Oh, this fucking bastard. He couldn't possibly be serious about asking that question?
“And what have I been given that wasn't already deeply fucked up, Dad?”
“That little stunt you pulled-”
“Stunt?”
“Parading your stepsister around-”
“She's... not my stepsister, Dad.”
“Well she will be.”
“But she's not, so...”
“I've worked too long and too hard to let you fuck up my reputation. You hear me, you little bastard?”
“Dad, you haven't worked for shit. You've taken everything you've ever had, and you're pissed off because I won't help you swindle some innocent woman and her daughter for their business. You're a fucking predator, not some upstanding citizen who's just received a pink slip after twenty years of service to the job, so fuck off with the bullshit about how you’ve worked so long or hard.”
A slight pause in the conversation told Liam that his father had heard him loud and clear, that he was digesting his son's words, no matter how bitter they went down.
“Just... take care of this little problem. Fake like you were drunk. I don't know. Don't care. Just fix it.”
“Oh I have. Sorry if it fucked up your day.”
Clicking off the call, Liam reached for the SpongeBob stress ball sitting in the dish with his rubber bands. Fuck it. In the words of the very smart woman he was choosing over all of this bullshit: He wasn't worth the brain space.
Jackie
Jackie kept her mother on hold until Donna finally hung up, fuming at the audacity of her. Up until the moment her mother had actually verbalized her “disappointment,” Jackie had been worried about she and Liam's relationship coming out.
But something about having her mother's controlling tendencies rising to the surface of their already strained connection again had woken something in her gut that made it damn near impossible for her to dredge up even one iota of concern now.
She was a grown woman.
With a life.
And a real relationship, not a business opportunity.
Snatching up her bag, she skipped into her boots and headed out the door. There was one person and one person only that she wanted to talk to right now, and that was Liam. She knew herself. She was enflamed now, and that would keep her bold for awhile, but she'd second guess herself, eventually, and she couldn't have that.
For the first time in all of it, she didn't see a thing wrong with choosing love over her mother's manufactured happiness. How many times did love come knocking at the door? Not often. And when it did knock – you guessed it – you answered. It didn't take long for the cab to come, and on the ride over her mother's words replayed over and over in her head. She was so tired of being “carefully instructed” how to live. She'd been dealing with that bullshit her entire life. And she was over it. She had to draw a line somewhere.
Rushing from the car when it pulled up in front of the shop, Jackie grumbled all the way to the door, sweeping in on all the winds of a huff.
“Hey, Babe. You're a sight for sore eyes.”
Lip quivering, Jackie held back a dam of tears. Tears that wanted to fall for a number of reasons.
“You get the call, too?”
Drawing a breath, she nodded.
“You tell her to fuck off?”
“In so many words.”
“Good girl. Me, too.”
~
Shaking out of sleep at the blaring phone, Jackie blinked the exhaustion from her eyes. Mentally and physically, she felt like a fifty-ton weight had been laid on her head. Frowning, she set the cell phone down.
“Your Mom?” Liam asked, his voice croaking with half-sleep.
“Yep.”
Their eyes looked to the phone in tandem when her text notification dinged. Huffing, Jackie lifted the cell, flicking to the message screen:
Family Meeting.
3:00 at Angel's Garden. Important.
Fuck. She was so tired of this shit!
“What's it say?”
“Apparently, we've been summoned to a 'family meeting.'”
Liam grinned, rubbing his eyes.
“Yeah, I saw that coming.”
“I don't want to go.”
“Nah, we should.”
“For what?”
“Why give them the satisfaction of running or hiding?”
Digesting his words, Jackie tucked in closer to him. He had a point. Better to meet this thing head on. They made their choice, and their parents were going to have to live with it. It scared the shit out of Jackie, but the sooner they got it over with, the sooner they could get on with their lives. Kind of like cutting the apron strings. She'd have to stand up to her mother at some point.
And really, there was no time like the present.
That didn't mean they were going to rush, and they didn't, but when they finally entered the Angel's Garden, they were ready for whatever their parents had to throw at them.
“Party?”
A pretty hostess asked with a serviceable smile.
“Cross and Rhodes.”
“Yes, of course. Right this way.”
Stepping out from her podium, she led them down the hall to the ramp into the lower deck where their table waited, complete with disapproving parents, amidst a gorgeously arranged indoor garden bursting with tropical plants. Apparently, Liam's father did everything big, including meetings arranged for the sole purpose of chastising his son and said son's sister-to-be.
“Glad you could make it. You're only ten minutes late. Finally learning some responsibility.”
Gary was wearing a sour expression, glaring at his son like he'd love nothing more than to throw him around right then, given the chance. It made a compelling case for the apple not falling far from the tree. She could see the same explosive fury flashing in the older man's eyes that she'd seen in Liam when Colin had all but called her an outright whore at the casting party.
Taking a seat at Liam's side, she wisely held her tongue. It wasn't their meeting, after all. Better to let the lovebirds (not) say what they had to say. Maybe it would be worth a response, maybe it wouldn't.
Time would tell.
“Always good to see you, Dad.”
Liam fixed his father with a narrowing look, and Jackie stole a glance at her mother.
Donna looked fit to be tied.
“Yeah, well onto the business at hand. The two of you are going to have to call this sham off. I have a lot riding on this marriage.”
Liam cracked a bitter smirk.
“You have a lot riding on it? Oh, yeah?”
His father leaned in like he was two seconds from reaching over the table and hemming his son up.
“I don't stutter.”
Jackie folded her arms over her chest. What exactly did he mean he had a lot riding on it? Was he talking about VitaGourmet? Because she hadn't signed a damn thing, and it was a little premature for him to assume she would.
“Running for Mayor, Dad? Need a make-believe perfect family to make that happen?”
Leaning back, his father shook his head softly.
“You know Liam, you could have been one of the greats. You have it all. The drive. The focus. The shark teeth. Unfortunately, you lack vision. That's the difference between men like me, and men like you. I know how to bring an idea to life. How to make it happen. You? You settle for some mid-range goal that might net you a hundred-thousand a year tops after this silly little “reality” show you've signed up for. You think small, son. I'd have thought better of someone I had a hand in creating.”
Liam scoffed.
“And how much of a hand was that? I mean, aside from the ten minutes you spent making me in a back alley with a girl you got hopped up on drugs and took advantage of?”
Eyes narrowing, his father pointed a finger of warning at him.
“You watch your tone -”
“Nah, I'm not watching, shit. And this little sham of a marriage,” he st
opped to give Jackie's mother an apologetic look before returning his eyes to his father. “Sorry Donna. This 'photo op' marriage you're putting together, isn't my problem. And it isn't Jackie's, either. See, we actually want to be together. And we don't require your permission to do that.”
Gritting his teeth, his father sat back, turning his eyes on Jackie.
“Do you know the money we could all make together, young lady? Your mother's company-”
“Our company. My mother and I are partners.”
“Sure, sure. The point I'm making is that you're sitting on a gold mine. I've done the numbers. I have relationships with all of the vendors you need. VitaGourmet doesn't have to sit in a specialty basket for rich bitches to pick up as an afterthought when they're out trying to cram themselves into five-thousand dollar dresses? I envision the next Subway experience, only better. The timing is perfect. And I can make that happen for you. But if you two go through with this.... Everything will fall apart.”
“Honey,” her mother jumped in, turning on full-Donna eyes and using the disarmingly, hypnotic inflection she'd been turning on Jackie for years. “Gary knows how to make us millionaires. I know it must be hard at your age, mistaking attraction for love, but think of your future. In a few years, you might not even want to see Liam's face.”
She stopped to smile at Liam apologetically before returning her attention to her daughter. “Sorry dear. Jackie, you know how your relationships turn out. If you play your cards right, you can have your pick of any man.”
Jackie could feel the flames of hell licking at her gut, and she squeezed the edges of her armrest in a failed effort to restrain herself. Did her mother just so much as say she could “buy a man” when they all made barrels of money from her idea? How utterly fucking cruel. How could she fling that at her so easily?
“Honestly, I can't see how you can do a thing with VitaGourmet without my consent. You might have wanted to ask me before you concocted some fairy tale PR stunt at my expense. For your information, not that you care, I'm happy. And that means way more to me than some potential million dollar pay out.”
Her mother shrunk back, her gaze averting to her fingers.
“That the kind of control you have over your daughter, Donna? Makes sense how this happened then. She's completely off her leash.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Liam growled.
His father fixed him with a look that could kill, then downing the rest of his cognac, he nodded to himself, like he was having an internal conversation that had just ended in a conclusion.
“You know what? Fine. None of this is worth it.”
He turned an eye on Donna, and his true face broke through the veneer of charm he usually wore as he scowled at her. “This thing between us is over.”
He rose up from his chair then, taking a hard look at his son and then Jackie, before throwing down his napkin and storming up the ramp.
Jackie drew a stilling breath when she felt Liam's fingers graze hers, and stealing a glance at her mother, she saw a look of recognition from her that was worth its weight in gold. Donna saw, for the first time, what was between them, and if her expression was anything to go on, she was already fighting a twinge of guilt over it. Served her right, but Jackie wasn't one to hold a grudge.
She just wanted this whole circus behind them, as soon as possible.
~
Liam roared at the photographer, chasing him across the front lawn of Jackie's apartment complex with a force more fierce than she'd ever seen in a man. He stomped his way back across the lawn after a quick tumble with the bastard, brandishing the asshole's camera, chucking it on the counter when he made it back upstairs.
“You took his camera?” Jackie asked with a half-laugh.
Eyes blinking up, the flames in them instantly died down, and he cracked a grin.
“Yeah.”
Smiling, Jackie took another sip of her coffee, tapping her fingertips on the surface of the tiled, standing bar.
“Are we, um... gonna read it?”
She was asking about the article. They'd made the papers, and the headline read: “National Ink Host Gets Cozy with New Stepsister.”
Liam ran his fingers through his hair.
“I don't want to read that shit, to tell you the truth. I can force them to print a retraction later. All publicity is good publicity right now.”
“Yeah, but...”
“It'll be fine. There's no marriage coming up, anymore, and you're not my stepsister. Nor will you be.”
Quieting, Jackie averted her gaze and drew another sip of coffee.
“Alright.”
“Besides...”
Her eyes flicking up to Liam, she saw he'd pulled a box out of his pocket. A round, black box that made the butterflies in her belly wake and fly in a cacophony of opposing directions.
“The relationship that deserves the publicity is the one that's real.”
Jackie swallowed her nerves as he made his way over to her.
“Open this box for me, will you?”
“Oh my god, Liam.”
He grinned and rolled his eyes playfully.
“Just open it.”
She did, and when she set eyes to the whomper of a rock tucked into its middle, she flew into his arms, whispering, “Yes. Yes. Yes!” Over and over, until he understood how entirely ready she was to officially be his.
Following that day, everything righted itself. The diva model Liam was having troubling getting in line? Fired. Corey? Hired. He had the face for it, and whatever Liam had said to him to get him to focus his path in a direction opposite the one he'd been errantly walking had worked.
But the family bliss didn't stop there. The silent half-brother who had next to nothing to say at that abysmal family breakfast, Remy, showed up at the shop a few week's after Jackie's and Liam's wedding announcement wanting to get to know the side of the family his father had been keeping him away from.
And he'd fit right in to his father's utter disgust.
He was living with Jackie and Liam now, quite happily, thank you, after dear old dad threw him out for 'going to the other side.'
Oh, and VitaGourmet? Jackie and Mom buried the hatchet, and she signed right off on the new VitaGourmet vending machines Liam put up the money for.
Turned out, she didn't need a marriage to an asshole to increase the size of her net worth. In two months, they'd already tripled their profits. But the most unexpected offer of all came from “Chef Academy,” following a slanderous comment Colin made during one of the interviews that showed the world what an utter asshole he was. A week after they sacked him, they were knocking at her door, ready to give her more money than she'd ever seen to make several, guest appearances next season.
“You gonna take it?”
Jackie flicked her gaze up at him, instantly warming at the charming smile lighting up her gorgeous fiancée’s face.
“Two reality stars in one house? Not sure there's enough room for all that ego.”
Pulling her into his arms, he leaned in to cover her mouth with a long, searching kiss that sent trails of heat reverberating through her body. Then leaning back, he looked at her, studied her, really.
“Plenty of room when the ego comes in a package this stunning.”
Jackie grinned.
“Flatterer.”
Lifting her up in his arms, he nipped her lip and tugged.
“How much you think they'll pay us for a “leaked” sex tape?”
Jackie half-laughed, her eyes darkening as she pressed herself against him.
“Only one way to find out.”
SCARLET NORTH
Scarlet North loves writing steamy romances, where her heroes are dominant alpha men, and her heroines are smart, independent, and strong-willed. With Scarlet, you can always count on two things: her stories will be bursting with emotion, and you’ll always end up with a HEA.
Scarlet is a self-proclaimed 80’s girl. By day, she can be found rocking out to channel 8 o
n Sirius XM, while driving her cherry red Jeep along the beautiful beaches of east coast Canada. By night, she can be found working by the light of a laptop, usually from bed, with her man-candy of a husband soundly asleep beside her.
She loves hearing from her readers at: [email protected]
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