Love So Dark: Billionaire Romance Duet

by Stasia Black

  I don’t want her heading into that situation without back up. Yes, her sister’s coming too, but I’ve seen her fly off the handle at Callie before. I’m the only one I trust to be the support I suspect Callie will need.

  “I…” Callie huffs out a breath then throws up her hands. “Okay. Fine.”

  I feel a little bad for steamrolling her into doing things my way. But only a little bit. Protecting her is ultimately more important.

  But shit. I heave out a breath. Not at the expense of her feeling like she has no control.

  When we get to the bottom of the elevator and everyone else leaves, I take her hand. “Hey. We can get there any way you want. But please. I really want to be there with you.”

  She looks up and meets my gaze. Then she smiles and squeezes my hand, going up on tiptoes to drop a light kiss on my lips before pressing her forehead to mine.

  “We can take the plane. But if we die in a fiery explosion, I’m gonna be so pissed.”

  I laugh and grab her around the waist, swinging her in a small circle and depositing her outside the elevator, making her squeal.

  “I don’t know about this.” I overhear Callie’s sister Shannon ask, looking nervously around the narrow interior of the plane Deve lent us. “Doesn’t it seem… a little… small? You know, I could still just drive up and meet you there.”

  I cover my smirk. I already let Callie know I have to work for the short flight. But I’m still sitting close enough to Callie and her sister that I can occasionally overhear them.

  The plane is luxurious, something they’ve both been commenting on. Every seat is a plush lounge chair. But the plane itself is little larger than a bus, a fact which isn’t going over well with either sister.

  I offered to sit with Callie during take off but she assured me she’ll be fine. Still, I glance her way as we leave the tarmac and she’s clutching her Kindle in one hand, and her sister’s hand with the other.

  I grin and go back to my laptop.

  Fifty minutes later, all projects are assigned and the tires of the plane squeal as we land on the tarmac at Siskiyou County Airport.

  Callie didn’t even know such an airport existed.

  Looking out the window, I can see why. Calling it an airport is a stretch. It’s more like one long landing strip and six hangers. Our plane taxis into one.

  “How was your flight?” I ask after walking back to Callie’s seat.

  Her smile is wobbly. “I didn’t have to use the barf bag, so we’ll call it a win.”

  Shannon elbows her in the stomach. “What she means to say is that we appreciate you arranging the flight and it’s so much nicer than driving in a car for seven hours.”

  “Suck up.” Callie says under her breath and elbows her back.

  I can’t help my grin. Seeing Callie around her sister is a whole new side of her. Naturally, I find it just as charming as the rest of her.

  She looks less than at ease as we grab our bags from the plane and walk out to the town car waiting for us on the tarmac.

  I take her hand and she clutches mine back, face going paler and paler the closer we get to her parent’s house. Which makes me more and more glad I insisted on coming.

  I don’t like the effect this place has on her. I thought her looking sick was just because of the plane ride, but if anything, she looks even more green in the gills when we pull into her parent’s driveway.

  “Callie,” I whisper after her sister pushes the backdoor open and steps out. “You okay? Because we can turn this car around and leave right now.”

  “What?” She looks over at me, startled. “No, I’m fine.” She flashes the plastic smile and I want to growl. I hate that smile.

  The next second, though, she’s let go of my hand and is scooting across the back seat, stepping out her sister’s door.

  I get out too and find her staring up at her childhood home, a look I can’t read on her face. I glance at the house. It’s nothing special. An oversized two-story house with pretentious white columns in front that lead up to a deck off an upstairs bedroom.

  It looks exactly like all the other houses on the block except that some houses have brick columns while others have white columns with Corinthian flourishes. Oh and a few houses have circular driveways with fountains in front.

  Callie follows my gaze. “My mom was always jealous of the houses with fountains.”

  “Mom finally got the landscaping she always wanted though,” Shannon says, joining us.

  I take in the thick grass that looks cut exactly to an inch and is an almost obnoxious green. I don’t even want to think about the amount of water they have to waste to keep it that green, when I know for a fact that this area of California has been in a drought for years.

  In front of the house, a small garden is hemmed in by big white stones. Little spherical bushes dot the garden at perfect intervals. A stone pathway leads to the front door and more little bushes line the walkway.

  “Mom must be so proud,” Callie murmurs.

  I hurry around to grab the suitcases from the trunk and then join Callie and Shannon as they head up the path to the front door. I expect them to just head inside, but instead Shannon stops and rings the doorbell.

  Didn’t she live here as recently as… two years ago? Whenever I go home I always just walk in and call out Mom’s name and I haven’t lived there for a decade. But whatever. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

  Pachelbel’s Canon echoes through the door.

  “So she got the fancy doorbell too,” Callie says. Her voice sounds odd. Detached and just… not Callie-like.

  We all wait on the stoop for a good minute and a half before the door finally opens.

  A blonde woman probably in her fifties answers the door and I have to fight the urge to recoil. She’s wearing so much make-up and hair product she looks shellacked. She’s obviously had a nose job but not by a very well-qualified doctor by the looks of it.

  She smiles and it’s even worse than Callie’s fake smile. Her eyes glide right over Shannon, hover on Callie with a lingering top to bottom scan, and then land on me. Only then does she brighten.

  “Welcome,” she says with too much enthusiasm to be genuine. “Come in, come in.” She backs up and holds the door open for us.

  Callie shoots a quick glance at Shannon but she just shrugs and walks inside. With a look like she might throw up any moment, Callie follows. I grab the bags and follow, closing the door right behind us.

  “Well don’t just stand there,” Callie’s mom says, her voice still with that weird over-enthusiastic pitch. “Your father is catching up on some last-minute work in his study.” She leans in to me and I have to work not to pull back at her overpowering perfume. “Any day now he’s going to be promoted to branch manager, you know.”

  Callie stiffens beside me and I glance her way. Her mouth is pursed, jaw stiff. Something her mom just said ticked her off but I don’t know what, or why.

  She squeezes her eyes shut as her mother continues prattling on about updates they’ve made to the house. New white granite kitchen countertops. An infrared sauna they installed because, in her mother’s words, “all my friends were getting one and they are just a necessity for clearing the body of toxins. It’s really a can’t-live-without item.”

  She looks between the three of us gravely. “Do you know how many toxins are building up in your body on a daily basis? I can email you some articles. Sitting for twenty minutes in my sauna is the equivalent of running two to three miles. You girls should really look into getting one. You could share it since you’re living in the same apartment.” Her face sours some at this.

  “Hopefully that situation won’t last for much longer,” comes a man’s voice from the other end of the living room. Her father, I presume. He’s a tall man, dressed like he stepped right out of a K-mart catalogue in his khaki pants and polo shirt, sweater tied artfully over his shoulders. “If what you said on the phone is true and you’ve got a real job. It’d be n
ice to finally have a daughter we can be proud to claim.”

  What a fucking dick.

  Now my back is as stiff as Callie’s. I glance over at her but she’s looking at Shannon, her brow furrowed. Shannon’s face is carefully blank. Damn. I knew it would be bad but I guess I wasn’t prepared for how screwed up this family dynamic would be.

  “You must be Jackson Vale.” Dad bypasses his two daughters with barely a glance and heads directly toward me, hand out.

  I force a smile and grasp his hand to shake. If it’s a little firmer than necessary, well, I can only contain the beast so much.

  “I took a look at CubeThink’s market shares when I heard Callie was coming up with you for the weekend,” he says, nodding as if modestly impressed. “Not bad. Of course, all the easy money’s been made in the market and we’re in a bottoming process. But there’s lots of cash on the sidelines and I really think we’re constructive on the market. I’m cautiously optimistic. You?”

  I feel Callie wince beside me. She knows as well as I do that everything her dad just said is total nonsense bullshit. I’ve seen his kind before. They like to sound smart so they can feel like they’re more important than they are.

  But really he’s just a little man with a little life and he’ll never be anything more. It’s only because I can feel how uncomfortable Callie is, embarrassed by her father, that I don’t call him out.

  “I’m sure Jackson doesn’t want to talk about that over lunch, Daddy,” Callie says hurriedly.

  He turns and gives her a stern look. “Your mother’s getting lunch ready in the kitchen. Maybe you’d like to go help her with that while we talk business?” It’s stated like a question but I hear the order underneath it.

  And goddammit, I want to punch him in his smug, stupid face. He’s such a blowhard but then he’s going to stand there and try to demean his daughter? Tell her to go do women’s work in the kitchen while the menfolk stand here and talk business?

  Callie’s chest heaves like she’s three seconds from ripping him a new one, either that or she’s about to start crying, when Shannon grabs her elbow and leads her toward the kitchen.

  Her father immediately starts talking again but my eyes are on Callie. She glances back once before disappearing through the kitchen and I try to communicate as much as I can through the look. Are you okay?

  She gives a quick nod, then jerks her head back toward her dad, like she wants me to focus on him. And I get it. He might be the biggest ass in three counties, but she needs him to recant his testimony, or better yet, testify on her behalf. So I suck it up and cater to his ego. Which is as big as the fucking state of California.

  He goes on and on and on about his job as a mid-level manager at a local bank. About all his investments—aka, he plays in the stock market, mostly losing because he knows shit about managing money—and about how he’s on the cusp of a great promotion, which he eventually lets slip he’s been waiting for for over seven years now. He doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise or ask me a single question.

  How the fuck did Callie come out so great coming from parents like this?

  Suffice to say, I’m more than glad when Callie comes back out carrying a silver platter of tiny cucumber sandwiches. Her back is straight and she walks with perfect poise.

  About ten minutes later, the women have carried most of the food out and we’re all sitting around the dining room table. The table is set with fancy china, silverware, crystal glasses—they’ve gone all out. Now awkward silence fills the room as we hand around a plate of dainty cucumber sandwich appetizers and Callie’s mother brings out bowls of soup.

  The soup is orange. A thick, mystery orange. I take a sip and try not to sputter. What the—

  It’s cold. Refrigerator cold. My eyes open wide but I manage to swallow it. I look to Callie only to find her eyes on Shannon. I follow her gaze. Shannon just shakes her head at Callie and dutifully swallows a large sip of the cold orange concoction. I swear, every second in this place gets weirder and weirder.

  But fine. Whatever. We’re here for a reason and it’s time to get things back on track. Not that they’ve even asked about their grandson once but nope. Can’t let myself think about that or I’ll get pissed all over again.

  “So Gerald,” my voice breaks the silence, “has Callie told you about the impressive work she’s doing at CubeThink?”

  Callie stirs her soup with her spoon, biting her lip without looking at her father.

  “Well, she definitely caught your eye,” her dad says with a smirk I immediately want to knock off his face. “My daughter always has been a looker.” He smiles at me, a sort of knowing-between-men kind of smile.

  Son of a—

  “She’s quickly risen to a position as one of the top programmers in the company,” I correct him, not caring about how clipped my tone is. My patience with this motherfucker is officially gone.

  “I can just guess how that happened,” her dad murmurs under his breath as he takes a spoonful of the soup before his face twists in disgust. “For God’s sake, Martha, what is this?”

  “It’s pumpkin gazpacho, sweetie. I saw this recipe on a famous chef’s Pinterest and knew I had to try it. Isn’t it fabulous?”

  Her father shoves the bowl away, the look of distaste not leaving his face. He grabs two of the quartered cucumber sandwiches and pops them in his mouth.

  “Did you really just intimate that your daughter slept her way to her position?” I’m really fucking hoping I heard him wrong. “Right here at the dining room table in front of her. In front of your whole family?”

  The clank of spoons against china stops. The entire room falls still and her father’s cheeks flush. Good. He should be embarrassed. And fucking ashamed of himself.

  “I— I,” he blusters, “well I—”

  “Because I know any well-mannered, cultured man would never say such a thing of his own daughter.” I glare the man down. “Callie rises or falls on her own merits within my company. She’s incredibly intelligent and talented. Just a week ago her out-of-the-box thinking and insight led to a breakthrough on a problem that had been holding back production for months. She’s only a few classes away from graduating from Stanford University. May I ask where you yourself matriculated from?”

  Her father sits up straighter in his chair, his features darkening along with the blush that’s taken up residence in his cheeks. “I— I—” he stutters again before getting his bearings, “—I’m a proud graduate of National University.”

  “I’m not familiar with that institution.” I smile affably even though the beast in me still wants to stalk to the end of the table, yank him up by his pretty as fuck shirt and drag him out to the yard where I can kick his ass.

  “It’s the premier college in the northernmost part of California,” he says stiffly. Ha. Northernmost part. He’s got to mean north of, and not including, Sacramento. The part of California where it’s almost all forests, mountains, and tiny communities. The biggest town is Redding, a nice enough little place, but you blink a couple times and you’ve passed through it.

  “Impressive,” I say, just barely managing not to let all the condescension I feel for this self-involved windbag drip from my tone. Just barely. Because goddammit, we do still need him. “But certainly you’re proud of your daughter who is only a few classes away from graduating from the number one college not only in California but the entire West Coast.”

  I look back to Callie and find her eyes shining. Like it’s the first time in her life anyone’s stood up for her. And I both hate that she’s never had that before and love that I can be the one to give it to her. Jesus but she deserves so much more than these shit parents.

  Her father makes a hmph noise and then clears his throat. “Well, when do you think you’ll be graduating from Stanford, Calliope?” he finally asks.

  Callie doesn’t immediately answer. She’s still staring at me. Her look has shifted though. If I’m not mistaken. Oh damn, the flare of her nostrils and
the way her tongue flicks out to wet her bottom lip—is she thinking about what I think she’s thinking about? My cock stiffens and I reach under the table to squeeze her knee.

  “Callie?” I don’t move my hand from her leg as I nod in her father’s direction. “Your dad just asked when you think you’ll graduate.”

  “Oh.” She looks over at her father in surprise like she totally missed his question. I smirk to myself.

  “Well, CubeThink has a tuition reimbursement program,” she says, “so I’ve been planning to take one of my last few classes in the spring semester.”

  Her voice grows more confident with each word. We hadn’t talked about her future but I love that that’s her plan. Does she have any idea how proud I am of her? She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Nothing keeps her down for long.

  “What’s the title of your current position?” her father asks, finally looking at her. Really looking at her like she’s worth his time and attention.

  “Senior Software Engineer.”

  “Which means?” I prompt. “Tell him a little about what you do.”

  “Well,” she starts a little hesitantly, “it means I’m working to design, build, and run the backend services powering the quadcopter drones we’re building, including APIs and data pipelines.” I get the feeling that if it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have gone into so much detail. But like always, she’s smart. She needs her dad on her side and busting out the terminology he could never hope to understand can only work in her favor.

  He nods thoughtfully, the kind of man not willing to let on that he has no clue what the hell she’s talking about. “Nice,” he says, nodding some more. “Well, I’m really glad to see that you’ve turned your life around and are finally living up to the potential your mother and I always saw in you growing up.”

  Callie pauses at that, her cheeks stained pink like she’s not sure what to do with the praise. “Thanks, Dad. That means a lot.”

  Then her fake smile comes out, at a wattage the likes I’ve never seen before. She feels like she has to perform for these people. As if just being herself could never be enough. It pisses me the hell off.