like?” His shoulders are tense, holding onto the wheel like he’s driving a block of wood.
“You should have had more to drink, Sean. You look like you’ve got a stick up your ass.”
He tenses even more. “Someone had to drive.”
“Like we couldn’t afford a cab.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Or a plane.”
“Ha ha,” he says, dryly, lips tightening as he shakes his head.
Impatiently, I stare out the window as we head for home. These turns are killing me. I’ve been drinking since 2:00 p.m. yesterday when we got the news. I might puke all over Sean’s superiority complex. His guilt over being wealthy has always annoyed the fuck out of me. What’s the point, when you can’t do anything about it? We were born into this; my brother and I. Our family is old money. We were born into this just as our parents and grandparents were, and their parents, too.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But this Rue chick? There is something very wrong about that.
Sean turns down the radio right after I turn it up. “You didn’t answer me. What was she like?”
“If you’d come to the door with me, you would have known, wouldn’t you?”
He scowls and reaches for the volume knob. “You’re a dick.” He turns it back up way too loud.
“Pull over.”
“You’re not going to…”
“Pull over!”
“There’s nowhere to pull over, Jack! We’re up against the side of the hill!! Just a couple more turns and we’re to the houses…”
“Pull over, Sean! Just do it!”
He throws on the hazards, rolls down his window and stops the car behind us by throwing his arm up in the air, stopping the car right here in the middle of the one lane street. I open the door and hurl all over the asphalt. It stings like a motherfucker and I choke and cough as he mumbles, “Foul. You never know when to stop, Jack.”
I wipe my mouth and shut the door as cars pile up behind us, honking like the impatient fucks L.A. drivers are. “I knew when to stop the car. It’s a start.”
He grins despite himself as he puts the car in gear and yells out the window, “Fuck off! People are sleeping!” We laugh and for a second forget that everything has changed. For a blissful second, it’s like it’s always been. But then we both remember, and the smiles fade.
Chapter Three
RUE
This cold, modern décor does nothing to make me more comfortable. I adjust the hem of my dress, wishing too late that I’d worn something longer. Mr. Henderson’s receptionist has let me know by her repetitive appraisal over the top of her glasses that it’s inappropriate by her standards. Well, I can’t go home and change. There’s not enough time. It took me over forty-five minutes to get to Downtown in the first place. Even though Jack Fucking Stone had warned me this morning, how do you prepare yourself for a mysterious call from his lawyer: Ms. Calliwell, this is Tom Henderson. I represent the Stone family. Is there a time today when you can come in? I can’t tell you what it’s about over the phone. I hope you understand.
Well, I don’t.
“Excuse me.”
The receptionist looks up with disinterest. “Yes?”
I offer an awkward smile as I ask, “Do you know why I’m here?”
Her eyebrows rise slightly and she looks back to the computer. “No.”
I lean back and adjust my hem again. “You’ve been a big help.”
Her eyes flick my way a split second, and then back down.
The elevator doors open to my left. My stomach jumps out the top of my head and splats on the ceiling as Jack and Sean Stone walk out, each with one hand in the pocket of their tailored slacks, mirroring each other, and both looking at me. Jack sneers, his jawline taut and his light green eyes cutting a path through my heart, which is pounding and stopping, and pounding some more. I gulp and move focus to his brother who’s only slightly less intimidating with softer, curious blue eyes, the same nose, sandy brown hair styled perfectly, and a slender, more graceful frame. I don’t say anything as they pass me to stop at the receptionist’s desk. Sean throws a glance over his shoulder, checking me out as Jack says, “Mary, you look gorgeous. Tell him we’re here, will you?”
She all but falls out of her chair for him. And gorgeous she is not, so instantly I find him charming and wish I were on the receiving end. Why does he hate me so much? It’s like I’ve killed his dog or something. Who are these people? And why do they want to see me?
Sean strolls over, holding out his hand. “I’m Sean. You must be Rue.”
I stand up and my dress hitches on my thigh, demanding a hasty fix. Blushing at my moment of gracelessness, I hold out my hand and shake his a little too firmly. “Yes, that’s me. Hi. I didn’t know you’d be here today. Either of you. I don’t know why I’m here either, actually. I don’t know what this is about. And I’m blabbering. It’s nice to meet you.”
Sean’s smile is polite, his eyes a little cold. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“My ass it is,” Jack mutters loudly.
The large oak door opens and a man appears. He’s ancient, with gray hair sprouting all over the place. His body is tiny, as are his hands. His smile says he’s seen it all, and he probably has. Even the invention of fire. “Ah, we’re all here. Come!” He turns and walks back inside his office, leaving me staring after him. Sean touches the small of my back in a comforting way. “After you.” I look up at him and nod, but my feet aren’t having it. “It’s okay
,” Sean says.
Jack walks in, shaking his head at the whole situation. “Can you believe this?” he shoots to his brother.
“Believe what? What is going on??!” I whisper, following the Stone brothers into an immense office with floor-to-ceiling books and dark brown leather furniture. There are three high-backed chairs facing the desk, ready for us, and Mr. Henderson sits down with his back to the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles in an even larger leather chair. Or maybe it just looks larger because he’s in it. Sean motions for me to take the middle. I glance to him, and take a seat.
Chapter Four
RUE
M y jaw drops like one of those cartoons. “What?!!”
Mr. Henderson’s hands lock together on the paunch of his stomach as he repeats, “Now that you’re twenty-one, you have inherited fifty-million dollars from Maxwell Stone of Stone Enterprises.”
“Fifty million dollars??!”
He nods once and takes a deep breath. “I was told you would not know that your mother worked for the Stone family before you were born. She and Maxwell Stone had an affair. It went on for quite some time. No one knew about it, save for one of his trusted men, Jonas, and me well after it was over, when he set up his will. I’m to give you these letters.” He glances to the men who have shifted in their seats on either side of me at the sight of the yellowed tattered envelopes bound in a large rubber band, the middle of the stack compressed tightly and the ends splayed out by time.
“You didn’t tell us about those,” Jack objects, but Mr. Henderson stops him with a rise of his tiny hand.
“I know. I am following your father’s wishes.”
I take the stack and stare at them. The whole world knows that Maxwell Stone died three years ago. It was a big deal. He committed suicide with a Nine Millimeter in a fancy hotel, with a note that said: It is time. – Max. People speculated that he used the hotel to save his family the haunting memory living with them at home. I always thought he did it there because he wanted to get away from that woman he married. Every picture or interview I’ve ever seen of her has made me uncomfortable. She smiles constantly. Her eyes never smile. It’s disconcerting.
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