The Blame Game
A Brook Brothers Novel
Tracie Delaney
Contents
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Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Against All Odds
FROM MY HEART
Books by Tracie Delaney
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2018 Tracie Delaney
Edited by Sarah Carleton - Red Adept Editing
Cover art by Tiffany @TEBlack Designs
Cover Photographer - CJC Photography
Cover Model - David Wills
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in uniform or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Preface
The sins of the father must be borne by the son.
It’s the law.
Not THE law.
My law.
Four chances to make Jaxon Brook pay.
I’ll only need one.
Prologue
Jax pressed his forehead against the front door and closed his eyes. The courage to push it open and step inside failed him, because he knew that the moment he did, the horror would become real.
A wave of grief hit him hard, like the ocean crashing onto the shore during a storm, and hot tears made his eyes sting. He squeezed them shut. He couldn’t cry. Not yet. His mourning would have to wait.
Holding a breath deep in his lungs, he walked into the house. A thick, oppressive silence greeted him, creating a void that threatened to swallow him whole. He willed his legs to move. Left foot. Right foot. Repeat. He trudged down the hallway toward the kitchen at the far end, where a thin strip of yellowish light bled underneath the door. He pushed it open.
Brenda was sitting at the breakfast bar, a steaming mug of coffee resting between her cupped hands. She lifted her head, and her face crumpled. “Oh, Jax.”
She scrambled down from the stool, and in seconds, Jax found himself wrapped in a tight embrace, her wet cheeks dampening his shirt, her body trembling as though she was cold.
“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” she mumbled into his chest as he rubbed the palm of his hand in circles on her back, doing his best to comfort her. Then a realization hit him. This was his future. His role would be the comforter, the one who stood tall and strong while everyone else fell apart. He wouldn’t be afforded the luxury of breaking down—not in public anyway. Privately… well, that would be a different matter entirely.
“Everyone asleep?” he asked.
“Yes. Not a murmur.”
“Good.” Jax extricated himself from Brenda’s arms and poured himself a coffee. “Thanks for staying. It all took longer than I anticipated.”
His comment basically dismissed her, but she hesitated, one shoulder resting on the doorjamb. She wanted to say something, he could tell—a banal statement that wouldn’t soothe the burn of loss or the terrible yearning, or fill a hole so deep he might fall into it and never manage to claw his way out.
Instead, she sighed and slung her purse over her shoulder. “You need anything—and I mean anything, Jax—you call me. That’s what neighbors are for.”
She saw herself out, and once again, the silence consumed him. With an overwhelming urge to check on his brothers, Jax crept up the stairs, but at the top, he halted. His parents’ bedroom door was ajar. He stood on the threshold and stared at the empty room. A terrible numbness penetrated his chest. He walked inside and picked up a discarded dress that had been tossed on the bed. His mother must have changed her mind about what to wear before going out that evening. It was one of her favorites, a peach silk knee-length cocktail number that she often wore to the myriad functions his father’s work demanded they attend.
Jax’s legs buckled, his knees sinking into the thick cream carpet. He buried his nose in the dress, inhaling deeply the faint scent of his mother’s perfume. A burst of hatred erupted within him—hatred for the man who’d thought so little of the lives of others that he’d climbed into his car drunk and destroyed a family. Jax’s family.
They were gone. He’d never again see the dimple appear in his mother’s cheek when she smiled or hear his father grumbling about the state of the stock market as he quickly scoffed a slice of toast coated in grape jelly and washed it down with a cup of coffee before dashing off to his banking job on Wall Street.
Bile bubbled in his throat, burning the sensitive lining of his esophagus. Oh Christ. He was going to be sick.
“Jax?”
He clambered to his feet, the dress still scrunched up in his hands. Nate, his twelve-year-old brother, was standing in the hallway, hair ruffled from sleep. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “Where’s Mom and Dad?”
“Hey, kid,” Jax said, desperately trying for some levity to his tone. He needed more time. He couldn’t do this now. Tonight. He laid the dress carefully back on the bed. “It’s late. What are you doing up?”
A frown drifted across his brother’s face. “What’s going on?”
Jax pulled the bedroom door closed behind him and eased Nate back down the hallway, steering him gently toward his own bedroom. “Come on, bud. Plenty of time to catch up in the morning. You need to sleep.”
Fortunately, Nate didn’t resist. Jax tucked him in bed with a promise of a game of football in the yard the following day. Once he’d made certain Nate had fallen back to sleep, Jax crept out into the hallway. He checked on the fifteen-year-old twins, starting with Calum, who was older than his brother by two minutes—something he never let Cole forget. All quiet. The same was true in Cole’s bedroom, although he’d tossed his comforter to the floor, a habit he’d had since he was a toddler, according to Mom.
A razor-sharp pain speared Jax’s chest, pushing all the air from h
is lungs. He squeezed his eyes closed as panic clutched at his throat. He couldn’t deal with this. He was only eighteen—far too young to have this kind of responsibility thrust upon him.
He took a deep breath through his nose and, after collecting himself, went back downstairs. In an instant, his dreams of Broadway had disappeared. The life he’d craved since he was seven years old wouldn’t happen now. He’d have to give up his place at Juilliard. He had to put his brothers first, no matter the cost to him personally. Their safety, security, and happiness were all that mattered.
A prick of resentment nibbled at his stomach, but overcome with guilt, he quickly pushed it away. He curled up on the sofa—the one his mother had sat in when she did the crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning, a cup of hot tea resting on the coffee table in front of her—and allowed his tears to fall. His life, and the lives of his three younger brothers, would never be the same again.
Chapter One
“Say that again, without all the lawyer mumbo jumbo this time.”
Jax cocked a hip against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, his casual stance contradicting the storm brewing inside. He didn’t think for one moment he’d misunderstood his closest friend, but he needed Paul to spell it out in one-syllable words just to make sure.
“I’ve discovered there’s a very old covenant on the property. There are several types of covenants in law, but this one prevents the purchaser from change of use without parting with a significant amount of cash to buy it out. Which means now that you’ve bought the damned building, you’ve got three choices: pay what the get-out clause demands, leave the building in its current state—as a home, not a business—or sell it and start again.” Paul made a frustrated noise. “I still can’t believe you went ahead without getting me to look over the deed first.”
Jax swept a hand over his face. He’d spent a year searching for the right property for his business venture, and when this place had come onto the market, he’d been so worried about missing a great opportunity that he’d rushed into buying it, hiring a property lawyer off the internet because Paul had been away on vacation at the time. Three days had passed since Jax signed on the dotted line, and now Paul was hitting him with the worst news possible.
The building was perfect in every way. Its location couldn’t be any better, and the size and shape of the rooms meant he could keep internal remodeling to a minimum. It was also an attractive-looking property from the outside, a key attribute for a boutique hotel.
He supposed he could sell it and look for something else, except the chances of lightning striking twice and him finding another property as suitable as this one were slim to none. And given how fast the real estate prices in Manhattan went up, it wouldn’t be long before he couldn’t afford the kind of place he needed to make the venture financially viable.
“Hit me with it, then,” Jax said. “How much?”
Paul grimaced. “A half mil.”
Jax widened his eyes. “Half a million dollars? You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I were.”
“Can I sue?” Jax said, referring to the clearly incompetent lawyer who’d missed such a key element in the deed. “Surely he’ll have indemnity insurance?”
Paul pursed his lips. “You could, but it wouldn’t be cheap and would probably take years to get through the courts. Even then, it’s far from certain you’d get any sort of a payout.”
Jax threw his hands in the air. “Then the dream is over. I’m already mortgaged to the hilt. The money I’ve put aside from our inheritance is to make sure I can change the interior so it works as a hotel, not as a home, so I can’t use that. No bank is going to touch me—not without the guarantee of future income.”
There was a pause. Then Paul said, “There is an option you haven’t thought of.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so?” Jax said, hope spiking within him. “Shoot.”
“You don’t have to go to a traditional bank. A colleague at my firm had a business associate with a similar predicament. He went to this venture-capitalist company who specialize in financial instruments when the usual sources aren’t available for whatever reason. They secure the funds on your behalf, and in return, they get a cut of future profits. They’re totally legit. Fair too. As soon as you’ve hit certain profit milestones, they have a very reasonable buy-back clause.”
Jax grazed his bottom lip with his teeth as he considered Paul’s suggestion. Maybe if he did even more of the physical labor himself, he could make it work. His brothers would have to pitch in.
“Can you secure an introduction?”
Paul nodded, his cell phone already at his ear. Jax wandered into the kitchen, leaving him to it. He went to put on some coffee then thought better of it. He needed something stronger to settle his nerves. He could hear Paul talking fast and low in the other room. Figuring Paul might need a shot of liquor too, he grabbed a couple of glasses and poured each of them a healthy measure of bourbon. As he went back into the living room, Paul was finishing up.
“Yep, that’s great. Thank you, I appreciate it. Tomorrow?” He looked over at Jax, who nodded. “Tomorrow is perfect.” After a few more seconds, he hung up. “All set. You’re booked in with one of their financial whizz kids, a woman named India Monroe. One o’clock.”
“Thanks. Here, have a drink.” They clinked glasses, and Jax emptied his own in one swallow. “Here’s to being in debt until I’m ninety.”
Paul grinned. “Knowing how determined you are, I’d expect you to be invoking the buy-back clause within five years.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jax said. “Because if I don’t make a success of this, I’ve screwed over my brothers and lost their inheritance—without even giving them a choice in the matter.”
* * *
As the predicted knock came at her door, Indie breathed in, holding the oxygen deep in her lungs before letting it out slowly. “Come in,” she called out.
Pam, her assistant, entered. The man who followed her was familiar to Indie only in photographs, but seeing him in the flesh made her destiny all the more real. This was happening. Now. Earlier than anticipated, despite the months of planning. Then again, when luck came calling, it made sense to grab the opportunity with both hands.
She hadn’t expected him to be so tall or broad shouldered. Or for his forest-green eyes to bore into hers until she worried he could see straight through her and know what terrible plans she had in store for him.
“Mr. Brook.” Indie held out her hand and forced a warm smile.
He took her hand. “Jax, please.”
“Jax, then.” She gestured toward the chair opposite her desk. “Take a seat.”
He unfastened the button on his single-breasted jacket and sat down. He set a battered leather briefcase at his feet then smoothed his shirt and straightened his tie. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
Indie shook her head. “It’s no problem. I had a free slot in my calendar, and it was see you or go to the gym with an overzealous friend. You were the easy choice.”
Jax’s slow grin lit a fire in those compelling eyes. “Not a fan of working out?”
Indie hadn’t missed the brief sweep of his gaze over her body as he spoke, a natural action by a lot of men she came into contact with but one that left her with a very unnatural feeling. Pleasure. Unwanted pleasure.
“It’s a necessary evil, I guess.” She shuffled the papers on her desk in an effort to quell the growing heat inside her. She could not allow herself to feel the remotest attraction to this man. That wasn’t the plan. She cleared her throat and dared to meet his gaze once more. “So tell me, how can I help?”
Jax took a folder out of the briefcase and set it down on her desk. Indie’s eyes briefly flickered to his hands. Well-shaped fingernails, smooth skin, no scars or calluses. Those weren’t a worker’s hands. But then, why would they be? Jaxon Brook had led a privileged life. Too privileged—at her family’s expense.
“An u
nexpected cost has come up for a business venture I’m running, and I need funds to cover it.” He pushed the file across her desk.
She picked it up then paused as her assistant brought in coffee. “Thank you, Pam.” She smiled as Pam poured two cups. Indie waited for her to leave before opening the file. She hid her surprise at the detailed figures laid out on the page. Normally, she had to tease this level of information from prospective clients, but not from Jax. He’d been exceedingly thorough.
She sipped her drink as she mentally checked his numbers. They were all in order. In fact, the proposal was more than solid, and if it were executed correctly, her clients could be sitting on a very healthy return. Jaxon Brook wasn’t just hellishly attractive—he was smart too.
She took her time, occasionally making notes in the margin. She half expected Jax to interrupt or ask her questions, but he sat quietly, hands resting in his lap. He didn’t move, apart from the odd time when he leaned forward to sip his coffee. After she’d finished, she closed the file and reclined in her chair. She met his gaze. Still, he remained silent. He had a sexy, brooding look that only a woman made of stone wouldn’t find attractive. She needed to become that woman—but she was failing miserably. She clung to her ebbing confidence. Her career was her patch, her area of strength, the only place her predefined destiny hadn’t smashed through—until now.
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