Crazy, Sexy, Revenge, page 24
“Go! Joel, get out of here!” Olivia squealed in the background.
Jordan slowly backed away from Joel, but not soon enough, not before Joel had seen a glimmer of conviction in that man’s eyes. That was all he needed. God had answered his prayer, even if it was an answer that only lasted a moment.
“I won’t let you do this to Frank,” Joel continued sternly. “He didn’t kill that woman and he doesn’t deserve to go to prison for it.”
Jordan slumped down in the chair next to where Olivia was sitting. “Frank isn’t innocent,” he retorted. “He did kill somebody.”
“Then let them punish him for that. But not for another man’s crime. I can’t stand by and let that happen.”
“But you could stand by and let her take me away,” Jordan suddenly blurted out.
“Jordan?” Olivia whispered weakly. “Baby, no. It wasn’t like that.”
Jordan stood up and faced Joel again. “You can be there for Frank’s sorry ass, but I didn’t mean enough to you for you to stop her?”
There was pain in his boy’s face that broke Joel’s heart all over again. That pain had never gone away, though. He’d just learned to ignore it.
He swallowed the lump choking him. “She said I wasn’t good enough for you. She said he could give you all the things I couldn’t.” He cleared his throat. “She said you deserved better and that if I loved you, I wouldn’t stand in the way.”
Joel felt like a fool for admitting these things to his son out loud, but he deserved to know the truth.
“Because I was right!” Olivia shouted. “You barely had a pot to piss in, Joel, and Julian came along offering me and my child the world, so I took it!” Her face turned that same shade of red that it had always turned when she got riled up, but her words didn’t cut him as deep this time. Truthfully, Olivia sounded like a crazy woman to him.
“He wanted me and everything that came with me including my son! I told him—if you want me then you have to take my child too!”
“And he had you,” Joel said, hoping that she was smart enough to catch the insult.
She glared at him with those pretty eyes of hers. “In ways you never did.”
“I believed her, son, but by the time I stopped believing her, it was too late. You didn’t want me to be your daddy because you already had another one.”
Jordan raked his hand across his head. “Julian Gatewood was her husband,” he said, pushing past Joel again to get back to his desk. “He was never my father.”
“That’s not true,” Olivia murmured. “Jordan, that’s not true. He loved you!”
“He loved something, Mother, but it wasn’t me. And I don’t even think it was you.” Jordan sat down behind his desk looking as weary as a man who’d been in a fistfight.
“How much of what you did was for me and how much of it was all about you?” Jordan looked at his mother.
Olivia looked hurt. “I told you, Jordan, I did it for both of us.”
Gatewood shook his head. “Somehow, Mother, I doubt that.”
“Now’s not the time for daddy issues, Jordan,” she shot back unemotionally. All of a sudden, Olivia didn’t look so hurt anymore. “But of course, if your convictions are getting the best of you,” she said, turning up her nose at Joel, “you can go back to that shack with him.”
There was a time when Joel would have been offended, but not anymore.
“It’s a good thing you’ve always been so pretty, Olivia,” he said, looking down his nose at her, “’cause Lord knows you ain’t got shit else going for your sorry ass. From what I read in the papers ’bout you, that husband of yours knew it too.”
If Olivia expected her son to come to her defense, she was disappointed.
There was nothing else to say. Joel had come here to give the Gatewoods a warning that Frank Ross wasn’t in this fight by himself.
“Frank’s going to tell the truth,” he told Jordan. He turned to leave. He had hoped that Jordan would ask him to stay, but of course, he didn’t.
* * *
Jordan sat there long after the man had left. He’d almost forgotten that Olivia was still in the room.
“Joel Tunson was the biggest mistake I ever made,” she offered quietly. “The only good thing to come from him was you.”
He looked up at her and stared at his mother as if he were truly seeing her for the first time. Olivia the beautiful. Olivia the manipulative. Olivia, his mother.
“I’d have done anything to get away from him,” she continued. “Especially when Julian came into our lives. He saw me, Jordan, took one look at me, and he thought I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on and he wanted me—us, son,” she said emphatically. “He wanted us and I knew almost as soon as he said it that I would’ve been a fool to pass on a man like him. I’d have done anything to be with him—and I did.” Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. She believed that what she’d done was the right thing to do. “We deserved better, Jordan, no matter the cost.”
Watching her theatrics, a conclusion suddenly came to him. Olivia was a desperate woman. She had never been anything else, and a question came to him.
“Did you try to have Desi Green killed?”
His mother wiped away the tears falling down her cheeks with the heel of her thumb, cleared her throat, and sat up straight. “It doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively. “It didn’t work.”
Chapter 50
Jordan stood in the corner of a room of his house with his back against the wall because that’s exactly how he felt. It had been three days since he’d been back in his office—the day that Joel had come by. Forces bigger than him obviously didn’t want him there and he was just drunk enough to oblige.
Fate had put all of the pieces of this puzzle together and forced them to fit, creating the perfect picture of him holding that gun in his hand, pointing it at Lonnie’s heart, and pulling the trigger. It was as if it never mattered that he didn’t actually do it. Somehow, even from the grave, Lonnie was getting her revenge. Even dead, she was the most fascinating woman he’d ever met, a female version of him, his soul mate. The best he could hope for was that the two of them might meet up again in heaven—or hell—more than likely, hell.
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Joel had asked.
When Jordan looked in the mirror he saw a powerful man with a ton of money, cars—things. And he was lonely. His whole life, he’d been alone.
“What lessons would you pass down to your own sons if you could?” Thankfully he had no sons. But he had a daughter, one he hadn’t seen since she was young—so young. He sent her money, maybe he’d spoken to her over the phone a few times. How old was she now? Nineteen? Twenty?
“Are you proud of the man you’ve become, son?”
He was a proud man. A terrible and painfully proud, lonely man with lots of power and money, a daughter he barely knew, and a woman, no, two women, who were dead because of him. Joel Tunson had come to warn him that he wouldn’t let Frank be railroaded, and to remind Jordan that he wasn’t the man he’d always believed himself to be. There was no fight left in him, because there was nothing to fight for. There never had been.
His phone had been ringing off the hook, but he’d let all the calls go straight to voice mail.
“Jordan?”
He pushed away from the wall when he heard her voice.
“It’s Desi. I need to talk…” Her voice trailed off.
Why the hell would she be calling him to talk?
“About … I want to make a deal on the Gatewood stock, and—I want to talk to you about Lonnie.”
There was something about the sound of her voice … He’d been drinking too much, and Jordan felt raw and he felt … fuckin’ needy.
“I’ll be at the Ritz downtown. Just me. Ask for me.”
No! Hell—no! What was this? Some kind of bait shit set up by Desi and Jones? Jordan shook his head, no. He wasn’t falling for that shit! They were trying to set him up, but he wasn’t that damn drunk!
He picked up the phone and hit the redial button.
“Hello?” she answered.
“What kind of fuckin’ game are you playing?” he blurted out.
“No games, Jordan,” she said coolly. “You want your stocks back, and I just need some closure about Lonnie. I think it’s an even trade.”
He hesitated.
“Randolph put you up to this?” he asked. She’d spoken to the man at least once about Jordan and his relationship with Lonnie. If Jones wasn’t trying to set him up, that detective surely would.
“I’m here alone,” she said.
“And you trust me enough to be alone in a room with me.”
“I don’t believe you’d do anything,” she said. He could tell that she was lying.
“But you believe that I killed your friend? Doesn’t jibe, Desi.”
“I’m telling the truth, Jordan,” she argued.
He laughed. “The truth? Between you and me, Desi, don’t you think the truth is a little absurd?”
“Did you love her?” she asked softly.
The question sounded odd coming from her. It took everything he had in him to finally respond.
“What are you doing, Desi?” This wasn’t right. He could feel it. “What are you trying to do to me?”
“I don’t want anything except to talk about Lonnie.”
“I’ve got nothing to say about her.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe, Desi.”
“Then you pick the place. We could meet someplace else. I just need some closure.”
She was lying. Solomon Jones believed that Jordan had tried to have this woman killed, so she had to have believed it too. And she was still willing to be alone with him? It wasn’t adding up.
Every cell in his body warned him not to go anywhere near that woman. Something wasn’t right about this.
“I just need answers,” she argued convincingly. “She was my friend, and I loved her, and I miss her.”
The pause between the two of them was deafening.
“Nobody knew her like we did,” Desi continued. Why the hell was he still listening to her? Instinct warned him to hang up the phone. “I can’t talk to Solomon about her, and I can’t let her go either, Jordan,” she explained. “I need to let go. I think you do too.”
Yes. He needed desperately to let her go.
“I don’t want to be a shareholder in your company,” Desi said unexpectedly. “I never did, but it’s nearly gotten me and my fiancé killed. I’m tired, Jordan.” She sounded like she was crying. “I’m supposed to be getting married soon, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Jordan was tired too. This feud between the two of them had gone on too long and he was ready for it to end.
He had no business going anywhere near Desi Green, but emotions ran deep in Jordan where Lonnie was concerned. Desi believed he’d killed her. The detective believed it, Solomon Jones believed it. What if he could convince the one person who knew Lonnie as well as he did, that he hadn’t? Why all of a sudden did it matter?
“I’ll be there. You be ready to hand over those stock certificates,” he warned.
Jordan hung up and made a mental note to pack his pistol.
* * *
An hour later, Desi opened the door to her hotel room. She had on a skirt and a plain white tee shirt and sandals. Desi stepped aside to let him in, but Jordan wasn’t in any hurry to rush face-first into one of Jones’s karate chops.
“He’s not here,” she told him, seeming to read his mind.
Desi wore her thick hair straightened and loose. He stepped inside, wondering if she had some sort of death wish, inviting him to be alone with her inside this hotel suite.
“Can I get you something?”
He held up his hand to quiet her, and then proceeded to search the bedroom, the closet, bathroom, and balcony before coming back into the room where she had started filling a glass with water for him.
He made up his mind that he wasn’t drinking that shit.
Jordan stood over her. Desi had a bandage wrapped around one wrist, undoubtedly an injury she’d received from the recent car accident she’d been involved in.
“Stand up, Desi,” he commanded her.
Jordan had one more thing he had to check. She understood. Without hesitating, Desi removed her shirt and stood in front of Jordan wearing nothing more than a white lace bra. She tossed her top on the chair and then slid her skirt down to her ankles, stepped out of it, and slowly turned a full circle in front of him.
She was perfect.
“I told you,” she said, facing him again. “It’s just me, Jordan.” Desi picked up her shirt and began putting her clothes back on.
“This doesn’t make sense,” he said, finally sitting down across from her. “Why’d you ask me here?”
She didn’t respond.
“Your boyfriend thinks I tried to have you killed the other day,” he explained.
Desi stared back, unblinking. “Did you?”
He couldn’t help feeling surprised by her response. “You’d ask to be alone with me, and you don’t know the answer to that question?”
Desi dared to smile. “I’m registered in this hotel, Jordan. And you just asked for me at the front desk. They’ve got cameras in the lobby, so if anything happens to me, they’ll know that you did it.” She shrugged.
Damn. She’d thought this through. He was a tad bit impressed.
“I’m tired of all of this,” she admitted again, leaning back and crossing her legs.
Jordan was still high, maybe, but the urge to touch her was almost overwhelming, and he couldn’t understand why. But he resisted. After all, this was Desi.
“We know the truth about each other, Jordan. We know the truth about our parents, and our relationship is the result of their relationships.”
“So?”
“Why do you hate me? Why do I hate you?” she asked, cocking one perfectly arched brow.
“You know I didn’t kill Julian, and you know that Olivia did. You know that she set me up.”
She was right. He knew all of those things, but a hatred that had lasted nearly thirty years, no matter the reason, was rooted too deep in history to just get over.
“You know that Julian wasn’t your father, but that he was mine. So, I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense anymore to me. Why can’t you stand me?”
Jordan found himself paying attention to all the wrong things about this conversation. He found his eyes lingering too long on the shape of her mouth, the dark richness of her eyes, the curve of her breasts, and he tried not to think about his dick swelling in his lap. She was right. There was no real reason to hate this woman.
He needed to regain his focus, and to get this conversation on track. “You asked me here to talk about Lonnie.”
“We both know that you won’t ever see a day in prison for her murder.”
“Because I didn’t murder her,” he interjected.
Of course she looked as if she didn’t believe him. “I just—Why couldn’t you have just left her alone?” She was careful with how she phrased her words. Maybe too careful?
Jordan began to get suspicious again, thinking that maybe there was a wire in the room somewhere, if not on her.
“I did leave her alone, Desi,” he said coolly.
“I told her not to come back here, Jordan,” Desi explained. “Lonnie was bent on revenge and I knew that it was a bad idea.”
He didn’t say anything. Desi was baiting him. He could feel it, and he was pissed for falling for this little ploy of hers.
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Did you love her?”
He was being set up. “I think everyone loved something about Lonnie,” he offered casually.
“I think that in her own way, she loved you, Jordan.”
Someone else outside this room was listening. Jordan had come here out of stupidity and on a fantasy and a whim that, somehow, he could finally say what he felt about the only woman he’d ever truly cared about. But that was the alcohol in him. He’d given in to a vulnerability that was foreign to men like him, and he’d let himself make this foolish mistake.
“I wouldn’t know, Desi,” he finally responded. Jordan had to think fast. He had to get out of this before he slipped up and made another mistake. “So,” he eventually said. “About those stock certificates…”
“Well, of course I didn’t bring them with me,” she explained. “My accountant has them.”
He nodded knowingly. “Of course.” Jordan abruptly stood up to leave.
“You just got here, Jordan,” she said anxiously, standing up too.
Jordan started for the door. “You wanted to talk about Lonnie, we talked about Lonnie,” he said over his shoulder to her. “I asked for those stock certificates, and you don’t have them.” He stopped at the door, causing Desi to bump into him.
Without thinking, Jordan wrapped his arm around her waist and roughly jerked her body into his, then covered her mouth with his free hand. He stared hard into her eyes, turned her around, and pressed her back against the door, holding her body in place with his.
He lowered his lips next to her ear. “Nice try, baby girl,” he whispered.
Jordan inhaled the scent of her hair. He pushed his knee between her thighs, forcing them open, lifted her off the ground, and positioned his throbbing cock against her.
Little Desi Green was the most intoxicating thing he’d held in his arms in a long time.
Desi scratched at his hand with one of hers, trying to force him to uncover her mouth. His thoughts drifted off into so many faraway places, and he wondered out loud.
“Is this how he felt about her?” he murmured, thinking about Julian and his obsession with Ida Green. “Is this what she did to him too?”
