Hooked & Accidental Books 3--4 Read online

  I mean, who sends a kid fresh out of high school to another country to lead a business? I had no special skills or training. I floundered horribly for those first two years. Then, once I had my feet under me, I still struggled against those jockeying for my job. Those who were better suited to it. These colleagues were Oxford educated dynamos, ambitious and ready to take on the challenge, rather than the kid who got top billing because his dad owned the fucking company.

  Now, even though running a tech firm was no walk in the park, I knew exactly what I was doing. I learned to look the part, or Miles had taught me that. My high school t-shirts and jeans were replaced with tailored suits, and Roxy gradually became replaced by a series of women who meant nothing to me. Well, replaced wasn’t the right word. No one could ever replace Roxy. But my basest needs were met, so I guessed that was something.

  These women wound up posing their own kind of problem because the second I’d bedded them, they believed they held some sway over me. I realized quickly that they didn’t care about me as a person, in Jaxson Liddell, the man. They cared about what I could provide for them. I came from the Liddell dynasty and had a billion-dollar legacy. What they wanted was to be a trophy wife living high on the hog. They’d hoped for me to fill the role of their sugar daddy.

  To say I wasn’t interested would be an understatement.

  I’d spent the past five days wading through the complications brought on by my dad’s unforeseen absence, and only now could I see an end to the piles of work. So, when my longtime friend Trevor Keller entered my office without knocking, my short temper took me from annoyed to straight-up pissed off in the blink of an eye.

  “What is it, Trevor?” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “Whoa, whoa. Call off the cavalry. Just thought you might need a break is all. You’ve been working at breakneck speed all week.”

  Though Trevor had been sent to a private school, he’d spent much of his time at my family’s estate with me throughout our teenage years. He knew all about Roxy and what had happened. It felt a little strange being around someone who knew the real me again. Strange but good. Trevor had been working here in the New Orleans office for almost as long as I’d worked the one in London.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Didn’t mean to take out my frustrations on you.”

  He raised his brows. “Frustrations, eh? I’ve got just the cure for that.”

  I glanced at him, knowing what was going through that twisted head of his. He’d always been a bit…out there when it came to what he liked from women. On one unfortunate drunken night before I’d left, he’d told me all about it. About his dangerous fetish involving fire of all things.

  Christ.

  I couldn’t judge him too harshly, though. I had my own predilections I didn’t openly discuss. Besides, what I did in my bedroom was no one’s business but my own.

  “Let me take you out tomorrow,” Trevor went on. “It’s a place I frequent regularly. But this’ll be last minute, so I’ll have to wrangle something. Just stay flexible and keep your day clear. I swear you won’t regret it.”

  I wondered about that. Still, I nodded. Dealing with my father’s funeral, my mother’s outbursts of emotion – which had shocked me since for most of my life she’d comported herself as a cold fish – and all this extra work had taxed my system hard. I felt more than ready for some relief. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help asking for more information. I didn’t enjoy being blindsided.

  “What are you getting me into, Trev?”

  “It’s this contact I have. Well, I heard about her through one of my cousins, Christoff Green. He tried to warn me away from her services, which only made me more intrigued. I had to reach out to the woman then. The mystery was too tantalizing to ignore.”

  I rolled my eyes. Trevor hadn’t changed much. “So how’d that turn out?”

  “Really damn well. This contact has unlimited access to so many things, it boggles my mind. She’ll get you whatever you want. Trust me.”

  Inwardly, I sighed. Why did I feel like I’d stumbled onto some reality show about a deep south madam? I almost stopped him, then thought, what the hell? I’d served my four-year plus sentence away from home and was back now. Why not indulge myself?

  “Alright, I’m in.”

  The next afternoon, I found myself seated across from a well-kept old lady in a room inside a nightclub. Since the hour hadn’t grown late, no music blared throughout the space, and no groups of hammered dancers clung to one another across the floor.

  Thank Christ for small favors.

  The woman herself reminded me of someone’s grandmother who went to a spa on a regular basis. Pure white hair brushed back into a clipped ponytail. Clothes that fit loosely yet were expensive and finely made. Her eyes were discerning and sharp, not even a glimmer of bewilderment or dementia, even though she was probably in her nineties.

  This was the Wish Maker?

  “What can I do for you, Jaxson Beauregard Liddell?”

  Damn that Trevor. He must’ve talked to her about me ahead of time if she already knew my legal name. Only my mother used that on me. This woman using it felt like a power play.

  I stared at her, studying her wrinkled face for clues.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she asked bluntly, staring me right in the eyes.

  I huffed out a breath. “Maybe this isn’t the best of ideas.”

  The tips of her mouth quirked upward but rather than softening her face, her expression made her look like a hustler from Vegas. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

  Whatever.

  “Fine. My friend Trevor said you could acquaint me with what I’m looking for.”

  “You still haven’t named what that is,” she pointed out.

  “A date.” For a second, I felt like a loser. I’d never had trouble getting dates. Well, at least not after high school. It was just that none of those dates held a candle to Roxy. But that chapter of my life had become my past. I doubted Roxanne Miller even lived in the same city now.

  With the capricious nature of her mother, the girl I once loved might have been in Timbuktu for all I knew. Not that it mattered. “A woman. Brunette. Decent looking. Intelligent. Not a gold-digger. There should be a certain sweetness to her, a goodness to her…” I trailed off.

  Such a woman didn’t likely exist.

  “What else?”

  What else? “Isn’t that impossible enough?”

  “Nothing is impossible, Mr. Liddell. Be specific. Tell me exactly what you want.”

  What I really wanted – needed – was someone not afraid to go there with me in bed, but again, other than in certain BDSM circles, that wasn’t commonplace. “If the time should come for more intimate contact…she won’t mind if things get a bit…”

  “A bit?” she prompted. Had I ever pinpointed it out loud like this?

  “Rough.”

  “Ah,” she exclaimed with another of her unnerving grins. “Easy enough.”

  Easy? “Look, I don’t want some sleazy call girl, either.”

  “Of course not,” she popped back at me, seeming offended. “You could get that on any street corner downtown. No, you want a fine young woman with beauty and submissive tendencies. Someone real and with heart. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll contact you soon to set up a time and a place. Does this work for you, Mr. Liddell?”

  I paused. I couldn’t help doubting two specific things. One, the “Wish Maker’s” ability to provide what I’d described. And two, my own common sense.

  Regardless, after considering it for a moment, I nodded. The worst that could happen was a disappointing night, and I’d experienced plenty of those in recent years. I was sick of feeling worried, dissatisfied and alone.

  What did I have to lose?

  3

  Roxanne

  The next morning after spending a precious half hour with Callie, I rushed into Fated, the nightclub where my other “boss” worked and collect
ed my check for the previous evening. I always felt this sense of being unclean after one of her jobs, but the number of zeroes on the check I received made me swallow down my rising bile.

  Last night was all about an eighty-year-old man’s need to see his dead wife. I apparently resembled her in her youth, and that was why he’d requested me. I’d sat on one end of his ten-foot long fine dining table while he sat on the other end, eating dinner even though it was after midnight.

  As the date progressed, he’d taken to calling me Marjorie, his gnarled hands patting my hands as if petting the head of a dog. It grossed me out, but I persevered. He’d been harmless enough. I was doing this for my daughter, and I repeated this to myself like a mantra to get through my time with him.

  Callie is worth it.

  Callie is worth it.

  I said my mantra again as I hurried through the dimly-lit corridor toward the sultry August morning that awaited me. I looked forward to letting the hot sunlight cleanse me, to allowing its warmth to bring me back to myself.

  I’d almost reached the main double doors when I stumbled into someone. Few people were usually milling around the building this early in the morning, so when a hand grasped me by the elbow, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The grip was firm, too firm, and I pivoted away, gasping. Then, I looked up and saw a face I recognized, even though I hadn’t seen it in a long time.

  “Trevor? What are you doing here?”

  Trevor Keller was someone I’d seen around a handful of times years ago. He was the type of guy you might consider charming but in a greasy, used car salesman type of way. I’d never really enjoyed his company and had only put up with him for one reason. He’d been the best friend of the boy I’d once loved. So, bumping into him – literally – after all this time threw me for a loop.

  It left me disoriented, too. But then again, considering where I was, maybe weird coincidences shouldn’t have surprised me.

  It was only a second after I’d spoken that I realized Trevor wasn’t alone. From around a blind corner, someone else emerged, and the moment I lifted my gaze to that person, every bone and muscle inside of me froze solid. I took in that familiar black hair that I’d once threaded my fingers through and then gazed into those startlingly vivid blue eyes, eyes that widened as they landed on my face.

  “Roxy?” came his voice. The voice I’d know anywhere, anytime.

  “Jax?”

  “Whoa, this is some Twilight Zone shit right here,” Trevor muttered. I ignored him. So did Jax.

  A million questions assailed my mind all at once, but I didn’t ask them. Instead, I continued to stare at the man before me, feeling as if the rug had been pulled out from under my feet. He looked different than I remembered. He wore a flawlessly detailed business suit with a slim tan tie. He was taller than I remembered, broader across the chest and shoulders. While he’d always been clean shaven when I knew him, now he sported a carefully clipped goatee.

  He looked like a boardroom executive. An important man. All these alterations made him even more attractive than he had been as a boy. But there was also something else that hadn’t been there before. A coldness to his features. A hard stoniness that screamed “back the fuck off.”

  It gave me an urge to take a few steps backward. I didn’t, though. I stood my ground. There were so many things I craved to know. Where in God’s name had he been all this time, for over four years? And why was he back in New Orleans now?

  Shortly after he’d disappeared, I even considered hiring a private investigator to track him down, but my lack of financial resources curtailed that notion all too quickly. But here he stood in the flesh, as real as I was.

  How was that possible?

  Even though the questions were in my head, they came out of his mouth.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I peeked down at the check in my hand. For whatever reason, my boss still handed out old fashioned checks like it was the nineties rather than utilizing the direct deposit system like everyone else in America. I didn’t know if this was due to the less-than-above-board nature of her organization, or simply because she was elderly and preferred not to change her habits.

  Still, I didn’t want to tell him I was here to pick up my check. I didn’t want him to know who I worked for or about what that job entailed. I tried to come up with something plausible to say, but nothing came to mind. It was like his presence had blown all the synapses right out of my nervous system.

  “You don’t work here, do you?” Jax asked next, his features scrunching into something accusatory. “You’re not affiliated with that Wish Maker woman, are you?”

  I said nothing. My tongue refused to cooperate with my commands to come up with an explanation, and my throat had closed like a valve had been shut off. He glared at the check in my hands because I’d failed to hide it from view. It made sense that he’d arrived at such an accurate conclusion.

  I wanted to be offended, to be able to take the high road, but I couldn’t. Because while I didn’t work inside this building per se, I was definitely one of the Wish Maker’s many employees. Much as I hated to admit it. So, I did the only thing I could. I changed the subject.

  “How long have you been back?”

  “A week.”

  “Why?” I asked next. The question encompassed so much, and I ached to know all of it.

  “Why did I return?” he clarified, and though I wanted so much more information than that, it was a start.

  “Yes.”

  “My father died. An aneurism. I’m taking over for him here at home.”

  While I knew all about shitty childhoods, Jax hadn’t had a traditional Leave it to Beaver upbringing, either. He hadn’t been close to his parents, and he’d kept our relationship a secret from them for the longest time. By the time they found out about me, I realized why. They were wealthy. This fact was something Jax had gone out of his way to keep under wraps.

  He’d appeared to be like anyone else in our high school, but he wasn’t. He had pressure placed on him that I never had. Pressure, duties, responsibilities and obligations. Hanging out with a poor girl from one of the worst sections of the city hadn’t been in his parents’ plans for him. They didn’t approve of me.

  I knew they never would.

  Back then, Jax had insisted that they didn’t matter, yet we actively avoided his home just the same, instead always going to mine. Later, after he’d been gone for a few months, I understood. I wasn’t ever going to be good enough to date a Liddell. And his leaving seemed to prove this. Over time, I began to believe something even more painful. He must have become ashamed of me, of our time together. That had to be it. Why else would he leave the way he had?

  Without a single word.

  “I’m sorry,” I said for his loss, even though I needed to hear those words from him even more. “Are you…okay?”

  Something about this question changed everything about him. His shoulders drooped as if in exhaustion, and his features went slack, as if the effort of maintaining that stony façade was too much right then. “I’ll be fine.”

  I knew enough to notice the distinction. He’d be fine, but he wasn’t fine at the moment. One part of me almost reached out to him, needing to soothe and comfort him, but the rest of me held back. There’d been a gulf placed between us. One I could never cross.

  “Well, this is about as awkward as a non-amicable divorce,” Trevor chimed in, shamelessly.

  God, he was such a jerk.

  Jax and I ignored him again. Not once had we broken eye contact. I continued to search his face for any vestige of the boy I’d once known, but it was as if that Jax had been lost somewhere along the way, as if he no longer existed.

  All my wires were scrambled, and my nerves were as on edge as they had ever been. I needed to retreat, to recover, to prepare for a different interaction instead of being shocked into silence. Which meant I had to get out of here as soon as possible.

  “Well, it was nice to see you again, Jax,” I
made myself say. Ironically, this was both a lie and the truth. “But I should be going. I’ve got a thing.”

  “A thing, eh?” Trevor inserted his nose into the proceedings again. I was beginning to legitimately hate this guy. “You know, we could totally-”

  “Trev,” Jax’s voice cracked like a whip.

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut the hell up.”

  Trevor grinned rebelliously, but he did as Jax said. I was grateful.

  I was the first to break our locked gazes by turning away. I made for the door, squinting in the sunlight. It felt like a spotlight being shined into my eyes, as if I’d been exposed and put on display.

  Racing out of there like the hounds of Hell were on my heels, I darted down two side streets, then dashed across a third, losing myself in the serpentine narrowness of the city’s urban landscape. It was only after I’d gotten home to a napping Callie that I realized I hadn’t asked Jax for any of his personal information.

  Last time, he’d left me without a trace of communication, something I resented to this day. So why hadn’t I asked him for his number when I still needed to speak to him about matters of grave importance?

  I supposed I was so astounded to see him it slipped my mind. Go figure.

  I lifted my daughter into my arms, settling her against my shoulder and bouncing with her as I paced around the apartment. I probably shouldn’t have risked waking her, but I needed the physical contact of her against me. She whimpered for a moment before drifting back off, and I made a trail to the refrigerator, my parched throat needing something cool to drink. I glanced at one of Raina’s takeout menus, seeing an advertisement calling the city the Big Easy.

  I’d always thought of the nickname as farcical. I’d lived my entire life within the boundaries of New Orleans, but not even once had that life ever been easy.