Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (95 page)

Andrew poked his head in the door. “What’s all the noise?”

For some reason, Andrew’s presence only made Chad laugh harder so Jack had to answer. “I’m telling Chad how Kelly and I met,” he said wryly.

“Uh, the real story?” Andrew asked and he glanced over his shoulder to be sure no one had heard him then came in and shut the door behind him.

“The whole nasty story,” Jack said with a shake of his head.

“So, he told you he thought maybe she was a call girl I hired for him? Or some random girl I picked up off the street?” Andrew said to Chad as he poured each of them two fingers of scotch from the small bar in Jack’s office.

“Oh, well, I guess not all of it,” Jack said wryly as Chad fell off the couch, laughing on the way down.

It took about ten minutes while Jack and Andrew drank and watched him, all the while grinning, but Chad finally got himself together enough to talk.

“So, what is she getting out of this?” Chad asked as he wiped tears off his face. Jack explained how she had found out about the will from his temp assistant and about their trade: Three years of law school tuition for one year of marriage.

“That’s all she asked you for? Man, she could have taken you to the cleaners. Would have if she was anything like those vultures you usually date.”

Jack nodded and laughed to himself. “I gave her my credit card and told her she could use it for anything. I looked at the statement the other day. You wanna’ know what she’s bought in all this time?” He paused before he answered his own question. “A dress for the cocktail party and shoes to go with it. No jewelry to match. Not two or three dresses in case she changed her mind the day of the party. What she needed and nothing more. Hell, I gave her a BMW today and she was pissed.”

Andrew and Chad shook their heads. They had enough money themselves to understand where Jack was coming from. Women often preyed upon them for their money, their positions, their power – and were really interested in nothing more. Andrew had learned that lesson in a particularly painful way several years ago so Jack knew that Andrew, most of all of them, understood how important it was that Kelly didn’t care about Jack’s money. Most women would have taken the credit card and run up a huge tab with no concern for the fact that it wasn’t their money to spend.

“I still can’t believe you got beat at your own game, Jack,” Chad said as he shook his head. “You always have all the dirt on your opponents so you can win any negotiation. That’s pretty amazing that she turned the tables on you like that.” He stopped and looked at his drink for a minute, then shook his head with a grin. “And that she had the guts to walk in here and pull that off. Man, that is one classy lady.”

“I know,” Jack said. “Now I need to convince her to stay with me.”

“Damn, she wants to leave you already? What happened to the deal?” Andrew asked.

“No, I don’t mean that. She’s staying for the year,” Jack said, “but I want more. I want the real thing, the marriage, kids, her. For the rest of my life. The whole thing.”

“Oh man,” Chad said as he stared at Jack. “You love her.”

Jack looked down at his drink and nodded slowly. “Yeah. I couldn’t even admit it to myself at first, but I think I might have fallen in love with her that first day she walked in here and it keeps growing every time I’m with her. It grows when I’m away from her too. The only problem is she has plans…you know? Things she wants to do and I don’t know if marriage fits in there. She has three years of law school and that means going off for clerkships and internships and then long hours when she graduates to make her mark and build her own career. I don’t know if there’s room in there for me.”

They all grew quiet for a very long moment, staring down at the amber liquid in their glasses and then quietly, Andrew chuckled. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he said in a low voice.

Chapter Thirty-four

Chad drove straight to Jack’s house after leaving Andrew and Jack at the office. He pulled his Range Rover to the edge of the driveway and stepped out. Mrs. Poole answered when he rang the bell.

“Hey, Mrs. Poole,” Chad said as he dropped a peck on her cheek. She had been a fixture at Jack’s for so long that both he and Jack had begun to treat her like an aunt more than an employee. “I’m here to see my Mom.”

“Hi, dear. I’m not sure where she is. Would you like me to find her for you?” Mrs. Poole responded.

“No, I’ll find her, thanks.”

He wandered through the rooms looking for his mom and found her sitting in Jack’s living room reading the paper and drinking tea by the window. She spotted him and silently put down her teacup. She set the paper aside before looking up at him.

Her expression was like that of an insolent little child who knew she was about to be scolded but she laid her hands in her lap and greeted her son, “Hello, Chad. What brings you here in the middle of the day?”

Chad shook his head at her. He was afraid to open his mouth for a moment. Not because he was afraid of what she might say or of what she might think, but because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control himself. He had been holding back with his mom for so long, to try to protect her, that there was so much built up in him he was afraid it might all come spewing out in one fell swoop.

Chad stood with his jaw clenched and his arms crossed as he waited for his mother to say something. Unfortunately for his mother, his patience had been honed in his years in the marines. There was no question who would win this standoff.

Mabry broke quickly. “Don’t look at me like that. This marriage isn’t real and you know it. I don’t know where he got her from but Kelly is a fake trophy wife to get Jack past the terms of the will. I need to show the board that….”

“Stop it, mother,” Chad spit out through clenched teeth, cutting her off mid sentence. He’d finally had enough of his mother’s hate and anger affecting all of their lives. “What you’re doing is disgusting. It’s embarrassing and hurtful and cruel. Did you know Jack has been protecting you this whole time? He stands up for you. He made sure that I didn’t come in and intervene between him and you because he thought that would hurt you too much and he didn’t want to see you hurt. His parents always stood up for you too but you’ve lashed out at all of them, over and over.”

Now that Chad had started, he couldn’t stop. “For God’s sake, Mom. Jack’s dad was your brother and for the last years of his life and the last years of his wife’s life, you treated them like enemies.”

Mabry had sat with a stunned look on the face for most of his tirade, but now she stood and lashed back. “You don’t know,” she said slicing her hand through the air in front of her son as if to strike out at the words he had thrown between them. “How dare you judge me? You don’t know how it feels to have the person you love walk away as if you meant nothing. As if you were nothing. And then to have to watch
them
. To have to see how happy and perfect their family was.”

Chad couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew she was sick, but she was acting as if Jack’s parents, or even Jack himself, had something to do with his dad leaving his mom.

“Mom, stop! He left you. And that sucks. I wish to God he’d never hurt you. But you’ve let this turn you into this hateful person. It’s turned you into a person I don’t want to know anymore.”

Chad saw his mom begin to falter but he couldn’t stop.

Frustrated, Chad rubbed a hand over his face. “You need to stop this, Mom. Jack loves Kelly. They’re married. It’s over. But more importantly, you
have
to listen to me. I don’t want to be the CEO of the company. I love you but I also love what I do for a living. I need you to hear that, Mom. I need you to respect it. Respect me.”

His mother’s face fell.

“I love you Mom, but I don’t love what you’ve been doing lately and I don’t love the person you’ve become. You can’t do this anymore, Mom. If you can’t stop, you’re going to lose me. I know you’ve been angry since Dad left and you took that anger out on Jack’s parents, and lately on Jack. It needs to stop.” Chad walked out, leaving Mabry alone again.

* * *

Mabry sank back into the armchair and sat quietly for a long time. She tried to feel indignant. Or angry. Or righteous. But she suddenly couldn’t feel any of those things. As she replayed her son’s words in her head she knew he was right. Chad was right.
When did I become this person
? The changes in her had started when her husband walked out on her.

As she sat there and thought about what Chad had said, Mabry realized she didn’t like herself much either. Ten years later and she was still allowing him to hurt all of them, through her.
Oh, God, what power I gave him. I let him do so much more damage than he deserved to be able to inflict.

It was as if Mabry was waking up from a deep sleep and was finally able to see what was truly happening around her. The tears began to fall and Mabry cried for a long time before pulling herself together.

Mabry was ashamed as she sat in Jack and Kelly’s living room thinking about what she had been doing. But she also knew she needed to go make it right. With a sigh, she pulled herself up and went up to her room. She packed up her bag and drove the half hour to Jack’s office to do just that.

* * *

Jack’s intercom buzzed and his secretary announced that his Aunt Mabry wanted to see him. Jack groaned, wondering what on earth she had up her sleeve now. He didn’t know how much more of her intrusion he could take and he sure didn’t want her to chase Kelly off.

“Send her in,” he told his secretary as he closed the file he had been reading.

Mabry didn’t come sweeping through the door with the grand presence she usually cultivated. Instead, she walked in like any normal person would. Jack looked at her for a minute and realized that at that moment, she looked more like the aunt he remembered from his childhood. He had missed the way she used to be.

“Is everything okay, Aunt Mabry?” Jack asked as he eyed her warily from behind his desk.

“No, Jack. I’m afraid it’s not. I owe you and Kelly an apology,” she said and she let out a whoosh of breath with the confession. She looked down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap and Jack saw tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m so ashamed, Jack. I’ve been awful to you and Kelly and before that, to your parents.” Tears began to fall down Mabry’s cheeks and she swiped at them with the backs of her hands. Jack was stunned as he watched the transformation before him.

“I don’t know how things got this bad, Jack. Somehow, you went from being the nephew I loved to being…well, I don’t know, Jack. There’s nothing I can say to make this right. But, I can see that you and Kelly love each other,” she continued and Jack burst with happiness inside when she spoke of Kelly’s love for him. Now he wanted to hear it from Kelly herself to be sure. He wanted to see if they could share a life together.

“It’s all right, Aunt Mabry,” Jack started to say, but she cut him off.

“No, it’s not, Jack,” she said firmly again, with a shake of her head. “I know that now. I got so lost after Dan left me and I’ve been angry and hateful ever since. It was like a poison washing through me. And I let it change the way I saw everything and everyone around me. Chad tried to tell me so many times what he wants and I never listened. I never saw how much my hatred and anger was hurting all of you because I never wanted to see it.

I want my life back. I want my family back. It’s too late with your mom and dad and I’ll never forgive myself for that – for how awful I was to them – but I still have you and Chad and now Kelly and I don’t want to lose you.”

Jack smiled cautiously at her and she continued, “I know it’ll take time to earn back your trust and I won’t ever be able to make everything up to you but I’m going to try. I packed my things and I’m headed back over to my place. I’ll get out of your hair so you and that sweet new wife of yours can enjoy yourselves without your old aunt getting in your way.”

Jack laughed and came around his desk to hug his aunt and hoped that this truly was a genuine change for her and a chance for him to have his old aunt back.

“But, I do expect invitations to dinner from time to time. And, Chad should come too. I don’t see my own son often enough,” Mabry insisted.

“Does this mean you’ll call off your private investigator?” Jack asked and he laughed, relieved to be able to put all of this behind them.

Mabry pulled out of his arms and looked at him quizzically. “I didn’t hire an investigator, Jack,” she said.

Chapter Thirty-five

Jack felt his blood run cold and the air being sucked from the room. He gripped Mabry by the shoulders. “You didn’t have Kelly followed, Aunt Mabry?”

Mabry shook her head, pain and fear as the situation dawned on her evident on her face. “No, Jack. Oh my God. Jack, no, I didn’t.”

Jack grabbed his cell phone and dialed Kelly’s number but it went straight to voicemail. Panic swept through him but he pushed that down and tried to stay focused. She was probably busy at the clinic or out shopping and couldn’t pick up the phone. He tossed the phone to his aunt.

“Keep hitting redial.” Jack picked up his desk phone and dialed Chad.

“Chad, I need you right away. Kelly’s in danger.” He hung up and looked to his aunt who was repeatedly hitting the redial of Kelly’s number. She shook her head at him – Kelly wasn’t answering.

While he waited for Chad, Jack called the legal aid clinic, all the while chanting in his head.
She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine
. They told him that Kelly had left an hour ago and they hadn’t heard from her since.

Chad arrived in Jack’s office in a matter of seconds and Jack gave him an update. He looked somber as he dialed the man assigned to Kelly. Chad spoke briefly into the phone then hung up to update Jack.

“She hasn’t hit her panic button at all but he’s been parked on the street out front and he never saw her leave the clinic. He’s headed into the clinic right now to check that out.”

“I called there. They said she left already,” Jack said.

“Let him check it out, see if he finds anything. In the meantime, let me get one of my tech people to your house to set up a trace in case we get a call.”