Alpha Billionaire’s Bride, Part Four (BWWM Romance Serial) (7 page)

“Yeah, but I thought it looked legit.” She made a go-figure
motion. “The clerk was stubborn and no matter what I said she refused to take
the license ... until I mentioned money. She was up for money. Everyone is. She
also agreed to call in a tip to CGTV, which was part of the original plan with
Freya, except Freya was going to do that part. I was pretty happy to get the
records clerk to do it. I knew the story would drive Piper crazy, and she’d
give it all the on-air attention it deserved.”

“Going back to the money, you didn’t stop to think that you
were bribing a public employee and that’s illegal?” Ian asked.

“No. It wasn’t a bribe. It was more like giving her a reason
to do something she should have done in the first place.”

Ian and Trey were astonished, then they sighed and shook
their heads. That Sasha, she’s not much of a thinker, their actions suggested.

Jada couldn’t let it pass. “I don’t buy it. Quit acting dumb
for the guys.”

Sasha gave her a dirty look. “You don’t know what I
thought.”

“I know you’re not a fool, so quit pretending you are one
because you know these two will buy it.”

“You’re playing me,” Trey said. “Seriously, Sasha? Right
now?”

“It’s no big thing.” Sasha passed it off. “Anyway, I thought
you wanted the whole story. So, I didn’t have much money on me. I convinced the
clerk to meet me after I’d gone to the bank for the cash. I left, got the
money, met up with the clerk, paid her off, and that was that. I rented a car,
went home and waited for the story to break. It took longer to break than I
thought it would. For a while, I thought the clerk had stiffed me. And when
Piper got the story wrong on Saturday I couldn’t believe it. I was so pissed.
But then today, the right story came out and I finally got what I was wanting.
I think.”

Sasha’s blasé attitude was stronger than ever. If she cared
any less, she would have passed out from losing interest in breathing. “There.
I’ve told you everything. The end. Now return the favor and tell me how Piper
ever got the stupid idea that Ian and Jada were married? I can’t figure it out.
It makes no sense.”

The room was silent and Jada could almost hear the sound of
her blood swooshing through her veins. Her pulse was rapid and her heart raced.
An outpouring of adrenaline made her muscles twitch.

In short, she wanted to launch herself at Sasha.

Seriously? Did she actually say, “Now return the favor and
tell me ...”?

It was unbelievable. The whole story. And yet it was true.
Jada knew it was true, but ... it didn’t seem possible. The end, Sasha had
said. And that was that.

Ian and Trey burst out of their astonished stupors,
practically shouting at Sasha about daring to be so flippant, about how much
damage she’d done and what made her think she had the right, and on and on.

Jada didn’t care about it. She could only stare at Sasha’s
fairy-princess facade and brood about how much she wanted to punch the
self-centered obliviousness right out of it.

But Jada would never hit anyone. It wasn’t who she was, no
matter how much she wished it.

While Ian and Trey shifted into high gear with their verbal
assaults, Jada quietly slipped from the room. Unnoticed.

TRYING TO MAKE SASHA LISTEN to reason was an exercise in
futility. Ian couldn’t recall ever being more frustrated.

But Sasha, how could you ...

But Sasha, you knew ...

But Sasha, it’s wrong to ...

Nothing fazed her. She’d shut down good and proper. She’d
simply shrug and say, “It is what it is,” over and over until Ian considered
buying a few congressmen just to get a bill passed outlawing the maddening
phrase. Ha. As if that would stop Sasha.

It must be even worse for Jada, he thought, seeing how Sasha
refused to take responsibility for her actions. He realized Jada hadn’t said
anything in a long time and surveyed the study. Where was she? She wasn’t in
the room. How long had she been gone?

He cut off Trey mid-harangue and told Sasha, “I’ve got to
go, but don’t think this is over. It’s only a break.”

Shrug.

Ian exited before he said something he’d regret.

After a short search, he found Jada outside, sitting on the
wide porch steps. Her elbows were propped on her knees and her chin rested on
her clasped hands. She looked toward the lake with a desolate expression on her
beautiful face.

Ian sat down beside her. “Are you okay?”

She turned her head far enough to acknowledge him. “I’ll
survive.” She returned her gaze to the lake.

He pulled in a lungful of fresh air, letting it clear his
mind. Insects buzzed and birds chirped. Early evening sunbeams slanted through
the trees, casting long shadows on the grounds and water. The temperature had
dropped since they’d returned ... how long ago was it? Couldn’t have been long,
though it felt like hours. It was different now.

He regarded Jada out of the corner of his eye. He hoped not
everything was different. His feelings for her remained the same.

“We won’t allow her to walk away from this scot-free,” he
said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t think she cares
either way.”

“Is that the worst of it for you? That she’s so egotistical?

Jada took a deep breath, sat up straighter and raised her
head, letting her hands dangle between her knees. “I can’t quit thinking about
what might have happened if Sasha and Freya had realized they didn’t have to
drive a thousand miles to Iowa to get married. Within a couple hundred miles of
the city, there are
two
states where gay marriage is legal, and
Springers Glen isn’t in the path of either one. Imagine it. I wouldn’t be
sitting here if those two women had half a clue.”

“You can’t go around re-imaging events based on what Sasha
doesn’t know. You’d be at it forever,” Ian said.

“She’s not as dumb as she lets on.”

“No, but she’s not as with it as she’d like you to think,
either.”

“I don’t want to say I told you so, but you were the one who
convinced me to drop Sasha as a suspect because you thought she was too flighty
to plan something so complicated.”

“True,” Ian said, “and she was, wasn’t she? Have you ever
heard of a more screwy plan? And she didn’t get close to pulling it off.”

“Good point. I can’t argue with it.” Jada sighed. “Why
didn’t she come out of the closet the normal way? Get an interview with a big
name journalist, tell her story, the usual.”

“Because of Agatha,” Ian answered. “And Trey. You know
Agatha thinks it will damage Sasha’s career. Sasha complains a lot but she
never stands up to her mother on anything important. Trey’s been against Sasha
coming out because he’s afraid it could put her in danger. He’s worried that
someone might attack her, physically, for going public. I think it’s unlikely,
but the truth is, we have to face that there are still people who hate gays and
lesbians enough to hurt them, even if there aren’t as many of them as there
once were.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Jada said. “I can see why he’d
worry. I don’t like admitting it, but Sasha was right when she said that I
don’t know what it’s like to live on society’s fringe.”

“She didn’t have to be ugly about it, though.”

Jada laughed humorlessly. “I’m not offended. It’s the least
of her sins.”

A family of mallards lifted off the lakeshore, quacking
wildly as they flapped toward their nightly nesting ground, their green and
blue feathers iridescent in the fading, golden light.

“It’s so beautiful here,” Jada said. “Do you ever get used
to it?”

“I probably don’t appreciate it as much as I should. I don’t
have a lot of free time to spend out here.”

“I’d like to think that if I owned a place as magical as
this one, I’d never take it for granted and never leave it for long,” Jada
said, a wistful note in her voice.

“That’s how my grandfather felt,” Ian said.

“You can’t really know, though, can you?” Jada asked.

“Know what?”

“How things are when you’re looking in from the outside. You
can imagine it, or guess at it, but you can’t truly know. You have to live
something, to be part of it. It’s the only way.”

Ian considered it. “That’s probably true.”

She seemed encouraged by his agreement. “Right, and anyway,
people are so different. If one person reacts one way, it doesn’t mean you can
predict how you would. That’s what makes it hard.”

“It?”

“Deciding the future.”

A stillness settled on Ian’s chest. What was she getting at?
It was clear that she wasn’t talking about Sasha anymore. “You don’t have to
decide anything right now.”

“Actually I do. It’s been nibbling at the back of my brain
all day. My life has changed because of what’s happened, and it’s going to take
a while to get back to normal, if it ever does.” She cocked her head to the
side. “Do you hear that? What is it?”

Ian listened. He heard a high-pitched whirring not far away.
It was getting closer, quickly, coming from beyond the hedges that lined the
drive. Because he and Jada were sitting on the porch steps, the hedges blocked
some of their view of the drive.

“It’s something electronic,” Jada said. “Oh! Look at that!”

A remote-controlled toy jeep buzzed out from behind the
greenery and shot into the open circle of driveway. Its long antenna arced
upward behind it, something brown and furry dangling from the end. It looked
like a ... was that a toy mouse perhaps?

“Oh!” Jada pointed. “Look right there.”

The front half of a tabby cat stuck out from behind the end
hedge. Crouched low, green eyes slitted and intent on the swerving jeep, the
patient stalker was none other than Ms. Kitty.

The vehicle approached the cat at a slant. At the last
second it turned, racing away. In a blur, Ms. Kitty leapt after it, her front
paw leading the attack, claws extended, going not for the jeep itself, but for
the bit of brown fluff bouncing on the end of the antenna.

“Oh, she missed! Too bad!” Jada said, smiling.

Ian would have rather looked at that smile than any of Ms.
Kitty’s shenanigans. “She’s going for it again. Snagged it! Oh, it’s off again.
She’s still after it, though. She sure can jump.”

A brown head bobbed above the hedges. It was young Billy,
who worked at the estate helping with maintenance and groundskeeping. He was
running hard when he broke into full view. He carried a small box in his hands:
the remote for the jeep.

Billy noticed Jada and Ian on the steps. He skidded to a
halt, panting. “Hope you don’t mind me playing with your cat,” he said to Jada.
To Ian, he explained, “I’m on my break.”

“No problem,” Ian said.

“Have fun,” Jada said.

Billy tore off, as did the cat and its buzzing prey. They
wound down the drive until they disappeared beyond the southern slope of lawn.

Jada’s smile faltered. “I think Ms. Kitty’s going to miss
this place more than Marina and I will. I don’t know how I’m going to convince
her to eat cheapo kibble again. To say nothing of all the attention she’s
gotten. I’m only one person and I have no idea how to do feline shiatsu
massage.”

She was joking, but Ian caught a serious undertone. “There’s
no hurry. You should stay on while we get everything sorted out until it’s safe
for you to ...” He trailed off, unable to say, “go home.” He didn’t want her to
leave, not yet. Some undefined, indefinite later, probably. But not right now.

She turned and gave him a gentle look as she finished his
sentence. “... go home. It’s time. You’re right that tonight’s too soon. I bet
you can get your lawyers on this right away, though, squelch these stories flat
in no time. Tomorrow, I can go home.”

“I don’t know that I can—”

“Of course you can. You already had a strategy in place this
morning before the second story broke. Go ahead and do what you were going to
do.”

She was right. He had the clout and his plan would lessen
the scandal enough to make it possible for Jada to go home tomorrow. In good
conscience, he couldn’t withhold it because he didn’t want her to leave.

“If you want,” he said. “I’ll start making my move tonight.
If everything goes properly, there will be press retractions by morning and the
public will lose interest before it’s time for the evening commute.”

“Perfect. I have no doubt that’s exactly how it will go.”

Normally, he would have taken pleasure in her certainty, her
faith in his abilities. This wasn’t a normal time, though. “There can always be
issues.” He paused. “To hell with it. I’m not going to make excuses and play
around with this.”

Her eyes widened.

“Don’t go,” he said. “Stay here with me at the lake house.
For a while. I thought we already had that settled, didn’t we? We were putting
our attraction on hold until the marriage license fiasco was straightened out,
and then you and I would ... move forward.”

“Actually, you and my father decided that for me,” Jada
said. “I wanted to have sex with you last night, but you and Dad wanted to
protect me from I don’t know what. Myself? Whatever. I never agreed to wait.
You didn’t ask my opinion. You told me how it would be.”

“I was being responsible, looking out for your best
interests.”

“I told you this morning that I wasn’t going to let you run
me over anymore. Didn’t we already have this settled?”

He was taken aback by the fierce way she mocked his earlier
question. “We did, yes. And I let you take the lead in the investigation
because of it. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not. I wanted you to do something other than
condescendingly
let
me take charge. You might have, oh I don’t know,
tried seeing who I actually am, and that I can’t be fooled by some macho
routine where you think it’s cute that the little lady is standing up for
herself. I could almost see what you were thinking, Ian.”

“Why are you so angry? I thought I was doing what you
wanted.”

Her look was grim. “No, you did what you wanted to do, and
that was placating me long enough to get me into bed. Shame on you!”

Shame on him? Did she really just say that? He almost
laughed, it was so ludicrous. “That’s not at all what happened, or what I
thought. Where is this coming from? It’s been a long day. You’re tired and—”

Jada stood, hands on hips, glowering down at him. “If you
know what’s good for you, you won’t finish that sentence. And because you have
some mental block about what’s happening, I’ll tell you why. I am not a tired,
cranky child who needs a damned nap. I won’t be talked down to. I’ve had enough
of that today, especially from you.”

He knew better than to give an opponent the high ground. He
stood and stepped up to a higher step for an even greater height advantage. “If
you’re gunning for a fight, I’m happy to give it to you. Or we can be adults and
you can knock off the unreasonable accusations and—”

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m done.” She stomped up the
stairs, heading toward the front door.

Ian called after her. “I was giving you what you wanted. I
let you have your way! How is that a bad thing?”

She stopped, her shoulders rising and falling as she took a
few deep breaths, as if calming herself. Then she turned around. Her tone was
restrained, verging on sad. “You have no idea what I want.”

Something twisted in his stomach. He answered as gently as
he could. “Then tell me what it is.”

“I never wanted my way, Ian. I wanted your respect.”

“I do respect you,” he said.

 “Not how I want. I want you to respect me as a person, not
just as a future lover.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

“I know you don’t, and that’s why we won’t work together.
It’s why whatever’s between us was over before it began.”

“Wait a minute.” Ian came up beside her. “Let’s not jump
ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about this. Tomorrow, after all the excitement
has worn off, I’ll send everyone else home. You and I can be alone, finally,
and have a chance to talk, to get to know each other better.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you, Ian. Not tonight or
tomorrow or ever.”

“Dammit! That’s not what I was going for.”

“You’re right. That was unfair of me.” She seemed to get
sadder with each passing second. “What I should have said was, it’d be too hard
to spend more time with you. We come from two different places that are so far
apart they might was well be two different planets. I can’t understand your
world and you can’t understand mine.”

“Opposites can and do attract, Jada,” he said.

“For a little while, maybe. We’re too far apart in too many
ways, though. It can’t work. I’ve been kind of trying to tell you that all
day,” she said. “I’ve been feeling it since this morning. The fantasy’s over,
Ian. And it was great. I loved every minute of it. But now it’s time to go back
to the real world, the one where you run a multi-billion dollar empire and I
work (or don’t work anymore), at a small accounting firm in a small town. It’s
real life, where you and I will never bump into each other in the city at a
glittery gala charity event, or in Springers Glen at my brokedown neighborhood
market. Our paths don’t cross, and they never would have if Sasha knew basic
U.S. geography.”