Next to You (17 page)

J
ared stood
in his midtown Manhattan penthouse apartment, looking down at the street seventy stories below. From up here, the cars and taxis were just streaks of red tail lights in the dark and everything was blissfully quiet. It had been months since Jared had been back in the city. Not since he’d taken the job with Phlox, as a matter of fact. And now it was Phlox who had brought him back here. After last night, he just wanted to see her.
Needed
to see her.

He had it bad, and that was bad.

Not least because of what he was seeing. He had waited across the street from her office building, a baseball cap pulled down low on his head, pretending to peruse magazines at a newsstand. It was early evening, an hour at which he had hoped she would leave the office. And leave she had, but not alone. She’d been with a man whose arm had been draped casually across her shoulder, too casually to be a colleague or business acquaintance. The guy’s black suit was clearly bespoke. No other way to get a suit to fit that well. Not that Jared was opposed to immaculate tailoring. He had a dozen bespoke suits stashed away in his closet here in New York. Been years since he’d worn one, though.

The sight of Phlox and another man together had only half surprised him. This was her real life. She had a business here, friends. She’d told him she wasn’t seeing anyone but what else would you say when you’re in bed with someone?

But the other half of him was completely, painfully surprised. Especially after last night. He’d been so overwhelmed with missing her that he had confessed to loving her. Which he did, so much so that his heart was about to burst.

Maybe being back in the city had helped her see things in a different light. See
him
in a different light. See him for the way he really looked. He’d told her she would have men lined up outside her door. He had predicted it himself.

But did it have to hurt so damn much?

Jared had followed them, at a discreet distance, until they disappeared into a restaurant. He ended his stalking activities at that point and headed home to nurse a few glasses of whiskey and fight the urge to call her, text her, march down to that restaurant and toss that other dweeb into the street. The thought of her going home with the guy made Jared want to punch something. Hard.

At nine o’clock, he was lying in bed watching bad reality television and trying not to think about what Phlox was doing right now. Was she doing a sexy striptease for her date in his apartment? Peeling off that prim and proper business suit? Showing him her lovely little body, her map of scars? Letting him kiss her where Jared had kissed her?

Fuck, this hurt too much. Why had he let himself get involved with her? Let his heart get involved? Why couldn’t he just have screwed her and walked away? He’d even taken her to meet his family.
Great.
Now Jake was going to know that he’d fallen in love and gotten dumped.

He was reaching for the glass of whiskey on the nightstand when the phone rang. He let it ring a few times, debating the wisdom of answering it. One of these times it was going to be Jake with the final news. There had been years—many years, in fact—when Jared had looked forward to that moment. The closer it got, though, the more he was dreading it.

The phone was on the next to last ring when he finally decided to pick it up. His heart slammed into his chest at the sight of Phlox’s name on the screen. He quickly tapped it before her call rolled over to voice mail.

“Hey,” she said softly. “How are you?”

Could be better.
“Fine,” he answered, listening acutely for the sound of someone in the background. “You still at work?”

“No. I’m at home.”

“No fab events to go to tonight?”

She laughed—almost bitterly, he thought.

“Don’t expect we’ll get invited to much for awhile. At least Zee’s mother hasn’t rescinded the invitation to her premiere. Not yet, anyway. What are you up to?”

“Just watching TV.”

“Anything good?”

“Nope. Just one of those shows where they dump a group of people into the middle of a jungle somewhere to see if they survive.”

“The one where they’re all naked?”

He laughed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I watched a lot of TV when I was having all my—” Her voice trailed away. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.”

“You sound out of sorts.”

“Nah. I’m fine.”

“How are Jake and Mina? And the kids?”

“They’re fine.”

Yeah, he was angry about her date, even as he felt awful about being angry—because, hell, he was the one who didn’t want to go out in public with her. What right did he have to expect her to sit at home when he wasn’t willing to date her openly? But the anger was there all the same, most of it directed at himself for being so bloody stupid to fall for a woman.

“I miss you, Jared.”

“I miss you too, hon.”

“I wish you would come to the city. You could just stay in my apartment and …”

“Hide?”

“I didn’t say that, Jared.”

“Well, I have to stay here. The contractors think they might be able to start work on your hot tub next week.” Lying came so easily to him these days, he realized with a start. That wasn’t good. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time and unravel some of those lies, not take a job at her country home under false pretenses. It was good she was dating and moving on, because he’d never be able to explain all those lies. And they weren’t sustainable over the long term. What had he been thinking? That he could just be her caretaker and her lover forever? At some point, she’d learn who he really was.

“Oh. Okay then. Do I need to put any deposits down on the work?”

“No. They’re good for now.”

“Okay. Well, send the bills to Cherise when they arrive. Or have the contractors send them directly.”

“Will do.”

Fuck. He did not want to talk about this with her, about the hot tub or money or anything even remotely connected to his employment with her. But this had been inevitable when she returned to the city, hadn’t it? Whatever they had between them could only exist in Connecticut. Now that she was in New York again he had turned back into a pumpkin.

T
he sound
of his phone ringing woke him from a restless, troubled sleep. He swatted the surface of the nightstand, trying to find it without having to open his eyes. He knocked the empty whiskey glass onto the floor, where it shattered.

“Jared.” It was Jake.

“What time is it?” Jared mumbled, opening his eyes just enough to see whether it was light out yet. Nope, still dark.

“It’s four-thirty. Sorry to wake you. Are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone.”
Unless you count dear old Jack. Daniels, that is.

“The attorney just called. It’s going to be today.”

“Shit.” He was wide awake now. “Don’t they give more notice than that?”

He heard Jake’s labored breathing on the other end. “They set the date last week apparently.” Jake was quiet for a long moment. “The attorney didn’t call earlier so that we wouldn’t have enough time to fly out to California. The attorney said that he
requested that we not be there.”

Fuck
. It would have been gruesome in the extreme to attend his father’s execution. But a tiny part of him had held out hope that Jackson Connor would want to see his sons again before he died. One last time. He and Jake hadn’t seen their father since the night of the fire. That was twenty-five years ago now.

It’s time to let it go.
His wiser and younger brother had been telling him that for years. Easier said than done, though.

“Do you want to come up here?” Jake issued the invitation hesitantly.

“No. I don’t know if I’ll … You wouldn’t want the kids to know anything’s wrong.” He sensed Jake’s relief on the other end.

“Well, maybe you can come in a few days or something. Mina and the kids want you to bring Phlox again.”

“I don’t know. I think she might be back with her old boyfriend.”

“How do you know that?”

“Saw them together.”

Jake was silent for a minute. “She brought him to the house?”

“No. I’m in New York.”

“What are you doing there? Following her around?” Jared could hear the gears turning in Jake’s head. “You are, aren’t you? Does she know you’re there?”

“No.”

“Jared, I don’t know her very well but she seemed like a nice person. The kids loved her and they’ve got pretty good bullshit meters. If you don’t want her, I believe Aidan is next in line.”

“I don’t want to fuck up her life.”

“How do you know you will? Why not give her the opportunity to decide whether you will or not?”

“Brother, it is too fucking early in the morning to have this conversation again. I’m sure we’ll be in touch later in the day.” With that, Jared hung up and crashed back into his restless sleep.

At ten o’clock, he gave up on sleep. He brewed a pot of coffee—double strength—and toasted a bagel, then sat down to watch CNN and check the Google alerts he had set up for his father. He poured a second cup of coffee, dosing this one with a generous shot of whiskey. If ever there was a day to get stinking drunk, this was it. And he fully intended to be falling-down-shit-faced-drunk by nightfall. Or mid-afternoon, whichever came first.

At noon, there was still no word. He kept CNN running in the background while he occupied himself with other distractions. He googled Phlox Beauty and read every last search result, no matter how small or how old. Hey, he was a shareholder. He googled the restaurant she had gone to the previous night. So she was dating a restaurateur and the guy had taken her to one of his own restaurants. Kind of like a busman’s holiday there, he thought. Not to mention kind of cheap. Presumably the guy didn’t have to pay for meals at his own restaurant.

I would fly her to Paris for dinner.

By three, he was stir-crazy and remembering why he spent so little time in New York. He longed to be back in Connecticut, where he could at least be outside and alone, taking care of the gardens for the woman he loved. Working on the hot tub he had lied about earlier to the woman he loved.

He had never worried about his lies catching up to him until now. No one looked at a caretaker all that closely. And if someone were to discover that he wasn’t who he said he was, well, they would be a person he didn’t really care about anyway. Falling in love hadn’t crossed his mind when he had concocted this scheme.

Jake was wrong though. It
would
fuck up her life. Oh, not the dating-a-billionaire part. But dating the son of a condemned killer? Yeah, that part. Not a great addition to the Phlox Beauty brand. And thanks to his face, it was not information anyone could ever forget. Every time he stepped out with Phlox, it would be “Phlox Miller with her billionaire boyfriend, Jared Connor. Mr. Connor, who was burned in a fire set by his father …”

He loved her too much to do that to her.

At four o’clock, Jared had fanned out his sizable collection of delivery menus on the coffee table. What would it be tonight? Chinese? Indian? Burgers? He wondered what his father had ordered for his last meal. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might have been, so little did he know his own father. With a start, he realized he didn’t even know what his father looked like now. In his memories, his parents were always young, the way they had been when he’d gone to bed that night. But his father was in his sixties now. Was he grey? Bald? Wrinkled? Jared had no idea.

At four-fifteen, his phone buzzed with a text.
Over
was all it said. He put his ruined face into his hands and wept.

P
hlox stood
in her apartment’s kitchen, methodically chopping vegetables for a dinner salad and running through all the things she had to do before she and Zee flew out to Ginger Moon’s movie premiere in two weeks. Set up a meeting with her marketing director to brainstorm naming ideas for the burn care line. Finish the performance review for Cherise. Buy a gown for the premiere. None of the gowns she owned fit her any longer. She and Zee had to look great at the premiere. No, they had to look perfect—not like the owners of a business struggling to weather a crisis.

And maybe try to get up to Connecticut to see Jared.

She missed him. She’d known she would but the intensity of her longing for him shocked her. They hadn’t known each other long but being with him just felt
right.

Outside, the sun was setting on Manhattan, the last rays of light glinting off windows and skyscrapers up and down the block. Her small television played in the living room, tuned to CNN, but Phlox paid it little mind. The newscaster was talking about a death row inmate who had been executed in California. She set down her knife and padded over to the television in her bare feet. She had enough bad news in her life. She didn’t need to hear more. She lifted the remote control from the coffee table and pointed it at the screen, her thumb poised over the power button.

The female newscaster struggled to maintain her composure while she read the story from the teleprompter. "Jackson Connor stabbed his wife, Maria, to death while she was sleeping, then set fire to the house with their two young children asleep in their beds. The children, Jared and Jacob Connor, managed to escape from the house.”

Time slowed to a crawl and the remote fell from her fingers, glanced off the glass tabletop and fell with a dull thunk to the floor.

"Jared Connor would go on to found Accendo, the Silicon Valley company he later sold to Google for three point two billion dollars. The brothers did not respond to CNN's requests for an interview nor release any statements today concerning their father's execution. Officials at San Quentin confirmed that neither attended the execution." The newscaster glanced away from the teleprompter, looking relieved to be done with the story.

Phlox sunk to her knees in shock, tears welling in her eyes. Jared had said he was burned in a house fire that had killed his parents. Mina had said that Jared rescued Jake from the house. But neither of them had said anything about Jared and Jake’s father setting the fire.

Fuck.
She shoved the heels of her hands against her eyes, pushing back at the tears. Why hadn't Jared said anything? He must have known this was coming up. They didn't carry out death sentences on the spur of the moment.
Fuckfuckfuck.

She slowly rose and found her cell phone in the kitchen. She ignored the salad she'd been making, her appetite now vanished. She tapped Jared's name in her contact list and listened to it ring over and over. He wasn't picking up. No huge surprise there.

"Jared. It's Phlox. Call me. Please," she said when his phone rolled over to voice mail.

His father had been on death row. For killing his mother. And nearly killing Jared and Jake too.
Phlox couldn't even wrap her head around it, around the sheer unfathomable awfulness of it.

And shit!
He was Accendo. Even Phlox had heard of that deal. Sold to Google for three billion dollars. What the fuck was he doing working as a caretaker?

Jared Connor? No one’s seen that guy in years.
David’s words in the restaurant came back to her.
You know what his nickname is? Bruce Wayne. Reclusive billionaire and all that … At least I’m not losing out to Batman, right?

It was too much information to process all at once. She left another voice mail and several texts for Jared, then dialed Jake’s number. He didn’t answer, either.

Maria. The Maria Group.
Phlox realized with a sickening certainty who their angel investor was. Jared had offered her company thirty million dollars. Why the hell would he do that?

She collapsed into a chair. Why didn’t he tell her? Why the hell was he hiding out pretending to be a caretaker? Was he by himself in the cottage? He should be at Jake and Mina’s house on a day like this. She suspected he wasn’t though.

At bedtime, she sent one last text.
Please call me, Jared. I saw the news. Please.

M
orning light sliced
a shadow across the long oval conference room table. Rye was spinning one of the large leather conference room chairs around and around on its axis. Sitting in hers, Phlox felt small and more powerless than she had felt since the day of the accident. She picked at her muffin while Zee, Rye and Jess discussed business matters around her.

“The insurance company is covering most of the medical claim payouts,” she heard her brother say.

“The factory wants to know what to do with all the recalled product,” Zee said a few minutes later, when the conversation had moved on to another topic.

“Still working on the Maria Group,” Jess said, a few minutes further on. “There seems to be quite the firewall around the company. Very secretive.”

The discussion fell silent after that, until Zee asked, “Phlox? Are you feeling okay?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have brought you back this soon.” Rye’s voice was laced with concern. “All this has tired you out, hasn’t it?”

Phlox waved her hand in the air. “I’m fine.”

Zee poked at the plastic plate in front of her. “This poor muffin isn’t.” Phlox had picked at the muffin until it collapsed into a pile of crumbs.

“Boy trouble, that’s all,” Phlox said.

“Dinner with David didn’t go well?” Rye asked. “Maybe you just need to give him time. You barely knew each other before.”

“Not him.”

“The caretaker?” Zee said. “What happened?”

“You’re going out with a caretaker?” her brother said, incredulous.

“I was.” She sighed. “Now I’m not sure.”

“Phlox, you are not making one shred of sense,” Rye said.

“I fell in love with the guy Cherise hired to take care of the house in Connecticut. His name is Jared Connor. Apparently he’s also a billionaire.”

“Wait—you’re dating
the
Jared Connor?” Rye said.

“Your caretaker is a billionaire?” Zee added.

“No one’s seen that guy since he sold his company to Google—”

Suddenly everyone was talking all at once.

“Wasn’t his father execu—” Everyone fell silent at Jess’s half-finished sentence.

“Shit,” Zee said after awhile. “How’s he doing?”

“I don’t know,” Phlox replied, fighting back hot tears. “I can’t get in touch with him. He’s not answering my calls.”

“You’re sure this is the same guy?” Rye pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. He draped his arm across her shoulders in a brotherly fashion. “Why would he be working at your house?”

“I’m sure,” she sighed. “And I don’t know why he’s working at my house.”

“The Jared Connor I’m thinking of—” Rye touched his cheek.

“Yes, that’s him. That’s why he doesn’t go out in public much.”

Rye turned to Zee and Jess. “Can you give us a moment?” When the other two women were gone, he said, “Where do you think he is?”

“My house, I guess. His brother lives in Boston but I have a feeling he isn’t there.” She felt Rye’s hand clasp hers. “I’m pretty certain he’s behind the Maria Group, too. That was his mother’s name.”

Rye gave a low whistle. “Thirty million dollars, sis. That’s no wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

Rye gently tipped her face to look at him. “Do you love him?”

She nodded.

“Then go to him. Drive up there. Zee and I can hold down the fort here for a day.”

“He doesn’t want to see me if he’s not answering my calls.”

“It’s your house, sis. You can go there if you want.”