Fun With Rick and Jade (2 page)

Ordeal?
Jade glanced around the room for a teleprompter. She fought to keep her chest from heaving out of her blouse, due to anger as well as anticipation. Could he see her heart banging? She knew he’d seen her chest. At twice their normal size, her breasts were hard to miss.

Remaining calm on the outside, she also fought to keep her voice level. “Good God, is this where buzzwords come to die? Cut the bull. There’s only one registered voter in the room, and you lost my endorsement already.”

“I’ve had to prioritize,” he continued without missing a beat. He’d never been a particularly good listener. “I’m setting my career goals aside. Family is what matters. Family is all that matters in times like these.”

Now you’re speaking my language
. Sitting up tall, she whispered, “Yes.”

“It’s not all about me, me, me anymore. Selfishness is out the door.” He reached across the conference table to take her hands in his. “Do you follow me?”

I carried your baby for nine months, squeezed her out between my thighs in a record fourteen hours of labor, and haven’t gotten five hours of uninterrupted sleep since. I think I can relate to altruism
. “Go on.”

“What could I do?” he asked, but she guessed it was a rhetorical question. “I had no choice but to tell Colleen. She had to hear it from me first. It was the right thing to do.” The man loved to hear himself talk. She couldn’t blame him, with a voice smooth as good scotch and jazz music.

A lump of emotion caught in Jade’s throat. She pulled her hand from his grasp to gulp a drink of water from the glass in front of her. The lump remained. Stuck. Impeding her breathing.
Oh well
. Breathing was overrated, she decided. She slid her hand back to him. “Go on.”

“I won’t lie to you, she’s hurting.” He squeezed Jade’s fingers. “Not being able to have a family of our own, and then you, my…my….”

“Can we go with the word ‘mistress’?” If he uttered the word “whore” to describe their relationship status, he’d wear the pitcher of water home with him.

“Colleen was braver than any person, man or woman, that I’ve ever met. She never fails to amaze me with her grace under pressure.”

Get to the point. We can have a Colleen McShane appreciation party later
. “I’m sure. She’s a real trouper.”

Jade would have ripped him a new butthole and then fed it to him for dinner. She drew in a deep breath.
What’s the punch line?
A declaration of love was unexpected. Ewan McShane loved no one but himself. He’d confessed his sins to his wife when faced with discovery. If he’d told Colleen he was sorry, he was merely sorry he’d gotten caught. Hiring a hit man to put Jade out of his misery would surprise her less than sentimental blubbering. And yet, she longed for his tributes.

He patted her hand. “We want her, Jade.”

She jingled the words around in her head with an involuntary shake. “You…want…who? Coral?” Her stomach roiled and her bowels churned. A light-headed sensation clogged her mind like a hit of medical marijuana. “What?” She had to find her center of gravity immediately or pick herself up off the ground in a couple minutes. Rage cleared the fog he’d created in her mind. “Can I see your driver’s license?”

“Excuse me?”

“You are not the same Ewan McShane who demanded I have an abortion nearly a year ago.” She yanked her hands back. “You have no concept of family or sacrifice or selflessness.”
I’m the one who gained thirty pounds, gave up drinking and smoking, not to mention money and sex
. That wasn’t even the half of it. “Come talk to me when your ankles swell and you have hemorrhoids.”

He sneered his disdain for her bluntness. “Jade, please.”

She lunged out of her chair and slapped her palms down on the table, towering over him menacingly. “I pee a little every time I sneeze. That may never change.”

Ewan leaned away. “I’m sorry.”

“You think you and your pathetic, stand-by-your-man wife are going to swoop in and steal my kid?” She zoomed in closer. “Over my dead body. Over my dead body covered with stretch marks.” She pointed her finger between his eyes. “I blame you.”

“I have rights.”

Never for a moment had she thought he’d exercise those rights. Far from it. Money for silence. Ugly business. She wasn’t proud but making a living on her back was all she knew. He owed her some sort of retraining seed money.
Oh my God, I’ve got no rhythm
. Dancing around a pole was out of the question. So few options were available to her.

“So. Do. I.” Jade punctuated each word by pounding her palm on the table between them.
I think
. She’d have Bob look into her rights.

His lawyer burst through the door to act as a human shield, Bob right behind him to restrain her. They were overreacting, as far as Jade was concerned. What could little ol’ her do to him? Ewan and his picture-perfect wife with their
Better Homes & Gardens
house and ideal marriage—except for him paying an escort for sex, of course—were going to steal her baby. They’d shower Coral with love and toys and full-coverage medical insurance. If Jade was a better person, she’d hand her over tied with a bow and a thank-you-for-raising-my-baby card.

Fuck that!

Bob’s phone chimed. With his fingers clutched around Jade’s forearm, he answered the call with his other hand. “I’m in the middle of something, lovey.” He glanced around the room. “Stop crying, Candy. Honey, calm down.” Flustered, he passed the phone to Jade. “For you.”

“What’s wrong now?” Jade’s body reacted to Coral’s cries in the background. “Oh shit!” Wanting to look fantastic, she’d opted out of wearing bulky pads, which would ruin the line of her silk blouse. She now paid the price with breast milk seeping through her nursing bra, actually ruining her blouse. She fanned herself. “Try changing her diaper, feeding her, burping her, and rocking her, in that order. We’ll be home before you get to rocking. I promise.”

Ewan appeared wide-eyed with mortification in the face of her leakage. “Is Coral all right?”

His attorney showed Jade a glimmer of humanity by passing her the hanky from his jacket pocket. “We should finish this another time.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Good plan.” Finally, something they could agree upon.

Leading her out of the conference room, Bob called over his shoulder, “We’ll be in touch.”

“That went well,” Jade muttered.

Bob shrugged out of his jacket, laying it over her shoulders. She held her head high until the elevator doors shut behind them. He opened his arms and she climbed inside. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”

“Bob, they want my baby,” she blubbered.

He patted her shoulder. “Did he come right out and say that?”

“I’ll be lucky to get supervised visitation.” She sobbed against his broad shoulder.

“He’s a cheater and a criminal. Soliciting sex
is
a crime,” he reminded her. “You’re the victim.”

“Yeah, right. How many johns do you represent?” She wiped her eyes with the hanky she still held.

“None.”

“Exactly.”

Rick Jette pushed the doorbell firmly. He heard it chime in some stately arrangement.
Ding-dong-ding
. His brother Bob thankfully called out, “I got it!” Thankfully, because Rick never knew what to say to Bob’s wife, Candy.

First of all, she was gorgeous. Second of all, she wasn’t too bright except about fashion, celebrity gossip, and proper martini mixology. Lastly, Rick couldn’t look her in the eyes, especially knowing she used to be a hooker. Correction—escort.
Don’t want to make that mistake again. Note to self: avoid the subject of prostitution
.

The door opened. Bob smiled wide. “Bro.”

Two things Bob had lots of, money and teeth. Rick wasn’t sure he came by either honestly. He’d probably brokered some back-alley deal in exchange for veneers.

His brother was ten years older than Rick. The only things they had in common were a mother and a last name, because their mom never married either of their fathers. She did eventually marry a guy Rick and Bob both referred to as Dickhead, but the union never stuck like the name had. Even their mom called him Dickhead. The nail in the coffin of the doomed marriage. With a marital example like Mom, it was a wonder either son could make a relationship last longer than a one-night stand.

“Bob,” Rick replied. They hugged, including a manly back pat.

When they broke apart, Bob shoved the door closed and waved him along. “Girls are in the kitchen.”

Girls?
He swallowed a lump that lodged in his throat.

What choice did he have but to follow? Looking back toward the closed door, it felt too late to run. He’d brought with him his appetite and a bottle of wine he clutched by the neck. Home cooking did not happen every day, at least not in his world. In the kitchen, the aroma of roasted garlic mixed with a lemony scent. Add cooking to Candy’s repertoire.
Go figure
.

She greeted him with a double-cheek kiss. “Jade, meet Rick.” She waved her hand elegantly in the direction of what looked to him like living, breathing perfection. “Rick, this is my friend Jade. She’s staying with us temporarily.”

“Pleasure.” She bobbed her head in his general direction, but her tone denoted boredom along with annoyance and a hint of dread as well.

I think I’m in love, or the next-best thing
. And now he had two gorgeous women to be tongue-tied around. Gorgeous, yet different. Where Candy had milky-white skin and blonde hair—whether the color was real or not—her friend’s hair hung over bare, tanned shoulders in a silky curtain of black. Jade assessed him with disdain through dark, almond-shaped eyes. The word
pleasure
had slipped out between plump red lips. First impression—Asian royalty. Reality told him she’d be a coworker of Candy’s from her former occupation.
Keep that opinion to yourself
.

Rick held the bottle up. “Wine?” If nothing else, he could manage one word at a time.

“Yes, please.” Candy had a wineglass in each hand before he had choked out the question.

Jade swished some lemon-wedged water around in her glass. “None for me, thanks.”

She took a sip, drawing an ice cube seductively into her mouth.
Lucky ice cube
. Toying with the chunk of ice, fondling it with her tongue and swirling it from cheek to cheek, she finally crushed it between her teeth and he winced.

Rick shook the tawdry ice cube fantasy from his head.
Am I being set up?
He hoped not, because she was way the fuck out of his league. She knew it way before he knew it, which was immediately. So she knew she was hot and he was not before he even arrived. Maybe before birth. His, or hers.

Candy slapped the corkscrew in his palm like a surgical instrument. He’d rather have a beer himself, but she loved her wine. Rick managed to wrestle the cork out without spilling or putting anyone’s eye out. He felt Jade’s scrutiny the entire time. Suave, he was not.

He filled two glasses half-full and was rewarded for his efforts with a beer. A fancy-schmancy imported beer that he knew would not taste like the real deal. He decided to be grateful it wouldn’t taste like wine. “Thank you.”
For not making me drink wine
. “Dinner smells great.”

“Jade tossed a salad.” Bob mentioned it like she’d split an atom.

“I love salad.”
I love salad?
Someone please rescue me from my own ineptitude
.

Jade pointed at Candy. “She made me do it.” In other words, she didn’t want him to think she’d gone out of her way on his account.

Message received
.

Rick cocked his head when he heard some sort of squalling from another room. “What is that, an exotic bird?”
Caught in a blender on the grind setting?

She pushed away from the counter and scoffed. “Yeah, it’s an exotic bird.” There was an unsaid
dumbass
at the end of her statement that he heard loud and clear. She disappeared into the adjacent room. The caterwauling ceased.

Panicked, Rick asked in a whisper, “What
is
going on?” He rarely saw Bob, who by the way had never fixed him up in the past. And his brother had to know this Jade girl wouldn’t give him the time of day if she were literally a clock tower.

“I got to thinking about your little problem, bro.”

Something made him look down at his zipper. “It’s not
that
little.” He wouldn’t go so far as to name his pecker Thor or anything, but he’d put himself comfortably above average. No complaints from the small pool of women he’d dated.

Candy giggled into her wine glass.

“Your professional problem.”

“I don’t follow.” How could fixing him up with what had to be a call girl, knowing his brother like he did, help him secure capital for his expansion? If taking his business from a pipe dream to a reality could be considered expansion.

Bob patted his back. “Relax.”

Is that what she’s for, to help me relax?
Maybe she owed his brother some legal fees. He guessed that’s how Bob had hooked up with Candy. He shuddered at the thought of money for sex or legal advice for sex. Although he’d never faulted his brother for representing call girls, or criminals in general. Everyone was entitled to a defense. Even the guilty.
It’s the American way
. Did he have to bring his work home with him, though, and then marry it?

“Go talk to her.” Candy shooed him away.

“No!”

“She saw a picture of you and thought you were cute.” Candy whispered what sounded to him like an outright lie.

Rick scoffed. “Did not.”

“Did, too.”

“What? Like a baby picture?” Even that sounded fishy, and he doubted Bob owned a baby photo of him. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

“A picture from the wedding,” Candy said.

Rick had been having a good hair day and rocking a tuxedo that day. He had no qualms about admitting to being average-Joe handsome. Point was—Jade looked movie-star gorgeous. At the very least, she was porn-star hot.