Chapter Twelve

Jake doesn’t tell me where we’re going, but I assume it’s back to his place. I get the impression that he’s trying to put as much distance between Brad and me as he can.

On the way, we take a detour down Hollywood Boulevard. I know he’s doing it for my benefit, but I sort of wish he hadn’t. What greets me is a cliché of heat, sweat, and fading neon, with crowds of wide-eyed tourists in chinos and dead-eyed street performers in their faded Batman costumes, all spilling over the brim of the extra wide sidewalks. Even famous buildings like the Dolby Theatre have a disappointing dullness about them.

“The stars shine brighter after twilight,” murmurs Jake, catching sight of my face.

“How profound,” I say lightly. “And so do producers’ egos, by all accounts.”

“I wasn’t talking about me. Shit!” He curses as the Maserati is nearly rammed off the road by a celebrity sightseeing bus.

I burst into laughter. I can’t help myself, and even Jake stops scowling for a second. The irony would have been beautifully poetic.

I’m savoring the lighter atmosphere as we enter the Platinum Triangle—the three super-affluent L.A. neighborhoods of Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Holmby Hills—and then my phone starts ringing. I glance down and the eye roll is automatic. It’s as if she can smell the money.

“Who is it?” demands Jake.

“Not who you think.” I can tell he’s still edgy about Brad. “It’s much worse.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” he says drily.

“Hi, Mom,” I answer, shooting him a look.

“Darling!” As usual, my mother’s cut-glass accent is trilling into the receiver like it’s a 1920s candlestick phone, and Jake can hear every word. “Have you given up that ridiculous job yet, Charlotte? You know we can always increase your allowance.”

“I want to work, Mom,” I say through gritted teeth. If Jake thinks I’m a trust fund rebel, I’ll never hear the end of it. “I told you this already.”

“Well, don’t make a habit of it.” There’s a pause. “I can hear you very clearly. I didn’t realize they had such good reception in the middle of the desert these days.”

Jake’s trying hard not to smirk. He shouldn’t do that. He’s far too attractive when he’s not being miserable. “Funny you should mention that, Mom. I’m actually in Los Angeles—”

My mother lets out a blood-curdling scream. “Oh, Charlotte, you mustn’t tease! But that’s where we are! David and I have flown in to attend a charity function tonight. It’s for disadvantaged kiddies affected by gun crime, or something horribly macabre like that. I’m sure David can arrange an invite for you.”

I go very still. Surely, even she must have clocked the irony of inviting me to such an event? But no, apparently not. She’s brushed over it, just as she’s brushed over every other unpleasant detail of my childhood.

“Well?” she prompts briskly. “Shall I tell David to get his checkbook out or not?”

Not.

I’d scream the word if I thought it would make a difference, but I know how this goes. She’s going to wear me down with her sugarcoated petulance until I accept my stepfather’s money. I know it’s only her guilt talking—guilt that she wasn’t around when I needed her the most.

Hastily, I turn my attentions back to tonight. An evening with a load of rich toffs? Sounds like hell.

Hell. Hell. Hell.

“Not this time, Mom. I’m pretty jet-lagged.” I yawn loudly for effect. “We only flew in this morn—”

“I don’t believe a word of it.” My mother’s used to me fobbing her off, but she’s not taking no for an answer this time. “I’ll send a courier over with something suitable to wear. David took me to Rodeo and I picked up a few gowns that need taking in. They’d be perfect for you.”

My fingertips clench around my cell phone. My mother is fluent in French, Spanish, and the backhanded compliment.

“Perhaps you could put your hair up too, darling?”

There’s another unspoken caveat in that sentence: if you wear your hair down, you’ll look like shit.

“But this is crazy. I don’t even have a date!”

Before I can stop him, Jake is pulling over and seizing my phone. “Good evening, Mrs. Winters. This is Jake Dalton speaking,” he says smoothly, sounding like an expensive education and serious money all rolled into one. “Forgive me for the intrusion, but I couldn’t help overhearing. I’m scheduled to attend the same event tonight, and I’d be more than happy to accompany Charlotte.”

My jaw hits the floor. “You are? You would?”

Jake silences me with a blistering look. Flustered, I drop the folder of paperwork I’m holding and it scatters all over the footwell. There’s silence on the other end of the line, too. I’m pretty sure my mother’s had a heart attack.

“Mr. Dalton, that would be simply wonderful,” she squeaks eventually.

Jolted back to life by the thought of a rich man on her daughter’s arm at last.

Well, at least she’s happy. I’m not. Far from it. I may be breaking his rules—whatever that means—but Jake is switching up the game on me, too. No doubt he has an agenda here. He always has an agenda. I’ve only known him for a week, but it’s clear to see that his every move is a carefully calculated affair. His phenomenal success is down to equal parts blazing talent and mindfuckery.

He and my mother are now busy discussing protocol for tonight. I’m tempted to shop him to the cops for driving under the influence of a social-climbing narcissist. He hangs up and passes the phone back to me. The triumphant look on his face is the final straw. This one-upmanship between us is getting ridiculous.

“There’s no way in hell I’m going to that event with you,” I say, shaking my head at him.

“You will if you want to keep your job.”

Even his bloody voice is smirking at me.

“So, you’re pulling rank again? That’s emotional—no, employment blackmail. And it’s unethical.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Books. I’m still your boss’s boss, remember?”

“Which means nothing, by the way. I already checked. Max told me you can’t fire me, so don’t even go there.” I tail off and switch tack. “Why are you doing this?”

He jets out a breath. “It’s a favor. Be grateful. They’re rare as fuck.”

Never in a million years. Thanks to him, I have to spend an entire evening with my mother at an event that will trigger memories I’ve spent a lifetime trying to forget. “I don’t want to be your pity date, Jake.”

His jaw tenses. “You’re not a pity date, or any sort of date, for that matter. Text your mother my address so she knows where to courier the dresses.”

“Please don’t do this.”

I don’t know what I’m pleading for here—a reprieve from this event or a reprieve from his company?

“It’s for a good cause.” He reaches out to turn the radio up and drown out any more of my protestations.

“Am I the good cause, or are you referring to the kids?” I say, determined to have the last word.

“I’m not listening anymore, Books.”

We’re starting to slow next to an exclusive row of homes. I can see their slanting roofs rising up like gilded citadels above ten-foot security fences and jagged green topiary. “Wouldn’t you rather be at home watching baseball or basketball, or whatever you billionaires do in your spare time?”

He pulls into the driveway of one, hits a button on his dashboard, and waits for the gates to open. “You’re stalling, Books. Are you trying to stand me up?”

“New experience, is it? Anyway, I can’t stand you up,” I say quickly. “You said this wasn’t a date.”

The foliage parts and we pull up to a gorgeous Tudor-style mansion with lots of aromatic honeysuckle clouding the front porch. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him. Jake spits good taste while others, like me, are left to swallow our mediocrity. Behind us, the security gates close like steel-tipped trapdoors.

“Argue as much as you want, call me every name under the sun if you must, but we’re going to this event together, and that’s final.” I watch him slide off his seat belt and exit the car as gracefully as a matador, though his words are spliced with steel. “And another thing. I don’t watch television.”

“Said the media mogul to the soapaholic,” I mutter as he slams the door on me.

Reluctantly, I follow him inside.

His mansion is spectacular, of course, but I don’t tell him that. His ego is far too big already. It’s all cool creams, dark grays, and angled furniture.

Achingly modern.

Eminently masculine.

Stepping through the front doors, I’m confronted with a curved white marble staircase leading up to the next floor.

“Take one of the bedrooms on the left,” he calls out after me as I shoot up the stairs two at a time, anxious to put some distance between us.

There’s a hallway of doors waiting for me at the top. Pushing open the nearest, I slip inside. The room is light and spacious with a huge floor-to-ceiling window separating me from a dusky, neon-lit metropolis. I flop down onto the bed and close my eyes. Everything out here seems so hyper and intense compared with the stark simplicity of the desert. The view is making my brain ache.

Jake is making my brain ache.

My mother has three dresses and a trunk load of accessories couriered over to his mansion shortly after we arrive. Guilt sure buys a lot of couture, and it takes me ages to unpack everything. I lay each item out in turn on the navy comforter. Okay, so my mother has many faults, but her taste in designer cocktail dresses isn’t one of them. There’s a shimmering silver Chanel, a slinky red Calvin Klein, and a classic Versace LBD. The clock is ticking. I don’t have long to choose. We’re scheduled to leave in forty minutes.

All too quickly, I hear Jake shouting up to me from downstairs, “How long does it take to change a pair of Chucks, Books? Get a move on. It’s time to go!”

No Chucks tonight, and it’s a decision I’m mourning already. Hurricane Dalton is much easier to withstand when my feet are firmly flat on the ground. Instead, I glance in the mirror as I slip into a pair of four-inch Jimmy Choos. In the end I chose the Chanel. I’ve not had much time to work on a tan in Morocco, but my naked back looks okay from this angle. The dress is seductive enough to flatter my slim figure, with a slit up one side and a slight flaring at the waist. For once I’ve obeyed my mother, and swept my long, dark hair into a neat chignon at the nape of my neck. There are small diamond studs glittering in each ear lobe.

“Not bad, Charlie, not bad,” I whisper at my reflection as I grab a silver purse and a pale pink pashmina from the collection.

Jake is waiting for me in his cavernous white lobby next to a gilt mirror and a bleak, expensive-looking painting of an unfamiliar skyline. He’s changed into a sharp, impeccably fitted black dress suit, and as I descend the winding staircase he turns to look at me. Clutching the banister for support, I gaze back at him steadily, even though my heart is pounding, as I take in the strength of his jawline and those heavy dark eyes.

His expression is unreadable, but there’s a muscle working hard in his left cheek as I walk over to him, my heels sparking off his monochrome tiles. He knocks back the drink in his hand and grabs his iPhone from the sideboard. “You took your time,” he mutters.

“You don’t look so shabby, yourself.” Rebuked, I glare at his broad shoulders. It wouldn’t kill him to say something nice to me. Then I remember who he is and who he’s dated. Jake’s used to having beautiful, confident women hanging off his arm, not some wild-eyed twenty-two-year-old with a broken past and a shaky future. I’m too young, too inexperienced. I’m not in the same league. Hell, I don’t even want to be.

Do I?

The lobby starts to spin. We’re going to look ridiculous together. Every woman in the world wants to walk into a room with him…every woman except me.

I take a step back to catch my breath, reaching out to steady myself against the white wall.

At the same time Jake turns and frowns. “You okay?”

I daren’t look at him. He’s right. Tonight is just business, nothing more.

“I’m fine,” I say, staring at the floor.

“You sure about that?”

“I said I’m fine, so let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

But he doesn’t move. I can feel his gaze raking over my face, seeking out my truth again. “You’re still fighting me on this? Why?”

“Why not?”

Because I’m scared.

Because you make me scared.

For the first time in my life, I’m tempted to share my dirty secrets—the reasons for my insecurity, and the reasons why I buck against his authority so much. Something in those eyes is making me want to strip away years of bullshit. But the truth is poison. It belongs far, far away from us.

Us?

Striding past him, I step out onto the porch and wrap the pink pashmina around my bare shoulders, flouting the balmy L.A. evening just as I flout his demands at every opportunity.

“Well?” he says, arriving at my side. “Are you going to enlighten me, or are we playing twenty questions again?”

“Oppression,” I grumble.

“Oppression?” One eyebrow quirks in amusement. “I see. Reading Margaret Atwood at the moment, are we?”

I hate that he knows his literature. He must have read English at university, too. Words used to be my safe space, and now he’s laying siege to them, as he is everything else.

“The Count Of Monte Cristo, actually,” I say tersely. Because you’ve taken my thoughts hostage and I still don’t know why. “You may have won this particular battle, Mr. Dalton, but no one says I have to be happy about it.”

His gaze skims across my face again before he inclines his head toward the waiting car. “We don’t fight battles, Charlie—we brawl, at best.” I struggle to catch his parting words as he spins away from me. “It’s never warfare until we’ve shown our true colors.”