Aftershock

  “What deal?” Deanna shot back. “We didn’t have one beyond you paying me for my time, which I won’t be collecting on because this is going to pay off in other ways.”

  “You can’t run this story!” I hissed, circling the conference table with angry strides.

  “It’s already done, Gianna. Your name isn’t mentioned, so don’t worry about that. Listen, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to give you a head’s up and say thanks. Take care, all right?”

  She hung up and my smartphone disconnected before I’d even lowered the phone from my ear.

  * * *

  I left the conference room in a rage, so pissed I could hardly see straight. I was as furious with myself as I was with Deanna. How could I not have foreseen the possibility that she’d use the information she found?

  “Your man knows how to treat you right,” LaConnie said as I passed her again. “I just set another delivery on your desk.”

  Cringing inwardly, I felt the weight of guilt on my shoulders. The sight of pure white lilies next to my phone damn near closed off my throat.

  I plucked off the attached card.

  I’m waving the white flag of surrender.

  I love you, baby. We’ll talk tonight.

  Jax had signed the card, but his signature blurred amid my anxious tears.

  Worse than the violation of his privacy, I feared that such personal revelations about his mother would hurt him deeply. Her pictures in the living room of our home told me he had cared for her, but his reluctance to talk about her suggested the topic was painful.

  And now the world would know about her, and I was directly to blame.

  I touched a velvet-soft petal. “We’ve screwed up something perfect,” I said softly.

  Sinking into my chair, I started to plan how best to tell him what I’d done.

  * * *

  I had a good handle on how I wanted to open the subject of Deanna’s story when the elevators on the penthouse floor opened and I stepped out into chaos.

  I paused, shocked. The front door was open and through it I could see a dozen people in suits, pacing in my living room with smartphones pressed to their ears.

  The queasiness I’d felt all day worsened until I thought I might be sick right there in the foyer.

  When I crossed the threshold into the apartment, I looked for Jax. I couldn’t find him, but Parker was there in front of the entertainment center, his gaze on the photos of his late wife. He would have stood out from the melee on sheer presence, but unmoving amid the frenetic swarm of visitors, he riveted me.

  He turned his head toward me. I watched as the recognition of my presence set in. He started toward me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, although I feared I already knew the answer.

  “We’re trying to put out a fire. I’m sorry we’ve taken over, but Jackson prefers to handle some issues from his home office.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  His mouth, so like Jax’s, twisted wryly. “I could use a drink. Something strong, preferably.”

  “Okay.” I looked around him to the console by the window where crystal decanters held the world’s finest liquors. I frowned when I saw only a vase of flowers atop it. “I’ll get you something.”

  “Thanks. I’ll put your purse in your bedroom,” he offered, holding out his hand for it.

  As he set off down the hallway, I maneuvered through the men and women wandering around the sunken living room. Bits and pieces of conversations washed over me.

  “...confirm the source...”

  “...should consider possible defamation and slander liabilities...”

  “...a declaration of war against the Rutledge family isn’t wise...”

  My hands were shaking when I opened the doors of the console. The crystal decanters were tucked neatly inside, but they were empty. I made my way back to the kitchen, where I discovered an empty wine fridge.

  Confused, I faced Parker when he returned. “Looks like we’re out of everything.”

  “I couldn’t find anything, either.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll call the concierge. Is there anything in particular you’d like?”

  He touched my arm. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you hole up in your room and get out of this mess?”

  “I feel like I should help somehow.”

  “Just take care of my son,” he murmured. “Leave this to me.”

  My mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. I didn’t know what to say. I ended up nodding and heading down the hallway, passing my room and going to Jax’s home office instead. He was alone in there, standing in front of the window with his arms crossed as he barked at someone through a headset.

  “We need those records. Yes, I understand that and I don’t give a shit.... Don’t think whatever this is won’t blow back on you, too. Right. I’ll be at this number.” He tapped the earpiece, then pivoted abruptly, stilling when he saw me standing in front of his desk. “Gia...”

  He fell silent. Shoving a hand through his hair, he cursed softly. He looked worn and edgy. He’d ditched his jacket and tossed it over a chair in the corner. His vest was unbuttoned, as was the button at the throat of his shirt. His tie was loosened and the shadow of evening stubble on his tight jaw gave him a dangerous appeal.

  “Hi,” I said quietly.

  “Baby.” He sighed. “I’m sorry about this. Something’s come up and we’ve got to get a handle on it.”

  “What is it?”

  “We got a tip today about an article that’s supposedly going out tomorrow, and I’m trying to get details about the reporter and her piece.”

  I swallowed hard. “Deanna Johnson.”

  Jax froze. “You know her?”

  “She used to date Vincent.”

  “Fuck.” He scowled. “I need all of her contact info—email, mobile and home numbers, address.”

  “All right.” I stepped closer. “Jax, we have to talk.”

  “I know, and we will. But I can’t right now.”

  “This is my fault.”

  He came to me and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “No. I should’ve talked to you about Ted and—”

  His smartphone started ringing on his desk.

  “I have to get this.” He tapped his earpiece. “Rutledge,” he answered briskly, then, “That’s a start. How quickly can you get them to me?”

  He turned his back to me, and I clenched my fists. I left the room to fetch my smartphone to get the information he’d asked for. I was just going to have to blurt it out before he cut me off. I hated to blindside him like that, but he needed to know.

  With my cell in hand, I headed back to his office and closed the door behind me. He was off the phone and sitting at his desk, reading something on his monitor.

  “I have the information you wanted.” I walked up to him. “Deanna’s written an article about your mother. About how the family had her committed to an institution.”

  His head snapped back as if I’d hit him physically. “You talked to her?”

  I swallowed past the painful lump in my throat. “Weeks ago. And again this afternoon. I’m so sorry, Jax. I should never have contacted her. I had no idea...”

  He stared at me, unblinking, his body so still I knew I’d knocked his legs right out from under him. “Sit down,” he ordered, with dangerous softness. “And tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  I practically fell into the seat in front of his desk, my knees shaking from the way he looked at me. His dark eyes were like a shark’s, hard and lifeless. “Remember when I said I was going to do some research and—”

  “You went to a goddamned reporter?” He surged to his feet and slapped his palms down hard on his desktop. “Are you insane?”

&n
bsp; “I contacted Deanna as a friend. Before you talked to me about never having privacy again!”

  “Do you realize what you’ve done? How much damage this might cause? My mother’s disease was never supposed to become fodder for the fucking media!”

  “Jax...” I stood, then flinched when he shoved away from his desk so violently he knocked his desk chair over. “I know this is terribly personal—and painful—but a lot of families are impacted by mental illness. People are going to understand and—”

  “She wasn’t crazy, Gia,” he said coldly. “She was a drunk.”

  The venom in his voice took me aback.

  He faced the window. “She couldn’t handle the pressure.”

  That single statement told me so much. My eyes burned as memories coalesced in my mind and were refracted back with a clarity I’d lacked before. “Alcoholism is an illness, Jax. You said it yourself.”

  “She was weak.” His arms crossed. “She married the wrong man for what she wanted.”

  “They loved each other. That’s what you told me before.”

  He shrugged. “Parker is trying to change the world. She would’ve preferred him to just change the light bulb or a channel on the television.”

  “She didn’t like politics?”

  “She didn’t like the life that goes with them.” Jax faced me. “Agendas require allies and allies require compromises. She didn’t like some of the compromises that had to be made. Alcohol was liquid courage for her. She used it as a crutch.”

  I deflated into my chair, overloaded by the emotional highs and lows I’d bounced between all day. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Jax and hold him, but I knew he’d never let me help. That stung.

  “Jax... When you said someone you loved had been torn up by the stress, you were talking about her, weren’t you?”

  He flinched, and I finally felt like I had a shot at understanding him. I certainly understood why he’d been such an ass about the drink I’d had at Rossi’s...and why there was suddenly no alcohol in the apartment. If he thought the situation with Ted and my dad was enough to drive me to drink, he’d worry about how future—more stressful—incidences would affect me. And I couldn’t forget that we’d met in a bar...

  “She was a lot like you,” he said in a tone that wasn’t complimentary at all. “Her family...her expectations of what a relationship with my dad would be like. She thought that being politically aware and active was a choice, instead of a responsibility.”

  I felt the need to defend Leslie Rutledge, a woman I would never meet but still sympathized with. It wasn’t easy living with the rules Jax set but didn’t always share. “If she was kept in the dark like me, I don’t blame her for not being on the same page with the rest of you.”

  “My dad told her everything, that was his mistake. He wanted her approval, but all he did was alienate her. Sometimes the end justifies the means, and the means can be ugly.”

  I took a shaky breath. “You’re so angry with her.”

  “I have a right to be! She tried to make me choose between her vision and my father’s. No one should be forced into that position, least of all a teenager.” He rolled his shoulders back. “I can’t get into this with you now. I’ve got to do...something. Damage control. If that’s even possible.”

  “What can I do?”

  Closing his eyes, he bowed his head. The defeat in his posture broke my heart, but his next words cut me wide open. “You should go stay with your brothers tonight. And pack a couple days’ worth of clothes.”

  Pain made me lash out in self-defense. “Did you cut your mom off like this, too? Is that how you deal with the people who love you when they inconvenience you?”

  “For all of her faults,” he bit out between clenched teeth, “she never sabotaged us!”

  “That’s not fair! I made a mistake, Jax, and I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. But I made it because I love you, not because I wanted to hurt you.”

  He opened his eyes. “This whole relationship has been a mistake.”

  The flat finality in his voice sent ice coursing through my veins. “You know what, Jackson Rutledge? Fuck you.

  9

  “I GET WHY you did it,” Nico said, “but I’d be seriously pissed if a chick I was seeing sicced some investigator after me.”

  My brother’s voice and the background sound of a busy evening at Rossi’s anchored my nerves.

  “We’re not seeing each other,” I argued, staring at the half-packed suitcase waiting at my side, reminding me that things were in a precarious place with Jax and me. “We live together.”

  “That’s worse. You have to ask a woman outside of your relationship for news about the guy you’re shacked up with? That’s some whack shit, Gianna. I’m gonna ask you again: is this really the way you want to be living?”

  I scowled at him through the phone. “No, of course not.”

  “Then get the fuck out of there and hook up with a decent guy who gives you what you want.”

  “I tried that. It didn’t happen for me.”

  He snorted. “Try harder.”

  “Can you stop being so negative for a minute and help me find a way out of this mess? Why is it that guys are always trying to problem solve when we just want to vent? Then, when we do want solutions, they’ve got nothin’?”

  “The solution to being with the wrong guy is to leave. There. Solved.”

  I growled. “I’m thinking the problem is Deanna.”

  “I never liked that bitch,” Nico said, startling me. He didn’t often speak in a derogatory way about women—our mother had raised my brothers to be gentlemen. “Vincent never liked her much either. He just put up with her because she was crazy in bed. Liked some kink and bondage.”

  “Eww.” I shook my head. “TMI, Nico. Seriously. And it’s kinda uncool that you guys are sharing that level of detail with each other. Whatever happened to privacy?”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask to see those photos she was sexting to him. Told him to take it into his room. Anyway, he should’ve warned you about her. She’d told him once that she started her career by sleeping with prominent married men, and then using pillow talk and extortion, if necessary, to get leads out of them.”

  I stared at the closed bedroom door, frozen by a flash of an idea.

  “So...” my brother went on, “should I head up there this weekend and help you move your stuff out?”

  “Not yet.” I stood and walked to the bag where I kept my laptop. “Let me call you back.”

  “If I can’t answer, I’ll call you back.”

  With half my focus on something else, I still couldn’t miss how wonderful Nico was. I had a lot of blessings in my life, but my brothers definitely topped the list. “Ti amo, fratello.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Shoving my phone into my pocket, I grabbed my laptop out of its carrying case and sat on the bench at the foot of the bed. I surfed to the cloud and sent up a silent prayer asking for Vincent not to have changed his password since he’d given it to me once months ago.

  He hadn’t.

  I had a hard moment of indecision, weighing my options. Either way, someone I loved was going to get hurt.

  In the end, the public nature of Deanna’s threat won out.

  I got into Vincent’s account, clicked on the photo album that synced with his phone, and immediately wanted to scour my eyeballs. There were some things a girl just didn’t want to think about her brothers knowing. Or doing.

  I downloaded all the racy photos of Deanna—wondering why Vincent had kept them after their breakup—and then I sent her a text telling her to call me ASAP for info she’d want to hear.

  With shaking hands, I started unpacking. Jax didn’t believe I was strong enough to share his life and it was up to me to p
rove him wrong. I could do that. I would do that. And then he wouldn’t feel like he had to hide things from me because I couldn’t handle it.

  I heard Jax’s voice outside the door, growing louder as he approached. “I get it, Dad, but I’m going after Gianna now—”

  The door opened and Jax strode in, pausing midstep when he caught sight of me. Parker was fast on his heels, but he stopped when he saw me, his mouth closing before he said whatever he’d been about to say.

  With a nod of acknowledgment, Parker caught the doorknob and pulled the door shut. Jax locked the door.

  My smartphone started ringing. Deanna’s name appeared on the screen. Holding Jax’s gaze, I answered with a curt “Gianna Rossi.”

  “What’s up?” Deanna asked, sounding distracted and impatient.

  “Hello to you, too, Deanna.”

  Jax’s gaze narrowed.

  I took a deep breath, knowing I needed to pull off the bluff of my life. “I’ll make this quick—either you kill the Rutledge story or I post X-rated pictures of you on every revenge porn site known to man.”

  Jax’s nostrils flared on a sharply indrawn breath.

  “Bullshit,” Deanna hissed.

  “Is it?” I asked. “You want to take that chance?”

  “Those photos are private property!”

  “You’re throwing privacy in my face?”

  “Two totally different things, Gianna! The Rutledge family gave up any expectation of privacy when they decided to take a stab at controlling this country.”

  “You’re taking it too far.”

  “And you’re not? There are laws against revenge porn. You post those pictures, and it’ll come back on you and the Rutledges. You’ll be the enemy then.”

  “There are laws against extortion, too,” I said tightly, “but that didn’t stop you. There are ways of finding out who you’re squeezing for information, just as there are ways to hide how those pictures of you make it online.”

  My lies were spinning into a clusterfuck, but I couldn’t stop.

  She sucked in her breath. “I don’t know what you think you’ve got on me—”