Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (15 page)

“Does it matter?”

He raised his broad
shoulders. “Doesn’t it?”

Hard as I tried to
rally my better judgment, my urge to shock him won out. “To tell
the truth, I don’t have a clue who I am. Neither does Drex.”

“Sorry?”

“When he found me, I
didn’t know where I was or what to do. I was completely broke and
starving. Oh – I’d lost my clothes, too.”

“All right,” Pierce
said slowly. “This is getting a little hard to follow.”

“Is it, really?
You’ve never heard of amnesia?”

“Amnesia. Like, a
character in a movie who can’t remember anything? You’re kidding,
right?”

I gave him a long, even
gaze. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“Nope. I gotta say
you don’t.”

“Okay,” I said.
“Now that I’ve told you who I am, who are you?”

Clearly pleased to be
asked, he shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Man-about-town, nomad,
rebel with many causes – what did my brother tell you? That I’m a
fuck-up? The spitting image of not-so-dear old dad?”

“He said you show up
a lot without calling.”

One brow arched.
“Charitable. That’s not like Drex.”

“Isn’t it? It’s
exactly like the Drex I know.”

Pierce gave me a
skeptical squint. “Come now, he must have told you that I’m
wasting my potential. How does he phrase it? Once a promising
prep-school scholarship student, now an entitled loser involved in
shady shit. That sound about right?”

I shrugged. “Whatever
you say.”

Pierce propped his
boots up on the coffee table and crossed his ankles. “Well, I have
to tell you, I didn’t expect to find somebody like you here.”

“What do you mean,
somebody like me?”

“I thought Drex had
changed how he operated. That’s what he told me, anyway. From now
on, no bailing anybody out anymore. Even me.” Pierce pushed out his
lower lip in mock disappointment.

“Now you’ve lost
me,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my chair.

“I don’t know much
about you, honey, but I know my brother. Ever since he was a little
kid he’s always had a soft spot for lost kids and wounded birds.
He’s never read a sob story he didn’t want to read again. And
again.”

Though I knew I should
get up and leave, I felt nailed in place. “I don’t understand.”

“Hey, me neither. The
hard luck cases he’s brought home…and it’s not just Fang over
there in the kennel. He met one girl who’d been a prostitute and
helped her get her degree. Wasn’t that sweet? Another one had a
boyfriend who beat the crap out of her and Drex was her safe harbor.
Hold on – I’m about to make myself cry here.”

He turned down his
mouth corners, then grinned. I gripped the arms of the chair so hard
my fingers went numb.

“And that’s not
all,” Pierce went on. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about
Brooke – his big love, right? Beautiful girl but she can’t tie
her shoes. Why should she? She’s got Drex and her rich father to do
it for her. Drex even gave her a job she’s not qualified for. Nice
guy, huh?”

My cheeks burned. “I’m
not sure what this has to do with me.”

Pierce gave me a
crooked smile that had probably seduced more girls than he could
count. “You take a good hard look at yourself, and tell me, Jane.”

“Tell you what?”
Drex asked from the doorway.

Pierce raised his hand
in insolent greeting. “Hey, bro. Where’d you go to get my
tequila, Pine State Prison where we used to visit Dad?” Leaning
toward me, he said in a stage whisper, “He did tell you about our
father, didn’t he? A lot of Cougan family history takes place
either in bars or behind them.”

“I called reception,”
Drex said.

“Uh oh,” Pierce
said. “I’m banned for life.”

Drex walked over and
handed him a shot glass. “You’re wearing out your welcome faster
than usual, and that’s saying something.”

Pierce drained his
drink in one swallow. “Drex thinks I can’t mingle in polite
company,” he said to me, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand. “Too outspoken, I guess. Too honest.”

“Honest?” Drex
said. “I didn’t think you knew the meaning of that word.”
Lifting his brother’s ankles off the coffee table, Drex dropped his
legs to the floor with a loud thud. “Isn’t it time for you to
move on?”

Pierce put down the
glass and stood up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do for
years,” he said, straightening the sleeves of his suit jacket. “I
thought you knew that, buddy.”

They glared at each
other, an old-school, saloon-fight stare-down that set my heart
racing and put my teeth on edge. “All I know is that it’s late,”
Drex said. “You remember where the door is.”

“Yup. You’ve thrown
me out so often I could find it blind.” He nodded at his brother
and then at me. “Enjoy your night, lovebirds. The part of it I
haven’t ruined, that is.”

He turned and walked
out at a leisurely pace. Drex hardly seemed to breathe until he heard
the front door shut.

“I’m sorry,” he
said, turning to me. “I should have known that would happen.”

I stood up. “It’s
okay,” I said. My hands were shaky and I felt weak.

“It’s not okay.
What did he say to you?”

“Nothing, really.”

Drex gave me a
skeptical look. “My brother never says nothing. He always says way
too much.”

Maybe that was true,
but he’d said something I needed to know.

I wasn’t unique, and
I wasn’t special.

I was just another in a
long line of projects, somebody Drex could fix and make better. He’d
been doing it all his life. It was second nature. That’s why he’d
gotten out of his truck a few days ago, and why he’d asked me to
stay.

“He’s not the only
one who can’t keep his mouth shut,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well…the way I met
you…”

Drex’s shoulders
sagged. “You told him?”

“I couldn’t help
it,” I said. “He pissed me off. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. He
has a way of pissing off a lot of people. I know the feeling.”

I shrugged. Drex
squinted, and peered into my face. “Is there something else going
on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look like you
have something to say.”

I pursed my lips. It
was
late, and I was
so tired I could hardly think. But If I didn’t ask him now, I might
never have the courage again.

“Actually, I do,” I
said. “Tell me about Brooke.”

I rolled my eyes.
Fucking Pierce.
Everything he touched turned to chaos in under five minutes.

“Is she your
girlfriend?” Jane asked in a razor-sharp voice.

It was better than “Is
she your fucking girlfriend?” but not much. “Was, three years
ago. Now she just works for me.”

“Just? Your brother
said you take care of her.”

My heart was a fist in
my chest. “Not exactly.”

“Well, maybe you
could explain it to me. Exactly.”

How many times, in how
many gut-twisting ways, would I have to keep paying Scott back?
“She’s the daughter of my biggest investor,” I said. “There
was an unspoken quid pro quo when I first started my company. He’d
take a chance on me and I’d give his daughter an important position
when the business got off the ground.”

“I guess that’s
fair. Is she good at it?” Jane asked. She twisted her pretty mouth.
“The job, I mean.”

It stung to have to say
it out loud. “No.”

“So you pay her to do
a lousy job?”

“I pay her because
that was the deal. And it seemed like a good one at the time.”

“At the time – the
time you were fucking her?”

Pierce.
No detail was too salacious or unnecessary to share. “Yes. Okay?
She knew I wanted to start a business and she introduced me to her
father. With my background – well, he was the only guy who would
give me a shot. I didn’t have an MBA and I’d been in a lot of
scrapes in my life. I had to agree to his terms or walk away.”

Jane was so calm it was
almost scary. “So, why isn’t she good at her job?”

“Because she’s
never even made her own bed. She couldn’t survive on her own if she
were down to her last ten cents. Which of course will never happen.”

I ran a hand through my
hair, wishing I could punch a wall instead. “Believe me, I’d love
to fire her. But there are strings attached that affect my business.”

“Pierce said she was
your first big love.”

“I was younger then,
let’s put it that way.”

Jealousy flashed in
Jane’s crystal eyes. Cavalier as she tried to act with me, deep
down, she cared. This conversation proved it.

“So you feel nothing
for her now? Pardon me if I find that hard to believe.”

I snorted. “I feel
something for her, all right, just not what you think. Her father’s
been trying to push us back together for two years and it hasn’t
worked. That should tell you something.”

Jane walked toward the
window. She stood with her back to the room, her head held high.
“Your brother said you do this a lot. It’s not just stray dogs.
It’s not just me.”

“He said what?”

My temper flared so
hot, I felt like I’d been drinking gasoline. I wasn’t pissed off
at her, or even my brother. She was right, and worse, Pierce was
right, too. I liked to say I’d changed, but I hadn’t.

It wasn’t just Jane’s
beauty and brains that had sucked me in. She needed me, and Christ
knew I liked to feel needed. I
needed
to feel needed, or I didn’t know what my purpose was. It had been
that way since I was a kid. Without my father around, I’d been the
man of the house at ten years old, taking care of my mother and doing
my best to help raise Pierce. It was a role I’d never really
stopped playing, because God fucking help me, I didn’t know how.

But with Jane, it was
about a lot more than that.

“I’m not your
charity case, Drex,” she said in a cool, distant voice. “I don’t
know who I am, but I
do
know I’m not another Brooke.”

Another Brooke. As if
Brooke even deserved to stand in the same room with this woman. Jane
was strong, resourceful, proud – everything Brooke wasn’t, or
wouldn’t make the effort to be.

“Of course you’re
not. And that’s not why you’re here.”

“Really, Drex?” she
said, turning to face me. “Why am I here? I’m still not clear on
that. If you look at this situation objectively, it doesn’t make
much sense, does it?”

“When I fucked you
tonight, it made perfect sense and you know it.”

“Yes, sex with you
makes sense. It’s everything else I wonder about.”

“Look, whatever
Pierce said –”

“I don’t care what
Pierce said. Pretty soon you’re going to get tired of this. Of me.
You’ll want to get back to real life.”

“This
is
real life, Jane.”

She tossed a glance at
the ceiling. “Jane? Even my
name
isn’t real, Drex. The way Pierce reacted tonight? Imagine that with
everyone you know.”

I imagined it, and felt
more determined than I had in a very long time. “We won’t tell
them.”

“So we’ll live a
lie? How long will that last? Reporters won’t leave you alone as it
is. If they’re interested in what your father does, they’ll be
vultures when it comes to me.”

I knew it was true but
I didn’t give a shit. “Let them try. I’ll be happy to destroy
the careers of some worthless idiots.”

“But what about your
business?” she said. “You’ve already told me how important it
is to you. It’s your life. It’s everything you’ve worked so
hard for.”

Yes, the deck was
stacked against us. I was reckless and stupid, and a sucker for a
woman who needed me. But I didn’t care about the odds. I couldn’t
walk away, not from Jane.

“My business will
survive,” I said. “This isn’t like my father. We’re not
breaking any laws.”

Her face contracted in
a slight wince. “As far as we know.”

“As far as we know,” I said.
“And that’s good enough for me.”

It was almost dawn by
the time we got to bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d
actually slept with a woman in this room, or wanted to. It was a true
bachelor’s sanctuary: modern and spare but comfortable, decorated
in shades of dark brown and cream. There was nothing floral or
feminine about it, and even seeing a woman here always gave me a
jolt. But tonight, a woman in this room looked just right.

After a day like today,
I just wanted to wrap my arms around Jane and feel her heart beating
against my chest. By some stroke of luck, she was still with me, and
I was going to savor every second.

I turned off the light
and stroked her hair until she felt limp and heavy in my arms.

During the night, she
was hot and restless. I could almost see the dreams racing through
her head as her eyelids twitched and her gorgeous mouth trembled.
Every dream might be a memory that would take her away from me. She
only had to remember one thing – a husband, a boyfriend, the city
she lived in – and I’d lose her forever.

When I woke up just
before nine, she was sitting beside me, her back against the leather
headboard. I’d forgotten to close the drapes, and the room was
bathed in sunshine. As soon as I could focus, I looked for Jane’s
hand and found it, lying stiffly on top of the covers. With a stab of
alarm, I glanced up at her face. Her cheeks were flushed and quick
breaths moved in and out through her parted lips.

“Jane?” I said,
suddenly alert. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.”
Her voice sounded weak and shaky.

A shot of adrenaline
went through me. “You don’t know?” I put a hand to her warm,
dry forehead.

“I think I might have
a fever,” she said.

I threw back the duvet.
“You’re damn right you do,” I said, heading for the bathroom.
“It’s just a matter of how high it is.” I dug through the
medicine cabinet for a thermometer, finally finding one behind the
shaving cream. As soon as I sat down on the edge of the bed, Jane
opened her mouth obediently. After ten seconds under her tongue, the
thermometer beeped.