Their Soul Mate [The Hot Millionaires #5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

Always know this, Zac. You were loved from afar, and I go to my grave feeling guilty for not having done more to make you aware that you have family who care about you. I suffered agonies when Mary Elizabeth turned to drugs, blaming myself, since it surely must be my fault. But at least I had her for a while, and during the impressionable years of her childhood she knew what it was to be loved. You never experienced that, and I cry every time I think about the lonely little boy you must have been.

Your mother still lives. I’m telling you this purely for your information. She is beyond anyone’s help.

Your loving grandmother, Julia Everton.

Justine folded the letter and silently handed it to Zac, brushing away tears with the back of her hand. No one spoke for several moments, and the atmosphere was loaded with unspoken condemnation.

“Frankly, I’m surprised you want to find her,” Justine eventually said.

Zac shrugged and appeared to pull himself out of his reverie. “Yeah, sometimes I surprise myself.”

“Well, at least now I have something to go on.”

“That’s why I showed you the letter.”

“Er, there’s just one thing I ought to mention,” Justine said tentatively, “if I’m going to be on the payroll right away.”

Zac and Cody both looked at her. “What is it?” Zac asked.

“Well, my previous job, I’m still technically employed there.”

“But I thought you said—”

“That I resigned?” Justine nodded. “Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place?”

“Okay,” Zac said, slouching in his squishy armchair and stretching long legs out in front of him. “Let’s hear it.”

Justine looked at him and, just for a moment, was unable to find her voice. He was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. His profile was rugged, showing clear signs of the tough resourcefulness he must have developed as a parentless child in the not-always-easy environment of foster homes. His aura of not-entirely-civilized male was now understandable and very attractive. She could still hardly believe that she’d actually be working for him. Perhaps she’d been chosen because he wouldn’t be tempted by her physical attributes, such as they were.

Hell if she knew what his reason was. All she did know was that she could bury herself in the work here, be her own boss, and reward Zac’s faith in her by finding his lost mother for him. Knowing what she now did about the woman, she had a feeling that he might well not like what she found. Perhaps she’d use Cody as an intermediary to shield Zac from anything that his buddy thought he shouldn’t know about. It seemed strange, feeling the need to protect such an obvious alpha male. He looked like he could slay dragons single-handedly. He certainly seemed to have tamed the local workforce into submission—no mean feat in itself—but had all sorts of emotional hang-ups about his heritage.

“My previous employers are media consultants. It’s only a small firm of about a dozen employees, with Jason Graves as boss.”

“He and you were an item?” Zac asked, scowling.

“Yes.” Justine wrinkled her nose. “When he dumped me, he seemed to think that I’d get over it and carry on working for him like nothing had happened.”

“See, told you he was a jerk,” Cody said in a disgusted voice.

“I was his PA, and just about everything the company dealt with went through me.”

“So let me guess,” Zac said. “You screwed the bastard by making him continue to pay you a salary.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly, but basically, yes I did.” Justine shrugged. “A woman scorned and all that. Anyway, bottom line, he knows I won’t go anywhere near him or the office again, but I had to agree to be on the end of the telephone for the next month to manage one particular project.” Justine couldn’t help flashing a satisfied grin. “Our client won’t deal with anyone except me.”

“Who’s the client?” Cody asked.

“A Cornish artist is putting on an exhibition in London, and Jason has promised to find him backers and/or sales. The artist, Mansell—”

“Mansell what?” Cody asked.

“Just Mansell. No one even knows if he has another name, I don’t think. Anyway, he’s a bit moody and won’t deal with anyone except me.”

“Sensible chap,” Cody said, grinning.

Zac frowned. “So you’ll have to be up and down to London?”

“No, I can handle it all online, and I have, or should I say had, an assistant who still works for Jason and can deal with the hands-on stuff.” Justine smiled as she thought of loyal Sasha, her only true ally against Jason. Everyone else in the place thought the sun shone from his backside. Justine grimaced when she thought how, until recently, she’d been their head cheerleader, blind to Jason’s very obvious character defects because she’d been so grateful to be noticed by him.

“So you’ll have to give them this number, is that what you’re saying?” Zac asked.

“Yes, they have my cell, but reception doesn’t seem to be much good down here.”

“It’s patchy,” Cody agreed.

“Okay,” Zac said. “I don’t see a problem with that.”

“Good, then we have a deal.”

“You ready to go back to town?” Cody asked. “There’s a garage in the village. We can drop Malcolm off there and I’ll drive you to… Where are we going?”

“Clapham.”

“Okay. It has a common, right?”

“That’s one of its few claims to fame. That and being close to the centre of London, with relatively cheap rents. Talking of which.” Justine scowled. “How long are you employing me for? Should I give up my flat?”

“Don’t see any point in keeping it,” Zac said.

“Easy for you to say. Flats with affordable rents are rarer than chocolate teapots.”

“There’s plenty to keep you busy down here for the foreseeable future.”

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

“Make it work.”

“Just like that?”

Zac shrugged. “Life’s a constant string of risks, and you look like the type who’s prepared to take a flyer, so live dangerously.”

Justine gazed first at Zac, his expression unsmiling but sincere, and then Cody. He seemed enthusiastic for her to move in right away.

“Okay,” she said. “Come on, Cody, let’s go get my life packed up.”

“You really did mean to move in right away,” Justine said, laughing. “I thought maybe you’d take my stuff and I’d come down in a day or two.”

“Why? Got something you need to do?”

She shrugged. “No, not really.”

“Well, then.” Cody put his muscles to good use, helping Justine to load her belongings and lugging them down the two flights of stairs to his car parked in the closest free space, about half a mile away. “Don’t mean to be rude,” he added, glancing round her rather-cramped living space when he returned for a fourth load, “but I don’t see anything to keep you here. If we hurry, we can be back in Surrey before dark.”

“I guess you have a point.”

Justine took pleasure in writing out her notice and posting it, along with the key, to the landlord. She’d paid a month’s deposit and was only required to give a month’s notice, so that was that. Good-bye, Clapham. Hello, new life. This flat, small and squalid though it was, would be snapped up by some desperate person in no time at all, probably at a higher rent than she’d managed to negotiate.

Cody drove with swift efficiency, and they were soon back on the narrow road where this whole adventure had started just a few brief hours before. It seemed like a lifetime.

“No regrets?” Cody asked.

“None at all. It feels like it’s supposed to be, although I was surprised to get the job.” She glanced at him. “I guess I have you to thank for that.”

“I put in a good word, is all.” Cody shrugged. “Zac’s been interviewing for three weeks now. He’s fussy, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Which is why I’m surprised he employed me.”

“Don’t put yourself down, sweetheart.”

“I’m not, I just—”

“Today was the third lot of applicants.”

“I filled in the application three weeks ago.” She grimaced. “I obviously made a real good impression.”

“The agency pushed what they thought were better-qualified applicants on him. Problem is, when Zac needs help and the agencies realize who he is, they think he wants all beauty and no brains.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Hey, that came out all wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, babe. Trust me on that one.”

He took one hand off the wheel and rested it on her thigh for a moment, searing the skin beneath her jeans with the heat of his hand, or so it seemed. Once again, physical connection with him made her pussy leak. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t work with the guy and spend all her time trying to avoid touching him.

Get a grip, girl!

“The unique thing about you, Justine, is that you didn’t take one look at Zac and think
money
and/or
wedding bells.
What’s more, you stood up to him instead of crawling up his ass. That doesn’t happen very often. I figured, as soon as I saw you trying to do battle with Malcolm’s engine when you clearly didn’t have a clue what you were doing, that you had spirit and determination. That made me reckon you were the girl for the job.”

“Is it such a good idea, though? Zac looking for his drug-addled mother, I mean. He obviously has issues about his childhood. Who wouldn’t in his situation? I just can’t see him finding any closure, even if I can track Mary Elizabeth down. He knows the circumstances of his birth from his grandmother’s letter, and it’s his father who tried to do something for him by taking him away from the drug scene.” She lifted her shoulders. “But he’s dead and apparently doesn’t have any family who can shed light on the matter. So what’s in it for Zac, other than more angst?”

“I felt the same way you do at first and tried to talk him out of it. Then I got to thinking about what I know of his childhood, which isn’t much. All I can tell you is that he was never adopted and was pushed from one foster family to the other. I don’t know that he was actually physically abused at any of those places, but I can take a pretty good guess.” Cody sighed. “Since he became successful, he hasn’t heard a word from the families that treated him well.”

“And let me guess, all the ones that gave him a hard time are at him for hand-outs,” Justine said, rolling her eyes.

“Right. They play the
look at the sacrifices we made for you so you could become what you are today
card. Fortunately Zac knows precisely what they did or didn’t do for him and basically tells them to fuck off.”

“I can understand why he finds it hard to trust.”

“You don’t know the half of it. But if his instincts hadn’t told him to trust you, he wouldn’t have employed you, no matter what I said. Nor would he have shown you that letter.”

“You’re his partner. Don’t you get an equal say?”

Cody laughed. “He’s generous enough to call me an equal partner, and I suppose I am, because I come from a well-off family and was able to put up half the cash to start our business from my trust fund. Yeah.” He laughed when she shot him an ironic look. “I know. Zac, on the other hand, earned his half by getting his hands dirty. He had drive and ambition from an early age. His grandmother got that much right.”

“What did he do?”

Cody shrugged. “This and that. He’ll tell you himself if you ask him.”

“Perhaps I will.”

“Anyway, my point is, Zac is the brains and driving force behind our partnership, and we both know it.”

“I see. But you’re great friends.”

“I’m probably his only friend and confidante. The only person he knows that doesn’t want something from him.”

“Well, I’ll start digging into his life and see if I can find his mother but—”

“But let me know what you find out first.”

“That’s what I was about to suggest.”

“Great. I don’t want him to get burned over this.”

Justine smiled at Cody, glad that Zac had someone so trustworthy watching his back. “Agreed,” she said.

“What about you, Cody? You’ve told me all you can about Zac, but you’re pretty tight-lipped about your own background.” She flashed him a look. “You don’t strike me as the preppy trust-fund type, no offence intended.”

“None taken.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll ’fess up, I come from The Hamptons,” he said. “Rich father, socialite mother, blah, blah. I toed the line, followed my father into the family business and married a ‘suitable’ woman who would look like my own mother in twenty years’ time. I did what was expected of me, and—”

“And, let me guess, you were miserable.”

“Right.” He slanted her a probing glance. “How did you know?”

Justine chuckled. “I haven’t known you for long but I can already tell that you’re not the type to conform to others’ plans for you.”

“I hated the scene, if you want the truth. The country club, the society functions, plastic people with plastic smiles. None of them had done a serious day’s work in their lives, and the biggest risks they ever took was on the stock market where they’d barely feel the loss if it went tits up.”