Make Me Risk It

by BETH KERY

  That was strange, Harper thought, moving away from the column in his direction. His manner had seemed rushed and tense. Was he looking for her? She walked through the milling crowd of people in his direction. She reached the stairs where he’d disappeared, craning her head to see. There was a bend in the stairs, obscuring her vision. The men’s lavatory wasn’t in this direction, she knew from prior experience. Maybe Jacob knew some roundabout way to get there?

  She rose up the first three steps, getting a better view of the entire lobby. This would be a good pace to wait . . .

  “. . . you promised me, Regina.”

  Harper started. It’d been Jacob’s tense, low voice she heard resounding from the upper part of the stairs.

  “I didn’t promise you that I’d never come back to San Francisco,” a woman exclaimed.

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” Jacob seethed. “That’s what I meant.”

  “It’s just champagne!”

  “How did you know I’d be here tonight?”

  “Elizabeth told me she’d gotten two opera tickets for you tonight. Don’t be mad at her. I kind of tricked her into telling me.”

  “You agreed to stay in Napa until you’re more stable,” he continued quietly, but Harper heard the anger in his tone, as if he felt the situation spinning out of control.

  “You’re here,” the woman replied bitterly. “You told me that you were so busy in Tahoe, and yet you have time for the opera? And I saw that woman you’re with.”

  “I’m not making excuses to you. I’m not the one who broke a promise.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” the woman said sarcastically. “Jacob Latimer, always above reproach. Always so cold.” Her harsh laugh segued into a sob. Harper’s heart lurched uncomfortably.

  “Why don’t you love me the way I do you, Jacob?”

  “Jesus,” Harper thought she heard him mutter before she became aware of rapid movement beside her. A dark-haired man flew up the stairs next to her and paused on the landing, looking upward.

  “Regina?” he called. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Is this your escort?” Jacob asked.

  “Yes. It’s okay, David,” Regina sniffed.

  Harper started back guiltily when she saw movement and a flash of red. The woman—Regina—put her hand on the dark-haired man’s lapel.

  “What did you do to her?” David demanded accusatorily, looking up the stairs.

  “I didn’t do anything to her. You did. She’s drunk,” Jacob snapped. “Are you drunk as well?”

  “What? I’m not going to—”

  “It’s okay, David. Jacob and I are old friends,” Regina said.

  “Friends?” David asked scathingly.

  Regina turned.

  Harper was suddenly face-to-face with the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. Even with reddened eyes and wet cheeks, she was stunning. Long, shining dark brown hair stood in dramatic contrast to her form-fitting red dress and smooth, golden skin. Dark eyes fastened on Harper. Harper stepped down and clutched at the bannister.

  It’d all happened so quickly. She’d been caught red-handed and flustered in the act of eavesdropping. Jacob suddenly appeared on the landing. He tapped David hard on the chest.

  “She has a history of substance abuse, you idiot. And she’s on medication. Don’t give her any more alcohol.”

  “Listen, you son of a bitch—”

  “Stop it, David. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and neither does Mr. Holier Than Thou here. Just take me back to the hotel,” Regina said, her speech slurred. She grabbed David’s hand and proceeded very unsteadily down the stairs. It was only then that Jacob noticed Harper standing there. His eyes seemed to blaze in his rigid face.

  Regina paused next to her.

  “So you’re the new flavor of the night? Is this some new kink you’ve dreamed up, screwing the girl next door?” she called back to Jacob.

  “Damn it, Regina.” Jacob jogged down the steps and grabbed David’s elbow aggressively. He was so large and intimidating, such an oncoming storm, Harper stepped back instinctively.

  “Get a cab and take her back to the hotel,” Jacob demanded. “I don’t want you or her driving—”

  “I’m not drunk. And I’ve had about enough of you,” David blazed, throwing off Jacob’s hold. Harper wondered if what Jacob had insinuated about David being drunk was true. David was clearly the smaller of the two men, but seemed strangely cocky in the face of Jacob’s pointed anger, concern, and much more intimidating size.

  “Oh shut up, both of you,” Regina hissed disgustedly. She shoved David in the opposite direction of a dangerous-looking Jacob. Harper saw her look back once at Jacob in a kind of desperate longing before they disappeared into the crowd.

  Jacob turned to her with a jerky movement. His volatility seemed to roll off him in waves. Harper didn’t know what to say. It’d all happened so quickly. So unexpectedly . . . and it all seemed so out of character for Jacob.

  “I’m sorry,” he said thickly. He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of sharp frustration. His gaze focused on her. “Regina is . . . an old friend.”

  She didn’t reply. She’d never seen him so frayed. Harper wasn’t sure what she was feeling at that moment, beyond confused. It was clear that despite his anger at the woman, he cared about her a great deal.

  The chimes calling the audience back to the performance rung. Jacob blinked at the sound dazedly. Suddenly, a handsome, gray-haired man of medium build who was dressed to the nines separated himself from the crowd. He came toward them. Jacob glanced around and froze.

  “Clint,” he said, his voice hollow with disbelief.

  “I saw her. The girl. Gina,” he pointed in the direction where Regina and David had disappeared. “You still have contact with her?” the man asked incredulously, his mouth slanting into a frown.

  Jacob straightened, all vestiges of his strained state vanishing. Here was the glacial, utterly in control, intimidating man Harper recognized. “I saw her just now. What’s it to you?” A strange expression suddenly slid over Jacob’s face. He glanced uneasily at the doors where Regina had just exited with her date. “Did she see you? Regina?”

  Jefferies scoffed.

  Jacob lunged toward him. Jefferies’s smug, disdainful expression vanished and he took a half step back, clearly alarmed.

  “Did Regina see you, damn it?” Jacob seethed.

  “No, not that I’m aware of,” Jefferies said with bravado, although it was clear he was intimidated by Jacob’s pointed fury. He glanced around, seeming to take heart in the fact that they were in the middle of a public forum, despite the diminishing crowd. “Honestly, Jacob. I can’t believe you’re still letting her get to you. I swear, I’ve stopped trying to understand you.”

  Jefferies’s gaze landed on Harper and moved over her speculatively, as if suddenly aware that there was a close audience to their charged conversation.

  “Clint Jefferies,” he said, stepping toward Harper and putting out his hand, all smooth urbanity. He struck Harper as oily and manipulative in that moment. Jacob moved so fast, Harper was stunned. He came between her and the other man and grabbed her hand.

  “Don’t you even look at her.”

  She walked next to Jacob back toward the theater, his furious snarl echoing in her ears.

  Chapter Four

  During the performance, Harper couldn’t help but be aware of Jacob’s continued tense state. Although he looked at the stage, he seemed to silently simmer, and she felt sure his mind was on what had just occurred during intermission—on Regina and Clint Jefferies—and not the opera. At one point, she glanced to the left and saw him in the audience: Clint Jefferies. His gaze was trained directly on Jacob and her.

  She knew from Ruth Dannen’s pre-cocktail-party coaching that Jefferie
s owned the multibillion-dollar Markham Pharmaceuticals and had once been a kind of older brother–father figure to Jacob.

  Jacob had made a great deal of money from a windfall sale of Markham Pharmaceutical stock at a very young age. He’d allegedly bought the stock just days before a breakthrough Markham medication for diabetes was given FDA approval. After approval went through, Jacob’s investment skyrocketed. Later, Clint Jefferies had become the target of an insider trading investigation because of that very deal in which Jacob had prospered so richly. Harper knew that the SEC usually went after the bigwig suspected of insider trading, not the little guy, like Jacob had been at the time. Was it true what Ruth had insinuated? That even though Jacob had made his first fortune from the Markham stock sale, he’d afterward washed his hands of the taint of Clint Jefferies, sacrificing the man who had supported him in his early career?

  And why had Jefferies been so incredulous and disdainful about seeing Regina and Jacob together? More importantly, why did Jacob seem to hate his former mentor with a white-hot passion?

  All those questions and many more besides circled around her head, mixing with her already potent anxieties about getting involved with a man as secretive and powerful as Jacob.

  After the performance was finished, he took her hand and led her from the balcony even before the first curtain call. His driver was waiting.

  The back of the limo was dark and painfully silent. His brooding mood oppressed her. He didn’t speak until they were only a few miles from his home.

  “I’m sorry about all that,” he said quietly after a while, and she knew he referred to the Regina–Clint Jefferies spectacle.

  “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  He blinked and glanced over at her, his face enigmatic in the cloaking shadows.

  “I’m just checking,” Harper continued. “Because if it is, you needn’t bother. I know you didn’t plan any of that.”

  “Do you really want more than an apology?”

  “Do you mean do I really want to know about yours and that woman’s relationship?”

  He nodded once. She saw his eyes glitter through the shadows. His attention was fully on her now.

  “I know she must be one of your old lovers,” Harper said, turning and staring blankly out the window. “I’m not that naïve, Jacob. I know there must be lots of them. So you ran into one of them tonight? It’s not that shocking. And this one”—she looked over at him—“you care more about than most.”

  He remained completely still.

  “You do care about her a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Her heart gave a little lurch and she stared back out the window.

  “Is she an old lover? Or is she still one?” she asked, surprised at how calm she sounded.

  “No. Not anymore. Harper, look at me.”

  She turned her head.

  “You’re the only woman I’m sleeping with.”

  “How fortunate for me.”

  A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Don’t.”

  She inhaled shakily, ashamed of her flash of jealousy.

  “You never promised me fidelity,” she breathed out. “You never promised me anything except a good time. An opportunity to forget my troubles.”

  “That’s true. But I’m telling you that I have no immediate plans or interest in being with someone else. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  She took a moment to absorb what he was saying.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “It does.” She tried to tease out his expression in the darkness, but the shadows prevailed. As always, he was a mystery to her. “You’re worried about her still, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Do you want to go to her hotel, and make sure she’s all right?” she asked through a tight throat.

  He glanced away. “I’d like to call, at the very least. She recently left substance abuse rehab, and it’s a vulnerable time for her. I was shocked to see her here in San Francisco. And she’s relapsed. Again. Elizabeth is going to hear it from me, for letting it slip I was in San Francisco tonight. I can’t imagine what she was thinking,” he said grimly.

  “Do you love her?” Harper blinked, shocked that the words had spilled out of her throat. “It’s just . . . I’ve never seen you so undone, so clearly upset,” she rushed to explain.

  “No. I’m not in love with her.”

  Harper nodded slowly. “And what was all that with that man . . . Clint Jefferies? Why was he so shocked to see you with Regina?”

  The car came to a halt.

  “That,” Jacob replied somberly, sliding over on the seat and reaching for the door, “was just a very unfortunate chance meeting.”

  * * *

  Harper awoke in the middle of the night, disoriented. She found a bedside lamp and switched it on.

  She looked around Jacob’s enormous suite, her heart sinking when she realized she was alone. Jacob’s side of the bed hadn’t been touched. She rubbed at her blurry eyes and focused on a nearby clock. It was twenty minutes past three in the morning.

  Earlier, Jacob had escorted her up to his suite and caught her hand.

  “Why don’t you get ready for bed? I’m just going to make that phone call to Regina, to make sure she’s all right.”

  Harper nodded and turned to go, but he halted her, squeezing on her hand. He pulled her against him, one hand cupping her hip, the other her jaw. He tilted her face up. His mouth brushed hers. Harper felt her pulse leap at her throat, her reaction to him unchanged despite the weird, bewildering evening.

  “I am sorry, Harper. You have no idea.”

  “I know. I hope she’s okay,” she whispered sincerely.

  He’d swept down then, seizing her mouth. It was like he was telling her something with that forceful, quick kiss, but Harper didn’t know what. A moment later, he released her abruptly and headed toward a closed wooden door without a backward glance. She knew from Marianne’s brief tour of his quarters that the door led to a private office. She watched him open and shut the door behind him, then went to the guest bathroom to change.

  Feeling self-conscious and highly unsure, she pulled out the short, black silk nightgown she’d brought. Knowing what she knew about Jacob, she’d guessed she wouldn’t require pajamas over the weekend. She’d assumed they’d be sleeping naked. Fortunately, she had brought the nightgown, but now regretted its sexiness, given how the evening was turning out.

  Now it was hours later, and she still wore the nightgown and slept alone. She rose from the luxurious bed, listening for any sound of movement or noise that might give her an indication of Jacob’s whereabouts. A terrace door was opened. The only thing she could hear was the sound of the ocean surf hitting the beach far below the cliff.

  She anxiously approached Jacob’s closed office door. For several seconds, she stood poised with her fist in the air, hesitating. She grit her teeth, her knuckles finally landing on the wood.

  “Jacob?” she called.

  Silence.

  She rapped again and said his name.

  The knob turned smoothly in her hand. She pushed open the door, and it swung inward, revealing his opulent, dimly lit, completely empty office.

  * * *

  He returned to Sea Cliff just past dawn, bone-tired and bleary-eyed. A surge of adrenaline went through him, however, when he walked into his bedroom suite and saw his made, empty bed.

  Shit. He’d assumed he’d be back before Harper woke up. He stalked down the hallway in search of Marianne.

  You shouldn’t have let her believe that Regina was a former lover.

  He’d had no choice, though. The conclusion she’d jumped to had been believable and simple, while the truth was far more complicated and disquieting . . .

  . . . Not to mention closer to Harper than she’d ever suspect.

/>   He found Marianne helping his cook, Alfred, unpack some groceries in the kitchen.

  “Where’s Harper?” he demanded without preamble the second he plunged into the room.

  Marianne blinked, looking startled.

  “At the pool. Or at least she was as of about twenty minutes ago, when I took her there.”

  He exhaled in relief. At least she hadn’t left the house to return to Tahoe.

  He found her just where Marianne said she’d be. She wore a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and her long, copper-colored hair was in a bun on the top of her head. She sat at the edge of the pool, her pretty legs dipped in the water.

  “Hi,” she said, looking surprised when she saw him stalk up to her. Her large eyes traveled down him. He was still wearing his suit from last night.

  “I didn’t think you’d be up so early,” he said, trying to read the expression on her face, and failing.

  “I’ve been up since three thirty,” she said, setting aside the magazine she’d been reading. “I thought I’d look for the pool when it got light. It seemed like a better option than waiting in your bedroom, wondering where you were.”

  “I’m sorry. Shit. I’ve been saying that a lot lately, haven’t I?” he muttered, clamping his eyes shut briefly.

  “What happened?”

  He opened his eyes. She was irritated with him, but it was concern he read most clearly on her face at the moment.

  “I had to take her to the hospital,” he said.

  She lifted her feet out of the water and stood, facing him.

  “Is she all right?”

  He nodded. “Her date had left her, and she’d gotten into the hotel room’s liquor. She sounded bad off when I finally got a hold of her last night. By the time I got to the hotel, she’d passed out. I took her over to UCSF’s emergency room, but there wasn’t much they could do except assure me that she was going to be fine and give her an IV to rehydrate her.”